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[samoilaaa]

'Very few' people would play a Morrowind-style RPG with 'no compass, no map' and a reliance on quest text, says ESO director, 'which is kind of sad'

(M)oral compass.

www.pcgamer.com

"Games that have "no compass, no map," where "literally the quests are like 'go to the third tree on the right and walk 50 paces west'" just won't reach a modern audience, Friar explains: "If you did that now, no one would play it. Very few people would play it. So now you need to give them hints and clues, and nobody wants to really devote that much time to problem solving. Like they want to go and be told the story, or interact with another player, or interact with an NPC."

unfortunately this is true , i saw alot of people (even here) that when they play rpgs they just skip all the dialog to go to the next marker like its a chore , if you play a game you like why would you do this , thats why environmental storytelling is dying , you have games where everything around you would give you hints about what happened or where you should go next

 

[Shodai]

25 million elden ring players suggest otherwise regarding a good bit of his sentiment

 

[HL3.exe]

Laughs in Elden Ring and BOTW/TOTK.

 

[gothmog]

Lol. What an absurd conclusion when most MMO quests are basically the same lame grind fetch quests over and over.

 

[Wildebeest]

BGS got lucky with their dumbing down and "no weird stuff" shit coinciding with a rising wave of interest for open world games, and can't admit they don't really understand what they are doing.

 

[tommib]

With the sales of Elden Ring and open world Zelda I would say The People are thirsty for it.

 

[AV]

How are we already on three mentions of Elden Ring, a game that literally has gigantic sparkly floating lines telling you which way to go to progress?

 

[EviLore]

I see BGS and Zenimax Online share the same cafeteria kool-aid.

 

[STARSBarry]

He's right though, it won't sell...

That's only because hes not fucking making it though, can't sell if it doesn't exist am I right?

 

[bender]

I'd throw in fast travel as well. While Morrowind had a fast travel system, it was lore specific and limited to major towns.

Elden Ring isn't a great example as it has a map and waypoint system. Zelda isn't the best example either but BOTW did have a quest you had to solve by reading a description of where a treasure would be found and then using landmarks to locate it. That reminded me of Morrowind a lot.

Outward is a decent example, not that it is popular. It has a map but it doesn't tell you where you are on the map.

edit: Outward, not Outland

 

[Kokoloko85]

Edit... cba

 

[tommib]

How are we already on three mentions of Elden Ring, a game that literally has gigantic sparkly floating lines telling you which way to go to progress?

Of course, how could we forget:

 

[samoilaaa]

25 million elden ring players suggest otherwise regarding a good bit of his sentiment

yeah but thats like an exception , most people still prefer a short 8-15 hour game with map markers

if you think how big the gaming community is 25 million isnt even 10% , and out of those 25 million players how many finished the game ? or even reached the middle ?

statistically speaking most players these days when games are this long and hard they just play it for 1-2 hours and never touch it again but they buy it because of hype

 

[Wildebeest]

He's right though, it won't sell...

That's only because hes not fucking making it though, can't sell if it doesn't exist am I right?

You must have a PhD in game marketing.

 

[proandrad]

True, because there would be nothing to distract people of their shitty gameplay.

 

[Punished Miku]

Starfield proved that was true. Just mapless cities was enough for people to trash the game. I loved it.

 

[Bring Back Scalebound]

Wondering around for hours not knowing where to go, because I'm either not bright enough, or because the game is that obtuse, is not engaging at all, yeah... For me.

I would rather play Final Fantasy 13, then any game described in the title or something like a Romancing SaGa, that give little to no hints of where you need to go.

I have deep respect for games that take risks like that, and make actual exploration a essential part of the game. But do I want to play them? Not in a million years.

Give me map markers all day. I like not having my limited amount of daily playtime wasted.

Games today are all about player choice and accessibility. So add an option to either have a map marker fest, or have the NPCs or quest logs give you light directions of where you should go.

A game-design-dogshit-fest game like Red Dead Redemption 2 had that, so any other game can.

 

[Little Chicken]

How are we already on three mentions of Elden Ring, a game that literally has gigantic sparkly floating lines telling you which way to go to progress?

...and a compass at the top of the screen

 

[AV]

Would also like to point out again that "I read a journal and it said go to the house with the purple roof on the left" is not the 200-IQ-only game design people like to pretend it is. Morrowind ain't all it's cracked up to be.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Been out of touch with gaming for a decade so when I first played Live a Live on Switch I found it kind of annoying that there was this bright spot in the map always telling me where I should go. By the third story or so I realized there was an option to disable that from the menu, yet I was already used at it. The older you get the more you appreciate time as a non renewable resource.

 

[GHG]

25 million elden ring players suggest otherwise regarding a good bit of his sentiment

Came to say this and also reference BOTW.

Some of these developers/executives are so out of touch.

Or what he really means to say is that they no longer have the ability to create quests and dialogue that aren't designed around the player just blindly following a minimap/compass marker.

 

[VideoGameEnjoyer]

Could there be a more tone deaf statement with the current state of the industry?

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

How are we already on three mentions of Elden Ring, a game that literally has gigantic sparkly floating lines telling you which way to go to progress?

guess it's people who never actually played morrowind (which is probably most people here).
navigating elden ring is an absolute cake walk compared to morrowind.

 

[March Climber]

I understand the developer fear of not wanting to go back to old school design, but I feel that if that is truly the case, they should work on better in-world map and compass integrations to still give that old school feeling while combining it with modern sensibilities.

Example:

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

TIL that Elden Ring is a Marrowind style RPG, lol

 

[killatopak]

Baffling for him to say that when Starfield releases without a map.

 

[March Climber]

Baffling for him to say that when Starfield releases without a map.

And many people here and elsewhere complained about this, even though they actually did decent location, landmark, and area design to accommodate for no map.

 

[Punished Miku]

And many people here and elsewhere complained about this, even though they actually did decent location, landmark, and area design to accommodate for no map.

And everything still had markers, and a scanner. It was still very easy to find most things compared to Morrowind and people still complained.

 

[Roberts]

I love the way you find stuff in Sea of Thieves. Vague descriptions on a piece of paper and then you have to put pieces of the puzzle together yourself. There is something super rewarding about diving in the middle of the sea where your only guide is a compass and locations of the islands around you and find exactly what you were looking for at the bottom of the sea.

 

[cireza]

Still waiting to see an open-world where the very concept of being large and open is part of the game-design. For now, we have been getting games with huge world but where the developers thought that they had to put shit everywhere. So you get your copy-pasted content all over the place, and everything gets boring and tedious in only a few hours.

A super large open-world where nothing of interest in to be found with the exception of a very few places, and where finding these places is the core of the gameplay. Now I would play this.

 

[Braag]

I mean, he's not entirely wrong. My friend recently rage quit Elden Ring DLC cause he accidentally broke a side quest for exploring an area too early.
It's not impossible to get high sales with a game like that, but Elden Ring is bit of an exception.

 

[rm082e]

It's almost as if game design and player expectations evolve over the course of...(checks notes)...22 years.

 

[Punished Miku]

It's almost as if game design and player expectations evolve over the course of...(checks notes)...22 years.

Or devolve

 

[ajanke]

25 million elden ring players suggest otherwise regarding a good bit of his sentiment

Came in here to say this. Dudes just talking out of his ass haha

 

[bender]

Or what he really means to say is that they no longer have the ability to create quests and dialogue that aren't designed around the player just blindly following a minimap/compass marker.

He's probably correct but not for the right reasons. Elden Ring both gives players a lot of directional help and has layers of obtuse. I'd guess the average person's playing experience in that game is accompanied by this (or the Youtube equivalent):

Which could lead one to ask, what's the point in obtuse design with the amount of resources at our disposal? Probably a conversation for another topic.

I'm probably in the minority, but one of the biggest reasons I love open world games is that I want to get lost. Most open world games aren't designed this way. Further, I'm not a fan of fast travel. In my logic board, that just seems counter to why I'm playing an open world game in the first place. As soon as I use fast travel in a game, I do consider that a failure of design. And even further, I like design that makes it okay to miss things. Nothing is better than revisiting a game and having new experiences in that game world. Most open world games don't utilize this philopshy. They don't want you to be lost, they don't want to miss content (which is funny considering most people will not even finish a game, much less mine it of all of its' content). I tell this anecdote a lot, but one of my favorite things in Morrowind was a quest give that gave wrong directions to a cave or other point of interest. No idea if that was intentional design or just a desync between the quest writer and world designer, but I got so lost because of this and had a mini-adventure because of it. Maybe it's because I'm terrible at directions in real life, but a fallible NPC just felt so authentic. It's also something we'd never see in a game designed today.

 

[Hudo]

I mean, the guy is not wrong with his assessment. Most people don't want to commit 100% of their attention to a video game because they also have phones/tiktok to scroll though and maybe a second monitor where the favorite Twitch streamer is going on about stuff.

Morrowind actually demands 100% of your attention from time to time.

 

[lughnasadh123]

I don't think he's wrong at all about the amount of work people want to put into navigating and working within a game world. Something like that while novel at first would quickly become a chore leading to much more severe burnout that what already exists.

You could easily argue that any outliers for the above are actually more popular than their predecessors, at least FS games is because they made the game more accessible and quite frankly easier for people to do shit in the game. But I also think they are the kind of games where it's more of a point in a direction and go, like BotW/TotK where having a narrative tied to vague instructions matter far less because people are more happy to ignore the story and just wander around.

I'd also be hesitant about using sales numbers of proof as any concrete direction of gaming tastes due to just how varied those results can be. Ultimately the question of what design works best is really something that should be done with a franchise itself rather than spread out broadly amongst studios and genres. Some games are just going to get away with some shit that others never will.

 

[SCB3]

Laughs in Elden Ring and BOTW/TOTK.

Was about to say, Souls and Zelda exist, proving this wrong

 

[Miles708]

I have played Morrowind on Xbox when it came out, loved it.

I would 100% NOT play it ever again.

 

[Arsic]

Total bull shit.

 

[GHG]

He's probably correct but not for the right reasons. Elden Ring both gives players a lot of directional help and has layers of obtuse. I'd guess the average person's playing experience in that game is accompanied by this (or the Youtube equivalent):

Which could lead one to ask, what's the point in obtuse design with the amount of resources at our disposal? Probably a conversation for another topic.

I'm probably in the minority, but one of the biggest reasons I love open world games is that I want to get lost. Most open world games aren't designed this way. Further, I'm not a fan of fast travel. In my logic board, that just seems counter to why I'm playing an open world game in the first place. As soon as I use fast travel in a game, I do consider that a failure of design. And even further, I like design that makes it okay to miss things. Nothing is better than revisiting a game and having new experiences in that game world. Most open world games don't utilize this philopshy. They don't want you to be lost, they don't want to miss content (which is funny considering most people will not even finish a game, much less mine it of all of its' content). I tell this anecdote a lot, but one of my favorite things in Morrowind was a quest give that gave wrong directions to a cave or other point of interest. No idea if that was intentional design or just a desync between the quest writer and world designer, but I got so lost because of this and had a mini-adventure because of it. Maybe it's because I'm terrible at directions in real life, but a fallible NPC just felt so authentic. It's also something we'd never see in a game designed today.

The same would be true for Morrowind if it released today though. There would be a wiki guide along with a ton of video guide/walkthrough content available online.

But that's part of the point, it's a way of encouraging players to create a community around the game and help each other - that can also be seen in many of the core game features such as messages and the ability to summon other players to help.

It's like a lot of game designers these days are afraid that players will get lost or go off in random directions in their games (as seen by the infamous "return to mission area" nonsense that plagues a lot of open would games these days). I can't think of any reason why other than the fact that they don't want to expose how empty and worthless most of the open worlds they create are. There's nothing to do, nothing to see, and nothing to find. Most of the open world games these days just function as a backdrop for a series of linear story missions rather than the world itself and the things you can find telling the story.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Should be optional.

All devs have to do to ensure gamers know whats going on is just have a brief quest log. So gamers know what to do. If a quest says: Return a sword to Blacksmith Bob in Town X. Then just state that. No need for compass arrows distance markers and shit beelining gamers there.

I can understand game makers having some kind of reminder system. The old days had zero everything. So if there was a quest to do but you didnt write it down, you'd be fucked.

 

[cormack12]

People don't want to do it with very markers in these big open worlds. It's like map walking, if you take a wrong bearing by 3/4 degrees after 2 miles you're way off.

Rdr did well with the smoke stacks, and a few other games have done it well. I actually think Valhalla did an OK job of this as well - some of the clues were like it's at a settlement where river a meets river b. You'd get there and get the raven out and it would make the area a little smaller to search.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

This is bullshit. If you make an amazingly immersive RPG with great contextual side quests and a great world to explore, people will gladly unveil its secrets. But guess what. You need talent and lot of work to make that happen. A lazy effort like every Ubisoft open world without markers won't cut it.

He's blaming the wrong people. No surprises here. "Modern audiences" my ass.

 

[R6Rider]

Starfield proved that was true. Just mapless cities was enough for people to trash the game. I loved it.

Wrong.

People complained because the game had maps, but they were so dogshit and useless. Morrowind had maps and they actually worked.

 

[bender]

The same would be true for Morrowind if it released today though. There would be a wiki guide along with a ton of video guide/walkthrough content available online.

But that's part of the point, it's a way of encouraging players to create a community around the game and help each other - that can also be seen in many of the core game features such as messages and the ability to summon other players to help.

It's like a lot of game designers these days are afraid that players will get lost or go off in random directions in their games (as seen by the infamous "return to mission area" nonsense that plagues a lot of open would games these days). I can't think of any reason why other than the fact that they don't want to expose how empty and worthless most of the open worlds they create are. There's nothing to do, nothing to see, and nothing to find. Most of the open world games these days just function as a backdrop for a series of linear story missions rather than the world itself and the things you can find telling the story.

I wish more open world games had less to do. Modern open world design seems to have some sort of engagement metric that prevent a player going more than a few steps without stumbling on an encounter, point of interest, loot, etc. It's why we get so much cut and paste content in games. It's one of m bigger criticisms of Elden Ring. The optional dungeons feel only slightly better than Bloodborne's Chalice Dungeons. A lot of the content is recycled, but worse yet it's recycled in such a formulaic way that it's easy to predict. I hate when I can "read the matrix" in game design, it just robs the sense of wonder and surprise. And while I'm telling anecdotes, one of my favorite things in Elden Ring was a stage coach robbery in the opening area. It was magical. And that magic faded when I encountered the same thing the next two or three times. Ditto for the DLC and Furnace Golems, except that was seven or eight times. I've always found it funny that Miyazaki has said he took a lot of inspiration from Ico. My assumption is that he played SOTC too. That's an open world with almost nothing it, but it serves unique purpose and is always a joy to explore and revisit. I wish designers would give their world more room to bleed and understand a handful of unique content is way more interesting than cutting and pasting a few content types ad nauseum. Though, to be fair, I do think recycling of content comes down to the desire for every game to be 30-100 hours.

 

[Griffon]

It absolutely can work. But only if the quest text doesn't suck and makes the steps clear.

Most devs fail to understand that.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Currently playing Journey to the Savage Planet and there is no map, I get a generic destination marker. It's not so much an open world as a Metrovania.
I don't think it needs a map.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I wish more open world games had less to do. Modern open world design seems to have some sort of engagement metric that prevent a player going more than a few steps without stumbling on an encounter, point of interest, loot, etc. It's why we get so much cut and paste content in games. It's one of m bigger criticisms of Elden Ring. The optional dungeons feel only slightly better than Bloodborne's Chalice Dungeons. A lot of the content is recycled, but worse yet it's recycled in such a formulaic way that it's easy to predict. I hate when I can "read the matrix" in game design, it just robs the sense of wonder and surprise. And while I'm telling anecdotes, one of my favorite things in Elden Ring was a stage coach robbery in the opening area. It was magical. And that magic faded when I encountered the same thing the next two or three times. Ditto for the DLC and Furnace Golems, except that was seven or eight times. I've always found it funny that Miyazaki has said he took a lot of inspiration from Ico. My assumption is that he played SOTC too. That's an open world with almost nothing it, but it serves unique purpose and is always a joy to explore and revisit. I wish designers would give their world more room to bleed and understand a handful of unique content is way more interesting than cutting and pasting a few content types ad nauseum. Though, to be fair, I do think recycling of content comes down to the desire for every game to be 30-100 hours.

I enjoy open world games, but ES games are pretty ridiculous in that every 1 minute walk in any direction youre basically guaranteed to bump into something. Made even less adventurous as it'll show up on the compass as a town, dungeon, alter, shrine icon etc.... and the closer you get the clearer the icon becomes until it's right in your face. So you dont even have to explore. Just follow the compass icons.

 

[bender]

It absolutely can work. But only if the quest text doesn't suck and makes the steps clear.

Most devs fail to understand that.

Witcher 3 comes to mind. Or they don't try: Skyrim.