Slashdot Mirror
Is Open-Ended Gaming The Future?
Thanks to GameSpot for their 'GameSpotting' editorial discussing whether open-ended, emergent gaming works better than linearity in videogames. The author asks: "Should more games aspire to be "virtual sandboxes," inviting the player to run amok and experiment as much as possible? Or is there still something to be said for the tightly scripted, carefully contrived, more-cinematic gaming experience? He goes on to suggest that more open-ended titles often work better for him: "I like for a game to last me a good, long time. I also like being able to come back to a game every once in a while and not necessarily feel pressured to reach a finite conclusion", but cites Grand Theft Auto III as "representative of where emergent and scripted gaming can and should converge."
Funny that thousands of people every day are running impossible D&D games every day.
That's what my Blockbuster card is for. I paid $6 for a week of Splinter Cell. I loved it. I'll rent the next one as soon as I can. On the other hand, if a game offers me a reasonably long gameplay experience, like Zelda or Eternal Darkness, and I can see myself going back to it in 2-3 years, I'm happy to drop $50 on it.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
A 'game' which I play a lot is "Second Life". I know its been featured on here a time or two, however, I think that it is a good example of where a 'virtual sandbox' has been created, and is quite a lot of fun.
6 6af64c1389
Second Life has a 3d modeler built right in, along with a scripting language that was developed specifically for SL. Its quite advanced, however, not that hard to master.
For more info, check out: http://secondlife.com/ss/?u=3a6859b3184c7e30ae042
The problem with "emergent games" is the following. In many games (especially RPGs), a new player is forced to create a character without knowing the game mechanics. The player will make decisions at this point that will affect his character for the rest of the game, but really not know what he's doing, practically forcing him/her to replay the game.
As far as RPGs are concerned, I really like a combination approach. The best example I can think of in the RPG genre is Final Fantasy 6 (3 US). The game started off being almost completely linear while you learned the ability system and whatnot. Half-way through, you're stripped of all your characters except 1 and given a new world to explore. You can get back characters in any order, choose not to get them back at all (the game is finishable with only 3 out of 16 characters joined), but no matter what, you know where the final boss is and can fight him at practically any time. The most rewarding part of this was knowing which characters I wanted even though only having played the game once (rather than doing on the basis of who "looks cool"), and being able to make good decisions about where I wanted to go next. Although it didn't provide as much freedom as say, Fallout, it had a shallower learning curve and was easier to pick up.
Imersion type games are fun, but I don't think any of the them should force you to replay the game in order to win out of ignorance of game mechanics.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Open-ended gaming has been the future (well, it's tried to be the future) since SSI started making AD&D games for PC. Didn't really get very far until recently. It's not like it's a new idea.
And I looked, and behold, the pokemon all spontaneously combusted.