Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

stealth toilet

stealth toilet

Moderator
Lately certain discussions about open world games and level design have popped up here and there on the boards. I have participated in these discussions, sometimes instigated them, trying to convey an overall philosophy for what I expect from games and what I'd like to see more of in the future. If you listen to the latest podcast (should be up later today) you can hear me stumble through words as I attempt to work out my own muddled thoughts on the matter. However, in a recent interview done by the one and only Shiggy with MTV, I read something that puts into words what I have thus been unable to myself.

The one thing that I’ve noticed recently is that there seem to be almost two groups of people out there. One is the people for whom, [when] their goal is not defined, they find it very difficult to understand what to do. But the other group of people are people who are able to create their own goal. And for those people in particular, I think they’re finding tremendous satisfaction in “Wii Music.”

But on the other hand, I feel like even in the games likes “Super Mario Brothers,” and all of the other games that I’ve made, while we have given kind of a superficial goal within those games, the one thing that we’ve always tried to focus on is to give the player the freedom, within the structure of the game, to find their own objectives, or really their own type of gameplay that they want to pursue. So if you take, for example, “Super Mario Brothers,” obviously at the end of each of the eight worlds, you see Bowser there, and you have this idea that you need to progress through the levels and clear the levels and get to Bowser and beat Bowser. All throughout those levels, we’ve created many different hidden areas where you can go and play around and are free to kind of have fun there. And I think that’s something we’ve tried to nurture throughout our teams over the years as we continue to develop games, is to encourage them to give the player the freedom within the context of the theme we’re providing the player, for the player to then evaluate that theme and decide whether or not they want to pursue the particular objective we’ve given them or whether or not they want to go off and maybe dillydally and do their own thing. And I think that’s an important part of entertainment itself.
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Exactly.

Post up what ya'll think.

(Full article: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/27/one-on-one-with-shigeru-miyamoto/)
 
Yea, that was well said. I personally fit into the latter category, which is why I am attracted to non-linear {Morrowind} or mostly non-linear {OOT} games. He mentioned SMB and I think Mario 64 is a good example of what he was talking about. You have a set goal of getting 70 stars and beating the game, however there is SO much more to do than that, so both kind of players can be happy. I think that is my beef with a lot of FPS's today, they just seem too linear. As you mentioned in another thread, a lot of shooters basically have you move from point A to point B and there's not much in between. That is why I would love to see more shooters follow the non linear gameplay of games such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Fallout 3, etc,..
 
well he is right, those games do give the player the liberty to do whatever they want, specially Zelda and Mario, i do enjoy to do extra sidequests and do whatever i want, revisit certain locations and stuff like that.

i think i am one of the second category because... when i play MMO's i usually feel lost and i don't know what to do until i receive a quest or a series of quests, or in older RPGs i usually need to gather information from villagers to know what i am supposed to do, i am not really a creative person.

Sometimes i like Linear games like Phoenix Wright or on-rail shooters, in fact it doesn't really bother me that they are not linear as long as the game is fun, but i do tend to enjoy non-linear games a bit more (but still phoenix wright is just awesome XD)

PS- Wii music? that game doesn't even exist XD what are you talking about? (those who listen to the podcast will understand)
 
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