What is the appeal of open world content?

[Alex_Lenderson]

Please don't turn this into a hunts and atma complaining contest. I'm talking more in general - why do developers think open world content is good? Seems like a throwback to the bad old days of spawn 'stealing', lag fests and drama. I've never seen open world content (be it FFXIV, WoW, FFXI, or Guild Wars 2) require any skill.

So help me understand? It seems the FFXIV development team thinks open world content is very important, that must mean some portion of the player base thinks it is.

[TheUltimate3]

Open world content, when it works, helps make the world feel more alive and you are apart of it. Large, wide open areas make the player feel like they have transported to a far away planet, to a world where Crystals rule. Using this game and it's previous incarnation as an example, compared to the wide open (if bland) areas of 1.0, 2.0's open world feels cluttered and compact (if diverse).

As I said, that feeling really only happens when the open world works and there is a legit need to actually be out there. The other game I'm playing, ArcheAge and that game world his huge. It also has a reason to be that huge, because of the open world housing, limited resources, and PVP. Because the game is focused around such, their open world works.

[WellFooled]

Open World content is the one thing that is unique to MMOs. Doing content with a smaller group has been around since the earliest days of couch co-op, but only MMOs offer an environment where you can participate in content where there are hundreds of other players there cooperating or competing with you.

[skaterger]

Open world, when done well is incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeR7D1PfbQg

When it is done poorly, like hunts, it is terrible. Btw I hope the devs can take a look at how open world bosses were done in GW2, no rendering issues even with hundreds of players, there is a sense of danger with their abilities, they don't drop like a sack of potatoes even though they are elites, and they offer equal rewards for participation.

[Mugiawara]

Open world, when done well is incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeR7D1PfbQg

When it is done poorly, like hunts, it is terrible. Btw I hope the devs can take a look at how open world bosses were done in GW2, no rendering issues even with hundreds of players, there is a sense of danger with their abilities, they don't drop like a sack of potatoes even though they are elites, and they offer equal rewards for participation.

Oh God, I remember when I did this. xD! I was like HOLY FDJSKFDSKLF.
1:08 guy tries to help him, get punted away haha.

I'd also like some open world instances, like the ones in TERA. Those are super fun.

[SpecialKK]

Perhaps I'm remembering it wrong, but the lack of "open world" really didn't creep in until much later in the stages of this game. Immediately after launch, I seem to remember the world being filled as players were doing early game content. Whether its running around towns doing quests, killing random mobs / storyline / quests outside of the cities (even levequests), there always seemed to be people around.

The problem I think is that once that initial playthrough of the main scenario was done, and those initial set of quests were finished, there were little else that tied players to cities. At first, leveling became a Fate-grind, and that's all people did to level. When that became too easy and people complained, they "optimized" it so people would do more dungeon.

Rather than having content that gets players to level in a true open-world content, its all contained in FATES and 4man dungeon

[coldreactive]

Open world content, when it works, helps make the world feel more alive and you are apart of it. Large, wide open areas make the player feel like they have transported to a far away planet, to a world where Crystals rule. Using this game and it's previous incarnation as an example, compared to the wide open (if bland) areas of 1.0, 2.0's open world feels cluttered and compact (if diverse).

As I said, that feeling really only happens when the open world works and there is a legit need to actually be out there. The other game I'm playing, ArcheAge and that game world his huge. It also has a reason to be that huge, because of the open world housing, limited resources, and PVP. Because the game is focused around such, their open world works.

On the contrary, Radiata Stories with its day/night and living world cycles, where NPCs would travel between areas much like players (and on time), works just as well if not better.

[Cyrus-Wallace]

Open world, when done well is incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeR7D1PfbQg

When it is done poorly, like hunts, it is terrible. Btw I hope the devs can take a look at how open world bosses were done in GW2, no rendering issues even with hundreds of players, there is a sense of danger with their abilities, they don't drop like a sack of potatoes even though they are elites, and they offer equal rewards for participation.

I remember that violet dragon too... the world bosses were amazing.

[Krindor]

If done right open world content can be really good, and personally I enjoy running around doing stuff in a world instead of just sitting in a portal hub waiting on finding other people who want to run around in a closed of area. There are also games where open world is challenging, take a look at BAMs in Tera. FFXIV have a harder time to create a challenging open world due to its attack system where it would either be too easy or require a group which then leads to what hunts became. I believe that in the future FFXIV will have more fun stuff to do in the open world as for that we can just wait and hope.

[coldreactive]

If done right open world content can be really good, and personally I enjoy running around doing stuff in a world instead of just sitting in a portal hub waiting on finding other people who want to run around in a closed of area. There are also games where open world is challenging, take a look at BAMs in Tera. FFXIV have a harder time to create a challenging open world due to its attack system where it would either be too easy or require a group which then leads to what hunts became. I believe that in the future FFXIV will have more fun stuff to do in the open world as for that we can just wait and hope.

TERA isn't truly open world. Some of the areas require a transition because they are on separate virtual servers. But yeah, I really like how "Open" each area in TERA is. But the reason I don't like TERA: Crafting, The HUD uses Flash, AMD CPUs struggle in some areas due to single-threading of x86 programs.