Doppelganger said:
Ok, I have another noob question (not about TES, please): what do you guys think is the perfect balance between the sandbox elements of an RPG and its quest elements (main or side)? Are they best implemented as separate features of a game, or should one be absolutely dependent on the other?
Well, there's two sides to this.
Strictly speaking, Darklands was basically one big medieval sandbox. IIRC, it did not have a main "quest" so to speak, but instead was about you rising to fame and becoming well-known (or infamous). Most of the quests you weren't given, but instead kind of stumbled into. You would be walking about the countryside and BAM! You'd find a damsel in distress or a caravan wishing to trade or some thugs.
There was a bulletin-board like system of getting quests, much lie you'd find in space games or such. But to do those quests you had to have a high enough reputation, and if you didn't, more adventuring for you!
So, basically, I'm guessing by "sandbox" you mean going anywhere and doing anything, like the ability in Fallout to skip all the quests and just go kill The Master. Most RPGs don't have that kind of sandbox element to them, as RPGs are mostly defined by their quests or missions or jobs or whatever terminology you'd like to use.
Darklands is really much more sandbox-based than quest-based. Fallout, on the other hand, is much more quest-based than sandbox-based. That is NOT to say it's linear, but that it puts more focus on the quests and how you complete them and what you do during them or to the people giving them than Darklands' more simulation type feel. In Darklands, the emphasis IS on exploration. Fallout's emphasis on the quests, BUT it has the option to be free-roaming and sandboxy. In Fallout, I could just go about killing every person I saw (Or just black people and the dwarf people becase my character is a racist because I'm roleplaying THE MORROWIND WAY) but you can't escape the quests the game pushes on you, because sooner or later you will have to kill the mutants, or join up with them or do something to get better equipment or level up.
Sandbox is free-form, which is to say it's always non-linear. If it wasn't, it wouldn't really be a sandbox. Quest-based
can be non-linear, as Fallout has showed us, but when you're forcing a player onto a path, there will be games/times when it's linear.
Of course, if I had to choose between a game where I just wandered around meaninglessly, but I had everything open to me and I could and do whatever I wanted
but it had no effect whatsoever on the gameplay, I'd take quest-based anyday.
Depends on the point of view. Some people love BG2/TES "tons of side-quests" style. "Yes, I'm saving this world here from some impeding doom, but I don't mind running some errands for you! Do you want me to pick your mail?" I'd prefer if side-quests were integrated into the "theme" of the main quest and logic of the situation.
Ultima VII kinda fell into that trap, too. That game had plentiful side-quests and many ways of completing the main quest, but they just didn't seem to make that much sense when you think about. You get the Guardian popping up on your monitor going "Suck it, Avatar! I'm gonna come to Britannia and lay some serious waste to it. You can't stop me!" You get to Britannia and you can just go lolly-gagging about. Do a side-quest here and there, have the Guardian laugh at you BUT YOU CAN STAY IN BRITANNIA FOR IN-GAME YEARS AND NOTHING HAPPENS!
The game tries to remedy this by showing signs of the Guardian's influence all around. You'll be wandering about in a cave, and then you'll see a generator and you can't enter. Cue Guardian taunt. Your interest will be piqued, so soon enough you'll be searching for a way to get in, and you may happen across ANOTHER generator or secret Fellowship cave. You'll go HMMM, and then search about for answers to
that cave et cetera, et cetera.
Morrowind could've fixed the whole "IMPENDING DOOM!!! but first, do some sidequests" situation by slowly showing Dagoth-Ur's influence spreading, more and more Sixth House members coming into the open. Maybe even towns being rampaged by his armies. And these wouldn't be triggered by you doing something, but by inaction. Could've improved the game greatly, IMHO.
) for years and the Enclave was totally motionless this whole time. I think BIS shoudl have added a timelimit in FO2, just like they did in FO1. Say, if you tarry for too long, The Enclave starts pumping FEV into atmosphere and oyu get killed or mutated or something. It would not prevent the sandbox scenario (which was *VERY* good in FO2), but only postpone it until you actually destroy the enclave.
