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."

Comments

been there done that, in a word...

[cassidyc]

Elite

thanksyouverymuch

CJC

Give me closed gaming any day

[Snowspinner]

The problem with open-ended gaming, to me, is that computers simply aren't to the point yet (And, it is my personal belief, never will be) where they are capable of the dynamic responses to player actions that truly open-ended gaming would require. To me, once you begin focusing on accomodating player choices, you only serve to draw attention to the limitations on player choices.

Neverwinter Nights, to me, is a prime example. In theory, it was supposed to offer the ability to run multiplayer D&D games. But the engine was so drastically limited in so many ways - the inability to climb trees, the lack of true 3D, etc, that running a D&D game is still quite impossible.

To me, I'd much prefer a game that's on rails and only lets me follow the path, so long as that path is well-made, to a game that offers freedom, but crumbles once I try to push and probe that freedom.

Re:Give me closed gaming any day

[DaveCBio]

Funny that thousands of people every day are running impossible D&D games every day.

Re:Give me closed gaming any day

[xSauronx]

i agree, i sold splinter cell a week after i bought it. lots of fun, but with just one way through the replay is nil.

personally,i loved morrowind. after a while it can get boring, but thats really only once youve done a majority of guild quests (to such a point that starting a new character means that youll redo a couple dozen quests you had done already)

morrowind needs some work, its all scripted and set up, but very open ended. The combat is a tad weak as well and certainly could have been better. after playing that, i couldnt stand a game like NWN or FFX because when i got tired of the story, i couldnt really go where i wanted for a while, and then get back in the game. Far from perfect, but a step in the right direction when it comes to an open-ended game and I got dozens and dozens of hours of enjoyment from it before i quit playing.

Re:Give me closed gaming any day

[Snowspinner]

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.

Re:Give me closed gaming any day

[misfit13b]

To me, I'd much prefer a game that's on rails and only lets me follow the path, so long as that path is well-made, to a game that offers freedom, but crumbles once I try to push and probe that freedom.

So you'd rather have a well made game than a badly made one. That should be obvious, not insightful.

The question is would you rather have a well made closed game, or a well made open-ended game. Which in itself is a poor question because it really doesn't matter. Certain games, like GTA or an RPG, lend themselves to being more open ended. Other games, platformers, etc., do not. There are plusses and minuses of both, and both rely on personal preference.

Re:Give me closed gaming any day

[Pendersempai]

SimCity 2000 was an excellent, truly open-ended game. NeverWinter Nights is NOT open-ended, nor was it ever intended to be; while one can construct one's own modules, playing that module is riding the rails the creator laid.

I like both kinds of games, but the open-ended ones stay with me much longer. I still play SimCity 2000 to this day, yea, even though it requires Classic to boot.

how wonderful - merge A and B!

[KingPrad]

Is anyone else annoyed by these posts that ask a question "Should we have A OR should we have B?" as if either one is superior in all respects to the other. Then, of course, there is an example of where A and B are blended. WOW! Imagine that neither choice is the obviously superior and that they can be combined! So what was the point of the original question of choosing between them?

I especially like how the poster cites the author first saying "open-ended titles work a better for him" and immediately cites Grand Theft Auto III as the perfect combination and is thus not a totally open-ended game.

---

Re:how wonderful - merge A and B!

[PainKilleR-CE]

I really don't think there are many examples of truly open experiences in games. This makes the exclusivity pretty much nill. On the other hand, what people really want seems to be more of the mixture anyway; freedom to do what you want, but a story that moves the game along. Even though writing the story can be a very small part of the process (compared to getting all of the artwork together, implementing the story in the engine, and creating the engine itself), it can also be very central to a game's success. GTA3/VC worked well because it was open-ended, but I don't think many would've cared as much for it if it didn't give you something to do to progress the story.

People start up a new game and want to know what they should be doing. Exploration may come a little further into the game, as they become bored with a particular task or as they learn the controls and see what else there is around them. However, if there isn't a story or an explanation, the first thing they'll say is 'now what?', and some may be turned off by not having a defined goal that they can accomplish easily at the start to get them familiar with the mechanics.

All of this being said, I appreciate linear games for different reasons from the more open-ended games. A well-told story and/or a challenging game can make up for the loss of freedom in the game. I also see a large difference between say KOTOR and GTA3 in terms of the open-ended experience. KOTOR usually feels like it's on rails when I play through it, even though I can do things differently that will change the story. GTA3, on the other hand, tends to feel wide open in terms of gameplay, but the story tends to feel constrained at certain points (ie eventually you do have to complete this racing mission to move on, even though there are other missions you can complete right now). The gameplay in one feels more scripted even though I have a lot of options, while GTA3 just loops through it's reality until you get around to completing the missions. Then again, maybe that's just because of the way I play the two games: I tend to get bored with the missions in GTA and start amusing myself by interacting with the world, whereas in KOTOR I tend to work harder at completing the missions at hand, and only spend a lot of time wandering around when it's central to completing one of those missions (on a side-note, I have noticed that a couple of missions have endings that aren't handled very well by the game, ie people act like they're still waiting for you to find people you've already found, even though they took part in the final portion of the mission).

Games that are more open in their story can be more rewarding for people that play through a game multiple times. On the other hand, a more linear game can add richness to the story that currently isn't found in many open-ended games. Also, there's something to be said for seeing the conclusion of a story well-told (though even many of the open-ended games have endings).

For infinite replayability I tend more towards multiplayer games anyway, because players are less predictable and there's almost always somewhere to improve your skills. At the same time, this usually provides little story, and sometimes that's all I want when I sit down to play a game. Even a game that is little more than an interactive movie can at least allow me to suspend disbelief and allow me to occasionally feel like I am pushing the story forward, which a normal movie rarely (if ever) can do.

What's the big deal?

[vslashg]

From the article...

But just because GTAIII is more fun and has sold more copies than most games, that doesn't strictly mean it's more innovative. In fact, any long-standing GTA fan would readily admit that the main differences between GTAIII and its predecessors are graphical. GTAIII has a more realistic look and feel to it, but structurally it's quite similar to the original Grand Theft Auto game from 1998.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Come on! Nethack and Rogue weren't even mentioned in the article, but still the author seems to get the point. There have been great open-ended games before and there will be great open-ended games in the future. So the Sims and GTA sold tons of copies. That's because they were fun. Move along, nothing to see here.

It's a sad state of gaming... few people I know would give GTA1 a serious chance when it game out. A few close friends I would play it all hours of the night. But no, you have to put it into 3D before many people will give it a chance. I guess that's a slightly off-topic rant, but it's true.

Re:What's the big deal?

[PainKilleR-CE]

It's a sad state of gaming... few people I know would give GTA1 a serious chance when it game out. A few close friends I would play it all hours of the night. But no, you have to put it into 3D before many people will give it a chance. I guess that's a slightly off-topic rant, but it's true.

The biggest difference, imo, is the time limit. GTA1 only allowed you so much time to get through the missions, so unless you cheated or managed to extend your time a great deal through completing missions quickly, you had to continue in a very mission-based, somewhat linear fashion. Once you remove that limit, the game feels much more open simply because you have time on your hands to explore and get a better feel for the city in which you're playing this game. The next mission doesn't really matter because you can walk around, grab a car, do almost whatever you want to without worrying about that time limit running out.

Orson Scott Card anyone?

[diesel_jackass]

so when is Ender's Game coming out?

(i would provide a link to the book, but i think everyone on /. already owns it)

Prime Example missed: Morrowwind

[MadocGwyn]

A HUGE game, you could follow the story line, or just run off and level ff3 style but there were so many side quests and things to do you never felt you were 'divateing' you felt you were part of a living breathing world, the only thing I didnt like is things didnt 'change' much, events didnt move on. It was still fun when you bored of the main story line to clear out a few dungeons or experiment with the magic system. you could play for hours and hours accomlishing nothing story line wise but still have fun and get rewarded. Then the expansions built on this, old areas had new things, and entire new islands were opened up. There was no 'end' You finished the main story line saw the ending cinimatic, then were sent on your way, the npc's even recognised when you completed certain things, calling you by titles you had earned.

Anyone Play Zelda?

[Kamalot]

I don't know if any of you have played Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but that game blends an amazing amount of freedom with a compelling story. The entire game feels like a giant playground to explore. There are numerous side-quests and so much to see and do that I never god bored. At the same time, you are rewarded for progressing the story forward by gaining additional abilities. In the early stages of the game, your range is limited. The more you play, the greater the game grows in scope.

Re:Anyone Play Zelda?

[kisrael]

Maybe I was too quick to play it with a guide by my side, but Zelda felt pretty linear to me. Or rather, not so much linear, but it felt like everything in the game was obviously put there for Link to interact with.

GTA3 and GTA:VC do a better job at making it feel like you're just a maniac in a city that pretty much has its own agenda. It's not like it tries to model a virtual economy or anything (and it does have that irritating habit of disappering and appearing things when your back is turned) but it was cool that it wasn't completely blatantly a universe that existed only for the sake of an adventure.

Good scripted games

[FFFish]

I loved Half-life. That was a fairly tightly-scripted game. But it was also very well-written (at least during the first third). I was in a complete panic when I saw the first military dude shoot a scientist! I had to run that scenario a few times over just to convince myself that it really was supposed to go over that way.

On the other hand, I loved Unreal Tournament human-vs-human. No scripts at all, tons o' fun.

Room for both genres, I say!

"Emergent Gameplay" is a stupid term.

[Alkaiser]

What emerges? Gameplay? Is it just bubbling underneath the surface, where it rises like a big submarine?

So ditch the term. Stop trying to make yourselves sound all cutting-edge by coining terms that don't make sense.

Second of all, this open-ended stuff isn't necessarily true. Just like Deus Ex...you're basically still on rails. Even these open-ended games. There's one main story arc...you just go about it different ways, and you reach the same ending or ending nexus no matter what you did during the game. Eventually, you get to the core question...which do you like more, "The Sims" or "Final Fantasy"?

The problem with open-ended gaming is NOT that we don't have powerful enough machines...is that there isn't enough time in the dev cycle. To create a game with choices that give you say 4 different endings that aren't just, "Ok, you're at the end of the game, which ending do you want?" or "Choice A sends you to path A, and Choice B sends you to game path B." and then scripting and testing those takes a freaking long time.

Fallout, and Arcanum are probably the closest finished products. You had all those side arcs in between. After you finished the game, depending on what did in the towns along the way, different things happened to them. You still went to one basic ending, but if you built into that a script to determine which path(s) your character would have left to them at the final decision based off of their string of previous actions, and that'd be great.

I think this might interest you...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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=3a6859b3184c7e30ae0426 6af64c1389

Most games

[misfit13b]

have an overall goal to accomplish. The only way to make a truely open-ended game is to remove that goal.

But how far removed can a goal be from a game before that game becomes "pointless"? Most people who lay down $50 want to know that there is going to be some resolution of conflict once they have played.

Again, it's all subjective.

Re:Most games

[n0wak]

But how far removed can a goal be from a game before that game becomes "pointless"

Just because you remove a resolution doesn't mean that you remove a "goal". Goals can be self-defined by the player, defined to fit their gaming habits. Sim City does not have any definite goal. There's no way to "win" the game. You just set your own destination and see if you can get to it; or you just play around hoping to see where it will get you. Some might argue that SimCity is not a "game" per say, but this idea of self-defined goals can apply to other titles too.

Tetris, for example. There is no end in Tetris too, but it's still an enjoyable game. You can play it as an amusing distraction to fill the time, you can play it to see how many lines you can get, you can try to beat your own high score, you can try to beat someone else's high score, etc.

Personally, if a game's goal is simply fun, then that's good enough for me.

I'll take a combo

[Prien715]

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.

Open Ended, Linear...

[Thedalek]

As I see it, these aren't the only two options. Truly open-ended gameplay usually gives way to chaos (GTA). Linear gameplay can be fun (Klonoa/Super Mario/Metroid).

There is third choice: Multilinear gameplay. This is almost what Morrowind does. There are definite, linear quests. Do X, Y happens. Take the McGuffin to mister Johnson. Pardon me, did you happen to find the ring I lost? That sort of thing. However, discovery of these pathways is so open ended as to frustrate and bore most gamers.

A truly magnificent game has a linear path which gives you a minimalist tour of the game, implicitly showing the extras which can be achieved (Super Mario 64, Ratchet and Clank). Would that more games applied this concept. More to the point, this minimalist tour should be about 1/4 to 1/3 the actual length/complexity of the game.

Of course, all this only really applies to action/adventure/rpg games. Puzzle games can be anything they like. They can even be ZooCube.

We agree.

[misfit13b]

No argument here, but in those kind of games you're limited as to what you can do. Tetris is not really "open-ended", you're going to be filing blocks until either you lose or just give up.

I'm not trying to say that either method of play is better than the other. I personally like to skate around in THPS4 just trying combos, not worrying about the goals, or drive around in GTA listening to the radio sometimes.

Duh

[a_cussword]

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.

Isolationist Console

[acxr is wasted]

Emergent games have been stealing work from good, hard-working American games for too long! We need border restrictions to keep the emergents out of our country!