Morrowind and open endness..

[John_Blazze]

Theres one thing i cant find answer to. When i played games before, i diddnt give a fuck about reviews and forums, i was just playing games and i was enjoying it. Some time ago i started posting on few diffrient forums about games, i even joined TES forums ( please! not in the face!) and till like now i diddnt knew that Morrowind was too open ended, that there was too much freedom and large amout of people diddnt liked it.

My question is, what the fuck is so wrong with big world open endness of MW for some people??
I saw some posts about the main quest being hard to complete and shit.
I diddnt completed main quest just because i had more fun with houses/guilds/adventuring. But it was simple to follow it, go from person A to person B complete their request and go to person C. Whats so confusing in this? Why Beth had to do Oblivion main quest more streamlined? My younger sister could beat the main quest easily and all she play is sport and racing titles.

i read some reviews where reviewers was pointing out world being too big and there was too much to do... WTF? i expected that from consolle kiddies but damn..


Can somebody clear that for me?

 

[Lumpy]

The ones who say that Morrowind was too big are morons.

 

[Vault Dweller]

i read some reviews where reviewers was pointing out world being too big and there was too much to do... WTF? i expected that from consolle kiddies but damn..

Well, console kiddies are Bethesda's target audience, so...

 

[Balor]

Question is, you CAN have too much freedom, cause there are two types of freedom:
Freedom FROM.... Freedom from pretty much anything.
What we need, though, is Freedom TO....
Sure, you need some 'freedom from' (like freedom from artificial boundaries) to experience 'freedom to', but miximazing first freedom means minimizing second - because it leaves you with no goals and tools.
Yet, maximinizing 'Freedom to' is impossible, cause some freedoms are mutually exclusive... not to mention require infinite resourses to implement.
___
So, when you hear that a game features unprecedented freedom, ask: 'Freedom to', or 'freedom from'?
Often, you end up with too much 'freedom from', and become a 'crier in a desert'.

 

[John_Blazze]

The ones who say that Morrowind was too big are morons.

yeah i figured that :twisted:

 

[LlamaGod]

Ultima 7 has a more interesting and much better designed big and free world.

Morrowind's got boring.

 

[bryce777]

All those forks, and so little time.

I love to read about how people like to arrange objects and collect all the various items int heir houses.

I guess tha is one form of roleplaying, but you may as well go into larping if that's what you like.

 

[Solik]

A professor of mine, who held a master's in Computer Science, was an avid gamer (PnP as well as video), and taught a course on game design, did not enjoy Morrowind because it was "too" open-ended. He's one of the guys that never bothered finding Caius (I think... he may have found him eventually, but didn't bother doing more than a couple quests).

Don't be fooled by rhetoric, though. Balor was on the right track, but I think you can boil it down to something a bit different than esoteric concepts like freedom in games: a lack of clear goals.

Well-designed games have three types of goals, all of which are clear and, in one way or another, continually presented to the player (subtly or overtly). The long-term goals are generally based around the core plot of the game. Oblivion's long-term goals, for instance, are to find the heir and close the gates of Oblivion. Medium-term goals are sort of like single quests or missions. Go talk to this guy because he knows something about the heir. Go into this dungeon to get this item so you can proceed. Short-term goals involve immediate challenges. Get past a monster in a dungeon. Figure out how to solve a puzzle. Unlock the door to proceed.

Morrowind was quite good with short-term goals. Its medium-term goals were sporadic; some were clear, others were murky and uncertain. The long-term goals were pretty awful. It was quite some time into the game before you ever had a reason to answer the question of "Why bother?" Why go see Caius? You can do stuff without ever meeting the guy, and hey that road over there looks kinda fun to explore. The goal of defeating Dagoth Ur took a long time to appear, and there wasn't anything before that. Even your second central medium-term goal (after finding Caius) was to just go power yourself up. Not a very good goal.

Some people, who like to appear smarter than others, have a habit of calling good goal communication "hand-holding." For instance, the quest compass in Oblivion reminds you of your current goal. While experienced players are often capable of accomplishing things without being given clear goals, this is merely because they have been conditioned by sub-par games with ineffective communication systems. For example, Darklands is commonly quoted as a great RPG around here. I tried it out the other day. Its goal communication is essentially nonexistant. I was told a quest by some guy, didn't think to write it down (I'm used to electronic journals these days), and I had no real way of pulling my current quest information back up. I was on a timed quest (but I wasn't told exactly how long I had) to go to a city (whose name I didn't think to write down and which I would have spent a long time mousing over a tiny map to find) and talk to some guy whose name I didn't remember, and I didn't know where he was. Bad communication, potentially frustrating game.

So, in summary, the majority of gamers want to have some sort of reason behind the things they're doing. They want to have their goals defined rather than being forced to invent them all themselves. The game needs to communicate with them the object of their goal, and should they forget what it is, it should be easy to pull all necessary information back up. With its blah goal descriptions and mediocre journal, Morrowind suffered quite a bit in these areas compared to other modern games.

 

[Levski 1912]

Excellent post, Solik, but please don't try to justify the compass. Just as you said, a good journal with decent directions should be sufficient. Now if the compass was togglable, this issue would be moot.

 

[bryce777]

Well, I liked the way it was in darklands. I do not think that goals should necessarily be right out there from day one, but the course of events naturally led you more and more towards finding the main path.

If an openended game is really good, like darklands or space rangers 2 or pirates!, it should be good enough that even if you ignore the main quest you still have a lot of fun, though.

 

[Balor]

Well, I did mention goals. And concept of freedom is not too esoteric .

Anyway, about handholding...
Worst thing is, if game define goals too clearly, you feel being 'railroaded'. Remember, freedom to do something does not mean you MUST do it.

because they have been conditioned by sub-par games with ineffective communication systems

No, because we play games to have fun, and some peole *gasp!* - actually LOVE finding information themselves, analysing it and 'charting their own course'.
On the other end of spectrum, we have Progress Quest .

And about Darklands - yea, it should have featured ingame quest journal, that's for sure. But see above.

Oh, for MW:
If it was a GOOD game, you should be able to beat the game a LOT of ways, up to and including never meeting Caius - perhaps, you RP a real thef/murder/sociopath that don't like 'spooks' in the slighterst, so too his release as an opportunity to run off.
There could plenty of places to hear about Sixth House, Nerevarine, etc.
But MW give us a lot of 'freedom from', yet it's 'freedom to' majorly consist of running around levelling and collecting Phat Loot.

 

[aweigh]

Because as a friend of mine put it, "Morrowind is an awesome hiking simulator". Very succint.

 

[Seboss]

Robinson's Requiem and Deus are better hiking simulators

 

[Blahblah Talks]

MW was only a good hiking simulator for the first 5 hours or so. Then it became a great fly-vertically-like-those-cool-guys-in-Dark-City simulator.

 

[Solik]

Now if the compass was togglable, this issue would be moot.

I'd prefer it togglable too, if only because I like everything on my HUD togglable. Assuming, of course, that it's somewhat easy to turn stuff on and off, and not "Press Ctrl+Alt+F5 to make part of this window appear." I hate accidentally turning off HUD components in games and not being able to find any options list to re-enable stuff.

And concept of freedom is not too esoteric

It is in the context of gaming. Computer games, by nature and definition, consist of a set of rules and limitations. When you talk about "freedom," you can be talking about something illusionary (the appearance of freedom due to an elegant ruleset), or you could mean wider boundaries (as in sandbox games), or several other different things. It's not really something you can easily put your finger on.

Worst thing is, if game define goals too clearly, you feel being 'railroaded'.

Well, railroading is when the player is not given any real choice about the things to do. In other words, you must overcome obstacles A, B, and C, basically in that order, and there aren't really many ways to overcome them. If you do not overcome the obstacle, then you will not progress, nor can you do anything else.

It's a bit different from simply defining solid goals. There can be some relation, though, I'll grant.

No, because we play games to have fun, and some peole *gasp!* - actually LOVE finding information themselves, analysing it and 'charting their own course'.

That's great, but it really has nothing to do with the topic. What you quoted there from me is where I explained how experienced gamers have learned to succeed in games where goals were not well-defined and/or communicated. Back in the day, pretty much every game suffered from this, so most old-schoolers are thusly conditioned. It doesn't mean they're smarter. It's just a result of what they had.

Having the option to wander about and find stuff yourself and do whatever is great. It's a viable method of play that should certainly be included in any game that claims to be a sandbox-style game. Making that the only way to play, though, results in essentially a rather niche game unless you're just a really fantastic designer (Maxis is pretty much the only company I know of that consistently pulls off such goalless games).

 

[Zomg]

I think most complaints about the size of Morrowind are actually implicit complaints about the low density of the game.

But anyway,

While experienced players are often capable of accomplishing things without being given clear goals, this is merely because they have been conditioned by sub-par games with ineffective communication systems. For example, Darklands is commonly quoted as a great RPG around here. I tried it out the other day. Its goal communication is essentially nonexistant. I was told a quest by some guy, didn't think to write it down (I'm used to electronic journals these days), and I had no real way of pulling my current quest information back up. I was on a timed quest (but I wasn't told exactly how long I had) to go to a city (whose name I didn't think to write down and which I would have spent a long time mousing over a tiny map to find) and talk to some guy whose name I didn't remember, and I didn't know where he was. Bad communication, potentially frustrating game.

Conflating quality-of-life stuff like journaling and automaps with goals is absurd. They're simply automating actions the player could easily take. Adding journaling and automaps to an aged game like Darklands, which was made just a couple of years after games were saving memory by putting all game exposition in the manual, would be an unqualified good. Telling the player about the Baphomet endgame immediately after character creation would severely damage the early game, which is about exploring the soft boundaries of a mercilessly free game world.

Edit - As I read your responses to others it seem like you didn't mean what you said about the player not being given enough clear goals, but rather that the goals they're given aren't clear enough. Fair enough, I suppose.

The majority of gamers want to have some sort of reason behind the things they're doing. They want to have their goals defined rather than being forced to invent them all themselves.

True. I'm not against explicit goals as a rule, either, but I also like player-driven games like Darklands, Pirates!, JA, Star Control, The Sims, or X-Com (which are all extremely different in their particular execution and style). You write as if you're in favor of some strict, perfect ubergame, all things to all gamers, following the one correct doctrine of goal design.

 

[Solik]

The goal of Darklands was simple and explained up-front in the manual -- accumulate as much Fame as humanly possible. It was a pure score game, old-school through and through. Worked okay for its time, but I think we've graduated beyond that level of simplicity in this day and age

 

[bryce777]

The goal of Darklands was simple and explained up-front in the manual -- accumulate as much Fame as humanly possible. It was a pure score game, old-school through and through. Worked okay for its time, but I think we've graduated beyond that level of simplicity in this day and age

But there was a main quest to be found.

I like the idea of somethign simple to start with.

A lvel 1 dork who is a chosen one is pretty annoying and stupid.

 

[Blacklung]

Conflating quality-of-life stuff like journaling and automaps with goals is absurd. They're simply automating actions the player could easily take. Adding journaling and automaps to an aged game like Darklands, which was made just a couple of years after games were saving memory by putting all game exposition in the manual, would be an unqualified good.

I would have to disagree to a degree here. It's nice to have some things, such as journals and maps, automated. I say this because I've taken geography courses where I was asked to map out several city blocks in great detail. Needless to say this takes an extravagant amount of time and is quite a chore...a boring chore unless you are that rare person who thoroughly enjoys cartography. Journalling also takes a fair amount of time.

Forcing a person to pull out the paper at their desks breaks the immersion of the game, is ridiculously time consuming, and can eventually become a chore instead a time of relaxation. I'm sorry but after a long lecture of O. Chemistry and writing a 20 pages physics lab report, the last thing I want to do is draw maps and write down more of what someone is telling me.

Now, of course, if things become too automated, then the game truly does feel like hand holding, such as the compass in Oblivion. I wouldn't mind, however, if I had a compass like in Daggerfall, which merely pointed out my direction, that was actually quite handy and is actually an essential, realisitic travel tool. I've seen this hand-holding in quest logs too where they are written as train of thought and add information that was not recieved from the conversation ("I should find an alchemist, it seems their's one in every city in Cryodil"). This too is quite stupid. Give the location, the names, and the conversation, then let the player fill in the blanks.

Another way to expand and compliment this automated/non-automated system are things like map notes and journal notes which allow the user to put in extra information from the keyboard. I've seen this in several games and it's quite useful, and actually increases the immersion because I never have to reach into my desk and fumble between my psych homework and my video game notes.

Case in point, automation, if used in the right amounts, can save time, fun, and immersion, while still giving you control over the information flow to a fair degree.

 

[Tintin]

A lvel 1 dork who is a chosen one is pretty annoying and stupid.

Uh, I think the whole point of the "chosen one" routine is that it is one person regardless of how strong they are or whatever......

 

[Zomg]

Conflating quality-of-life stuff like journaling and automaps with goals is absurd. They're simply automating actions the player could easily take. Adding journaling and automaps to an aged game like Darklands, which was made just a couple of years after games were saving memory by putting all game exposition in the manual, would be an unqualified good.

I would have to disagree to a degree here. It's nice to have some things, such as journals and maps, automated. I say this because I've taken geography courses where I was asked to map out several city blocks in great detail. Needless to say this takes an extravagant amount of time and is quite a chore...a boring chore unless you are that rare person who thoroughly enjoys cartography. Journalling also takes a fair amount of time.

Forcing a person to pull out the paper at their desks breaks the immersion of the game, is ridiculously time consuming, and can eventually become a chore instead a time of relaxation. I'm sorry but after a long lecture of O. Chemistry and writing a 20 pages physics lab report, the last thing I want to do is draw maps and write down more of what someone is telling me.

What exactly do you think I was saying in my post?

 

[Levski 1912]

The "Chosen One" is the most clichéd and overused plot device in games. It just gets annoying after the 5th game where you are the "Chosen One"1!!11!!!

 

[bryce777]

A lvel 1 dork who is a chosen one is pretty annoying and stupid.

Uh, I think the whole point of the "chosen one" routine is that it is one person regardless of how strong they are or whatever......

Youa re the only guy with a save function.

 

[Tintin]

The "Chosen One" is the most clichéd and overused plot device in games. It just gets annoying after the 5th game where you are the "Chosen One"1!!11!!!

That's great and all, but saying "its weird that you are the chosen one because you are only level 1" is pretty idiotic.

 

[bryce777]

The "Chosen One" is the most clichéd and overused plot device in games. It just gets annoying after the 5th game where you are the "Chosen One"1!!11!!!

That's great and all, but saying "its weird that you are the chosen one because you are only level 1" is pretty idiotic.

The whole chosen one thing is idiotic.

No one is going to entrust their kingdom to some idiot with a fucking axe handle.

Or, if they were some religious wackos guided by tiamat then they would give him the best armor and spells possible.