Best find in an open world

As I was wandering around the Mojave Wasteland in New Vegas the other night, I started thinking about some of my best discoveries in (more or less) open worlds. I don't mean some magic sword from a random monster, but some carefully crafted scene or location that might only be there, tucked away somewhere many people will never find, just to be there.

I think Morrowind has to be my king of games for this. The world was so lovingly crafted, with little gems hidden all over the place. A lot of these places might have been part of some quest or another, but since the game wasn't designed in a quest-centric manner, it was entirely possible to stumble into a situation (say, a pilgrim held captive by some harpylike creatures) and never know the entire story behind it.

In particular, I fondly remember meeting a dancer (nudge nudge) on a lonely road in the northwest part of the island, who asked me to retrieve her ring from the bottom of a lake. It was a pain to find, but I emerged from the water hoping for a suitable reward, only to (spoilers ahead, if you've somehow missed this) be attacked by the "dancer" and her nearly invisible companion while the voice of Azura spoke to me. It wasn't part of a quest. It was a part of the map that many people probably never visited. It didn't really have any meaning, although you do get a nifty magical item out of it. It was just a fun little scene.

The game had so many other moments like this. Hidden Nord burial ships, nekkid Nords by the bucketful, hidden smuggler coves. I can't say how disappointed I was that Oblivion lacked this sort of depth, and how much I hope Skyrim brings some of it back.

My first time playing Fallout 3 and tracking down the one S.O.S. radio signal from a father and his child. Only to discover them long dead. I actually found myself taking a moment of silence as I shut off the radio.

And it's not open-world, but discovering the lore behind the Severed Hand in Icewind Dale still encapsulates how I define game "immersion" these 10+ years later.

A cave, high above in the cliff somewhere in Gothic 1 ... Not to be seen from the ground, unreachable for almost everyone ... I was greeted friendly ...

Alrik Fassbauer said:

A cave, high above in the cliff somewhere in Gothic 1 … Not to be seen from the ground, unreachable for almost everyone … I was greeted friendly …

Click to expand...

Hey I remember that one! And I don't believe you it was unreachable by almost everyone.

To be honest, in my case nothing, and I mean nothing, can compare with FO2 random encounters. And none of those suck. And I want drugs devs used while designing that game!
It might be that you don't consider FO2 an open world, but essentially it is an open world just not in 3D.

joxer said:

To be honest, in my case nothing, and I mean nothing, can compare with FO2 random encounters. And none of those suck. And I want drugs devs used while designing that game!

Click to expand...

Herds of randomly picked creatures from the game? You are sure easy to please! After the umpteenth time running into those stupid praying mantis bugs I just started running away because they weren't worth the waste of ammo to kill.

LOL what ammo? You unarmed plus Sulik with a hammer and they're history. Yes seems I'm easy to please. And it'd be great if you number ALL of them, not just one.

Number all of them? They were random. There were the herds of various bugs and radscorpions and such, remnants of the master's army (i.e., herds of mutants), raiders, super mutants, ...etc.

joxer said:

Hey I remember that one! And I don't believe you it was unreachable by almost everyone.

Click to expand...

With "almost everyone" I meant the people living in that valley.

Drithius said:

My first time playing Fallout 3 and tracking down the one S.O.S. radio signal from a father and his child. Only to discover them long dead. I actually found myself taking a moment of silence as I shut off the radio.

And it's not open-world, but discovering the lore behind the Severed Hand in Icewind Dale still encapsulates how I define game "immersion" these 10+ years later.

Click to expand...

Ah, yes, I'd completely forgotten about the SOS signal. That was a nice little touch. FO3 had a few nice little finds like that scattered around, and some of the random encounters were very FO2ish, if less weird.

Although it was mostly linear, IWD had some great settings, and I personally think its story was superior to the BG games. I tried to play it again not too long ago, but just couldn't get into it the same way I did way back then.

BillSeurer said:

Number all of them? They were random. There were the herds of various bugs and radscorpions and such, remnants of the master's army (i.e., herds of mutants), raiders, super mutants, …etc.

Click to expand...

And Elvis' pic in crashed UFO and dead whale with daisies nearby and portal to the past (break waterchip) and dead members of federation by the shuttle with stims and arthur with knights and caffe of broken dreams and… did I mention them all? I bet I didn't. oh yes, the purple (or pink?) robed bridgekeeper, OMG I pissed my pants on that one.

joxer said:

And Elvis' pic in crashed UFO and dead whale with daisies nearby and portal to the past (break waterchip) and dead members of federation by the shuttle with stims and arthur with knights and caffe of broken dreams and… did I mention them all? I bet I didn't. oh yes, the purple (or pink?) robed bridgekeeper, OMG I pissed my pants on that one.

Click to expand...

Those aren't random. There are a fixed number of them that are pre-done that you may find or not.

Re: FO2

True there may have been a fixed number of them, but the chance of encountering them was random and you have to travel the overland map to get them. Does anyone know if they were assigned to specific areas of the map?

I never encountered but a couple of them and were it not for the majority of the random encounters in FO overland travel being so tedious (i.e. the herds of repeating monsters) I had actually considered replaying it to find all of them. Little Easter Eggs like that are fun.

However, I like them only in moderation. Baldur's Gate (the first one), for example, had you running into famous people from the FR far too often. That kind of ruins the novelty.

There was a feat/perk that you could take to let you find them all more quickly.

Drithius said:

My first time playing Fallout 3 and tracking down the one S.O.S. radio signal from a father and his child. Only to discover them long dead. I actually found myself taking a moment of silence as I shut off the radio.

And it's not open-world, but discovering the lore behind the Severed Hand in Icewind Dale still encapsulates how I define game "immersion" these 10+ years later.

Click to expand...

So true. Those were great "discovery" moments.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

A cave, high above in the cliff somewhere in Gothic 1 … Not to be seen from the ground, unreachable for almost everyone … I was greeted friendly …

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I would call gothic an open world game, if so, a very small one.

rune_74 said:

I'm not sure I would call gothic an open world game, if so, a very small one.

Click to expand...

You're joking... right?

He's trolling.

I'm fine with "a small one".

Getting Larry, Darryl and Darryl's autograph in Baldur's Gate.

Another one would be finding Dr. Who's police box during a special encounter in Fallout. Actually pretty much every special encounter from F1 and F2. I didn't care if they gave me anything special, I just loved finding them.

The last one would be from New Vegas. You see a farm with a burned out building in it and a lot of starving brohmin. You search around the farm and find some notes scattered around. They tell you happened there. Won't say what just in case someone still hasn't found this farm, but those notes added some context to why everything was destroyed. After I read them all I wanted to save those poor two headed freaks, but unfortunately you can't. They're just doomed to die of starvation.

Maybe one area that I liked was about someone who wanted to become a ghoul. Also in New Vegas. You find a journal in a shack really close to a high radiation site and read how this person wanted to become a ghoul. I don't remember all the details, but again it added some depth to the desert that just couldn't be filled by finding special loot in out of the way places.

It's silly how easy it is to make a world seem more alive by finding journals or notes scattered around and yet you don't find many games that do that. Instead you'll be rewarded with special gear or loot. Forget that, tell me who used to live around here and what happened to them. That is when a world starts to become lived in and more real. At least it does for me.

Drithius said:

My first time playing Fallout 3 and tracking down the one S.O.S. radio signal from a father and his child. Only to discover them long dead. I actually found myself taking a moment of silence as I shut off the radio.

Click to expand...

Yes, that was haunting and memorable at the same time. Bethesda gets ripped on for their poor writing (and justifiably so), but they really knew how to capture a near-perfect atmosphere for Fallout 3 (and previously, for Morrowind); the little touches like the one in the quote were surprisingly frequent and kept me wanting to explore deeper into the unknown. If I had to pick one reason why I didn't enjoy New Vegas as much as Fallout 3, I would definitely say it's because NV lacked FO3's superb atmosphere and little touches that made the world come to life. New Vegas was a solid game, but it just didn't have the captivating feel or haunting 'believability' of Fallout 3's world.