WOULD THIS ANNOY YOU?

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In the story for my game, after introducing the player to the game world, mechanics and plot, I'm planning on sending the player out into the world without any specific quests or objectives.

In order to continue the main quest, they would have to poke around, talking to people, and asking questions which might not obviously lead them into the rest of the main quest (but would certainly hopefully lead them towards something interesting).

Would it irritate you, as the player, to be forced to explore the game world in order to make progress in the story, or do you prefer to be very clearly directed to where you need to go next?
I like a bit of direction as to where I need to go - especially in a game that's plot/character-driven. Then again, I also love to explore towns and cities and have the chance to ask people things and get led to different quests.

A nice balance of the two (with lots of secrets scattered around) would be my ideal of a game, really. Having hints of where to go but with the chance to take off and do something else if you want to.
Yeah it would annoy me. Especially if the beginning was like that. There needs to be very clear goals in the beginning (and also a way to accomplish them). Even something as simple as "Go east and talk to the guy in the town to the east for clues about our predicament".

Yeah I'm referencing Fallout here. It's a pretty open game but in the beginning of the game it clearly tells you "Go east". Of course once you've played the game more than once you know you can go anywhere. But for the first-time player east is where you'll go and there you can go talk to the guys there and suddenly all kinds of stuff will happen.

Consider if Fallout didn't have the go east direction in the beginning. You stand outside the vault looking at a gigantic world map and... then what?
The player will need a hook. Why is the character moving around in the world map instead of searching for a nice man/woman and starting a family? It's one thing to play a game without any direction (as long as most directions in some extent is the "right" way that is), but there has to be a reason for the main character to do all the stuff he's doing.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Depends solely on how interesting your game world is.
This would annoy me greatly. I'm with Shinan in that a game ought to have very clear objectives at the start of the game.
yeah it's probably better to start rigidly and branch out from there rather than throwing your player in at the deep end
I have to agree with the choice of Fallout as an example here. For a long time you're basically just exploring the wasteland and doing stuff without obvious relevance to your objective, but:

-you're never without that fallback objective, and
-you always have a fairly direct way of finding someplace else interesting.

Just being told "this is a world, here you go" isn't very motivating.
Make main quests blatant, and side quests hard to find.
I'd prefer direction at the start of the game, then go free style with some direction but the option to go where ever you want, as is with most pro RPG's. Final Fantasy 6 is a prime example of this, where you have a huge amount of direction for the first half, then you have some suggestions on where to go, but ultimately, the choice of where to go is up to you.
Linearity during the initial introduction phase - basic rudiments of plot direction and gameplay. Then you can branch out from there :).
It would annoy me. Looks like it's safe to say that it would annoy most people...

To solve this, you could give a small hint about where the player should go/what the player should do that relates to the main quest before sending him off on his own.
post=137331
Make main quests blatant, and side quests hard to find.

Why hide anything from the player? I never got this. If it wouldn't be reasonable for a player to work out something for themself, what's the point?
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15170
post=137307
I have to agree with the choice of Fallout as an example here. For a long time you're basically just exploring the wasteland and doing stuff without obvious relevance to your objective, but:

-you're never without that fallback objective, and
-you always have a fairly direct way of finding someplace else interesting.

Just being told "this is a world, here you go" isn't very motivating.

Yes, you need that fallback objective. If you don't have any idea what you're doing, you need a main quest that's fairly clear about what you need to do. It could still take a while to reach a specific point - opening up areas and interesting side-quests on the way. Think about Fallout 3 (minor spoilers below):

After the intro, you can:
-Head to Megaton, to learn about your father (this is easy and leads you past the Springvale(?) School, which is a decent low-level dungeon)
-Head to that ship city, where you can also learn about your father (for those players who like to go completely opposite of the main quest; I stumbled onto it completely by accident in an early playthrough where I decided not to hit up Megaton)
-Head to Washington, since it is big and interesting and prominent
-Do whatever else, but you know at least the first option is always available to you

Oblivion is similar. You are told "go to Weynon Priory."

-Teleport to Weynon Priory, gg you get story - and you're right next to a town chock full of cool stuff
-Walk to Weynon Priory, finding towns and lots of places of interest along the way
-Go to the Imperial City (about two seconds away from your post-intro location) and find tons of content
-Run around aimlessly, knowing that eventually you should probably hit up Weynon Priory

Note how the "typical" route in both games that makes sense to a new player leads you right past interesting places and sets sidequest hooks into the player's mind.
I've been criticized for doing the same thing with my game, even though I thought there was a clear way of direction... I wouldn't recommend it.
Direction and structure is certainly necessary at the beginning. A trick many free roaming games use is actually introducing side areas during your travels to an area you're told to go (note Craze's examples).

Therefore giving the player freedom to go where they want while at the same time knowing where they could go to advance and understanding the advantages in advancing the plot.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15170
post=137906
Direction and structure is certainly necessary at the beginning. A trick many free roaming games use is actually introducing side areas during your travel to an area you're told to go. Therefore giving the player freedom to go where they want while at the same time knowing where they could go to advance.


This is my post, but shorter.
Broke? Or Made it better?

*walks out comic store*
Oblivion is close to what I first thought of, which was Elder Scrolls 1 if any of you tried it. As soon as you made your character, you did the tutorial dungeon and then were given a map with eight or nine countries to explore. Your quest was that hidden somewhere in each country was part of a key (or something like that) and you needed them all to make it whole and open the final area. But that was it...no hints or anything. Just "there's one in each country...have fun." If I remember correctly, every piece was in a quite different location, from the bottom of dungeons to someone's private collection. Capital cities were a good place to start but you really did have to collect as many rumors as you could to slowly get warmer or colder.

And I did. :) While a good story drives me, so does getting thrown into the deep end as long as I have lots of skills to customize and level up. I had countless hours of fun with Elder 1 without ever actually getting far in the main quest.
I was quite young when I first played Daggerfall which was the earliest Elder Scrolls I played. I remember a lot of the scenery was randomly generated the automap was pretty much the only thing telling you where you were going. The thing about the earlier games If you have a world that big there's no reason not to drop them into it and let them find it out themselves. The fact the game was generated made the game impossible to 100% secure where the quest helpers and starters would be placed except from the major towns.

In which case.. Why would being dropped into a big world be so bad? As long as the narrative game me a reason to want to continue the plot, common sense would send me to the biggest city and or nearest city.
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