How to "finish" a freeform game

Would it be possible to let your players to just play on forever and not provide an ending?

I suppose it depends a bit on whether you plan on having any concrete objectives for the player to achieve, such as obtaining a position of power (becoming king or president, for example), or collecting things ("find the seven sacred stone" type quests). But if you don't have a plot you could just have the player continue forever, like in the Sim series of games (The Sims, SimCity) etc.

In a true freeform RPG the only way to really finish is to die. In a less freeform RPG you'd of course have goals or deadlines. Harvest Moon had a 2.5-year time limit and in The Adventures of Robin Hood your goal was to retake your castle or die trying. They were both freeform (Robin more so) and very light on the plot.

Of course in a freeform game the player can be offered a plot in disguise. Design your world so that it isn't dependent on the player's input. Take the focus off the player and eventually he'll show interest in these external events all by himself.

Quote:

Original post by Trapper Zoid Would it be possible to let your players to just play on forever and not provide an ending? I suppose it depends a bit on whether you plan on having any concrete objectives for the player to achieve, such as obtaining a position of power (becoming king or president, for example), or collecting things ("find the seven sacred stone" type quests). But if you don't have a plot you could just have the player continue forever, like in the Sim series of games (The Sims, SimCity) etc.

Yes, I would have concrete objectives like becoming a king and taking over other nations, becoming a better & better criminal, becoming a leader of criminal orginization, of course being a freelance hero/adventurer kind of guy, and many others.

And I'm glad you mentioned Sims & SimCity because I think this game would be similar to sims in many ways.

Quote:

Of course in a freeform game the player can be offered a plot in disguise. Design your world so that it isn't dependent on the player's input. Take the focus off the player and eventually he'll show interest in these external events all by himself.

Yes, I was planning on taking the focus off the player and have many interesting thigns going on in the world without the player's input. NPCs would do things on their own and create plots, but there would be no linear plot inserted by a designer just plots that naturally come out of the system.

Thanks for your info. I have a much better view of things I could do. I kept feeling like if there's no ending, it feel empty. But maybe that's only because I'm used to single-player RPGs having some kind of ending.

What you do is make some boss monsters that you dont think can be beat, and then tell the player, in the context of the game, that they win if they beat those bosses.

I really like what infrmtn said about external events. if you make it so that these events are on a large enough scale, They will have the appearance of plot. basically, you want several AI. One type, more suited to the Civilization games, providing the plot, one type designed for a game like starcraft, in the interest of managing your city intelligently, and one type designed for player interaction. Have varioyus things speaking for the various AI. Have newspapers, and failing that, NPCs gossiping about newspapers speak for the higher AI, and of course dialogue to speak for the lesser AI. THis whole world operating, completely independant of the player, and eventually he gets entertained by it.

You could even have periodic updates with other players, over the internet. if you allow it, the game just talks to other players and gets interestingness(whatever the heck that is) imported. Make it kind of like the bones system of nethack or whatever, so you get even more interestingness. Perhaps at some point it becomes

Add a random procedural element, so that each game is diferent on the nation-nation level.

Of course, none of this allows the game to finish, just makes it more interesting. I'm just rambling unhelpfully.

Take a look at the samurai Jack plot. Jack is sent to many countries to learn martial arts, become stronger, and return to his home to save his people.

You can use that idea. The ultimate goal is to become strong enough/rich enought/have enough influence/reputation so he can do something important. How he does it - that's his own buisness.

I don't think you need an ending at all. As long as there are continued new, different, and fun challenges, people will keep playing. Players will just want to kill the next terrible monster, on foil the next assassination attempt. The issue is when there's nothing new for players to experience, they'll stop.

tj963

I played Morrowind alot, and I never finished it. This is the only game I can think about that while playing I enjoyed exploring rather then advancing in the story (that is, after I learned how to read english. Before I did, that was the situation in all RPGs).

yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Starcraft because in some ways the game may border on an RTS from an RPG point of view.

I expect to allow things such as being involved in warfare as a soldier or working up to a general and giving orders.

I also want to include more micro activites that are more on the RPG side like being a hero or criminal.

Also, someboddy, that is a very good point. I didn't care much about Morrowind's main plot either.

Thanks. You all helped a lot. I feel a lot more confident about having no main plotline after hearing that people agree with me that the world itself would create enough plot to be fun.

Quote:

Original post by Nazrix the world itself would create enough plot to be fun.

Unless it's a MMORPG, the world won't create any plot. You need to create the plot for your world.

I believe the point is not that the world creates plot, but that civilization-scale events percieved by a single player charachter can give the appearance of plot.

Quote:

Original post by NIm I believe the point is not that the world creates plot, but that civilization-scale events percieved by a single player charachter can give the appearance of plot.

Yes exactly.

By civilization-scale you mean wars and national conflicts and such right? ...just making sure I understand what is meant by the term.

I think most open ended games do need some sort of a big finish or ending in order to add meaning to the overall experience. Unless the game is purely meant as a toy that is picked up and put down in periodic cycles, I think the open ended nature can feel pointless if it goes on for too long without a payoff. Story games often give this payoff in terms of telling the player something emotionally satisfying has occurred. Without a plot, OEGs (hey, look, a new acronym! [wink]) need to do it with victory conditions, new phases of gameplay or state changes that alter the meaning of the player's behavior/struggle. Otherwise, the player may have the sense of never being able to get anywhere or achieve whatever wish fulfillment brought them into playing the game in the first place (like being Han Solo or the Dredd Pirate Roberts or whatever)

Wav, I definitely understand what you're saying and I was thinking that myself. Part of me feels that there are players who do like playing around with an environment without the game telling you what to do, but I think those players are in the minority.

When I played GTA, the first thing i wanted to do is screw around and run people over, etc. But as soon as any of my friends started playing the first thing they did was look to see what the game told them to do.

Another thing I noticed was that I was perfectly happy crashing and killing myself . I didn't care if I died or got arrested. To me, I was just having fun interacting with the freedom of the world.

Whereas my friends were very concerned about failing as far as the game was concerend. They didnt want to die or fail the mission. They were very concerend about the pass/fail aspect of the gameplay whereas I thought of everything as just an experience. And I think I feel that way about most games.

The OEG (I like that BTW :)) I am working on would have a sort of sense of achievement. For instance, if you gain leadership of a city or become a more powerful hero or villan that would probably give a sense of achievement.

The thing is I think in a true OEG, achievement would be subejctive. It would rely on what the player consideres to be an achievement. If the game defines what is achieving & what is failing then it no longer is an OEG.

So my dilema is that I don't want the player to feel like everything they're doing is pointless, but I don't want to give them a clear-cut pass or fail type of response. It seems that the 2 things are mutually exclusive, so it's really driving me crazy.

Quote:

Original post by Wavinator Without a plot, OEGs (hey, look, a new acronym! [wink]) need to do it with victory conditions, new phases of gameplay or state changes that alter the meaning of the player's behavior/struggle.

Okay, that does make sense. I definitely plan to allow the world to drastically change from the player's actions. If you become the kind of a nation, the game's state will change drastically. Or if you become the a feared thief or a powerful hero.

That's a good point you made. There has to be some payoff even if that payoff doesn't conclude the game like in a game with an ending.

Quote:

Original post by Nazrix So my dilema is that I don't want the player to feel like everything they're doing is pointless, but I don't want to give them a clear-cut pass or fail type of response. It seems that the 2 things are mutually exclusive, so it's really driving me crazy.

What if you added natural boundaries and limits that the player could overcome in order to unlock more interesting and diverse gameplay? For instance, let's say that you have dragon riding in a game. Initially, you hear about how difficult it is and how only the best can subdue and ride a dragon (playing on the player's ego, as in "you can't do it, bub"). The game doesn't tell you that you have to be a dragonrider, but the game makes it clear that dragonriders can do things others can't. Perhaps the game introduces villains on dragonback that occassionally harm the player's interests, such as a town of loyal NPCs whose economy suffers as a result of the attacks. etc. etc.

The player's motivation then becomes (in theory) intrinsic. The game hasn't given the player a goal, but has motivated him to pursue one because of the impact events are having on him. The impacts don't have to be negative, though. The player could find that they open a door to events that, degree by degree, fulfill their wishes more deeply, wishes such as being able to fly or perform deeds while invisible or become a world legend.

I wouldn't be shy about putting natural drivers like these into an OEG because they kind of act like the emotional physics of the game world. Poorly done OEGs suffer from a kind of emotional entropy, often manifesting as relentless wandering or downtime, all of which culminates in meaninglessness (the ultimate killer). I think this happens precisely because there is not some constant driver to naturally entice a player to do things. The critical difference is entice, though, not compel, as the majority of games do with missions and quests.

Thanks a lot, Wav. I believe I was thinking along those lines, but it helps to see it laid out in words. :)

One problem with a truly open ended game would be how to tell the player when he really messed up things beyond all posibilities of turning the tide to his favours again. As soon as the player realizes he really f***ed up things really bad, he will most likely want to load a previous save game - but what if he had already screwed it all up around that time as well?

I think players don't want to load and test their previous save games just to find out that their demise is inevitable. Realistic? Maybe. Fun? No.

Long-term feedback.

It'd be nice in one of these OEGs to get some sort of long-term consequences happening from some of the player's random experiments. The most obvious example is what we were promised with Fable; 'attack a random NPC and later his son will come back to get revenge', and so on.

Just because they didn't implement it, doesn't mean it's not a feasible mechanic, Lionhead were just put off because of the QA issues involved.

So using this feedback stuff you can get to a stage in a OEG where a pile of earlier player actions have been 'fed-back' and this represents a point of natural conclusion, so you could trigger some sort of generated cutscene.

I dunno, this is something Ive been meaning to try implement for a while...