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Does Size Matter?

Mercedes

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lol sex joke

Moving on, the question at hand is a simple one; does the size of a videogame matter to you? Size referring to just the scale of the explorable game world.

For me, I do like big games, and it does actually matter to me. It's not a 100% way to make a good game, and it's arguably way harder to fill a vast open-world with sufficient content to entertain the player and therefore much easier to disappoint, but if given the option I'd always take the bigger world that I can freely explore over perhaps a more intricate but smaller game. I love exploration in videogames and I especially like a world to feel organic and living, and I think open-world games have, and always will, achieve that well. It's why I was apprehensive but a little excited about Zelda U's move to what appears to be a much bigger open-world setting; apprehensive because, as said above, it's easier to disappoint if you make a bad over world with not much to do, but excited because, if they pull it off, I can't wait to explore it!

It's why I've been very excited for titles such as Witcher 3 too, which seems to be a game that, though it has a huge open-world, is not sacrificing the quality of the world and story which many open-world games have often done. Zelda U may very well be the same, which would be just the best thing that could happen! A game's primary design focal point does of course come into play too. Some games wouldn't work open-world, or perhaps just need a creative mind to work out how it could, whereas other games absolutely lend themselves to an open-world, fantasy epics especially.

How about you all? :D
 
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JuicieJ

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Quality > quantity. A larger world is pointless if it can't offer enough substance to sustain itself. Most modern Zelda games are proof of this, the worst offenders being the GameCube titles. Now, if a game can have a large world AND sustain itself? Sure, why not? I'll take it.

Of course, it depends on the genre. If it's something like Resident Evil where traveling down corridors is a major part of the design, then largeness would be dumb. Gotta keep these kind of things in mind when designing a game.
 

Jedizora

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I always take size into account when purchasing a game. I'm not going to spend $20+ dollars on a game that I'm going to finish in ten or so hours. I mean, sure, if the content is good, it might be worth it, but you can only replay a game so many times. And besides, many games manage to strike a solid balance. My first play through of Dragon Age: Origins took 40 hours, and that's not counting Awakening.
 

Terminus

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I seriously thought this was that one thread. But yeah, size is an important factor. In an adventure game, like Zelda, I like my games (and overworlds) to be decently sized. For games like Portal, size isn't as important but moreso what you do with it that matters (lel sex joke Im so funny).
 

Mask-Salesman

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Yes off course. Skyrim is a game I could have payed double the normal amount (€60,-) for and I still wouldn't be mad. The game is so lengthy that I've probably spend more than 150+ hours playing. Star Wars: Force Unleashed II was the opposite. I felt like I've been deceived after buying the game (I love Star Wars and the first game was pretty good) and the story was finished after 6 hours. So, size is really important.
 
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I love exploring a large open world (fallout, elder scrolls, far cry, day z, etc) but backtracking can be tedious without a proper system to return to previous explored area. I'd rather play a 6 hour linear game that constantly leads me to knew locations than a 100 hour open world game with tons of backtracking.
 

misskitten

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Like a story can be a few pages and feel too long, and another can be hundreds upon hundreds of pages and not feel not long enough - I feel the same way about games. While I do love the idea of having a huge game to explore and play, it really depends on how that game is filled. If the game is filled to the brink with exciting gaming content, then I love the idea of the game being huge. If the content is not all that engaging and/or is spread far apart to create the illusion of big, then the size works against the game.
 

43ForceGems

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Well just like everything else in a game, it doesn't matter, as long as it's done good. I don't care if a game has a small world a big world, as long as the world it has is good. Earthbound has a pretty freaking huge world, and it's amazing, I love it. Yet something like Pikmin is pretty small, just a couple small areas that are easily explored, but the way it's executed is fabulous.
 

Jimmu

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I'm not so fussed as to how big the explorable world is but I do like them to use the space well. If there is an open world filled with absolutely nothing then I find that rather boring (I suppose this excludes games like Fallout 3 that are supposed to feel somewhat empty). Some of my favourite video game worlds are in Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, these games had explorable worlds that were filled with so much to do and explore. Banjo-Kazooie was somewhat of a colectathon but I think that it was done in a way that was actually enjoyable. Something I thought Donkey Kong 64 did really was basing the design of the world around abilities of the characters, for example having to shrink as Tiny Kong to fit into certain sections. So the amount of space isn't a vital aspect of making a great game, what they do with the space is.
 

Mask-Salesman

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@ Jimmy.F27

Perfectly said, it's important what you do with the space. You can't make spacious games just because you want them to be spacious. Developers should have a plan with their game. Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo Kazooie (and Tooie!) are the perfect examples. Man, I love those games so much. Milestones in my childhood, maybe just as much as OoT and MM were!
 

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