Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Video Games and Exploration
Jim Rossignol writes at Rock Paper Shotgun about "Exploration Games" and what an important aspect exploration plays in our enjoyment of certain kinds of games.
One of the issues with creating RPGs is that they are usually exploration-based - which means the game developers must create a LOT of content for the players to explore. While I don't know that exploration is a required element of an RPG, when I think about what thrills me, personally, when playing an RPG --- it usually comes down to the feeling I get when I am exploring.
When I played the early Ultimas, I was forever getting killed because I'd set out wandering all over the world, get lost, and then come across some dungeon or other dangerous place in the middle of the map which I just HAD to explore. One of the biggest thrills of both Morrowind and Oblivion was just poking my head into these random dungeons, ruins, castles, and abandoned houses laying strewn about the countryside.
Unfortunately, the thrill of exploration in Morrowind - and especially Oblivion - were nuked by the same problem that eliminated any such thrill in games like Diablo (after your first play-through): The randomly-generated encounters were clearly... randomly generated. They didn't belong in the world - they were clear reminders that the world was simply make-believe and centered around nothing so much as giving you something to do. In a sense, all that random variation actually made things even more clearly generic.
It's the hand-crafted stuff that makes the world seem real and in some way bigger than ourselves.
In a sense, there are two different kinds of "exploration" that I think of - the exploration of breadth and the exploration of depth. Breadth is the kind of exploration we normally think of - wandering around the world and finding new "stuff" of interest. The little Super Mario-esque "secrets" left by designers for those enterprising players who like to explore every nook and cranny. The stuff either on or off the beaten path that invites the player to take a closer look.
The other kind is as I described above - the details that can unfold in the game world as you keep going deeper and trying to explore a little bit behind the curtain. The mid-to-late Ultimas tried really hard to provide this kind of detail, with NPCs on regular schedules, a working "economy" of sorts, and all kinds of extra details that had nothing to do with the core plot - and certainly didn't aid in "streamlining" any kind of interface - but it added a great deal to the experience.
While I'm not opposed at all to the trend of generating more content procedurally, designers should remember that it is no substitute for a ton of hand-crafted, human detail in a game, particularly RPGs. That's what gives the game its life and "personality" - and makes it worthy of exploration.
Labels: Game Design
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:45 AM (Permalink)
Comments:
Links to this post:
<< Home
As Shamus has said before, Diablo is nothing more than a piñata that throws rewards at you for every click you make, nothing more, nothing less. Of course it has a story but sincerely I couldn't care less since it doesn't impact the gameplay, you know you are going to have to mow down armies of generic monsters to succeed in every single quest.
For me, the randomization sucked the fun of exploration right out of the game. Sure, this is just an undesired side effect of trying to make everything seem new again with every playthrough, but everything that is procedural will begin to feel devoid of depth with time.
No exploration is exciting on that game, you just know that there's going to be monsters to kill on some generic dungeon/wasteland.
The game is entirely designed around killing, everything is done through this and success is only achievable through murdering thousands upon thousands of randomly generated enemies in randomly generated dungeons. The story could have been randomly generated for all I care, it was just an excuse to do more killing.
With that said, Diablo is grind-tastic. I don't love the game but it's a fun little distraction that doesn't take itself too seriously and isn't afraid to revolve around just one concept: violence solves all problems. Wanna knit a sweater? Wack this sheep over the head repeatedly with your weapon of choice and eventually it will get done... somehow.
For me, the randomization sucked the fun of exploration right out of the game. Sure, this is just an undesired side effect of trying to make everything seem new again with every playthrough, but everything that is procedural will begin to feel devoid of depth with time.
No exploration is exciting on that game, you just know that there's going to be monsters to kill on some generic dungeon/wasteland.
The game is entirely designed around killing, everything is done through this and success is only achievable through murdering thousands upon thousands of randomly generated enemies in randomly generated dungeons. The story could have been randomly generated for all I care, it was just an excuse to do more killing.
With that said, Diablo is grind-tastic. I don't love the game but it's a fun little distraction that doesn't take itself too seriously and isn't afraid to revolve around just one concept: violence solves all problems. Wanna knit a sweater? Wack this sheep over the head repeatedly with your weapon of choice and eventually it will get done... somehow.
I agree that exploration is an incredible element of the RPG. I was actually hooked on exploration long before I played an RPG. My first round was with my Atari 2600 playing one of my favorites, Adventure. While the feeling didn't last long, it did live for a while. :-)
Zelda drew me in easily, as I wasted many hours just roaming. I also got into a semi-RPG on DOS, the original Lord of the Rings by Interplay. LOTR was really impressive to me, and still is.
I think we as pretty timid people, like doing crazy things in games. In real life you would never do this, but in Final Fantasy you would walk in to a complete strangers house and pilfer through their stuff while they are less 16 pixels away watching, and they saying nothing.
Zelda drew me in easily, as I wasted many hours just roaming. I also got into a semi-RPG on DOS, the original Lord of the Rings by Interplay. LOTR was really impressive to me, and still is.
I think we as pretty timid people, like doing crazy things in games. In real life you would never do this, but in Final Fantasy you would walk in to a complete strangers house and pilfer through their stuff while they are less 16 pixels away watching, and they saying nothing.
Ahhh I love exploration...that's why I'm an rpg/adventure fan. I love exploring every nook and cranny and stealing everything in sight(and I mean EVERYTHING). But yea I hate randomly generated battles and dungeons...it's the well placed, hidden touches of humor that make a game worth playing. Replay value should be in unfolding more of the story...random gen battles are only good for getting out aggression...it's kind of like whack-a-mole...ok its varied but the outcome doesn't matter so why bother? Anyhoo back to Baldur's Gate, it was my first western rpg so I'd never had that much freedom before! In JRPGS you either can't get to higher level areas or you immediately get stuck in impossible battles forcing you to only have one or if your lucky two areas to explore at one time. BG was the first rpg I played where you could really explore the map (I loved the various forests and ruins)...and usually make a daring escape if you found yourself over your head. The first time I played it I accidentally gave the girdle of sex change to Khalid before ID it (so I just thought it was a cursed girdle) and this happened right after he joined my party so I always thought that she and Jaheria were lesbians (I thought the voice acting was a glitch). Heh I also loved how their was a lightening wand in the big tree NE on the map with the mines. In summary, it's the little, well placed touches that make an RPG worth playing (at least for me). In fact one of my favorite RPGs was torment and the majority of the game took place in a single city that was just super dense and detailed.
I largely disagree that world randomization comes at the expense of entertaining exploration. The Civilization series has long relied on random world maps, and my exploration itch was always well-scratched in those games. Anything could be just inside that next patch of black... a jungle archipelago, a forebodingly empty desert continent, or the first sight of a massive civilization helmed by Gandhi the Destroyer.
I think the problem with Diablo's randomized dungeons is that they're disposable; none of their layouts really affect the player's strategy or the outcome of events, so they just feel arbitrary and artificial. It's the opposite with Civilization, where terrain plays a huge factor in a city's development and in the defensibility of an area; these things impact a player's overall strategy.
Assuming it's applied properly, I think randomization can really extend the replayability of a world; I'd be MUCH more inclined to boot up classics like Baldur's Gate or Fallout 2 or any given Final Fantasy if I could re-experience their stories while exploring new versions of those worlds. Randomization can certainly be artificial at times, but much worse than that is playing an old game whose layout you've memorized - you just mechanically trek to each "hidden" treasure, with no genuine exploration at all. At that point, the game is playing itself.
I think the problem with Diablo's randomized dungeons is that they're disposable; none of their layouts really affect the player's strategy or the outcome of events, so they just feel arbitrary and artificial. It's the opposite with Civilization, where terrain plays a huge factor in a city's development and in the defensibility of an area; these things impact a player's overall strategy.
Assuming it's applied properly, I think randomization can really extend the replayability of a world; I'd be MUCH more inclined to boot up classics like Baldur's Gate or Fallout 2 or any given Final Fantasy if I could re-experience their stories while exploring new versions of those worlds. Randomization can certainly be artificial at times, but much worse than that is playing an old game whose layout you've memorized - you just mechanically trek to each "hidden" treasure, with no genuine exploration at all. At that point, the game is playing itself.
I don't actually disagree, Metallimoose. The random variation can add a lot to a game - especially in replayability. The problem is as you say - the random dungeons in Diablo doesn't serve much of a purpose beyond scenery and hiding the next staircase / town portal / boss.
I also think randomness shouldn't be the "meat" of the exploration.... but I also don't adhere to that rule very strictly, either. More of a guideline than a rule. I mean, besides Civ and similar strategy games, you've got crazy stuff like Dwarf Fortress.
I also think randomness shouldn't be the "meat" of the exploration.... but I also don't adhere to that rule very strictly, either. More of a guideline than a rule. I mean, besides Civ and similar strategy games, you've got crazy stuff like Dwarf Fortress.
A different way of looking at this: How good would a randomized world need to be to compete with a hand-crafted one? Is there a conceivable point where procedural would produce a deeper/better/more unique world than handmade?
There might also be an interesting area in between the two extremes. What if you started with the base world of Morrowind or Oblivion, but then had some humans go in and craft the details on top of that?
Post a Comment
There might also be an interesting area in between the two extremes. What if you started with the base world of Morrowind or Oblivion, but then had some humans go in and craft the details on top of that?
Links to this post:
<< Home
