This is something I think about a lot when I’m playing open world games (or choosing an open world game to play). Mainly because I play open world games to feel like I’m actually in a semi-real place, or at least experiencing a rough simulation of a real place. Nothing destroys this experience faster than placing quest markers every 20 metres or funnelling me down a series of corridors. That’s why I love playing sandbox mode in Arma 3 so much, the maps are about as close as you can get to a 1:1 reproduction of a real place.
IIRC Asheron’s Call was pretty dense mob wise. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without aggroing a dozen mobs.
I just remembered that the KotOR games were really bad in this regard! Not so much in terms of having lots of stuff to do (it didn’t, really), but in terms of really small levels making the game feel like a tightly confined theme park. Is KotOR Online any better? I have heard good things about the single player campaigns.
i didn’t find it unusual to wander for stretches in Witcher 3 and not see monsters. The “illusion” of Witcher 3’s space was aided by the fact that many creatures were territorial (and this was somewhat abstracted of course; the entire world is because if it wasn’t, it would look like TES: Arena and be devoid of interesting detail) if not bound to specific locations. It’s not some sort of logical violation of the lore to have a haunted tomb near a village. There are a number of instances where you follow trails for a significant distance and don’t get bothered at all along the way.
I did not encounter such trails. If I came near a body of water, I was sure to encounter drowners. If I followed the path, I was sure to find bandits. If I strayed from the path, I was sure to find wolves and dogs. And scattered among those, the plotted encounters with more powerful beasts. It exceeded my interest level in combat encounters, by a long shot.
I think it also depends on the area. For example, what you’re describing sounds like Yelen, or whatever the name of the main area was where you land right after White Orchard. But Novagrad was not like that, and from what I recall, Skellige was also more restrained in its monster density while traveling.
That’s likely true, I didn’t experience any fights in the city and didn’t get far enough in the game to reach Skellige.
One of my favorite things about Dragon’s Dogma is the way stuff is properly spaced out giving you a great sense of scale and naturalism. When I tried World of Warcraft for a bit I remember I remember the density of objectives in each zone really highlighting the artifice of the space,
Horizon: Zero Dawn was also pretty good about this.
I think for turn based strategy games like HOMM and Age of Wonders the high density of items and encounters on the maps is what gives those games an addictive, ‘one more turn’ characteristic. There’s always something cool or interesting just out of reach on the current turn that you can get to on the next turn. It’s really hard to stop playing for that reason.
So, a high density design serves these kinds of games very well.
I am thinking of an open world equation of state.
If you want a low density open ‘world’ try elite;dangerous. lightyears of nothing and then more nothing lol.
Oddly enough, that’s one of the things I really like about the game. Feels authentic.
The last space game I played was Starpoint Gemini 2. Space stations everywhere. Crossing a map grid cell took 3 minutes, tops. I like hex maps, though.
You could play Elite: Dangerous and just overlay a hex grid on your monitor.
Small bump to this thread, but I’ve been thinking of open worlds again and encounters that feel natural.
I searched and noticed Mad Max wasn’t mentioned. Everything in terms of encounters and distance in this game was just right.
More recently AC: Origins also has encounter density spaced out pretty well, other than in cities. I just wish there were less caravans of loot zooming about.
Any other games that might be recent that can be mentioned?
The Far Cries and Wildlands have ok ‘density’ but arguably suffer from their encounters then being generic rather than hand-crafted.
Is agree that it’s closer to just right than most games but I’m still not sure that thematically it makes sense. Everyone has a car and many are carrying shotgun shells for whatever reason (no, I know, video games). I could have stood for it to be slightly more barren but then everyone else would have complained about the big empty world probably. Which is very Mad Max to me, but what are you gonna do?
Speaking of Elite: Dangerous, encounters in that game were pretty well spaced out. Most of the galaxy was empty. And even in a star system, most of the pirate and hostile activity was centered around the star where ships warp into the system, which makes sense given the world’s travel system.
I’m not sure how much that has changed since launch though, I haven’t played the game in a long time.
That’s like saying most pirates in the US or Europe are located near interstate highways. I’m not sure you can call any Space game “realistic”. Haven’t played the game, so can’t comment on whether E:D’s balance is “fun”, either. (Word of mouth has been mostly positive WRT the combat and visuals; but less so about the rest of the game.)
I recently finished ELEX, and really liked the open world, despite it being fairly “dense”. But the game is strange in that exploration is limited in the early-mid game by the severe difficulty of the encounters (unless you are really good at the clunky combat), after which it becomes really easy. Further, the last two regions, Xacor and Ignadon, are of decidedly lower quality.
I will have to play more games before I can say whether ELEX or E:D or some other game has achieved “optimal” density.
Lol, I thought that we had lost containment from the star citizen thread for a second there.