I can remember TWO games, better than the rest, and this topics question is exactly why I can remember them. How much exploring is enough? Will the user ever get to explore what you've coded? Will they find it? Will they never find it and it be a waste of CD space?

I think it all depends on how your story develops, how many "offshots" of the story, your CD, and the player will allow psychologically before the "getting into the game" effect wares off, whether or not you want it to be integrated into the story, that sort of thing.

Say we have a snowboarding game, and there is a side-activity that is based on how much of the world you've discovered. This side-activity basically computes how much area of the map you've seen in your viewport. The game doesn't tell them about this, infact technically noone should _ever_ know that this side-activity exists. But the bottom line is that people like to explore, they like to feel what they think they can't feel (due to other games limiting them), they like to feel what they want to feel, see, hear, the list goes on. This is the essence of expanse and exploration. Now for the purpose of the area. Exploration and options are great but they have to have a purpose to be purposeful (and thus profitable to you and them), whether it be incorporated into the players stat-base or otherwise, otherwise the player doesn't get an "added benefit" from exploring(game designers seem to forget sometimes that hidden areas are cool and all...but once you're there and you've found that hidden area what is there to do? Giving the player something to do is good for hidden areas, besides just walk around or whatever, that's boring, normal, and completely unappetizing). With this in mind, I will choose to increase the players speed subtily based on this area. Initially the player starts out a good enough speed, even without exploring the area he will be at a good enough speed to beat the game.

There is of course a sacrifice here, I'm sacrificing making the game too easy for the player for some cool feature(due to the player being faster, the end challenges will be a bit less difficult due to the NPCs speed being constant). Well that obviously isn't a good thing at all! So I'll counter that by including a speed increase for all the NPCs as well. You might be saying "Well that speed increase is pointless because the deviation from the player vs. npc speed is the same". That deviation is true, but it's not as pointless as you might think. Speeding up the game is usually a good thing(in racing games) for both the players reflexes and his concentration on the game. I recall a game that was based on racing these interesting looking pods around. In this game speed was one of the benificial factors for peoples enthusiasm. In order to move onto the next level or even to not hit any obstacles / other pods you had to increase your concentration to the max, your reaction time, everything had to be increased to beat the NPCs without blowing the pod and yourself up. It's a benefit both for the players concentration and addiction rate if the speed is increased with these games, if the graphics, sound, pace, everything is at their benificial levels a speed increase in the game will do more than make your game better.

With this method the player can explore the world, and he will if he has an adventerous spirit (as most RPG/Racing gamers I've seen do), and he will get a bonus for that. The work you've done on other areas of the game haven't been wasted, they've been quite useful since the player is neither punished if he doesn't explore, nor made the game easy by exploring, and he will if I know the average game player in this genre (the fact that they really like speed, free movement, that sort of thing).

I believe, everything in games is a sacrifice. Weighing these sacrifices against eachother to create an equal trade in the end of the players perception of the future in game in my opinion is an extremely good thing. In an RPG if the player percieves that one character will ask out another character, throw a twist at him to get him more interested, make the guy reject her, the player might be thinking "Why did he not take her? What's with that? They seemed so good together..", then in the end even it out by introducing something else that will eventually get them together, because that's what the player would want (and that's what you should make the player want).

Realizing all the above, I would say neither A,B,B1, or C. It's sort of a mix of both. Put features that you think the player will explore into the game, but make them meaningful. Secret areas are NO fun if the player can't do anything besides walking around in. Pretty pictures are great, but it's better if the pretty pictures mean something.

Highly dependant on genre, story, and your demographic. I blame this question on the game, and compliment games that answer this question correctly. But I also blame the question on the player as well, but to a lesser degree, because it's given for a certain demographic that they will have a certain average intelligence, ability to find things, a few psychological constructs, that sort of thing. If your game doesn't live up to those known averages, in some cases it's the players fault for not living up to the average. We can't please everyone with one game, can we? I wish but of course I'm wishing too much so I don't ask myself that question anymore (at least not until mind-reading and light-speed chips come into fashion..)

By the way, the two games were SSX and some ATV game for the PS2.

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Original post by Wavinator Imagine that you're exploring space and decide to head out into the icy gulf between stars. The game doesn't stop you, but after awhile you're bored, so you teleport home. Once back in civilized space, you attend to the various death threats, revolutions, save the universe missions and occassional marriage proposals that have made life interesting... Who's responsible for the player being bored, the game or the player?

In this example, the player. The game doesn't force the player to head out in the void, nor does it prevent the player from returning. So it would be a shame to claim that the game is to blame.

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IOW, should a game either A) limit you only to the places where there's action B) let you go into places where there might be nothing of consequence B1) same as above, but always give you a quick way out C) make it so that every place always has action, no matter how contrived that may be Most games adopt A, which is why you get tempting views guarded by knee high barriers you can't jump over. Option C sounds best, but makes world-design arbitrary: For instance, in Freelancer, ships will always spawn that attack you, even if you're going to the corner store for some milk. It gets silly and repetitive after awhile. I would personally favor B1, with the idea that as long as the player can always get to the action, they should be allowed the freedom to discover the game's world at their own pace. This is provided that the player has some way of finding the action space (ie, not searching aimlessly).

I opt for B.

If the game provides the player with some way of knowing where the action is taking place, and the player willfully sails away to somewhere where she knows nothing interesting is going to happen, then it's the player's own fault.

Being a stickler for realism, I also have issues with any mechanism that allows you to travel perhaps hundreds of light years at a click of a button. If there are interstellar teleporters, that would have a huge effect on the reality you are presenting.

On the other hand, if you were going to pretend that the player got back in the normal boring way, and advance time in the game world by howeverr long it would have taken, that's okay.

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Nathan Baum In this example, the player. The game doesn't force the player to head out in the void, nor does it prevent the player from returning. So it would be a shame to claim that the game is to blame.

But to the same extent, it would be the game's fault for not either:
A) Communicating to the player that there's nothing there but boredome, in whichever method you choose.

Or

B) Not making the boring area exciting. If it exists, why should it be boring unless someone, somehow, in the game expresses the fact that the planet is boring, and it ties in with the story / the NPCs to express something?

I wouldn't say being bored really matters though if you make it up. I would just say it's a waste of space and time if you don't make it up to the player.