What is the appeal of open world content?

[coldreactive]

due to openworld pvp,

I absolutely hate open world forced pvp, so I chose Tempest Reach on the USA Publisher.

[Mugiawara]

I absolutely hate open world forced pvp, so I chose Tempest Reach on the USA Publisher.

I chose Celestial Hills. I play alone most of the time, but you have no idea how fun it is, just exploring the new labyrinths.
When friends ask me what I'm doing I go ... "I'M GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!" XD
I recently had went into like...this academy thing and here's a gif of the scenery. I take a lot of pics of this game, it's super pretty.

FF really needs this...but TERA's combat is much more fun to aid in this so is GW2 combat.

[Magis]

Because MMOs are basically virtual worlds (or they used to be). The whole interesting thing about them is you could meet other people "living" and interacting within this virtual world. Instanced content is the antithesis of the MMO, it takes something that is massively multiplayer and turns it into a 4 person multiplayer co-op game. This can be seen with earlier MMOs focusing on making the world believable rather building a game around it. Players would have to travel across the world (though had help with some teleports) and transportation had a schedule and would take time to move. In FFXI it was a literal time table and you could see the world go by as you sat on the ferry/airship. In WoW it was a bit quicker, with a instant zone load from Azeroth/Kalimdor once the boat/airship move far enough into the ocean.

Later, MMOs became more and more streamlined (mostly thanks to WoW) to the point where the point was shifted from the world to just being "a game". Honestly I think the best place to see the progression is in WoW's PVP system. First the whole world was an "open" pvp ground. Except for newbie areas, players could kill each other anywhere. This would also cause city raids by players, with attackers and defenders (X-Roads and Tarren Mill anyone?). Heck, the main cities would be raided which would have whole servers participate. It was content generated by the players themselves. Then Blizzard introduced battlegrounds... instanced PVP. While it was cut off to just 20 people... you still had to walk to the battle ground and queue up with the faction you were working for. You could even see the path to the battlefield through an instance portal. Heck, world pvp would spill into these entrances too as well. Then Blizz introduced Battle Masters which instantly teleported you to the battle ground making the treck pointless as well as the original entrances. Heck, most would even know why they were fighting there... just that you talk to the guy in the main city and poof! I stopped playing at the end of TBC, but it's from what I heard, it's been made even less open, with pvp accessible anywhere.

At that point you ask... why even have a "world" if you aren't going to encourage players to be in it? A lot of people play MMOs as a roleplaying game, as an interactive experience of the virtual world, with real people.... rather than just something to do for 10min cause /isbored. Heck some took it even further with actual "roleplaying", fully taking the role of their character.

[DenariusJay]

Because MMOs are basically virtual worlds ... *snip* A lot of people play MMOs as a roleplaying game, as an interactive experience of the virtual world, with real people.... rather than just something to do for 10min cause /isbored. Heck some took it even further with actual "roleplaying", fully taking the role of their character.

Your entire post was dead on man. Couldn't agree anymore. MMO's are no longer really about the world and traversing the world, most feel like the world is just one giant obstacle that needs to be avoided (hence all the tping mechanics). All modern themepark MMO's are basically over-glorified lobbies. Oh well, just the way it is. I find just accepting the modernized style of MMO's for what it is seems to help me have more fun. The more I wish "it was like the old days" the more I start disliking this game. We can't change the game but we can change the way we view the game.

[Shirana]

I'd actually like to understand the appeal of open world content in general.
From my experience, which is very limited in games mind you reader, it's always been something horrible. I'll give some examples. Like open world dungeons with bosses that were just farmed endlessly by people who would KS you all day. You would report them time and time again but they would always be there not caring for your quests to kill dungeon bosses lol. Or open world raids which was hogged by the top guild on the server who already had the in game currency and real currency to pay for the best of the best to ensure they could out do any other group and thus successfully hogged world bosses for years on the server I played. Even played games with open party loot so whoever was the luckiest to pick something up got all the good drops and could just run off 8D. So I'd actually like to see "open world content done right". Until then I'll personally always be for instanced content and party rolling features on loot.

[Khyra]

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.

I guess it depends what you mean by "open world" exactly, but FFXI had incredibly difficult content that was not instanced, like Absolute Virtue and all the sea bosses. They were pop-claimed-spawns, but they spawned in the open world and anyone could watch the fight or wander by.

HNMs could require some skill too especially if you had a small group and got claim (people definitely wiped to Nidhogg and so on), but admittedly the claiming system for that kind of sucked.

Not to mention various areas you had to sneak/invis through that could get pretty tense (especially in a game where death meant XP loss, FFXIV death is meaningless).

[FriendlyUncle]

Open world brings people together toward a common goal, and for more than just 5 minutes at a time with like how Hunts work. I would like to see a voidwatch system from FFXI, open world dungeons from back at original release. Things to sort of condense the player base in an area that is difficult enough to warrant a challenge solo, so that if you run across other players you would team up to make things easier and split the spoils. BAMs on TERA were fun and good, I would really like to seem NMs that are just not part of the hunt bill system. Does not reward allied seals, or myth, or sol, but superior gear to its equivalent level.

Side note, thing that really annoyed me was sharing my gear with Berserker's. Like I'm always constrained to having stats I did not want because it was shared with a damage class. Minor gripe in a game with fun, if not slightly buggy combat.

[Canopia]

Personally I think the death of open world content was lead partially by people who would sit and camp spawn points for hours or days to try and kill it before anyone else realized it had even spawned. Then there was the graveyard zerg parties for big open world bosses. Where there was no real challenge except how many warm bodies you could throw at it until it died. The greed of the playerbase, at least a portion of it, lead to them having to instance everything so everyone could at least experience it. I still see this sort of behaviour even today. The hunts in FFXIV, world rares in WoW, people rush in and zerg things down before most can react and get indignant if asked to sit back and wait for more than 5 seconds. Ive stood next to a hunt target and it was zerged down in front of my eyes before my first cast could finish.

Impatience and Greed, the killers of Open World content.

[Aegis]

Goddamnit, brb downloading SWG Pre-CU emulator.

That game had everything.
Huge open world(s).
Labyrinthine dungeons.
Space Combat.
Pets to be tamed, bio-engineered or crafted (Droids).
Player-created mounts (tamed pets, engineered pets or speeders/bikes).
Open world housing.
Completely player driven economies.
One of the most varied class/profession systems in the game (Should I be my Bounty Hunter Teras Kasi Master? My Squad Leader Combat Medic? My Ranger Creature Handler?).
A truly in depth crafting/resource gathering system (your EH17 Blaster is not as good as my EH17 Blaster because I spent the time tracking down non-ferrous metal with higher conductivity than yours and paid a smuggler to modify it for enhanced fire rate).
Support classes that were damn near essential (Dancers/Performers/Medics).
Open world PvP that could be Optional or Forced (depending if you chose to be faction-aligned, overt or covert).
Perma-death. Oh you spent 3 months grinding to become a Jedi? That's nice. Shame you let yourself be tracked down by a Bounty Hunter and his Ranger friend (though tbh, if you died to two people as a Jedi you sucked).

All this, and not a single instance.

[Gramul]

In a broad sense, freedom.

Let me post something I wrote up in another thread. It's more about stronger overworld enemies and more complex quests, but I think most of the concepts still apply.

The quests in this game are designed to be quick mindless task burns. They aren't engaging or memorable. Just busy work to fill in the grind.
Now, I'm not saying we would get rid of them, they have their place, but the stronger enemy areas would be suited for quests that require more thought, planning, patience, coordination, and overall involvement. This modern gofer quest style just isn't very fun. I liked when quests asked for you to pay attention, gave you the freedom to approach a problem in your own way. Do I sneak through the long path, or do I gather a band of high level heroes to guide me through the short path? Should I buy this key, steal it from the demons lair, or take it from his dead body? That was fun. The reward was the actual engagement you had with the world and overcoming the tasks set before you by your own ability as someone who can think and make decisions. The material reward of a quest was almost unimportant because you wanted to do the quest for the sake of the adventure. I want to be engaged by the actual game. Not the carrot on a stick and promise of more of the same but with a brighter glow. I want to play because the game itself is engaging. The world itself is a fascinating and dangerous place to explore, the people you meet can be your closest allies at a moments notice. Make my world alive! Make it fun to be there!