GALE'S PROFILE

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post=137268
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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?

If I don't get any sense of direction after a while of playing, I just quit. BUT if I know what I'm supposed to do next and where to go easily, but there are thousands of side quests- I'll have tons of fun doing them and continue the story whenever. You can "widen" the gameplay like that if you wanted so long as you told me what I'm supposed to be doing, and I would still possibly enjoy it.

As for the "NOT A MERE RPG COULD CONTAIN THE AWESOMENESS OF OBLIVION", you could actually easily implement the journal system into a typical JRPG model. In fact I wish more JRPGs did this because I love the simplicity and the Anime style they tend to have but would love if it were more open.

Seriously, if you take a look inside at the mechanics of Oblivion (and I have, of course) it's not that complicated. It's actually surprisingly simple at how they did things. Sure the construction interface is crap, but you can still make fun dungeons full of enemy factions and add in some quests/whatever.

Actually, if you want a more open experience without annoying players like me, you should actually get the construction kit for Fallout 3 / Oblivion and check out how they put stuff together. You don't have to learn how to make your own content, just poke around and experiment.