Open world quest based games bore me

[Cerveza mas fina]

Its prob one of the worst things that has come about this gen every open worldish game gives you loads of boring quests i don't give a shit about. It doesn't usually matter where you go the objective and gameplay are almost always the same as otherwise. Not like some quest will have some cool new gameplay thing. The story is usually really boring and irrelevant too.

Ill take a smaller scale tight game over this drap anyway. Or just an open world without quests, something that will make you explore without spelling out where to go. This is another horrible thing with this gen, everything is quantified, achievementized and made into a game mechanic. Half the joy of games was pushing beyond what they were supposed to be, now the game tries to tick all the boxes making sure you see all the "fun".

Games as opposite as Dark Souls and COD get it right, games like Skyrim dont.

Tldr end of rant.

I dont eveb know why i wrote that.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Im not very eloquent about games but I hope someone understands what i mean.

[Great Rumbler]

I like open-world games.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I loved gta 1, vice city, crackdown, fallout, wow...

But now everything just feels the same. Its not fun when the open world is just something you travel through following an arrow to your next boring quest.

Werent these games supposed to be about exploration and discovery?

[maxy]

Sidequests are my main draw to Bethesda games.There is always something interesting in them...main story sucks
I guess I just like aimlessly wondering around and bumping into funny things.

[Fifstar]

I came to the conclusion that I don't really like open world games. I always need the feeling that I'm achievieng some kind of progression and that feel is just lacking in most open world games. I guess you could say that if you want to achieve something you shouldn't play a videogame but whateva. I dread to play now Arkham City because I liked Asylum so much and don't want the feel of the game to change too much.

[Stoney Mason]

Depends on the game. Some open world games are utterly boring to me. Crackdown, Just Cause series to a degree, etc.

Not because they are bad games but because I get bored fairly quickly of doing the same stuff. It doesn't help if I don't care about the story.

But then some open world games are magical. Red Dead, Fallout, Skyrim, etc. where I really do end up feeling like I'm in a different world.

Assassin's Creed is the sort of game that reminds me a little bit of what you are talking about. Those sometimes feel like a checklist of things in a game world trying to emulate an open world feel but it all kind of feels pointless.

[maxy]

Crackdown was boring to me until I started to seriously level up and jump as high as Superman...then the whole new world opened to me

[Stoney Mason]

Crackdown was boring to me until I started to seriously level up and jump as high as Superman...then the whole new world opened to me

Lots of people definitely love it over here and on GAF so I definitely understand my opinion is in the minority. 

[maxy]

At first I thought Crackdown sucked badly,played it for an hour and 
Few months later I gave it another try and started leveling up,jumping from building to building,jumping in and out of boss strongholds,using cars,melee...

[Great Rumbler]

Crackdown was so much fun once you got your guy leveled up all the way.

[Great Rumbler]

someone recommend me a good open world RPG to fukk around with on PC. I'm bored. Ive got most of the big boys

Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga and Drakensang: The River of Time. I enjoyed both of those and you should be able to pick them up on the cheap.

[Positive Touch]

tried to play 2 and it felt like a rare game - too kiddy

[BobFromPikeCreek]

You playing Farcry 3? That game's side content is coma inducing.

[Rahxephon91]

I don't know what my opinion on the matter is.

One of the reasons I stopped playing Skyrim is because it seemed like at every turn there was a new sidequests. More and more stuff and well I would look at my quest log and just feel overwhelmed and my response was to stop. There was too much going on and well I guess I did'nt know where to start.

But see the thing is, I made an effort to do every quest I could in the Witcher 2. It's not like the quest quality was better or anything. I think it was because the structure of the game allowed me easily to get into the grove. You know it was like "This chapter has this set number of quests and I can do them and then the main quest". I guess it was more manageable.

Same thing with Resonance of Fate. I would move unto a chapter and then do all the side quests before moving unto main thing. In both I guess I could develop a routine in how to tackle the side quests, but they also just didn't throw tons of sidequests at you.

These games also had a direct story to follow so I always had a main thing to follow. While people hate rigid linear stuff like FFXIII and to a lesser extent FFX. I'm fine with those games, since well they keep my focused and going somewhere. I guess this says something about me. Maybe I'm just not very exploring minded, but I don't think that's necessarily true.

In the end I have nothing wrong with open world games, but I want to have some sort of direction. I guess this is why I did'nt like Just Cause 2, since the appeal of that game seems to mostly be "here's all this shit, go have fun".

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I see what you mean Kosma.

Open world games bank on the fact that you find the game world interesting.  However if the game world bores the fuck out of you or has all kinds of problems, then the open world game falls flat on its ass regardless of how interesting the quests may be.  That applies to a lot of other games but not to the degree that open world games do.

[chronovore]

Yes.

At some point, I'd like to write a paper on Mercs 1 vs. 2, why 1 was great and 2 sucked.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I loved the open nature of Morrowind (hello 1.5M+ intelligence potions that let you cast jump spells that let you vault from one end of the island to the other) but I know what you mean about the cookie-cutter quests. Morrowind would have benefited greatly from some better quest depth, although I hear there are some great/deep mods out there that revamp it.

[etiolate]

Kosma, I'm not sure what parts of open world you're particularly against.

I don't generally like sandbox open world games. I never got too much into GTA. I did really like what I played of Red Dead Redemption, but I think that's due to the setting fitting the open world gameplay far better than a hollywood version of a modern city. I enjoyed SKyrim myself. I stopped playing because the melee combat was not up to par and the game had too many bugs and issues. I still iked the game. I do admit the quest log just started to overflow at some point. I did like the investigation quest having to due with the murder and I like some of the political stuff until the politics started to contradict my own character's actions and interests. The assassin questline was pretty cool and was something that just  seemingly randomly happened to you out int he world depending upon triggers.

My favorite system is one with a central plot and quest that is strong enough to tie the entire game together, but also have a ton of sidequests and lateral options. I guess Majora's Mask is a good example of this.

[Barry Egan]

I think as a genre it still has enormous room for innovation, so I'm excited to see where it goes in the future. 

[Cerveza mas fina]

It just seems that so many open world games rely on too few gameplay mechanics to be interesting, or that they are bland. Also having your quests pinpointed on a map is just horrible.

I also agree with Rahxephon91 that some games are just more manageable, like in Withcer you have many quests, but its a limited area you travel around (like in Mass Effect).

[tiesto]

My favorite system is one with a central plot and quest that is strong enough to tie the entire game together, but also have a ton of sidequests and lateral options. I guess Majora's Mask is a good example of this.

Ditto for me too. I also like games that are fairly linear, but you have a lot of options in that limited space (the MGS games I've always felt were good at this). Completely open world games tend to lose my interest fast, since I find level design to be extremely important... and extremely streamlined and linear games where you do the same thing over and over (Gears, Uncharted, FFXIII) also bore me.

[Diunx]

I love walking around in open world games doing nothing.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I actually kill a lot of innocent people in many brutal ways to pass the time [/spolier]

[close]

[ToxicAdam]

I never got into them.


Everyone was like 'Morrowind this and Gothic that'. I was all like Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, you cunts.

Maybe I have some kind of gaming ADD, if a game is too wide open I lose focus and get bored.

[Cerveza mas fina]

My favorite system is one with a central plot and quest that is strong enough to tie the entire game together, but also have a ton of sidequests and lateral options. I guess Majora's Mask is a good example of this.

Ditto for me too. I also like games that are fairly linear, but you have a lot of options in that limited space (the MGS games I've always felt were good at this). Completely open world games tend to lose my interest fast, since I find level design to be extremely important... and extremely streamlined and linear games where you do the same thing over and over (Gears, Uncharted, FFXIII) also bore me.

Yeah this was so good about mgs 1, game was linear but you could try so many things... Great stuff.

[Stoney Mason]

I just restarted AC 3 after not playing it since it came out and I have no desire at all to do the side content anymore. At first you feel like you are wasting your money by not getting all your value from the game but then you start to do the side stuff, realize how tedious it is and then say fuck that noise. I feel the same way in GTA titles past and present. The main storyline is the only thing that can hope to pull me through these kind of games. Although I did a good bit of the side stuff in RDR because I found it fun in that game which was very unusual.

[Stoney Mason]

I've always liked the idea of AC more than actually playing AC games.

[Don Flamenco]

I agree with the OP.  I like open world games, but they can be pretty soulless.  The best parts of Fallout 3 and NV are when you're surviving.  Take that away and you're back to playing Oblivion again--lots of stuff happening, lots to nerd out on/collect, but the gameplay feels empty. 

5 hours into AC2 and the number of fucking icons on the map just kept multiplying with shit you can do.  I gave up because none of it was particularly interesting.  I don't care about finding secrets when there's no danger and little reward--there are like 100+ of an object hidden everywhere, so it better be an easy task.  If it were difficult, you'd have to have less of them and since there are less and you do want to make them a challenge, you have to craft them which takes time.  Just put 100 feathers in the world instead!  So, the difficulty is not in the finding, which is where it should be, but within your own will to subject yourself to the task.  A couple mainline quests in and that seemed like the motto of the game-- the only thing that could get in the way of me succeeding at being awesome and hailed as god in AC's universe was if I stopped playing it    

I think AC might be the worst offender.  In bethesda games, there's some aspect or hook that really delivers.  In Crackdown and inFamous and others, you run around the open world with super powers.  Saint's Row is about letting the player be ridiculous and interact with the world in the most ridiculous ways possible.  GTA is about crime and experiencing a ridiculously realized urban area.  I guess AC is supposed to be about free running and assassinating, but the running is boring because there can't be any tension it--the game's hook is the ability to run around like that.  And for a game with "Assassin's" in the title, they sure do play fast and loose with that word. 

[chronovore]

It just seems that so many open world games rely on too few gameplay mechanics to be interesting, or that they are bland. Also having your quests pinpointed on a map is just horrible.

I also agree with Rahxephon91 that some games are just more manageable, like in Withcer you have many quests, but its a limited area you travel around (like in Mass Effect).

One of the things which was mind-blowing for me in GTA III was stealing an otherwise innocuous car, and having it start a mission which is otherwise drawing NO attention to itself. The RC car bombs, the Patriot Playground... so amazing! I started looking for cars which appeared in the same location consistently; and there were other side missions, such as the public phone booth missions.

Part of what worked in Red Dead was an updated version of that: just keeping your ears open for something which was unusual, you'd stumble upon the random encounters, save the treasure hunter, get suckered by an ambush, welcomed by cannibals, kinda. And... cougars. Well, cougars weren't fun, but they sure were exciting!

If GTA V jumps on the random encounters use, I will be in pig heaven.