Good point about the travel in KCD. And yes, i actually found the battle in KC1 extremely unsatisfying. KC2 had it a bit better. But still, my patience grew thin over the last decade, i must admit :-)
For me, personally, that skills-approach doesn’t went well with an RPG. Skills belongs to things like Destiny(2) (which i love btw), but in an RPG it should be about the character I’m playing, not ME. As it’s literally in the name RPG :)
But no complaints, I love everything that is not US-centric for a change and KC totally wasn’t.
Totally agreeing with you on the map-size-topic. I really hate the bigger-and-bigger-trend that usually (logically?) comes with less and less value. Even gothic did fall victim to the trend. G2 was “triple the size!!!” (or whatever, but THAT was the leading argument) And G3 was “EVEN BIGGER!” …and what was it? more walking, less exploring, less interesting stuff, just large plains of nothingness filled with filler-mobs. Nonetheless G2 was absolutely great, and had a fucking great Addon (when addons actually were like 1/3rd more of the base game, not just cut content resold as “DLCs”). G3 was …good.
Also questing in G1 was really great. And actually felt absolutely fitting. Not some “kill a dragon” shit but “go clean the toilet you piece of shit”. Or “steal this”, then you steal it, and they give you a beating not a reward :-) You really work your way up. Every weapon-, armor- or skill-upgrade REALLY mattered and changed everything.
Back then it also had a fantastic unexpected gimmick in it (which now is removed due to licenses): Suddenly in act 2, a famous midage-band had a “live-concert”. Back then it was one of my favourite bands and suddenly they perform in game…that was a chin-dropper :)
And it was one of the (or the?) first game(s) that had NPCs do have an actual job/routine. They ate, drink, pee, work, sleep. Ah you see, I could go on and on …
Skyrim was very vast, but at least they really tried to fill it meaningful. Most of it. So exploring mostly paid off. But without mods it was just okay-ish anyway. But it’s THE game that got the greatest mod-community there ever was (and sadly probably will be). Last time i spent like hundreds of hours modding until i ended up with like 2000 mods, kid you not. Didn’t actually PLAY for half as long :-)
BG3 was also incredibly good. Very memorable!
Even gothic did fall victim to the trend. G2 was “triple the size!!!”
If “triple the size” comes with triple the budget—or at least triple that component of the budget that goes towards writing, worldbuilding, and modelling & animating characters, terrain, and buildings—along with triple the time for those tasks…then that sounds brilliant! But more often they get the budget for maybe 1.5x the content, leaving the world feeling half as full.
Yeah exactly…and it was - who would’ve thought - 1.5x the content. At best. Just stretched to fill the land.
Everyone thought (and still seems to think) that size is everything in an open world.
Only procedural games like No mans sky beat this with even less soul. While being technically fascinating, they’re ultimately boring once you’ve seen all the “ingredients”.
Good point about the travel in KCD. And yes, i actually found the battle in KC1 extremely unsatisfying. KC2 had it a bit better. But still, my patience grew thin over the last decade, i must admit :-) For me, personally, that skills-approach doesn’t went well with an RPG. Skills belongs to things like Destiny(2) (which i love btw), but in an RPG it should be about the character I’m playing, not ME. As it’s literally in the name RPG :) But no complaints, I love everything that is not US-centric for a change and KC totally wasn’t.
Totally agreeing with you on the map-size-topic. I really hate the bigger-and-bigger-trend that usually (logically?) comes with less and less value. Even gothic did fall victim to the trend. G2 was “triple the size!!!” (or whatever, but THAT was the leading argument) And G3 was “EVEN BIGGER!” …and what was it? more walking, less exploring, less interesting stuff, just large plains of nothingness filled with filler-mobs. Nonetheless G2 was absolutely great, and had a fucking great Addon (when addons actually were like 1/3rd more of the base game, not just cut content resold as “DLCs”). G3 was …good.
Also questing in G1 was really great. And actually felt absolutely fitting. Not some “kill a dragon” shit but “go clean the toilet you piece of shit”. Or “steal this”, then you steal it, and they give you a beating not a reward :-) You really work your way up. Every weapon-, armor- or skill-upgrade REALLY mattered and changed everything. Back then it also had a fantastic unexpected gimmick in it (which now is removed due to licenses): Suddenly in act 2, a famous midage-band had a “live-concert”. Back then it was one of my favourite bands and suddenly they perform in game…that was a chin-dropper :) And it was one of the (or the?) first game(s) that had NPCs do have an actual job/routine. They ate, drink, pee, work, sleep. Ah you see, I could go on and on …
Skyrim was very vast, but at least they really tried to fill it meaningful. Most of it. So exploring mostly paid off. But without mods it was just okay-ish anyway. But it’s THE game that got the greatest mod-community there ever was (and sadly probably will be). Last time i spent like hundreds of hours modding until i ended up with like 2000 mods, kid you not. Didn’t actually PLAY for half as long :-) BG3 was also incredibly good. Very memorable!
If “triple the size” comes with triple the budget—or at least triple that component of the budget that goes towards writing, worldbuilding, and modelling & animating characters, terrain, and buildings—along with triple the time for those tasks…then that sounds brilliant! But more often they get the budget for maybe 1.5x the content, leaving the world feeling half as full.
Yeah exactly…and it was - who would’ve thought - 1.5x the content. At best. Just stretched to fill the land. Everyone thought (and still seems to think) that size is everything in an open world. Only procedural games like No mans sky beat this with even less soul. While being technically fascinating, they’re ultimately boring once you’ve seen all the “ingredients”.