Open or closed ended?

[The Camo]

Open ended games are games where there is no "winning" but you can just continue to increase your character levels and earn money and whatever else you want. An example would be Runescape. Closed ended games on the other hand have one or more winning scenarios, and paths to reach them. for example, a game that ended once you beat a certain monster would be a closed ended one.

What I don't think we've figured out yet is which of these we want our game to be. Do we want to have an open ended game, and have it be a playground, opening up more abilities as you get more and more powerful? Or do we want a closed ended game, and have definite goals in place for each character from the time they start until they finally beat the game? Each of these game types comes with it's own challenges.

One of the major challenges in open ended games is creating enough replayable content, and keeping that content both fun and balanced so that players enjoy it, but still have a bit of a challenge even at higher levels. A benefit of this type is that once a player starts playing, they can play as much or as little as they like, and doing whatever they want, which encourages them to stay and continue playing. Open ended games can still have goals though, taking DA for example, we could have a series of quests to complete, like other MMORPGs.

Closed ended games are considered more predictable for the game designers, as they have control over what challenges and paths through the game a player can take. That being said, once a player finishes one of these paths, there isn't anything else to do, and they either have to start again, or quit and move on to another game.

I think we should perhaps figure this out before starting too much into designing the rest of the gameplay, as this is something that has to be figured out beforehand to avoid too much lack of direction.

[DELTA]

Well I think we should be in the middle. Like yes it will eventually end, but we can also add on more story paths. Like whenever you create your character your given one of the 3 already made story paths, you can still interact with people with other story paths (or destinies if you want to call it that). It'll make things more fun and less predictable. You could also have a friend from another story path help you on one quest for your story path.

And then maybe after a year we'd add a couple more.

Get what I'm saying?

[The Camo]

You're saying you'd like it to be closed ended then. Close ended games can have more than just one path through them, and don't rule out player interactions, but make things less replayable. For example, you wouldn't go back and redo a quest or task in a closed ended game, as it wouldn't fit, but in an open ended game you could. That's not to say open ended game can't have non replayable parts to it.

[Seraphim Falling]

I've never understood why people feel closed-ended games are more "predictable" than open-ended games. From my experience, it doesn't get much more predictable than level-grinding, repetitive quest systems, and characters that have a thousand clones running around the world with them dawning the exact same beginner's armor and hairstyle choice. I get that there's more "freedom" to these sorts of games, but to me it seems like it's a lot of freedom to do the same monotonous tasks until you just get sick of it.

I'd personally like to see DA play around with more... experimental, avant-garde game design. There has to be something we can do that doesn't generate another sad runescape clone, doesn't there? I would love to see an MMORPG designed that places a greater deal of focus on individuality of the players, so that they feel a little more consequential than "the 1342nd person to use hairstyle B and color variety A."

 

[The Camo]

The freedom/predictability they're referring to is chronological freedom. In a closed ended game, with a definite path through it, at any given point in the game, a player has a certain set of challenges coming up next, which they've got to deal with if they want to get any further. This has put me off finishing a number of games before, as I'd run into something I didn't like, and just quit playing entirely. In an open ended game, if one doesn't want to do a quest at this point, they can go do some other quest, or some level grinding. Yes it's limited in terms of what options they have, but you've got to work within game content. I do believe that some tools for emergent gameplay (player invented/driven activities) are beneficial in terms of adding options to games.

Also, I like your focus on individuality idea. I'll get back to you once I've had some time to think, as currently I'm operating on 1 hour of sleep in the past 40 hours, which is not a good time to process complicated thoughts. 

[Jonny]

One of the main things to keep in mind here is that there will be a small number of players and a relatively high developer to player ratio.  Therefore, I always kind of envisioned the gameplay like a back-and-forth thing between players and developers.  Rather than developers making quests and stories and histories and areas and then leaving them there for people to play over and over, the developers would respond to the way the players respond to the environment, resulting in a continuous creative development cycle.  There would be no "start from the beginning."  Instead, a new play would join an ever-evolving world and have a completely different experience than someone who just quit had.  You can't do some of the old quests because they have been done.  Certain areas have been changed or destroyed and new colonies exist because of player actions.  If people start hanging out somewhere, the developers plan an NPC invasion or a natural disaster or something.

I guess what I am saying is that since we have so few people we have the option to focus on a more personal gameplay experience.

[The Camo]

So I guess you're saying open ended, with major focus on and support for emergent gameplay?

Also, that sort of thing would work well with Seraphim's individuality idea. The smaller number of players would be ideal for creating a small, close knit community, and for example,  the possibility of the developers uniquely equipping players with things for a community wide event (raids, parties, whatever)