Open World Design - How to Build Open World Games - Extra Credits

Open world games offer players great opportunities to explore, but developers must figure out how to organize their team to create an immersive experience across so many hours of content.
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♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM

♪ Outro Music: "Hero of the Heartlands" by Scott Buckley

[shaun]

As a writer, I sometimes feel it would be better to create the world before deciding on either method. Create the world, the politics and the history and the legends and the towns/dungeons/encounters will fall into place.

[nukeclears]

1: Make world
2: Fill it up with things to do
3: Add main story

This way it feels like the story is happening in a place rather than a place happening around a story.

[jackhume]

The ramp versus goblin camp bit. I have a slight argument for that. I mean ultimately yes you're right. But take for example one of my dad's favorite things to do in skyrim. There is this one particular forsworn camp he likes to terrorize. He sets himself up on the cliffs just within render distance of the camp and he snipes them with his bow. If he runs out of arrows he moves to a closer cliff that he can peek over and bait the forsworn into shooting at him. Then he'll duck down behind a rock and catch the arrow as it bounces off the cliff wall behind the rock he's hiding behind. He will literally do this for days. He'll mess around with the camp, wipe out all the forsworn, leave and do something else for a couple in game days, and then come back when he knows the camp is refilled again. So for him the forsworn camp is more like the ramp in your analogy, its a toy for him. He enjoys skyrim quite a bit more than I do for this reason.

[yasiru]

Bethesda actually does a really good job at making areas feel holistic. In skyrim, the areas with the autumn theme have custom trees, grass, plants, etc. Same applies to woods, meadows, dungeons, towns, snowy areas, mountains, caves, etc.

[JCDentonModder]

Though this comment will likely be ignored, I can provide some great advise on this subject matter as to 'how' to design an open world. The biggest piece and most crucial advise I can give designers is that the human eye is great at grasping depth detail. Whether you realize it or not, either consciously or subconsciously, the human eye notices straight lines and curves, and extrapolates three-dimensional depth at a glance. Good level designers know this and intentionally make an effort to break up the terrain profile so that players are able to more easily gain immersion from their experiences. Assuming you don't try to break up the terrain and go with a '"flat" surface, the human eye will notice the straight lines and to some degree consciously avoid immersion into the game as an "artificial" experience. This; however, is not a mere matter of simply adding hills. The human eye also extrapolates a basic understanding of basic terrain concepts from real life experience. Adding hills without rocks, trees, grass, etc; to break up the profile will also have the same effect as noticing straight lines.

[RaggedLands]

I really liked the Open World Design in the Gothic Series. They provided natural boundaries for the player by placing high-level enemies and ridges as well as cliffs.

[Alorand]

6:10 - hearing the music again gave me shivers...
This is beyond nostalgia, somehow a core bit of who I am has been defined by that series of games, and for that matter all of the previous titles from that developer.

[Rotciv]

SO
Zelda Breath of the Wild
Open World or Sandbox
Because you can do both

[CamsEyeView]

Have you guys talked about how to keep the overall story in the open world RPGs or sandbox games interesting? Because I find that to be the biggest issue where the side quests and lore of the game is much more interesting than the main game. Heck, it's my problem with games like Skyrim and Dragon's Dogma

[ChrisFinch]

The fact that different design philosophies is what underlies every design decision, and that the entire team should be on the same page regarding their chosen philosophy, is something that some studio bosses have a very hard time understanding. A project that I'm basically bailing out on (along with two other people, who feel similarly about it) is a great example of how little understanding of actual design methodology some companies tend to have.

When I tried to get the boss on the same page, all I ever heard was "You're overcomplicating things." or "Now you're just quoting a game design book.". Why yes, yes I am doing both those things. It's sort of my job to communicate these minute, subtle decisions and problems to others... problems arise when they're not listening.

[bierkofbauer]

"I've got to say, I'm looking forward to seeing a game crack the problem of providing modules, many adventures, and tiny cohesive stories in a seamless open-world design" = Breath of the Wild (2017)

[SitcomedyCD]

I love you guys. Seriously, your show teaches me so much about what I want to eventually do for a living. Thank you for being available as an educational tool that I feel actually applies to the career that I want to pursue.

[Thewsx]

5:40  i would say far cry 3 did the camps / outposts really well. i played with those heaps, seeing different ways to take them out, using different weapons or distraactions

[frankie]

Extra Credits:
An open-world game with modules, adventures, and a story doesn't exi-
*Breath of the Wild*

[MrEPICCITY]

Dude, I stumbled onto your channel and I love it! You care so much and that passion comes out through your words. The reason most of us are here is because we want to be able to discuss video games in an academic approach and you bring us much closer to that future. Thank you for your work and dedication to your channel! Allons-y!

[rmt]

Videos like this are why I don't have notifications turned off for you. I just learned far more than I bargained for, in far more areas that I was seeking answers in than what I was searching for.

[shadowsivice]

3:54 I see that banner. I absolutely agree. Dragon's Dogma was amazing.

[neon]

That whole "modules" thing reminded me of Paper Mario:  The Thousand Year Door.  While you did have to go through the story one way and go through everything in order, every chapter did feel at least somewhat different and they all had their own mini story line, while all having a connection to the main story line.  So maybe you could look at that game to see how to effectively make those mini story lines.

[Zoticus]

You all are doing great work here! I actually do a lot of pen and paper game creation ( including some semi-professional  DnD/pathfinder work) and a lot of the topics you folks you cover here translate over really well. I even play your ' fail faster' video whenever I need to psyche myself up for a big project. 

[TheGameCreator]

Thank you so much extra credit. I've been working on an open world game and I have had some of these questions bugging me. Thanks for addressing them :D
You guys are the BEST!