Me and my friend were arguing at school about free roam vs story-based epic games. My friend stated that free roam games are pointless and get boring because there is no story to follow, when I say it is completly false as I wrote an email to him about this debate. I perfer free roam because it seems more creative and wide than something like an FF series. Well ok the FF series is creative, but what I mean is that I don't like being forced into places as I describe in my email: You MUST PLEASE read all of this, I don’t type for nothing or just a scan: When I say the “ideal game” should be free roam and complex, you must understand where I am coming from. There are many games that are “free roam” which is a very good concept, because 1) you are not limited to being “trapped” in environments 2) its just more realistic 3) free roam games have infinite replay value 4) something different always happens 4) the goals are up to the player, giving them choice of play style 5) linear games get boring faster because there are few paths, which leads to “forced” hack-in-slash game play, when the player may rather sneak by another way 6) free roam games have various environments, cities, people, interesting happenings, side quests 7) free roam games easily can implement “main quest” into their environments 8) free roam games don’t have an end like linear games. There is nothing more that I cannot stand, I HATE endings, I hate the idea that, for all you work for on building up your character, it all goes away in the “last boss” or whatever trap they throw at you. 9) free roam games can have more “secrets” and “lost treasure,” not only that free roam games can have more of a “mystical feeling” which makes you feel all tingly inside. 10) and of course, in free roam, a deep story can be easily implemented, but it is up to the player for what he really wants to do, and what his goals are. Not only that, a free roam game could make many more things that a player could be involved in. For example, the game world can have its own regions, politics, religions, races, current conflict, crime, factions, cities, people, vehicles, technology, planets, terrain, weather, time, cultures, food, history, weapons, ruins, secrets, it could go on forever and ever. And the best case scenario is to give the PLAYER the POWER to alter it, or have his own house, city, apartment, whatever, his own business, merchant, and guild, whatever a game wants. That is the soul glory and greatness of free roam. It is power and it gives the player the ability to “invent” and “create” and craft for his own, and not be bogged down by “forced” game play. I define complexity as how a sheer amount of “skills” could be tied into a game, and these “skills” are more than just hack-in-slash combat skills. Giving the player choice and customobility is of utmost importance. Even IF the sacrifice is the loss of balance of a game, and even if some “classes” are just better, it is well worth it, if the player is willing to pick poor matching skills. Yet the great combat system must not allow a player to become too powerful in ALL areas of combat. Such that if a player is a tank for damage absorption, he could not have as much “kick” in his attacks as an enforcer offensive type of player with low defense (damage dealer). Also combat should be more than just damage, a good game should calculate “armor piercing rating, min-max damage, accuracy, skill mods, (damage type: cold, heal, electric, ect), weapon speed, efficiency, ideal range modifications, and details such as “Every point of STRENGTH adds +1% armor piercing, ect). And crafting should include “you mining” for recourses either yourself, or with self-extracting machines, that you come back to collect for every amount of game-hours. The recourses should have quality ratings and certain stats that affect the quality of whatever you craft. Also complexity is variety. Weapons, armor, clothing, skill attachments, are all part of complexity and customization. There is nothing better than the feeling of looting “rare” loot. Any good game must have rare loot that can sell for many credits or gold or whatever. And to your case, “what is the point?” Well the truth is “the point is whatever you want.” Complexity even extends to how intricate the interface is. A good interface is VERY important. It must look professional, and have at least “3” meters that regulate something around the means of “health” “action” and “energy.” A good interface displays icons of special attacks aligned with the hot-keys. A good interface does not “get in the way” and stays in the corner, but a good interface is slightly transparent, and can be movable and placed wherever desired or closed. A good example of a good interface I think is Anarchy Online, even though the game is many years old, but Oh, I forgot games are appealing to lower end individuals now. Not only “Freedoms” and “Complexity” are important. But the final and one of the most important touches that alter moods of the human mind the most, are environments, variety, color, and sound. Any games that give that “special, unique, mystical, and vast”, feel for the environment are successful in this trait. A nice environment includes moving clouds in the sky, chancing times of day, weather, and myst or fog, and trees play a huge role as well. Also ARCHITECTURE is extremely important. When your character takes his first steps over the rolling hills, it better be “awe” dropping, like “Wow” that city is unique and cool. When it rains in a game I want to feel the “chills” and have a “cold” feeling that is special, and when you walk into a building, I want to feel “warm” and see warmer colors on the screen. And one of the best finishing touches to ALL games is sound. The music must match the mood, no spamming guitars or punk, are appropriate for environments. No beeepy music either, it will not do, the PC or console is not a gameboy. The environments should have ambient sounds that match the environments, weapons sound true, or at least good. And a sci-fi game must have unique sounds that have lasers that sound good, not “tazy” but more like “bewwooo-pooooew” is better, lol. Nothing is cooler than walking into a sci-fi city and seeing these tall shiny future buildings with cool flying car noises. Also good games have fluent and proper dialogue; a game should avoid slang, unless it’s dealing with the proper character. Also theme is very important. My favorite theme of all, which isn’t really ever done necessarily, is “if ancient civilizations were futuristic.” Because I think ancient architecture is superior to our modern boxes, and if those ancient civilizations could have the “class” with our future technology that would be the best. Such as a “Futuristic Knight,” who would possess futuristic armor, and a sword. Which to add variety, would be mixed with ranged classes. Saying that someone is a “knight” no matter sci-fi or not, sounds MUCH better than calling someone a marine which sounds “insulting” I feel. Knight looks like a better word in writing as well. I feel like this, I like the “feeling and class and way of life” in “medieval” type rpgs. But the sci-fi one will have more “things” and more variety than its counter-part, but will not have the “flow and command of language” a fantasy game would have. Just my two cents. Is there any game that has all of these combined? Answer: NO. But can it be done by man? Answer: ABSOLUTELY.

I think the debate about free roam vs. story based is similar to FPS vs. RTS; they're different things with different merits, and can techinically be combined together although usually not without sacrificing some of the strengths of both. Personally I like both free range and story based games.

I'm not sure whether you're wanting a debate on the merits of both free roam and story based games, but I'd be happy to list a few of the negatives of free roam for the purposes of the argument.

Firstly, and this is the big one for developers, free roam games are a lot harder to do. With linear games you have greater control over the path of the player. Free roam games need more content, more design work, more testing and just generally more of everything (except maybe script writing, or possibly voice acting work [smile]).

Secondly, free range games tend to stagnate. With strong story based games there's always something to do pushing the player on. With a pure free range game, there isn't the same drive to keep on progressing. You have to sacrifice the depth of a good story for the breadth of a vast world.

Thirdly, free range games often tend to fall in the trap of throwing too many bells and whistles at the player rather than polishing up a good core game. If you put too many skills, mini-games or little special details in the game it tends to end up a mess. There's the danger the designer wants to mimic too much of reality in the game, throwing too many options in there for the player to interact with the world. The problem is there's a limit to how much you can actually put in your game, and if you put too much in there players will expect to be able to do more than they actually can. The trick is to place the limit of how much interactivity you give your player somewhere achievable which still doesn't leave players wishing they could do more, which is something that's rather hard to do.

I also don't agree with some of the rules you've listed for interface design or the sheer amount of skills you need to offer the player. I'm not a big fan of overwhelming the player with too many variables. Or for that matter transparent interfaces (I find them more distracting than the opaque kind, unless they're very minimalist and mimicing a HUD).

I'll admit that I didn't read your entire post and that this post is just my opinion rather than any in depth analysis (I don't want to end up with a post as long as yours ;) ). But I will definately throw my support into your camp. Free roaming open world sandbox games are by far my favorite type. I hate the Grand Canyons of linearity so many games on rails provide. That's not to say that they don't have their place and aren't good games, but it's absolutely not my kind of gameplay. I lose interest very fast. There's plenty of available story no matter what kind of game you play, but I just don't see the need to have my hand held the entire time.

Game play that needs to die: load level, play level, load level, play next level, load level, play level, die, reload level, play level, repeat until game is finished.

I like the idea of Free Roam but I don’t like a lot of the Free Roam games,
My main gripes are that they’re rarely a sandbox, as nothing you do ever seems to have a significant effect on the world and they have very little reward for completing quests or other objectives and too much for grinding.

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Original post by helix Game play that needs to die: load level, play level, load level, play next level, load level, play level, die, reload level, play level, repeat until game is finished.

Indeed: streamed loading. Other than that, I'm perfectly happy with that sort of gameplay. ;)

Personally, I've got some problems with free-roam games:
- They're overwhelming and leave me with less direction than I desire. Which easily makes me think I missed something because I turned left instead of right.
- How much I dislike to see a good game end, it better end when it's still good rather than fade into boringdom. I value a strong story/gameplay combination much more than the additional length or freedom.

When I want to play a sandbox game, I grab a level editor. Free-form games are just not for me. And that's perfectly fine: not everyone likes the same kind of gameplay. But that's not a reason to condemn other games: they're just as valid and fun games as the ones you like, and the diversity in games is only a good thing. As for your rant, DarkMortars, sounds to me like an over-complex game that would be extremely expensive to create. Possible, perhaps, but worth the risk and resources? I don't know. I wonder though, do you play any other games than (MMO)RPG's? Personally I like some diversity: FPS, RTS, platformers, casual (smaller/puzzle) games, adventures, race games...

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Original post by DarkMortar Me and my friend were arguing at school about free roam vs story-based epic games. My friend stated that free roam games are pointless and get boring because there is no story to follow, when I say it is completly false as I wrote an email to him about this debate. I perfer free roam because it seems more creative and wide than something like an FF series. Well ok the FF series is creative, but what I mean is that I don't like being forced into places as I describe in my email: You MUST PLEASE read all of this, I don’t type for nothing or just a scan:

Ok, I read it. If you don't feel like returning the favor, here's the short version of my response:

You didn't seem to stay focused on your thesis: Free roam games are superior to story-based epics. Maybe that's a bit strong, but you didn't even stick to the weaker statement you may have been making: Free roam games are just as good as story-based epics. Nearly all of what you rambled on about is acheivable in a story-based epic and, I'll even go so far as to say that it's much more difficult, if even possible, to acheive some of that in a free roam game. Even this would be fine if you had given some argument as to why you felt this is difficult or impossible in a story-based epic, but you just said, "These are things I'd like to see in a game".

Personally, I like both styles. I'm taking the Final Fantasy series as the "typical story-based epic" and the Fallout series (Well, I and II) as the "typical free roam game". If you disagree with this, that may be the source of our disagreement.

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When I say the “ideal game” should be free roam and complex, you must understand where I am coming from. There are many games that are “free roam” which is a very good concept, because

Most of what follows is not limited to "free roam" games.

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1) you are not limited to being “trapped” in environments

Ok, this one is limited to free roam games. Final Fantasy often traps you in order to tell a good story. Then again, free roam games have an analogous problem: stagnation. The driving force in story based games is always present; free roam games don't have a driving force. You have to provide your own driving force, sort of like real-life which, in some ways, destroys the escape value of games (which you seem to value by some of your later comments).

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2) its just more realistic

I don't think realism is always a benefit to games. But, allowing for the sake of argument that realism is a good thing, I'd say that the lack of realism is even more apparent in free roam games. It's like CG images of people: the more realistic they get, the more eerily "off" they appear.

Also, I'm not entirely sure that it is more realistic. In real life, requirements are placed on you. Ok, it's realistic in that, no, you don't have to go to work, and you can, instead, rummage through your neighbor's house. However, these aren't viable options in real life so disallowing them doesn't reduce meaningful realism. (Note, if rummaging through your neighbor's house instead of going to work is part of the game's premise, then I'd say it's ok to disallow the option of actually going to work. If a character wins the lottery in a story, whether or not it's a Deus Ex Machina depends a lot on whether it happens in the first or third act.)

But realism, like I said, isn't always a good thing. Do you complain that it's unrealistic that I don't have to pack rations before travelling in Fallout?

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3) free roam games have infinite replay value

Until the options stagnate. I got tired of SimCity 2000 because there's no goal. "Ok, I have a large, self-sufficient city, what now?" Well, I can make it even larger! Ok... but I've had enough of making it larger... well, I can terrorize innocents with disasters and have some fun rebuilding, but each disaster is interesting only so many times...

I say that FFVI has infinite replay value in the same way that LotR has infinite reread value.

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4) something different always happens

True of story based games, too, except one would probably word it "something different is always happening". I guess that's another way that I feel story based games are more realistic: Stuff actually happens.

But maybe you're saying that on replaying, something different happens than the last play through, but that's only true if you do something different. The exact same interactions are still available. Also, some (Kest, I'm looking at you) suggest that there should be no replay in free roam games. This would negate your "free roam as superset of story based" idea you later suggest. I also feel that it leads to stagnation faster since, in some ways, more options are available at the start than at the end (unless you want to allow the character to become an unrealistic renaissance man).

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4) the goals are up to the player, giving them choice of play style

Also available in story based games, except in the form of "I feel like playing game X instead of game Y right now". Actually, even many story based games offer free form elements. Deus Ex offered a choice of play style and was story based.

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5) linear games get boring faster because there are few paths, which leads to “forced” hack-in-slash game play, when the player may rather sneak by another way

I disagree. So long as the path available is interesting, I won't be bored. May as well ask what's better: a free roaming game that allows several non-interesting paths or a story based game that allows one interesting path? But even if all the paths in the free roam game are interesting, I don't see that as being superior to having a single path that's interesting.

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6) free roam games have various environments, cities, people, interesting happenings, side quests

So does Final Fantasy, and the story allows these environments, cities, people, interesting happenings, and side quests to have a better and deeper exposition.

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7) free roam games easily can implement “main quest” into their environments

Not really. I think Fallout wouldn't have been nearly so great if it had enough "main quest" to rival Final Fantasy in terms of story telling.

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8) free roam games don’t have an end like linear games. There is nothing more that I cannot stand, I HATE endings, I hate the idea that, for all you work for on building up your character, it all goes away in the “last boss” or whatever trap they throw at you.

Right, and not having that something to work toward leads to stagnation. In linear games, like Final Fantasy, there's a reason to level up; in Fallout, there's really no reason to level up.

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9) free roam games can have more “secrets” and “lost treasure,” not only that free roam games can have more of a “mystical feeling” which makes you feel all tingly inside.

Really? Because one of the reasons I love replaying Final Fantasy games is because their stories, and the characters and world developed through their stories, create a "mystical feeling" that I enjoy. The reason I enjoy free roam games is very different: I like poking the black box.

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10) and of course, in free roam, a deep story can be easily implemented, but it is up to the player for what he really wants to do, and what his goals are.

I disagree that it's easy to implement a deep story in a free roam game. That is, without ruining its free-roaminess.

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Not only that, a free roam game could make many more things that a player could be involved in. For example, the game world can have its own regions, politics, religions, races, current conflict, crime, factions, cities, people, vehicles, technology, planets, terrain, weather, time, cultures, food, history, weapons, ruins, secrets, it could go on forever and ever.

Ah, but a story based game goes one step beyond allowing a player to be involved; a story based game involves the player in those things. I'm not longer in a world where I have many possibilities, I'm in a world where I have many realities.

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And the best case scenario is to give the PLAYER the POWER to alter it, or have his own house, city, apartment, whatever, his own business, merchant, and guild, whatever a game wants. That is the soul glory and greatness of free roam. It is power and it gives the player the ability to “invent” and “create” and craft for his own, and not be bogged down by “forced” game play.

To quote He-Man: I HAVE THE POWER! [lol]

But, anyway, I have my own apartment, I could start my own business, I could start a club/guild, whatever I want. I guess the only difference is that I can't do it in, say, Middle-Earth. And, if that's the sole glory and greatness, then it's certainly missing out on the glory and greatness found in story based games. Count the cost.

Also, I don't ever feel "forced" in story based games. My PSone (How old school am I? [smile]) has two buttons on it: on/off and open. I only play a game because I "choose" to have that experience.

By the way, I'm really curious, was your use of the word "soul" a mistake or a play on words?

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I define complexity as how a sheer amount of “skills” could be tied into a game, and these “skills” are more than just hack-in-slash combat skills.

Flippant response: I define complexity as something I don't have time for.

More seriously: I'm not impressed with sheer amount of skills tied into a game, I'm more impressed with the interesting ways in which those skills interact in a game. A story based or "fixed skillset" game gives the designer more opportunity to tune the gameplay to be interesting for that particular skillset.

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Giving the player choice and customobility is of utmost importance.

I think giving the player an enjoyable experience is of the utmost importance, and I think there are more roads to an enjoyable experience than choice and customizability.

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[Snip stuff that applies to pretty much any game, story based, free roaming, or otherwise.]

Yeah, that applies to pretty much any game, story based, free roaming, or otherwise.

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And crafting should include “you mining” for recourses either yourself, or with self-extracting machines, that you come back to collect for every amount of game-hours.

Read: Crafting should include all the tedious and boring aspects it does in real life.

No, thank you.

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The recourses should have quality ratings and certain stats that affect the quality of whatever you craft. Also complexity is variety. Weapons, armor, clothing, skill attachments, are all part of complexity and customization. There is nothing better than the feeling of looting “rare” loot.

Really? I get a better feeling from defeating a difficult boss, but I guess you could count "plot advancement" as "rare loot" in an abstract way. Actually, sometimes I don't even care about the plot advancement. I still haven't beaten Emerald Weapon, but, after I beat it, I don't really care what loot it gives me. The loot is worthless, the enjoyment was in overcoming Emerald Weapon.

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Any good game must have rare loot that can sell for many credits or gold or whatever. And to your case, “what is the point?” Well the truth is “the point is whatever you want.”

Then, I ask you, what is your point in collecting "rare" loot and selling it for many credits or gold or whatever? Serious question.

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Complexity even extends to how intricate the interface is. A good interface is VERY important. It must look professional, and have at least “3” meters that regulate something around the means of “health” “action” and “energy.” A good interface displays icons of special attacks aligned with the hot-keys. A good interface does not “get in the way” and stays in the corner, but a good interface is slightly transparent, and can be movable and placed wherever desired or closed. A good example of a good interface I think is Anarchy Online, even though the game is many years old

Haven't played, but complex interfaces are bad. Good interfaces hide complexity that isn't of a concern at the moment.

Demanding at least 3 meters also indicates a prefered style of game play. What if the game play only requires two? Also, by interface, what all are you including? Are you including the actual viewport into the gameworld, or just the meters and the like? Do you include the keyboad/mouse/gamepad in the interface?

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but Oh, I forgot games are appealing to lower end individuals now.

And just what do you mean by "lower end individuals"?

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But the final and one of the most important touches that alter moods of the human mind the most, are environments, variety, color, and sound.

Just as applicable, and more easily acheived, in story based games.

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Also good games have fluent and proper dialogue; a game should avoid slang, unless it’s dealing with the proper character.

Slang is also allowed if it fits in with the game's style.

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Also theme is very important. My favorite theme of all, which isn’t really ever done necessarily, is “if ancient civilizations were futuristic.”

*cough* Final Fantasy *cough*

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Because I think ancient architecture is superior to our modern boxes, and if those ancient civilizations could have the “class” with our future technology that would be the best. Such as a “Futuristic Knight,” who would possess futuristic armor, and a sword. Which to add variety, would be mixed with ranged classes. Saying that someone is a “knight” no matter sci-fi or not, sounds MUCH better than calling someone a marine which sounds “insulting” I feel. Knight looks like a better word in writing as well. I feel like this, I like the “feeling and class and way of life” in “medieval” type rpgs. But the sci-fi one will have more “things” and more variety than its counter-part, but will not have the “flow and command of language” a fantasy game would have. Just my two cents.

I think this shows a limited view of history. For example, ancient architecture only looks superior to our modern boxes because the equivalent of our modern boxes haven't stood the test of time. There's plenty of architecture today that rivals ancient architecture in beauty; the stuff that doesn't will be allowed to pass away.

I actually think marine is a beatiful word. If I wanted to be condescending, I'd ask you to not impose your living in the past on the rest of us. However, I feel the magic of the middle ages and love playing with anachronisms (Which is one reason I love Final Fantasy). But, still, please don't impose your personal preference on all games, or I'll find a marine to kick your ass. [wink]

Also, this is very far from the free roam vs. story based idea.

TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE! TARGET AUDIENCE!

That's what decides the type of game you make.

Hardcore gamers make up a small margin of the game market. Making a game that caters to them is going to usually result in lower sales.

Some people want to just jump into a game and have 10-60 minutes of wasting time in a sand box type of game. Not quests, just play.

Other types of players want to sit for 12 hours straight (final fantasy) and feel like they have progressed and been taken through a journey.

This writting was not supposed to be an "eassay" or whatever, it was my anger. The problem with linear games is that once you beat it, it is indefinetly easier to beat it again. A free roam game can easily give the character the ability to actually "change" the game world.

I personailly perfer the strategic feeling and value of, sorting through the skills and working out what a good character template would be. Lienar games leave little to explore, and the problem with "only" story based games is that I end up not feeling attached to my character, because "I" did not make him/her. Story based games FORCE you be a character usually, either that or their customobility is so poor to where your ability to alter appearence is limited. Also, every replay of a linear game is, THE SAME DIALOGUE, over and over, and it gets irritating. The main reason people think, "oh, free roam games have NO plot." Well thats because all the free roam games have none(i think). But I find crafting fun and interresting, if its done RIGHT. People are all "hack-in-slash" "I want to fight now, now, kill him." I also hate how most games have WAY TOO MANY enemies, appear constinatly, it ruins the environemnt and makes me feel less ingaged or strategic. Personailly, I dont care how much it "sells" or whatever, I just want a deep and vast game, that does not trap you, and one of choice. Just my 3 cents.

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Original post by DarkMortar This writting was not supposed to be an "eassay" or whatever, it was my anger. The problem with linear games is that once you beat it, it is indefinetly easier to beat it again. A free roam game can easily give the character the ability to actually "change" the game world.

Well, still, your anger diverged into things that have nothing to do with free roam vs. story based.

Also, it seems a bit strange to me to say that it's indefinitely easier to beat a linear game a second time when free roam games are either not beaten (in which case the comparison is meaningless) or the player sets the goals (in which case it may be even easier to "beat" a free roam game on the first "play through").

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I personailly perfer the strategic feeling and value of, sorting through the skills and working out what a good character template would be.

Which is one reason I enjoy FFVIII's junction system more than other FF systems.

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Lienar games leave little to explore, and the problem with "only" story based games is that I end up not feeling attached to my character, because "I" did not make him/her. Story based games FORCE you be a character usually, either that or their customobility is so poor to where your ability to alter appearence is limited. Also, every replay of a linear game is, THE SAME DIALOGUE, over and over, and it gets irritating.

Out of curiosity, do you ever feel attached to the characters in a book or movie? Do you never reread books or rewatch movies?

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The main reason people think, "oh, free roam games have NO plot." Well thats because all the free roam games have none(i think).

Well, if they have no plot, that's a very good reason for people to think that they have no plot. [grin]

It also means that if someone wants a good plot, story based games are incomparably better than free roam games.

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But I find crafting fun and interresting, if its done RIGHT. People are all "hack-in-slash" "I want to fight now, now, kill him." I also hate how most games have WAY TOO MANY enemies, appear constinatly, it ruins the environemnt and makes me feel less ingaged or strategic. Personailly, I dont care how much it "sells" or whatever, I just want a deep and vast game, that does not trap you, and one of choice. Just my 3 cents.

Well, I'd say that a C++ compiler is about as deep, vast, trapless, and most choice-ful option you can find. Pretty challenging, too. [grin]

More seriously, why does having so many enemies make you feel less engaged and less strategic?

I also think that a game is only a game insofar as it limits your choices. A chess set isn't a game, the game is also includes the set of rules, which limit choices. However, this is more an argument that a "free roam game" shouldn't be classified as a game and has nothing to do with whether they're better or worse than story based games.


P.S. Did you read all of my post? I didn't type it for nothing or just a scan. [wink]

Free-roaming and linear gameplays are two very different fields imo.

Linear gameplays tend to be more solid by setting limitations and by setting enough to satisfy the player's enjoyment. And of course, it does get boring after awhile, but that's the same thing with movies and music. There are enough artists/producers out there providing different types of artworks for everyone to enjoy.

Free-roaming games will stagnate as well. But I think one of the biggest mistake is to think that free-roaming games needs a story to give itself a drive. Imo, free-roaming should not and never be based on any stories. The idea just clashes no matter what.

I think the most important concept about free-roaming games is INTERACTIVITY. It's about how you change the "world" and how that "world" changes back you. It needs to have an action and reaction in every single way, which are highly impossible to achieve in this age. And it is also important to remember, that whatever you can do to the "world", the "world" can do back to you. If you can sneak around that corner targeting an enemy, so can the computer AI.