ValorianEndymion

On the subject of open worlds and time:

I don´t think its a problem on the open world itself, but rather the fact how they are build and executed. Specially in a simple aspect that is a key difference: Skyrim, to use a recent game, had a lot of locations/thing do to, but the real trick, that a lot of games which tried to imitade, didn´t get, was that there was no system forcing you to explore any of them. You did explore them, not because you had to visit X/Y caverns to go or you need to fullfil a certain percentage of something, but because either by quest or just by exploring (motivaded by the world design). This mean that if you want to skip a place, them just do it.

Morrowind was a lot like this, maybe even more that Skyrim (which is a throwback to Morrowind in certain aspects). To use even another Elder Scrolls game: In Daggerfall, you had something like 14.000 locations, but again, the trick is that you aren´t except to visit them all, not at all. Their reason to exist is to support the ingame systems of random quests and kind make sure that you all ways are going in new places, and that, again, is the key difference.

What happen in the more negative case is when open world have lots of locations but they often have systems which force you to explore them (instead you doing because plot/history/desire to explore motivate you to) and the place themselves aren´t good.

Above, I wrote that Star Wars is able to use certain cinematic techniques to convey common feelings in a really evocative way. Can you think of any games that do this, whether with gameplay mechanics, controls, aesthetic design, or something else? If so, how do they do it?


Don´t know if this fits in, but in Nobunaga´s Ambition, they use a lot the aesthetic of taiga dramas - from the way the officers look (in many case they look like actors), the music, graphics and dialogue have this very taiga drama feeling that gives the game a unique epic feeling (I mean different from other games of its kind).

"Activate Pac-Man. Activate Moff-Band.", "Dominant Arm", "GO FOR YOUR BEST" and the most detailed explanation of pacman ever made for a ad, make this the best and most confusing trailer of 2016.

Do you have any gaming experiences where, because you shifted your focus/goals, your experience was greatly improved?

In Oblivion I found out that part of the fan base like to play taking screenshots and using pose mods to create screenshots, where they character showing are doing something, some times just for fun, for the screenshot art or because they are creating a story behind it.

I liked that a lot and end up doing that too, this, along with mods, made me play Oblivion for much longer, in fact I only stopped playing when Skyrim was around the corner (I kind had to rush to the end, because I didn´t advance much in the main quest due all this poses and shots) and now keep doing the same on Skyrim.

I even start to not only think about how would be my character in greater depth, but also I created my own companions with their own backstories and using them to make group shots. This end also influence the mods I use, which mostly are either body mods (to improve the characters, add new races, hairs, ect...), pose mods and lots and lots of clothes and armor mods (for potential shots) along with some graphical improvement mods. To be fair, right now my Skyrim and my Oblivion, had so many mods that they kind looked like a jrpg (I even have one which add a school....).

Another case was playing the Ironman mode in Paradox games, which removes the save/load leaving you only with autosave and save (but no load) this creates a very interessing and tense play where instead of reloading if something goes wrong, I had to deal with it and this created many good moments.

Also talking about Paradox games, I found out that I did like a lot playing was someone vassal in CK2. Dont know why, but the concept of playing as some ally and going up and down trying to put down fires (which often caused by my own sovereign) very fun.

Got to agree with you, because you can spot some nice ideas here and there, like the whole part where the alliance army is defeated and you have to perform a quest to bring them back to life was quite cool.

There is two game that I kind fear that they might vanish, one already gone - The Wizardry franchise, that however still kind alive in Japan (at least in very spiritual form, lots of game such Elminage Gothic draw much from them and while I don´t have a console, begin more a pc player, I do see around lots of game which appear to be very Wizardry-like) and Might and Magic (which is in Ubisoft hand, but I am talking more of the rpg franchise rather that the strategy one).

The reason isn´t much nostalgia, but rather this two franchises for while tried in the west something that only see in Japan (and one reason I still love jrpgs) - the mix of fantasy and sci-fi. Sure it lacked the finess which jrpg managed to achive, and the mix of fantasy and sci-fi in this games was kind crude and goffy sometimes. Since often meant knights fighting against robots and things like a Dragon asking you to enter his space ship (Wizardry) or your whole part going in a space ship to follow a alien created automaton (Might and Magic) or your part picking up some laser rifles and guns to fight against some demons, that aren´t really demons, but aliens too (Might and Magic)

While Sir-Tech (Wizardry) kept with this mix, it couldn´t avoid closing its door. Meanwhile, New World Computing, which was under 3DO wing (and suffering under their mismanagement) dropped the sci-fi part in later games (Might and Magic IX, the last rpg under NWC/3DO was a very generic viking themed game and a disaster too), I just wonder how much of that was caused by preassure/influence due other games around (such Diablo/Baldur´s Gate) and part was the infamous "Forge Town incident" (There was a expansion for Heroes III meant to have the sci-fi back, but there was some backslash and they drop the idea out).