Big World, Big Problem - A Challenge
September 20th, 2008I’ve recently been playing quite a bit of Mass Effect (I missed the boat initially). I really love the game, except for the long vehicle sequences that have you driving around on each planet searching for metal deposits and fetch quest items. It’s just tedious to have to move across huge expanses of mountainous terrian in what is effectively an ATV, for items whose purpose is basically completionist in nature.
While doing so, it occurred to me that Bioware has done a great job creating a massive universe, with purposeless planets, sprawling locales, and side quests galore. Yet like most RPGs, it runs into a central contradiction: although expansiveness is valuable in creating the sensation of believability, it runs contrary to the central tenet of game design - keep your game fun. In short, although it’s nice to know there are “real people” out there running about their daily business, they’re not people you really want to interact with. Nor do you really want to have to move across the massive world in order to have that one conversation that marks the end of your quest and the award of loot or experience points or what have you. Rather, when you play a game, you want to quickly identify who has something of value to you, interact with them as quickly as possible, and move on to more gameplay, which is the reason you’re playing in the first place.
Many games attempt to alleviate this problem. Mass Effect tries to help the process by putting notations on your map to highlight areas of interest; WoW has its exclamation marks, and many games offer “instant warp” spells or airships to ensure that you don’t actually need to cross their worlds in order to get where you need to go. Yet the fundamental issue - that a massive world is great to see but not to touch - is left unresolved. Taken to its logical extreme, the “warp” spell reduces the game to a series of scenarios, dialogue trees whose purpose is to load you up with information or items as efficiently as possible.
It seems to me like there has to be a better solution. Yet I can’t tell you what it is. Any thoughts on how designers can keep the feeling of exploration and scale in their RPGs, but avoid the tedium of pixel-hunting fetch quests and boring terrain traverses?
Posted in Etc, Geoff, PC, Xbox 360 |
September 21st, 2008 at 8:34 am
I think there are a few decisions that could have been made to improve Mass Effect in that regard, although I too love the game:
1. The biggest one is to simply add interesting people in those places, provided it makes sense. (Not every world is going to have a thriving human or alien colony, but many should.) They don’t necessarily need Citadel-style installations on every planet and they don’t need to have people give you quests all over the place — they can just be interesting people talking about interesting things, like the news reports in the elevators. I think it would be neat to have people discuss their opinions on current events, for example. All of this, of course, means a massive amount of work for Bioware, but it’s the single most important thing they can do to make their worlds more credible and interesting.
2. No more cookie-cutter uninhabited worlds. The way it is now, it’s all, oh, I’m landing. Mineral deposit, Prothean probe, anomaly, yawn. They need to put different stuff on the worlds.
3. Obviously if they implement #1 they’re still going to need to mark the areas you [i]really[/i] want to know about. They can use the same system they use now.
4. And of course if there are big sprawling worlds they’re going to want rapid-transit options to get around. Bonus points if they don’t all use Citadel-style trams — they could really get creative with the transit methods and it would be very cool.
September 21st, 2008 at 1:24 pm
To be clear, this isn’t an issue with just Mass Effect. As I was hoping to point out, it’s an issue with just about *every* modern RPG out there.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:21 am
True, but Mass Effect nails most of the other stuff.
The only other problem I can think of is Elder Scrolls Syndrome, where there are plenty of people — although never as many as you’d think, which needs fixing — but they have nothing interesting to say.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Isn’t this partially what people actually like about these games?
People sort of like the virtually roaming around and exploring. I even remember reading about how people liked the Gryphon/Bat rides in WoW because it gave a sense of scope, and allowed you to take in the landscape that the game’s artists certainly spent quite a bit of time on. There is something to the argument, but at the same time… when I did play (which was now a few years ago), I certainly grew tired of the massive waste of time it became.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 pm
@Jeff,
That’s exactly the point — exploring is great, but only if there’s stuff worth exploring. When your planets are mostly featureless and empty save the occasional mineral deposit, exploring becomes boring instead of rewarding.