Taxonomy of Worlds
There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number...
are borne on far out into space. -- Epicurus
OPEN WORLD REVIEWS
-
Empyrion
Multiplayer Hosted (PUBLISHED)
-
DIV2
MMO (PUBLISHED)
-
LOTRO
MMO (PUBLISHED)
-
RDR2 Online
MMO (LIVE)
-
Star Citizen
MMO (ALPHA)
This is a wordy page. Sorry. I need to explain somewhere how I'm "rating" the Open Worlds and looking for the Underglimmer. If you do not have time to read my methods feel free to dive right into a reviews when they start showing up on this page. Eventually we'll revise the navigation of the site but for now this will work.
I will classify the camera control options, the art style elements, the user interface complexity (how much you must learn for basic play), user interface depth (how far you can immerse yourself into the world), what modes of gameplay are available (PvE, PvP, PvPE, et cetera). I will call out the pacing, responsiveness, lore, and Open World engagement. How it goes for a first time player experience. (Don’t worry if you are new to all this, I will explain everything as I go).
Since the birth of computer entertainment the vaults of creativity have erupted into a myriad of game titles. Many of these titles defy genre classification and many attempt to create their own genre. Genre no longer has much of a meaning. Trying to use genre to represent the experience of the gameplay is impossible -- too many factors -- too many intangibles.
As strange as that may seem you will see that the genre may only represent the premise of a game's starting point for a new player. So whether or not the publisher calls a title a Western or a Sci-Fi or a Horror... the genre label is only a signpost on the way to immersive exploration of an Open World.
There are so many titles out there I must narrow the effort to those that most easily deliver an Underglimmer. For the most part these will be Massive Multiplayer Online Open Worlds (MMO) or Multiplayer Hosted Open Worlds. And in some cases the Open World Game may include multiple modes of play that cross between.
There are ALSO so many aspects to the grand collaborative work required to create an Open World game that it's difficult to decide what can be "rated" on a chart for comparison between them.
These reviews are an effort to quantify qualities of gameplay that cannot be compared feature versus feature. So apologies in advance for wordy descriptions. Trying to "rate" experiences objectively is very difficult and so I must try to bridge the gap between the tangible and the intangible. For example, if you find that the game world lets YOU decide what role you want your Player Character (PC) to take in it you have arrived in an Open World. That is where we start.
We used to try to classify these as Role-Playing Games (RPG) and in some ways that works but not well enough anymore. Everything you do in games is a Role-Play to some degree. What level your Player Character (PC) achieves is less meaningful as the important question: Are you enjoying the journey?
As a matter of practice I’ll be trying to avoid heavily franchised titles which span multiple media types such as Star Wars, Star Trek, and especially those games which only exist to promote a brand over promoting an experience. Our list will not include every environment. We will only cover those that play at the minimum on a Microsoft Windows environment but may also provide for users of Apple Mac, Android, Console, and Linux environments. Our ideal is gaming that crosses platform between all these AND consoles. The only REAL difference between them all is the controller options you have as a player. We will only briefly mention the technical specifications of the games. There are plenty of other sources you can find to research those details about a title.
Important concepts to grasp are that #1 you are being asked to journey into a virtual world, #2 you feel you can go anywhere within it and #3 it better be worth your time.
Too many titles are simply profit grabbing corporate publishers who harvest your personal information, harvest your money, and then insult you by giving you an experience that is simply a waste of your time. Some game types focus on Player-versus-Player only for example and are usually only worth experiencing by players who value succeeding in highly-competitive sports (i.e. Bartles' “Fighters” and to a lesser degree “achievers”). For others it's not worth their time.
We should be able to come for the experience but feel it's worth staying for the journey. That is what the underglimmer should feel like.
WORLD EXPERIENCES
| Subject/Rating | Considered | Scored |
|---|---|---|
| Does the game allow you to "Suspend your Disbelief" in the fantastical experience? Does it avoid the "Uncanny Valley" of creepiness? Does it get close to realism but not quite enough to feel too real? Reality Base: Realistic, Vague, Fantastic, Surreal. | 1 to 10 | |
| Does the story help the Player Character (PC) grow as a "person"? Are you experiencing something worth describing to your friends or family in real life (RL)? Lore: Simple/Moderate/Deep. Environment Rule of Law: Order, Anarchy. I’ve heard that some writers feel that there are only 27-ish model stories to tell. Does this game still give you unexpected story surprises? | 1 to 10 | |
| Determinism vs. Free Will (Is the story forced on Player or Player allowed to create story). How we feel about the missions/quests will help us commit or not. Does the story feel like you’re being run down a rail? If everything is on a rail how are you more than a mouse learning how to navigate a maze? You should feel like you are creating your own story. In most games, your Player Character (PC) is dropped into a crisis and you must find a way to navigate your character through it. | 1 to 10 | |
| Music Composition, and Performance Ambiance, Effective event-driven music? Enough variety to keep it fresh? | 1 to 10 | |
| Sound effects design has a big impact on the experience. Do the effects feel realistic as you hear them? | 1 to 10 | |
| Non-Player Characters (NPC's) fill the Open World. Are they simply objects to you when you play or do you care about them? Why should this matter? Because it affects us in our real life. | 1 to 10 | |
| One actor, many voices? Many actors, many voices? Professional Acting? If every Non-Player Character (NPC) in the Open World SOUNDS like the same person... immersion is blown. | 1 to 10 | |
| Some games replace activity content which has story elements with looping activities which are designed to simply force the Player to perform a grind within the environment. There is a balance between realism and fantasy that must be met to keep the immersion yet allow you to enjoy the experience. Some game developers may think that simply giving us a grind is enough. But this is not what the Underglimmer is about. | 1 to 10 | |
| If recovering from "death" for the Player Character is too easy... there's no challenge. Too inconvenient and it feels like a grind or a mouse-maze experience. The gameplay architecture in an Open World is a difficult challenge for developers. Since all Players are different and come with different perspectives they must give us gameplay loops which are achievable and yet feel challenging. There must be penalties for failure that keep the gameplay moving without making it feel like a trope. | 1 to 10 | |
| Aside from the "Big 4": Exploration, Missions/Quests/Jobs/Contracts, Trade/Economy/Mercantile, Collecting, Hunting, Investigation, Resource Gathering, Medical, Support, Weapons, Military, Building/Construction, Building/Engineering, Game Design, Logic/Factory Challenges, | 1 to 10 | |
| Player-housing, Ownership/Contribution/Adventure Building. Player housing, player constructions. Player adventure building. Character customization. | 1 to 10 | |
| Co-Op Party Size Max, Raiding Events/Party, Community Events, Community Challenges, In-Game Socialization (Immersion) vs. External Socialization Required. Cross-Level Balancing for every experience level to enjoy group activities? How easy is it to join with your real friends? How easy is it to find new friends who are legitimate and not just spear-phishing you. How easy is it to avoid trolls? | 1 to 10 | |
| Achievement Challenges, Task-based Events, Time-based Challenges, After End-game Activities for Achievements, Good Behavior Benefits, Bad Behavior Benefits, Crime & Justice. Constructive Environments. | 1 to 10 | |
| Violence Level 0 to 10? Destructible environments. | 1 to 10 | |
| Size of the world, Points of Interest Quantity, Points of Interest Qualities, NPC's to discover, creatures to discover, treasure hunting, | 1 to 10 | |
| Player-versus-Environment (PvE), Player-versus-Player (PvP), Cooperative-Player-versus-Environment (Coop-PvE), Team-versus-Team (Team-PvP), are some common "play modes" that Open Worlds can specialize in OR they can make them optional. This rating grades how these modes are presented to the Players and how optional they are to the enjoyment of the Open World. We give negative marks if a PvE world forces PvP gameplay on unsuspecting Players. | 1 to 10 | |
GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCES
| Subject/Rating | Considered | Scored |
|---|---|---|
| Does it give you motion sickness? Do you find yourself confused by what you see? | 1 to 10 | |
| Does it take a great deal of effort to learn it's ways and understand the gameplay logic? Depth of Experience: Smooth Transitions or Confusing. | 1 to 10 | |
| Feeling challenged makes achievements in the environment feel more satisfying. Games which allow an increasing difficulty range allow you to tune your experience. Does this game have settings that affect your difficulty such as: Novice, Challenging, Hardcore. | 1 to 10 | |
| First Person Only, Third-Person, Top-Down, Side-View, Other Computer gaming requires you to put your awareness behind a virtual camera and you must be able to survive the leap from reality to your imagination. That's why we have designations that are based on Design categories. | 1 to 10 | |
| Mouse+Keyboard? Double-Joystick? HOTAS? Console Controller? There are no established standards for how a game interface must operate. In fact some games are designed to break out of typical gameplay models in order to challenge the users. Still others just have horrible user interfaces because they are trying to appeal to too many markets with the same game content. We aware high points to titles that give Players many Controller type options. | 1 to 10 | |
| How well does it feel you can control your Player Character (PC)? Difficult to Learn/Master/Does it become instinctual? Clever controls and clever animation are awarded higher scores. | 1 to 10 | |
| Glitching behavior, struggles with graphic quality, broken quests, abandonment of older bugged quests to create new content. Immersion breaking failures? Every title starts with the highest score on this. Points are removed for technical failings that are clearly related to the client software engineering. | 1 to 10 | |
| Glitching behavior, struggles with graphic quality, broken quests, abandonment of older bugged quests to create new content. Immersion breaking failures? | 1 to 10 | |
FRANCHISE EXPERIENCES
| Subject/Rating | Considered | Scored |
|---|---|---|
|
Microsoft Windows, Shadow Virtual, Apple Mac, Android, iOS, PS/4, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Switch Is cross-platform play possible online? |
1 to 10 | |
| Is game worthy of your loyalty? Can you find this virtual world worthy of your loyalty? Will you get a value from spending time online with this franchise? | 1 to 10 | |
| Many game publishers build something then throw it away after they've recouped their development costs and made hefty profits. Are they building something to last or are they building a way to make quick profit from thronging masses eager for the "new"? Remember the golden rule of the decade: “If it is free, you are the product.” Many games provide the ability to grind on gameplay loops for free. If you want more, you need to either subscribe, pay for add-on content, or more. These concerns affect our rating for this category. | 1 to 10 | |
| Some publishers will fail a product on purpose just to make money and go on to sell something new. The "newness" is what they think they're selling instead of the Underglimmer... which is what they SHOULD be selling to create an ongoing business out of providing ongoing wonder. If a publisher shows they care about the users that keep their online open-world populated they can win undying loyalty from fans. Many publishers still show they care. Here's a scale on that. | 1 to 10 | |
|
Over the last few decades it’s become common place for software development companies to invite players to “join in the adventure of software development”. These may take the form of Alpha releases (in which players get to playtest badly broken gaming software), Beta releases (in which players are asked to beta test the software before it's considered complete). Since social media has become a thing for marketers to use to create product buzz it has become abused as well with “leaks” feeding a frenzy of fanatical followers. Untested and glitchy games are becoming the norm and if nothing else, we are all being forced to learn patience. This rating has to do with what “state” the game environment feels like and what the player expectations should be. If you spend a lot of your real-life time playing an Alpha game environment you will need to be a saint of patience because you will lose a lot of your time and emotional investment until the game is completed. Why would someone do this to themselves? One possible value is that they were “first” on the scene. |
1 to 10 | |
| Are the game developers risking your personal safety in order to get your information for marketing? Are they respecting age ratings and legal business practices for your region? If the service or product is FREE you must realize YOU are the product. Make sure your online service traffic and profiling information is set to PRIVATE wherever possible and you have identified LOCAL servers to your region whenever they will allow it. (PII = Personally Identifiable Information is at risk online). | 1 to 10 | |
| Do you see the hackers? | 1 to 10 | |