That works well enough for me. My understanding of 'open world' is that it is a map without borders. You can travel in one direction forever. This is, usually, a globe. If you move in a straight line, you'll eventually get back to where you came from.
Well, unless you're in space. But this should be true for any moderately oblate spheroid, such as the Earth.
But your definition works fine for me.
I didn't like it. It wasn't that I didn't like the genre. I liked Final Fantasy Tactics well enough. There was one other tactics game that I liked, but I've forgotten the name.
The mechanics weren't perfect. For the time, they were great. You also didn't always mind that it took more time. That was just more fun per dollar spent.
Also, at the time, I was already an adult. Not too many adults were into gaming back then. So, a game with some non-lewd adult themes was a welcome addition. Sure, there were games for adults, meaning gratuitous porn in bitmap format, but these games were nothing of the sort.
To me, that's part of the charm. Both of those things would be mimicked in reality. In reality, you wouldn't know where those things are, and you'd have a time limit.
I don't really play modern games. I tried, but I just didn't make the time to do it. That said, I do sort of see some gaming news. I've seen the industry grow. I suspect that you're right. No major software house is going to make another Fallout and Fallout 2. They're just not going to risk it.
But one thing modernity has helped with, there are a lot of independent/semi-independent game makers out there. Back in the day, that would have been more difficult. Today, they can put their games in front of more eyes, and they can do so more easily. There are places like Steam and GOG to help them get their games out there.
I wonder if that'll happen. Both of those sites already have the early Fallout games. So, they might let something similar slip in.
Maybe I'll try to make some time to game this next winter. I also still need to order a racing sim, which means using Windows. The cost isn't the issue. My only real concern is that a real sim would take away more of my time, time better spent elsewhere. Well, there's also laziness. I've just not gone through all of the options and then dealt with the ordering process.
This is what I'm pretty sure I'll order this summer, so that I have it for the winter:
https://boundlessracing.com/product...ariant=42454539567191&country=US¤cy=USD (I only want to 'buy once, cry once'.)
That ticks all of my boxes. It can also be used as a flight simulator, which I'll have them include. It'll also be fun when I have guests. (If you haven't noticed, I'm only here at specific times, and I'm here less often during the weekends, and always leave early on Friday nights.)
Yeah, that makes sense. I think we are mostly using different levels of the term “open world.”
For me, open world does not need to mean a full borderless globe where you can keep walking in one direction and eventually loop back to where you started. That is more like a seamless world / globe simulation. Most games people call open world still have limits somewhere. Skyrim has borders. GTA has map edges. Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4 all have map limits. The Witcher 3 has different regions. They are still open world games.
That is why I would still call Fallout 1 and 2 open world in the old CRPG way, or at least open-ended world map RPGs if we want to be more exact. They are not open world in the modern 3D sandbox way, but they still give you a wasteland map, towns to find, quests you can do in different order, builds that change how you solve things, and the freedom to go somewhere way too early and get yourself killed. That counts enough for me.
On Fallout Tactics, yeah, I get what you mean. My problem is not tactics games either. I liked Final Fantasy Tactics too. The issue is more that Fallout Tactics did not feel like Fallout 1 and 2 in the same way. It became more squad combat and mission structure than wasteland roleplaying. And if you pre-ordered it and had to deal with bugs and patches back when patches were not just an automatic Steam download, then I fully understand why that would burn you.
With the combat wasting time thing, I agree that for the time it was easier to accept. Back then, more hours in a game could feel like more value for the money. But looking back now, I still think there is a difference between “more game” and “the fight is already won but I now have to chase one enemy across the map in turn-based mode.” That is not really extra content to me. That is just the system not knowing when the fight is over.
Same with the Fallout 1 timer. I understand why you see it as charm, and from a realism angle it fits. Your vault is running out of water. You do not know where the chip is. You are under pressure. That makes sense.
But realism and fun are not always the same thing for me. In real life I also would not know where to go, but in a game that can turn into wandering around frustrated, especially when the game barely explains things and you are still learning the systems. I respect the design more than I enjoy playing it.
And yeah, I agree the adult themes made Fallout stand out. It was not “adult” in the cheap porn-game way. It was adult because the world had drugs, slavery, crime, murder, cults, prostitution, ugly choices, and actual consequences. That gave the game teeth. I also think you are right that a big modern publisher probably would not make Fallout 1 or 2 the same way today. Not because it is impossible, but because the PR risk alone would scare most of them off.
That is where indie games probably have the better chance now. Steam and GOG make it easier for smaller studios to get weird games out there. The downside is that you have to dig through a mountain of junk to find the good ones.
And yeah, on the racing sim, I get the “buy once, cry once” logic. I am the same with hardware when I can be. Better to buy the thing that actually fits the job than keep buying half-solutions.
You guys get 'open world' wrong, it simply means a map where you move in the open (e.g. a nature) as opposite to inside some buildings or dungeons.
However it's not exclusive to 'outside', open world map may as well feature walkable buildings, but for the most part it simulates real world's nature.
I do not think that definition works.
“Open world” does not simply mean outside in nature instead of inside buildings or dungeons. That would make the term almost useless. A game can be set mostly in a city and still be open world. GTA is open world. Cyberpunk is open world. A wasteland can be open world. A fantasy province can be open world. A space game can be open world. It does not have to simulate nature.
Buildings and dungeons also do not stop a game from being open world. Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, New Vegas, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Gothic, GTA, all of them have buildings, caves, towns, interiors, or dungeons. That is just part of the world design. The open world part is about how freely the player can move around the larger game space, choose where to go, find quests and locations, and do things outside a strict level-by-level path.
So no, open world is not “outside map.” It is more about player freedom inside a large connected or semi-connected game world.
Fallout 1 and 2 are not seamless 3D open worlds, but they are still open-ended world map RPGs. You travel across a wasteland map, find locations, enter towns, choose quest paths, and can go to dangerous places early if you want. That is why I call them open world in the old CRPG way. Not the same kind of open world as Skyrim or GTA, but still open world by function more than by camera angle.
