Fable

[A Black Falcon]

Linearity in environments in Zelda is a good thing. Linearity in environments in an open-ended RPG is a very bad thing.

My point is that this is NOT a fully open-ended RPG! If you want that play Morrowind. This is a title that, while it does have some degree of open-endedness and a branching plot, isn't open-ended within each area by design. So you are basing your whole premise on a false thesis. This isn't Morrowind. It's Baldur's Gate for consoles. Those are very different game styles.

If you want a complaint on this subject, don't make it about that. Make it about something worth complaining about! Like, for instance, the impact console RPGs clearly had on the game... I really noticed this in the last few days, much more than before. You have a pretty quick progression. Go to new planet, explore the city there, do the side-quests in said city, then go to the adventure area. Depending on where you are this area is larger or smaller... but generally you'll probably spend at least as much time in the towns as you will adventuring. More town on Manaan, less on Kashyyk, but overall you're mostly in the safer town areas and not in danger zones.

Why is this a problem? Several things. First, it means that the scope of each planet is limited. I don't have a problem with a zoned game design, but I would like it if there had been fewer planets which you spent more time on... Taris, for instance -- you spend quite a bit of time there and that one is more extensive. Later that changes. Areas become simpler. There are few places that aren't quest related that you can go, if any at all. There are still side-quests, but probably not as many. I think it's obvious that they had to do so many cities that they had to skimp on the details in all of them. I'd have preferred a setup like either Baldur's Gate game where there is one great city and the rest of the places you visit are obviously not in the same class... towns, I guess. That lets them put more effort into everything and make it all seem more like a real place. As it is, once you get past Taris the non-story parts of the towns dry up and become less prominent...

For an example of this, I don't see any normal homes you can enter in Manaan, Tatooine, Dantooine, or Kashyyyk. You can only go into buildings related to quests. Now fine in any design you'd spend most of the time in quest buildings. And these are generally major quests, not the little ones. There are fewer of those as well. It's too bad that the other places fade away... maybe it improves later, but I have doubts. There is just only so much that they can do with so many big cities to design, after all... I think that they tried to make it more like a console RPG, where you have a constant succession of towns and surroundings to visit, and it didn't quite work.

It also has the effect that I started this point with: Smaller outdoors areas. Or more accurately for my point, fewer of them. Now I'm not asking for a Baldur's Gate I with huge numbers of nearly empty and not very relevant zones, but a BGII with plenty of areas to explore as you progress would be great... and I don't just mean new towns. :) Remove several planets and improve the ones that are left. Increase the number of outdoor areas and the amount of time you spend out there -- I LIKE adventuring! Yes, quests in cities are okay, but there are only so many of those you can do before you get bored and want to go elsewhere... and another city isn't always the first thing you have in mind. It'd have helped the game.


... why does this always happen? It's so weird. I came away from playing KotOR last night thinking 'this is great, I should write about something good about it for a change to reflect how I think this is a great game' but again it's one of my criticisms that comes to the fore... oh well, I'll say the good too now I guess.

Party members. Or rather, how extensive their stories are. Now BG has some character background, but it really isn't too much. Most characters have a quest sequence true, but still... this beats that easily. Each chararacter has a well developed backstory that comes out as the game progresses by talking to them. In this way I'd say Torment is a better comparison because there, like here, you choose when to talk with your party members instead it being (infrequent) automatic events. And more like that game you talk with them a lot. Of course it's also quite different from Torment in some ways, but it's a reasonable basis for comparison I think, better than BG anyway. It's a great aspect of the game. My only complaint is the way they went about implementing it...

You: "How's it going?"
Them: "I don't want to talk about it."
You: "Do you have a problem? Tell me!"
Them: "It's personal and private and I'd rather not discuss it."
You: "Oh I don't mean to pry, but maybe I could help you..."\
Them: "Hmm, I don't know..."
You: "You'll feel better if you tell you know..."
Them: "Well okay..."*tells*

It just doesn't seem nice to act like the main character has to to get the information out of people. I know that often it is things that they clearly don't want to talk about, but honestly... it never feels quite right having it put like it is in the game. Making people talk about things they don't really want to talk about like this... it's just not nice! But on the other hand I want to hear their stories. It could have been done differently, I think (for instance, they do it in great fashion with HK-47... :)). But I really do think that the deep character backgrounds is a great aspect of the game.