b9ab22 No.14136316
Ubisoft and Bethesda have destroyed maps. They are now busywork checklists where you look for the icon for the copypasted thing and go do it and move on.
Remember old rpgs? remember getting lost and stumbling on some shit? I think the last time it actually happened for me was going off the road in Oblivion and in the middle of the woods finding a huge ghost town and going on a lovecraft inspired adventure about childthieves and sacrifices to entities living under this empty town in the woods.
That was twelve years ago.
Nowadays even games like /v/'s darling The Witcher III does this. Maps that show more icons and info than a goddamn Grand Theft Auto game. Ruining all illusion of a world and turning a map into a list of points to go to. It wasn't always this way though. Wild Arms 3 was so antithetical to this that most of the world was not even on the map. You could go around what looked like an empty plane or mesa and all of a sudden get a little cutscene as a town, train station or ancient ruin appeared in front of you because you discovered it. Something similar was in Skies of Arcadia and at best today you have Breath of the Wild but even then thats mostly white noise because theres fuck all in most of the world bar shrines to chase after.
I noticed lately theres a trend that most none journo critics online who genuinely love games will always amend a review with something like "and if you want a much better experience turn the map off at the start" or some other way to -in the devs eyes- cripple themselves in the act of looking for a better gameplay experience.
In my experience the only map not designed to kill exploration i've encountered this gen was Prey. You have a series of security boothes you can break into that check the ID bracelets of staff on the station and they can point you to which section they are in but thats it. Opening the map just shows the half dozen sections of the station with a blue mark for 'something in here, go look for it' and this can include things floating outside in space requiring a zero g spacewalk to fly around and find. You arent given a marker to follow or a compass or golden trail leading the way. It wants you to explore.
Sadly devs clearly think the mainstream are too dumb for that and maybe they are. But dont you miss getting lost in a world?
889986 No.14136342
In two worlds you find this village innawoods that isn't on the map, nobody wants to talk to you and the mayor all but tells you to fuck off while also begging you to not go to the nearby shrine ruins.
If you do you'll find nothing there, but on returning to the village you find it overrun and destroyed by forest giants.
It was a pretty shit unfinished game but I liked this one quest because it explains fuckall and makes you feel like an asshole.
4f8b7c No.14136414
>>14136316
It's way easier to make a game where you just navigate by seeing the check marks on a map than to make a world with enough variation and landmarks that you don't need a map to navigate.
Aside from that, it requires better writing and more attention, for example, there are some quests in witcher 3 that the quest giver just say some vague shit like "he was lost in the wood nearby" but there are forest all around the place, without a map there is no way to know where the fuck you need to go, to make a game where you doesn't need the map, you would need the pay attention that the phrase would be "he was lost in the woods to the west of here" that would give you enough information to know where the hell you need to go without needing to check the map for it.
The amount of work is too much for the lazy devs we have nowadays.
118e15 No.14136442
Maps should be drawn (automatically) by the player character as he travels the world, tied to a cartography skill to determine the quality of the map and if a map is even drawn.
b9ab22 No.14136628
>>14136442
i see you are a man of culture as well.
81c3f5 No.14136647
63a7c1 No.14136661
e56bdc No.14136710
>>14136442
>automatically
how about manually instead, now that'd require some proper autism
df387d No.14136714
>>14136710
I miss when you had to take notes to be able to complete a game.
2ea0a4 No.14136732
>>14136442
In Thief your map is based on what the player character has been able to find out about the mission area.
31a05b No.14136733
You could always just, you know, turn off waypoints and minimaps.
If the game doesn't let you (or there are no mods for doing so) it's not worth playing either way.
b9ab22 No.14136734
>>14136714
I do but theres a line. I played The Witness and some of the later puzzles i ended up writing something down or taking a picture on my phone. It was a nice way to feel like i was really putting time in.
Flipside of course is the retarded 'fun stand in' extreme. See Tumblr's 'No Mans Sky' diaries and worse back in 2011 /v/'s "Skyrim Journals"
Yes that actually happened. And it was terrible
aeeeee No.14136745
Gothic 1 and 2 have a great map and quest systems. Most quests are simple geographical descriptions, while some quests have their own special maps to help you out.
10c380 No.14136766
>>14136733
>J-j-just turn it off!
Ok, cool, so now when I get told "I need you to kill a dozen $monsterName, here, I'll mark where they are on your map" I can stand there completely clueless as to where I'm meant to go until I open up my map and follow the waypoint anyway.
You know as well as I do your argument is bullshit because so many games build quest dialog around the idea that the player isn't going to pay attention and, instead, is just going to bee-line towards the HUD marker.
09ac2a No.14136772
>>14136733
Why hello there, Bethesda employee. It's not like these games are designed entirely with those things in mind, right? So if you just turn off markers in a game like Skyrim, you will most certainly not be stumbling around in the dark because the entire game was built around them and gives absolutely zero other directions. Just like how open world games these days aren't just massive stretches of pointless empty area with little to no good landmarks or the like.
31a05b No.14136774
>You know as well as I do your argument is bullshit because so many games build quest dialog around the idea that the player isn't going to pay attention and, instead, is just going to bee-line towards the HUD marker.
Why are you playing shit games if you don't want shit gameplay.
490616 No.14136789
>/v/'s darling The Witcher III
First day?
0f5733 No.14136799
>>14136710
Yes! Something like Etrian Odyssey
10c380 No.14136807
>>14136774
>I-i-if you're complaining about something i-it must mean you play it!
Point to where I said I actively play the sort of game that forces this shit.
09ac2a No.14136811
>>14136774
>this is bad because of these reasons
>but if it's bad why would you play it
They're saying that this shitty game developer practice should stop being used, you absolute fucking caveman. "But don't play it" is not a fucking criticism shield, especially not when people are discussing a specific, contrete thing and give instructions on how to do it instead. Or actually, you're the retard that suggested to just turn it all off, so you got told why your argument was objectively stupid and instantly tried to derail to "b-but then you shouldn't play the games".
>>14136766
Having NPCs mark things on your map is fine when it actually makes sense, and older games did this too when there was a reason for it in-universe. Too bad that isn't at all how map markers are used now.
528458 No.14136818
I just want npcs to give proper directions to places so I can actually turn off the fucking minimap every game has.
7afe34 No.14136834
>>14136732
That happened only in one or two levels tought.
de860d No.14136835
>>14136316
This, maps should be rare commodities, and there should be various qualities, the more detailed ones being very difficult to obtain.
>tfw no Overlord gaem
de860d No.14136844
>>14136835
>forgot it was softsubbed
>mfw i have no face
679db4 No.14136883
>>14136855
Allow me to grieve with you.
>tfw no overlord game or anything that remotely comes close to it mechanically or expansively or even fucking gameplay wise
>tfw nobody cares in MMOs, nobody wants to light rp and it's all just single-player shit wallet-bleeding hand-holdy instant dungeon instance no-socialization garbage filled with normalfags and streamer niggers
>tfw a game of this design is apparently so fucking far off that I'm more likely to see fucking waifu AI before I see anything resembling overlord, even in shit graphics on regular PCs
>tfw I am drained of feeling and have an image to compensate
24504d No.14136901
>>14136844
i have a real good idea
679db4 No.14136914
>>14136901
How long has it been since you've slept?
b807fc No.14136932
>>14136734
That shit was pure shilling. Made me stop using the chans for a while.
676f27 No.14136945
>>14136734
That handwriting is worse than mine, and mine is awful. Holy shit.
5948a4 No.14136960
>>14136710
i played some 3ds jrpg where this was the case, it was good fun
679db4 No.14136961
>>14136953
This is because the correct term is imageboards, right? I never learned why "chans" was despised, merely that it was. Does this have anything to do with somethingawful back in the day, like most things are?
b9ab22 No.14136969
>>14136932
>Actual anons fell for todds "infinite quest generation" meme.
I honestly was never that disappointed in /v/ before or since.
679db4 No.14136986
>>14136969
A lot of anons were also underageb& back then. Still are, I guess, considering the current influx.
cc4323 No.14136990
>>14136442
That's fair I guess. A complete absence of map makes it too easy to miss shit. I get having to look for it and not knowing what you are going to find, but never finding it at all because you don't even know where to look sucks.
Automaps help because they effectively show you where you haven't been, and to that effect they are far more useful than empty maps that show only major towns and terrain (ie what a real life map of a country would show)
bacb56 No.14136996
>>14136316
And it's went extrem bad when GPS maps started to replace the hand drawn maps…
68184a No.14137012
>>14136316
AAA will never do it, both because designing a game with visual navigation in mind requires effort in building the environments, and because the majority of players don't like feeling "lost".
99c57d No.14137014
>>14136961
>I never learned why "chans" was despised
Because it immediately outs you as a newfag.
b57ee2 No.14137017
>>14136799
can't really say if this map making technique would be useful in an unbarred open world, it would consume quite a lot of time trying to project 3d objects in a plane if the world is not a wasteland i would still enjoy it
2ea0a4 No.14137154
>>14136834
It happens consistently. Most of the time Garrett just has enough intel for a detailed map.
9a237f No.14137201
>>14136834
Dont forget in that gothic 2 orc quest you can also convince the blacksmith to let you kill a gang of bandits instead of an orc.
62279b No.14137653
>>14136901
>that last one
fucking kek
b9ab22 No.14137710
>>14137687
>implying im not playing EOV right now
24ca7f No.14137734
>>14136316
>Nowadays even games like /v/'s darling The Witcher III
>/v/'s darling
>Witcher III
For the love of satan please fucking tell me you're being sarcastic here. I've seen like three different instances of people shitting on W3 alone within the last couple hours on here, and you're hard pressed to find anyone defending it.
490616 No.14137822
>>14137687
But Etrian Oddysey does have sideways movement.
1c15bb No.14137865
>>14137822
Not the first game.
490616 No.14137934
>>14137865
Oh, I see. Didn't realize the comic was that old.
ece8f8 No.14137949
>>14136316
>remember getting lost and stumbling on some shit?
Guild Wars 2 had tons of this stuff.
e6966b No.14138166
>>14136316
Well just stop being a fag OP and play games with good mapping features like Miasmata.
ab7ca2 No.14138424
>Playing Morrowind for the first time around 2009
>Find out about the Morag Tong
>Have an assassin type character, so I desperately want to join
>Spend the next week searching all over Vivec arena trying to find their hideout
I'll never forget the success I felt when I found that trapdoor.
7afe34 No.14138459
>>14136969
When every single day the catalog is filled with some bullshit baout Skyrim ior Witcher it's a good idea to let go for 2-3 weeks until the inital shilling phase dies down.
2fa941 No.14138664
The fact that games these days are designed to be played with a fucking mini-map shits me to tears.
Nobody actually gives directions in-game anymore. It's always "There's a monster, go kill it", and then a waypoint appears, not "there's a monster in the old watchtower to the north, go kill it".
ee1562 No.14138701
I was recently playing System Shock for the first time. It has an automatic map, but it has no markers or notes, beyond what you as the player put in there. I really liked that system; give the player the map either through exploration or by making them buy it, but force the player to mark locations on the minimap so that they have to think about things in relation to other locations.
8c6a24 No.14138720
>>14136442
That's dumb as shit. Why would someone who lives in the game's world just have no fucking idea what is in that world? I'm a burger, but I know Hungary exists, so why shouldn't a game character know about distant locations in his world?
>inb4 b-but if it's medieval times then they don't have GPS and satellite maps
Games are usually set in one region. Very rarely do games even cover a single continent.
ce7e6a No.14138761
>>14138720
You know where Hungary is because somebody else has gone through the work of making a map (globe) for you to understand it in simple terms. In addition, knowing where something is =! being able to make a map of it. If I asked you to draw the streets, parks and forests around you within a 20 mile radius could you do it? Plenty of people will have heard where a country is and describe it as "to the east" but they can't make a map for you.
ce1c15 No.14138806
>>14136733
That doesn't work in most modern games. There's no frame of reference. An NPC will tell you that they'll mark it down on your map, but aside from that there's no mention of how to get there. No landmarks to look for, no path to take. No nothing.
>NPC:Go find the macguffin at the generic village. Here I'll mark it on your map
>Quest updated: go to the waypoint
vs
>NPC:Go find the macgiffin at generic town. It's north of here, and you can find it by following the road until you encounter the forest. From there, venture into the forest until you start to see the watch towers.
One has you following a point, while the other has you actually exploring the area.
8c6a24 No.14138888
>>14138761
>You know where Hungary is because somebody else has gone through the work of making a map (globe) for you to understand it in simple terms
Yes, and? That is my point. I live in a living world. I am not the only sentient being in the world I live in.
>In addition, knowing where something is =! being able to make a map of it.
So? Why would the character need to make a map of something that already exists?
ce7e6a No.14138941
>>14138888
>I live in a living world. I am not the only sentient being in the world I live in.
A world that current is overflowing with information that is not as easy to get back in the day. You don't seem to quite understand how valuable a skill like cartography was or that your average villager does not need and does not have access to a map.
>So? Why would the character need to make a map of something that already exists?
Because the point of cartography is that either the map doesn't exist yet, or you haven't bought it from someone else a la >>14136647 and you yourself must draw it fag.
889986 No.14138977
>>14138888
Nigger, this is how a scholar in the 1400's mapped europe. Just a handful were made since they were hand-drawn and only the richest fuckers had money enough to buy one. Just because it's a living world doesn't mean you should have a gps-tier map at hand.
889986 No.14138982
>>14138977
Meant to post this one, but that one from the 1500's works too I guess.
6a9331 No.14139141
>>14136316
>Remember old rpgs? remember getting lost and stumbling on some shit? I think the last time it actually happened for me was going off the road in Oblivion
>Oblivion as an example of quality
ce7e6a No.14139170
>>14139141
>lacking reading comprehension
>I think the last time it actually happened for me was going off the road in Oblivion
9be5c0 No.14139215
>Remember old rpgs? remember getting lost and stumbling on some shit?
Strategy guides fake oldfag. Oh and old games came with real maps. Not at home so I can't show my old copy.
07e055 No.14139217
But Ubisoft and Bethesda don't make open world RPGs. Ubisoft has never made one and Bethesda hasn't made one since 1996.
490616 No.14139229
>>14139215
>all kids had the spare 20-30 bucks to buy a strategy guide just lying around
ae3265 No.14139265
The internet killed vidya maps too, to be honest.
Within a week or less, a game without a map is going to have the basic terrain mapped out online, and within a month it'll be marked with every single location, hidden or otherwise.
47f04d No.14139303
>>14139265
That's fine.
While we can never recreate the childhoods of sharing the little secrets you found with your school friends and vice versa, if the games are designed to be played without the shitty waypoint systems that are everywhere nowadays, that's good enough.
4bb79e No.14139317
>>14136316ZELDA BOTW did open world maps right
bdf9ee No.14139328
>>14139229
No but if you had a computer with a internet connection you just look it up a walkthrough. That's what I did, hell my sister had a binder of crap load farming info about harvest moon games when we were kids.
>>14139265
I don't mind that really, if people want to cheat and make the game easier for that's on them. You can call them a casual if they admit later. The issue is when the dev integrates that in the game since that dumb down feature is designed to be used and can break the flow of the game if you don't.
a26474 No.14139471
>literally no good games recommended in this thread
I'm not really surprised. My favourite part of later minecraft was filling out maps and making a massive wall of them in a cartography room but even then it was pretty basic. Being able to make different zoom levels was great though because you could have one giant map of everything and more detailed areas of places you've built around the place.
>>14138166
>Miasmata.
Is that even good? Looks like shit.
490616 No.14139556
>>14139328
I used GameFAQs as a kid too but it is frequently understated or even just forgotten about how inaccurate online info could (and even still can) be, especially since older games didn't insult your intelligence like modern ones do. It was much worse shortly after launch.
0877a9 No.14139583
>>14136772
This.
In Oblivion sometimes they gave you vague locations but in Skyrim they told you shit and you usually had zero clue of where to go unless you looked at the waypoints in your map. Fuck immersion.
A little trick they used in Ultima 7.5 Serpent Isle was having a tracking dog which sniffed a target's belonging and pointed in the target's location, miles away.
Another thing I liked was that your ingame map had innacuracies in the northern frozen parts because very few people had travelled there.
bdf9ee No.14139601
>>14139556
Hey it beats a dumb down game or shelling out 20 bucks for a guide.
0877a9 No.14139711
>>14138424
I envy you.
But Marketing says people are refusing to buy more of our games unless we put waypoints up the ass.
0877a9 No.14139752
>>14138701
I believe those guys were the ones that previously made Ultima Underworld. Same system, worked like a charm.
Maps are no longer required in the Bioshock games.
e4ac37 No.14139885
>>14137012
FUCK THE MAJORITY OF PLAYERS HOLY SHIT!!! THE MAJORITY IS MORE RETARDED THAN A FUCKING NIGGER! WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE GAMES FOR THOSE FUCKING SUBHUMANS?
24504d No.14140053
>>14139885
Because they have money, and most companies are businesses that enjoy profits. Less difficulty = more digestible = more fun = more people who'll buy it and enjoy it. Most people don't like no items, fox only, final destination.
0877a9 No.14140136
>>14139265
If it's optional it's okay.
Cheap folk like to play in cheap mode.
>>14139471
Minecraft surface maps are ok, I prefer the new system for mapping over the old one.
My only problem is that I don't like how biomes interact with each others and landscapes are naturally unattractive unless you terraform everything.
e6966b No.14140674
>>14139471
>Miasmata.
>Is that even good? Looks like shit.
It looks shit, because its an indie game made by two brothers who created everything themselves.
The controls and the looks take some time getting used to it and the gimmick of the monster is quickly obvious to experience gamers, but despite that if you allow yourself to get into it its a fucking blast.
The triangulation system of Miasmata should be in every open world game and the foraging and collection of plants to make items and medicine is also good implemented.
Despite of its obvious limitation Miasmata is more or less one, if not the best nature survival game to exist because instead of starting in a small mudhut and later building your own villa like in other open world survival games, you do what a normal person would do in this situation: Stumbling around nature, trying not to over exhaust yourself, while simultaneously trying to find what you need without getting eaten by animals.
I wish those guys would make an improved sequel that is more punishing.
a26474 No.14141114
>>14140674
>that fucking tent
Holy shit if that faggot put the fabric on the outside of the posts he would have saved himself a tonne of rope.
Anyway, I'll give it a pirate. I've been looking for a time sink full of neat exploration and I don't know why but every time I look at Gothic sitting in my backlog I just can't bring myself to actually install it.
f99044 No.14141978
>>14139885
people who arent retarded dont pay money for the new video games
67b25b No.14142287
Like pic related then?
Game starts out like a kirby knockoff you can get a unique copy ability from one boss if you think to possess it during the fight, but after the first dungeon you're free to explore a map about ten times as big as sm4sh's smash run mode.
The problem is navigating since you don't get a map or warp points until after you finish the game. So you're relying on environment hints like skyline, magma, and whether or not the gravity is reversed because you dug too deep to tell where the hell you are.
d0004b No.14142305
>still playing western rpgs
enjoy your suffering
e665f7 No.14142559
>>14138166
Isn't that something.
f44e9d No.14142574
>>14142305
>jrpg
>anything but watch cutscene, read lots of non-interactive text, run forward, kill enough enemies to level up, beat the boss, watch cutscene, repeat
d77c02 No.14142623
Last year's ELEX had a map focused on exploration, no collectibles.
bdf564 No.14143449
>>14142305
>Still trying to pretend "jrpgs" are actually "rpgs."
7646cd No.14143874
>>14139328
Yeah. I remember when I was 13 going to the LIBRARY (remember those?) and use the internet. Printed out hundreds of pages of gamefaqs back then.
Now there's an app for that.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.faqr&hl=en
7646cd No.14143889
>>14140053
Most people don't even finish their games NOW.
Making a game more difficult and obtuse will only drop the ending achievement/trophy numbers to a single digit.