If you've been playing RPGs since the early 2000s, you probably have a similar old man screaming into the clouds in your soul. Simply put, the design of open-world RPGs gradually moved away from the discovery part of the "quest."
In the past, quest bearers in RPGs (both single-player and multiplayer) relied far more on verbal instructions than UI elements. In "Morrowind," in particular, there is not even a compass, and all quests are locked behind the vague land knowledge of locals.In an article on open world design by RockPaperShotgun, Elder Scrolls Online director Matt According to an interview with Firor, unfortunately, such designs have gone the way of the dodo.
Games like "quests with no compass, no map, literally 'go to the third tree from the right and walk 50 paces west,'" Friar explains, are not acceptable to modern users: "If you did that now, no one would play. If you do that now, no one will play. So now you have to give hints and clues. We want them to tell us the story, we want them to interact with other players, we want them to interact with NPCs.
Bringing up Morrowind's name rather valiantly, Friall adds, "Morrowind is obviously a great game," probably because a mob with pitchforks instantly gathered outside his residence, but "the way you tell a story in an open world a little outdated for today's gamer types. ...... They're all PC and first generation console enthusiasts, not the kind of people who are going to invest as much time as possible into a game.
"They want to make sure it's engaging and fun, and walking around the field trying to measure 50 paces from a tree is no longer part of that. I'm kind of sad because I'm old school."
Fellow PC Gamer writer and Morrowind enthusiast Joshua Wolens is away today, but I fully expect him to show up at my door in the morning with a saw. At least from the somewhat cynical perspective of someone trying to keep an MMO alive.
I say this only because MMOs that have tried to return to the good old days of hardcore raiding have spontaneously combusted. Likewise, no sane triple-A company would create an RPG without a compass or quest markers. This is something even "The Elden Ring," a game designed to be intentionally confusing, relaxes about. You can even set your own markers on the map, fear not!
Speaking of Elden Ring, I think it is an appropriate counterpoint to what Prior said here. From Software games often require a lot of puzzle work, especially when following NPC quest lines.
Note that it is also possible to reach the ending of Elden Ring by ignoring the side quests; if you point Torrent in the direction of the landmark, you will have the "intended experience" when you get there. Engaging in the "50 steps from the tree" is almost optional.
Ultimately, I think a game like "Morrowind" was could absolutely be replicated and be a huge success, but in reality it would be the darling of experimental indies like "Dread Delusion."
Instead, Friall argues that the strategy for an open-world RPG that can actually be marketable is to "create a space, fill it with things to do, and allow players to do them in any order they want. But that's what a world is, too."
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