Skyrim - A Closer Look @ IGN

I don't think that open areas are that important , what i find important is the ability to skip the storyline(s)

Originally Posted by Maylander
I have. I joined the Monastery instead as an Inquisitor (got taken there by the first guard I met). What's your point?

I tried several times and didn't make it pass the first dungeon , always got arrested.

Originally Posted by Tragos
I tried several times and didn't make it pass the first dungeon , always got arrested.

Well yes, that is one of three options. Join the rebels, get arrested and join the Inquisitors or go to the city and get a letter of recommendation from the mage there so you can join the mages.

Levelling will be faster? Faster than Oblivion?!

They must be joking. They must be absolutely joking.

I don't remember open areas being rare in the Gothics at all, and that goes for G1-G3 as well as Risen.

I do admit that they tend to have a much more "designed" feel to their worlds, meaning they tend to give the player the sensation that city placements, fortifications, roads, and such things developed naturally according to how people settle and the layout of the land. A sensation I most certainly wouldn't do without - and which doesn't take away the sensation of freedom and opportunity for non-linear exploration.

The last two concepts are pretty vital to the open world genre, if you ask me. It's not about how many physical barriers are present, but how free you are to explore and approach the world - and ESPECIALLY how much of it is cut off from the beginning. The only thing that prevents you from exploring the majority of the world in the Gothics is the power barrier - and that is exactly how I like it. I love to be rewarded for my work, and exploring dangerous new areas is very appealing to me.

As opposed to Oblivion, where everything can be accessed from the get-go, and you never - ever - feel really challenged by anything.

The TES games, Oblivion especially, have a less detailed landscape structure in comparison. I'm not sure how they did it, but it seems to me they didn't spend nearly enough time planning how the world would look - and how cities should be placed in a sensible fashion. Certainly to me, the landscapes themselves are quite forgettable - though I will admit the city design of Morrowind was very strong.

But if you're seriously going to argue that the Gothics and Risen aren't open world games - and I promise you, you'll have a very hard time across the net with such a claim - then you should be very precise about why.

The fact that the Gothics are smaller, and that their worlds have been given greater care in how transitions between areas work has no implicit meaning that contradicts the concept of an open world.

Unless you mean that an open world is one huge wide open area with absolutely no transitions, bridges, or passageways. In which case not even Oblivion would qualify.

What I will concede, is that Oblivion (and TES games in general) is MORE open than pretty much any other game out there - but it comes at a hefty price. In fact, it's a LOT more open - but it's all about preference as to whether that's a good thing.

But in my opinion, all PB games are most definitely open world games.

By the way, Fallout 3 is a big step forward, because the world was much smaller - so more time could be dedicated to unique content - and it was also very "samey" - limiting the kind of assets needed for such a world to be convincing. They also finally matured the cell-loading technology to a point where the stuttering is pretty minimal on most setups. Not baby-bottom-smooth like Risen, but close enough.

Oh, and the size of the world isn't really relevant to how efficient you can stream content. That's because you divide everything up in certain managable sizes - so loading can be fluid. The only real issue with a huge world is filling it with meaningful content.

Risen could easily have been 10 times bigger and streamed just as smoothly. At least I see no reason why not. Content would just have been stretched out a lot more, and the result would be less interesting overall. Sort of like the TES approach.

Originally Posted by human_male
Levelling will be faster? Faster than Oblivion?!

They must be joking. They must be absolutely joking.

Yeah i really don't like that either. While leveling is fun, like they say, it's not fun when it's too easy and happens too often. It's supposed to be something special.

I guess its tweaked for the <insert derp face> console crowd.. like always it's going to be modded for the PC version though so it's no bigge for me..

Originally Posted by rune_74
I have played all the games in this thread, and they are all great in their own ways. I figure if its fun and I enjoy it thats all that matters. Could care less about the rest of the bs.

No! You can't enjoy both games rune_74, you have to choose sides. The commercial failure, but oh so RPGWatch-trendy Gothic; or the massive success but supremely hated for that reason TES series. You can't be fair and balanced. You must despise one or the other.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
the massive success but supremely hated for that reason TES series.

Throwing legitimate issues with a game or series out the window because it's popular is more sensible? Should I pretend I thought Oblivion was a good game?

Originally Posted by JDR13
.Iirc Risen is capable of greater draw distance than what the default is, but you have to edit something in the config.

This is correct. And it doesn´t concern only grass or shadows, but objects and landscape as well. I definitely had all these tweaked in my game and it did make a difference. Most notably, volcano could be seen from most of the island.
I don´t remember what I´ve used, but it was probably something similar to what´s in this thread: http://forum.deepsilver.com/forum/sh…ad.php?t=44779

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
What I will concede, is that Oblivion (and TES games in general) is MORE open than pretty much any other game out there - but it comes at a hefty price. In fact, it's a LOT more open - but it's all about preference as to whether that's a good thing.

I agree on this. I liked Oblivion for what it had to offer. But the Gothic games, while smaller (except for G3) have more purpose. I lost the will to explore every nook and cranny in Oblivion because there really is no reason to do that.

But with Gothic 1 and 2, exploring nooks and crannies is often rewarding. The G1 & G2 world sizes are smaller than Oblivion's, but there is far more meaning to exploring G1/G2 as you will typically experience something interesting when you fully search areas.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
No! You can't enjoy both games rune_74, you have to choose sides. The commercial failure, but oh so RPGWatch-trendy Gothic; or the massive success but supremely hated for that reason TES series. You can't be fair and balanced. You must despise one or the other.

But….the draw… distance…volcano…superior…arrgh

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
Throwing legitimate issues with a game or series out the window because it's popular is more sensible? Should I pretend I thought Oblivion was a good game?

Well, you pretend that gothic and risen has no faults.

Originally Posted by rune_74
Well, you pretend that gothic and risen has no faults.

I doubt that… maybe some others do. Off the top of my head Risen's melee combat was kind of lame and Gothic, all of them, could use better translators.

The games we like are based on our personal priorities. There is no definitive good game or bad game, outside of truly exceptional or disastrous titles. Many people are going to prefer Gothic or Risen because their strengths are more in-line with our priorities. Others will love Oblivion more (or whatever game) for the same reasons.

I like choice and consequence and good writing, that is very important to me. Oblivion lacked considerably in both of those areas, so I was sort of against it right off the bat. Through in what I considered to be very generic and boring art design and the horrible level scaling at launch and you have the reasons why I say what I do. To some other people (like most reviewers it seems) writing and choice are not as important, while hack n' slash fun combat is, and thus they loved Oblivion.

I did like Oblivion by the way, I shouldn't act like I didn't. In the end it offered a lot of good exploration, the combat was fun and the world suitably immersive. It just lacked in so many areas that are important to me while Gothic and Risen excelled in those areas.

Originally Posted by rune_74
Well, you pretend that gothic and risen has no faults.

Please point out a single case of people claiming Gothic and Risen don't have faults.

Once you fail to do that, consider why, here on the Watch, the fans of Oblivion are saying Gothic fans can't see any flaws, when fans of Gothic aren't saying Oblivion fans can't see any flaws.

That's curious, isn't it.

Gothic and Risen both have lots of flaws - but it's the end result that matters.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Once you fail to do that, consider why, here on the Watch, the fans of Oblivion are saying Gothic fans can't see any flaws, when fans of Gothic aren't saying Oblivion fans can't see any flaws.

That's curious, isn't it.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I'm the ugly one.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I'm the ugly one.

I suppose that leaves me out for the Blondie character.

No matter, Cleef was pretty cool

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
I doubt that… maybe some others do. Off the top of my head Risen's melee combat was kind of lame and Gothic, all of them, could use better translators.

I thought Risen had very good melee combat. At least compared to many other titles in the genre.