i really just want to play games

Chapter 151 A problem with open world games

At that time, the unprosperous Khitan people were entrenched in the Liaozhong area. To the south of it was Silla, which had unified the peninsula, to the west was the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and to the east was the Bohai Kingdom supported by the Tang Dynasty in the Heilongjiang area.

Therefore, the Tang Dynasty's policy towards the Khitan was to suppress it and basically refused to allow trade. Moreover, Bohai State and the Khitan had a long-standing enmity, so they did not communicate with each other.

Therefore, Silla in the south became the key to connect these three regions. If the Khitan people wanted to obtain important supplies, they could only rely on the traveling merchants in Silla.

Datang paid very generously to the soldiers, basically the food and supplies were the best.

Su Tong was stationed here and was a sentry rider running around, so he naturally gradually started to get involved in this troublesome business.

Of course, it is a capital crime to resell military supplies privately. It is impossible for Su Tong to do this. He just joined forces with the brothers in his team, and then went to purchase supplies and trade them for Khitan gold or silver.

After all, this is no longer a disguise, but this is what they do. No matter the clothes on their bodies or the habits of ordinary Silla merchants, they are all perfectly imitated.

At this point in the game, the player is still in control, but this journey is at the level of viewing the scenery. The purpose is of course to show off skills and show the picture quality of "Legend Chang'an".

This map belongs to the prequel of the entire game. The previous cutscenes to the woods and lakes, as well as the Khitan gathering place in the back, are all on one map.

Although the mountains and rivers here are more complicated, there are no buildings that require too much attention, so the difficulty of modeling is very low, so the area of ​​​​this map is also enlarged. Players can explore almost all places, and even Chen Tiancai is in this map. Hidden a lot of easter eggs.

Just like the lake where Su Tong is walking now, if the player comes and jumps into the lake with interest, he will naturally find something different.

This is also one of the biggest benefits of open world games. A complete world with endless secrets is displayed in front of players, which can provide a long-term gaming experience.

But the large map also brings a problem to the open world, that is how to keep players from feeling bored when running.

You must know that in open world games in recent years, the maps have become larger and larger. Although there are teleport points, players must at least go there in person. This takes a lot of time, some even take more than 10 minutes. , which greatly reduces the continuity of the plot.

And if some side missions or emergencies are arranged during this period of running the map, it is of course a way to fill the game process.

But these tasks are usually very repetitive, it is difficult to mobilize the enthusiasm of players, and the rewards of these tasks must not be too rich, so such a design has almost become a waste of time.

Even though an excellent game design company has extraordinary abilities and may do these dessert-style tasks with deep content, there are not many good ideas, and this is a thankless move.

Therefore, how to control the rhythm and time for players to open the map, and how to allow players to get fun other than scenery from running the map, has become a big problem for the continued development of the open world.

Among the development world games that Chen Tiancai has played so far, Lao Ren is the best one to solve this problem, and his representative work is of course "Breath of the Wild".

He has seen the development experience shared by the old Ren. Based on the watchtower, the old Ren divided the entire game map into small pieces in an obsessive-compulsive way.

Then in these divided areas, the old man filled a lot of game content, from monsters to treasure chests to small temples, which is why the open world of "Breath of the Wild" is so fascinating.

Because of these detailed contents, the seemingly empty wilderness is actually full of surprises everywhere, and only Lao Ren can play this kind of flower.

But only Lao Ren can do this. Such a detailed and even perfect design can only be achieved by Lao Ren with decades of technical accumulation and game-making concepts.

The numerical issues seem to be the most important, but it is the intuition of designing games, or the artistic sense of genius, that actually grasps these things.

Chen Tiancai's current finished product seems good, but it is actually still in the toddler stage in Handan. From the imperfect "Hymn" to the current "Legend of Chang'an", Chen Tiancai has finally found his own path.

Naturally, Barlow doesn't know all the stories behind this. After all, even if a game review editor understands it, it is impossible to understand it better than the person who makes the game.

The meaning of their existence is to identify the good and bad of the game, and then face the player directly, so that the player can decide whether to buy the game or not.

But in fact, there are very few things that the game evaluation media can decide here, because in the final analysis, whether a game can be accepted by players depends on the quality of the game and the hobbies of the players.

Therefore, the game evaluation media is an early adopter, similar to a gourmet who goes to a restaurant to taste.

'Gourmet' Barlow is now experiencing a new feature in "Legend Chang'an", which is real-time cutscene simulation animation.

After he controlled Su Tong to walk by the lake for more than a minute, Barlow gradually felt that although the beautiful scenery on the roadside was beautiful, the game was boring. However, he has rich experience in games and knows that this is a common problem of open world games. Take it seriously.

But at this moment, the game screen suddenly paused, and then an operation prompt appeared:
[Press the left and right joysticks to enter the real-time cutscene simulation animation. (This operation can be canceled at any time, but it can greatly reduce the time to run the map)]

"Movie mode?" was Barlow's first reaction.

Chen Tiancai is not the only one thinking about this issue, other big names in the industry must also be thinking a lot.

But in the way Barlow has seen now, the 'movie mode' in Rockstar's "Big Cousin 2" is the best solution.

The so-called "movie mode" means that players can choose to enter this mode during the long running map screen, and then the entire game screen will use the upper and lower black borders of the movie to isolate other information, allowing players to see only the surrounding scenery. Then reduce the running time.

After entering the 'movie mode', you basically don't need any operations, just wait until you reach the destination of the task.

However, although this method is ingenious, it is only useful in specific games. After all, "Big Cousin 2" is a game with a western theme, and using the "movie mode" will make players feel more emotional.

However, there are only a few shots in this 'movie mode', and some places need to run back and forth repeatedly, so after the freshness is over, players will feel that it is not worth seeing, and only use it as a tool for fast running.

"Let me see what answer the Anthem Network has to that question."

Barlow pressed the left and right joysticks at the same time, entering a real-time cutscene simulation animation.

(End of this chapter)