Is linear so bad?

Nowadays, it seems to be a trend to make games as open-world and as sand-box as possible. The focus is to allow players to choose their own path and do whatever they want. (eg, crysis, oblivion, assassins creed, MoH Airborne, bioshock, etc)

I am not against "sandbox-combat" a la Bioshock, but often the idea of open-ended story with lots of side-quests is used. In my opinion the loss
of emphasis takes its toll on the story and the quality of how its brought.

For example lets take the extremes half-life 2 and oblivion. I find myself much more pulled into the story of half-life 2 because you're always in it. The developers probably put more time into developing the "linear path" that you follow as its just one path. Oblivion's main story really isnt told/presented in a very good way. It's almost an afterthought.

To conclude, when I play a linear game like half-life 2 i find the feeling similar to a book. More thought is put into HOW the story is told, and to the details.
Open-ended games don't do this nearly as well. Its a shame.

 

Witcher isn't half bad in this respect, you can postpone finishing the main quest as long as you like but the story still flows along in a linear fashion (in my opinion).

 

Witcher is quite linear actually. There are plenty of sidequests but its not an open-world by a long shot.

Fallout managed to strike a good balance I think.

Much as I loved playing Oblivion, I completely agree with the OP, it had a tacked on, lame plot which didn't add much to the game. The gorgeous game-world, the AI, the side-quests, the roleplaying richness and especially the modding community is what makes Oblivion a classic, IMO.

 

I also like games that has linear style storyline. The story is the one that keeps me attached.

FF7, Star Ocean, Halo, Starcraft(ALl of this games and many more makes you think that playing games is like reading a novel)

 

I agree that Fallout (especially Fallout 2) manages to combine the best of both worlds. Fallout 2's plot is not linear, but if you only do the plot you will go through something like 20% of the total game content. You will actually not visit a few cities and a lot of the smaller places.

Fallout 2 rocked. Great story, huge game, excellent humour. I still remember facing a much more powerful guy in power armor (who could kill me in a snap) threatening me and replying "I'm the Chosen One. You better say that with a smile." Priceless!

 

I would say Bioshock is quite linear. Any game that leads you to or requires you to go from point A to point B is linear in my view.

A game that definitely is not linear would be The Elders Scroll: Morrowind or Oblivion. Those are games you can either be part of the story or choose to do whatever you want.

 

Of course linear isn't bad. Books are linear, movies are linear. Stories are linear.

Your progression through a game is linear. Even in the most open-ended, nonlinear game. The precise path you take is always linear.
A linear game is simply one where they realize this and say "ok, why waste all that effort on the branches that the player never sees? Let's focus on making *one* path kick ass, and tell the player to take that path".

If you want to tell a story, nothing beats linear.



Of course, sometimes you don't want to tell a story. Sometimes the goal is to let the player mess around and solve problems their own way. Or compete with other players. Then linearity becomes a drawback.
It depends on what you're trying to do.

 

Oblivion doesn't belong in that list because it's not following the trend it created the trend with Morrowind before it, and realy Elder Scrolls (1): Arena started it all for their open ended game play, story, and options.

That's just how YOU play it, which is your choice, and the nice thing is you can always chose to do it another way next time, thus adding to the story's own 30-50 hours of gameplay to make it many hundreds of hours of story play for many people. Once you've played the 15-30 hours of HL2 to complete the first story, everything else is just a slight variation repeat of something you already completed. It's like watching a movie and just tweaking the colour, contrast and volume settings.

Some people prefer to have a story told to them, others prefer to a Choose your own adventure. Heck I hate there's actually ends to the maps in Elder Scrolls games, which is why mods and expansion packs are great. For a linear story an expansion pack is like saying "You've defeated the Aliens/Combine/etc, congrats, oh wait, scratch that happy ending, give us that medal of honour back."

You probably only like guided bus tours or plan base trips too, eh?
Personally I like a world of infinite possibilities sometimes, but also the option for a guided tour (especially in places where going off the gilded path is very unwise).

To each their own. Linear isn't bad, but neither is open ended, they match different games better than others.

 

Guess you've never read a "chose your own adventure" book.

True but if you want to BE the story it's better that it not be linear, with few barriers.

Different games for different people. It's like arguing Chess vs Checkers vs Bridge vs Risk, etc.

 

I`ve played most the games on the linear side, but ocasionally I`d hit one with alternate endings, but that`s about it.
If you want non-linear, maybe the Sims are the way to go...Or you could wait for Spore.
Now,linear is not all that bad. You always know where you have to get to, and that gives you a purpose,a goal. Non-linear games will become boring soon if there's no real goal in the game.
I guess it`s a matter of perspective in the end, a non-linear game with optional goals might work,but when would it end? It`s like WOW, just hack slash,upgrade,play more. Boring :|
A good game has to have an ending,and it`s what linearity is all about. A beginning, a story line, and an ending. Or more endings,for the picky type.
Prince Of Persia 2 - warrior within had 2 alternate endings . I`ve also played a mod of Half Life 1 with 2 endings (I can`t remember the name,it`s something with D...) .
My 0.013 eur-cents

 

I've never really felt that games that are opened ended are really that open.

Games like Oblivion still have this linear path to them. Sure, you get to do a ton of side quests and what not that can delay you from the main story line. But that is all that does. You still have the same plot line to follow, same guys to kill, etc.

I'm waiting for a real open ended game. Where you have something like KOTOR, but instead of having a somewhat lame "dark and light side" effect... you actually change the objectives of the game and work to become a Sith Lord or something.

all in all, for me... its less about if it's linear or not. What is important is how does it make me feel playing it. How sucked in do I get? Do I feel any emotional attachment to the characters? And how creative is the gameplay?

 

IMHO a true open ended game doesn't have a story, it let's you in the universe and let you do whatever you want to do, but I think that if you decide that say I'll recruit people and take over the world, it becomes linear because you have decided of an objective...

 

Sounds like your describing Battle Cruiser 3000 AD. It was buggy as hell but it definately had very little story and was open ended.

Spore shows a lot of promise for those who like opened games. Simcity is a game I would classify in the open ended category. No story although you are given an objective and it's up to you to figure it out.

 

For a story to be told, events have to played out in a certain order, even in choose your own adventure books, you go from the beginning of the story to the end, just because there are multiple paths leading to multiple outcomes, each combination is linear, from beginning to end.

Some games try to be too open, and as result, the story gets muddled and confusing, while it can be fun to go trapsing off on your own doing whatever, for the story to get played out you need a structured plot, and your character being a prime player in said plot will have to acomplish or fail to acomplish many designed tasks to progress the story, theres no around it for a story driven game.

 

Open ended was UO.

And nothing since.