When will the "open world" fad die?
And here's what better exploration looks like
Never. Shallow faux-content like this is what made MMOs popular. Now you have the same joys in your single player games!
Witcher 3 had good exploration. Though it had quite a bit of question marks covering the map, but those were a bunch of useless loot, actually interesting stuff like cool quests or funny as hell NPCs you had to find by yourself.
>>331287151
Did you play Xenoblade X?
You didn't play Xenoblade X did you.
>>331287451
I've played the first Xenoblade which is closer to >>331287214 in design as its segmented but large areas with actual side paths and optional minibosses, etc.
How does Xenoblade X fare in that regard?
>>331287151
When casuals eventually, hopefully get bored of it.
I honestly don't know what they find interesting about "exploring" open fields of fucking nothing. Especially if the game allows you to see really far out in these fields and you know there is just nothing fucking there. It's just an empty field of nothing with a few shrubs and trees around the place.
Games like Thief, they had good exploration. They were labyrinthine and mazelike. They also made use of verticality. So many games forget that now, everything is a fucking flat plane with the most minimal use of up or down in any meaninful level design.
>>331287397
>The Witcher 3
>good exploration
I'll never understand people who say it 'finally did open world right'
It's extremely guilty of most of the offenses in the OP picture
>>331288052
>It's extremely guilty of most of the offenses in the OP picture
this. part of the reason i got bored so quickly was the open world "follow the waypoint" autism. i got bored of witcher 1 less quickly, and that was a pretty dull game
>>331288052
Have you read the post past first 4 words?
>>331287151
Stop playing (and more importantly: buying) Bethesda games. Games follow trends of what is popular, Skyrim was one of the biggest and most influential games of the last decade, of course everyone copied it.
Why is it so many games depict roads and paths as frequently traveled and well guarded while also being filled with monsters and bandits?
>>331287214
10/10 would play
Soul Reaver had one of the best exploration ever. Too bad it aged terribly.
>>331289080
>aged terribly
This is not a thing.
>>331289216
Yes it is, it's uglier than Elder god's scrotum in both character models and environment, even the Dreamcast version looks bad.
>>331289309
Did it become uglier overtime? No, it looks the same way it always did. Games don't age.
>>331289309
Things can't really age graphically unless their only virtue was looking realistic, they are sure to be outdated.
When people talked about games having ages, they mean mechanically.
>>331289409
But our taste does, you don't go looking at cave drawings for good art, you go to a museum with proper paintings.
>>331287551
Xenoblade X's world exploration is fucking amazing. I fucking love it, and there's not a way I can describe it that does it justice.
If I had to start using this >>331287214
as a base tho, replace the "areas only accessible with item" with flightpack.
You eventually gain the ability for your mech to fly and it gives you access to the full vertical layer of the world. Seriously, the best part of X is in comparison to every other open-world game, it has a vertical layer to it.
Also replace "tiny side path" with "screw it. you see that? you can get there right now any way you want"
Minus the extremely high places you can't get without flight, you can carve your own fucking path through almost all of the world.
Jump down a cliff as long as you can see the bottom, any waterfall, or hole and just land in the mission area. No death or injury. If you want to really fuck around, go jump over a mountain, you can actually do it in several parts.
Enemy levels aren't dumbed down for you in any part of the world really. You can find both low-leveled and high-leveled monsters in all parts, starting with the first region. Actually, this is done so much to create a feeling that the world isn't coddling you that people actually complained they kept having to run around monsters instead of taking the straight path.
I just don't like open world at all. I actually prefer how Skyrim did it since I know I'm not missing out on anything important when I travel to quest markers. Otherwise, I get overwhelmed with the amount of stuff on said maps, since I prefer doing quests and stuff in a linear fashion, and don't like the idea of having to explore and possibly missing important/cool things.
>>331289815
>Seriously, the best part of X is in comparison to every other open-world game, it has a vertical layer to it.
Jesus christ this sounds amazing. I've always wanted an open world game with a vertical based map.
Do I need to play the Wii Xenoblade first? Also is it possible to import the Jap version of Xenoblade X because fuck any form of censorship.
>>331290031
This. Especially when a game transports you forward in a cutscene causing you to miss things, or close paths behind you so you can't go back.
>>331290438
The Wii Xenoblade and Xenoblade X are almost completely separate story-wise. You won't be missing out on anything by playing Xeno X before the first Xenoblade.
The two are comparable to FF in that there's nothing that binds each of the installments together other than elements like crystals, chocobos, and moogles.
For the two Xenoblade games, they share two species: Nopon, and a slightly spoiler-ish enemy.
The game's creator has also explicitly said there's no connection between them in the story. There's actually another problem with Xenoblade X's story, but that's another thing.
Just to give you an example of the vertical world design, the jungle region has an entire area at the end of it that's completely elevated above the ocean and connected by a waterfall.
The volcanic region has quite a few floating and tall man-made structures connected by bridges.
There's even small patches of land that are completely invisible to your eye on ground level.
I don't know about importing, I think the Wii U is region-locked like the 3DS, but hacked Wii U's have access to a version that restores the clothing changes.
>>331291710
So I'd need a hacked Wii U and a normal copy of Xeno X?
How easy is it to hack a Wii U and are there any specific files I'd need for it? Also does it restore boob slider? This is a thing of principle, I don't care how out of context or weird it is, I hate censorship of all kind and want to see the devs original intention.
>>331292380
>So I'd need a hacked Wii U and a normal copy of Xeno X?
I think so. A few weeks into the Xeno X threads, there were several people playing with the uncensor patch.
As for the boob slider, I don't know. I only know for sure it restores the equipment and clothing changes NoA made. I would think it adds the boob slider back in considering the goal was probably to get it to be like the original Japanese copy.
Don't quote me on any of the hacking bits, but I remember your Wii U system firmware needed to be at 5.3.2 at the latest or before 5.5.0. That version is pretty far back, and I don't know if there's any tools or methods to downgrade yours if it's already higher than that like mine.
At the end of last year, I do remember some anons in the X threads saying an exploit had been found for 5.5.0, but I haven't heard anything about that since.
I think gbatemp contains most of the information you're looking for.
And I completely agree on the censorship issue. Fuck, even when I was playing FE: Fates I didn't care for the touching mini-game, but I wished they hadn't reduced to absolutely nothing other than a fucked up cutscene.
>>331293083
Well I don't have a Wii U yet, I was considering buying one for Xenoblade but ever since the censorship thing I put the idea of purchasing one on the backbench.
Unless they can find a way how to get the exploit into all versions of the Wii U I don't think I will waste my money. You also know that just like with PS3/360 games will force you to update to latest firmware version to even play them after a while.
>>331287151
>>331287214
You prefer metroidvania or zelda-like progression. This isn't objective at all. Go play salt and sanctuary, or axiom verge. Some people still make the progression you are asking for with these images.
>>331294227
Funny story, I actually bought my Wii U near the very beginning when the first trailer for Xenoblade X dropped. The first one is one of my favorite games ever made. Smash and the rest were just side-benefits to me.
I'd agree on your decision of not buying a Wii U. Honestly, I'd just tell you to wait for emulation and build a PC when emulation performance is at Dolphin levels. Personally, buying a Wii U nearly 3 years ahead of Xeno's release was justifiable, and I don't regret a single dollar, but I can see that it's a leap of faith to buy a system for a single game when the system doesn't have too great a future of receiving any more promising games.
They've apparently found a way to exploit up to the latest version now, but aren't releasing for whatever stupid reason, so even the exploit's existence is questionable.
>>331287214
That effectively makes it not open world anymore. It's linear with the illusion that it's open world.
