Invisible walls

[Groveller]

I'm all for keeping at least the illusion of openess, so my order of preference would be:

1st = Automatic Wrap around (leave one end and seemlessly reappear on the other side)
2nd = Monty Python (you run on the spot without getting any closer to the horizon)
3rd = Convoluted plot device - eg: radiation (COD4) or Shark (Banjo Kajooie)
4th = Invisible Wall: nothing says "***k you for straying from the path" like a nice invisible wall
5th = Automatic U-Turn (Cinemtatic mode: Turner stops, says "I should be heading the other way" and then teleports a few meters towards the center of the map)

So returning to the bigger map/menu doesn't even register on your scale? That's *worse* for you than a cinematic U-turn?

[GDer]

I don't understand what you're trying to say here...

I said that the area should be closed by visible or invisible walls and a bit of unreachable part of level behind those walls.

I most cases CoD4's walls were perfectly visible barriers - barbed wire, debris, classic corridor shooter stuff - we're talking free roaming here!

So what? Do we really need another GTA here?

That's underestimating human curiosity - if we've walked on the moon it's because we're not satisfied to simply assume that something is pretty big and leave it at that.

"noclip" will help then. Here we don't need to waste time thinking about who will try to get to that thing over there.

I would like to see something like endless repeating or random terrain. I think it would add greatly to the realism.

I didn't say that! I'm against realism in games as I said.

[Jeff]

2nd = Monty Python (you run on the spot without getting any closer to the horizon)

Isn't that the definition of an invisible wall?

[Ozymandias]

things

Personally if I hit an invisible wall I'd say 'well that's the end of the map' and turn and try to find some other place to explore, but that's just me (this happened in oblivion). I wouldn't really get upset about it. However, having an expansive, huge world would be very nice, but, well, expensive... and also cause people to get lost rather easily, but who knows. I knw in oblivion I discovered a ruined house/chapel/something (I forget) and I thought it was realy neat because there were no map markers or anything for it, and I can't recall if there was ever a quest relating to it, so it was a rather interesting find =)

I'm not sure if Overgrowth would have anything like that. Would Overgrowth have any special/secret places that would make people -want- to go exploring the whole map?

Isn't that the definition of an invisible wall?

Sort of, but I assume that when you run against things in this game Turner will just try to push against it rather than running in place like old games used to do? (this would also enable those environmental traps that was mentioned in another topic... pushing boulders onto a group of enemies =)

EDIT: So instead Turner would actually be trying to push at the invisible wall which would look silly, but running in place would look rather silly as well... so maybe instead just having him not try to move at all would work as well.

[VerdantPlanes]

I really hope Turner pushes against things he runs into. It kind of ruins it for me when he runs in place

[tomascokis]

the terrain would still "scroll" though

[GaGrin]

This isn't really likely to be a problem for most of use unless the fighting scrolls across the entire landscape. Assuming everything is fairly centred, I think Zhukov's idea of slowing to a halt (essentially a "soft wall" instead of the sudden halt) combined with the visible fading out of the terrain into the skybox is going to be enough to make use stay away - and more importantly, notice - the edge of the maps.

[Chainsaw man]

You could make All of Lugaru as one huge world, render it and then add water around the terrain. walking outside the bounds too far will cause a whale man to eat you.

[tomascokis]

This isn't really likely to be a problem for most of use unless the fighting scrolls across the entire landscape. Assuming everything is fairly centred, I think Zhukov's idea of slowing to a halt (essentially a "soft wall" instead of the sudden halt) combined with the visible fading out of the terrain into the skybox is going to be enough to make use stay away - and more importantly, notice - the edge of the maps.

I'm pretty fine with that, provided its not blunt it shouldn't really affect much

[tomascokis]

You could make All of Lugaru as one huge world, render it and then add water around the terrain. walking outside the bounds too far will cause a whale man to eat you.

isn't the overgrowth story line linear?

[Chainsaw man]

You can have a Liniar story with a non liniar enviornment. Look at Saints Row that was Liniar.
You get caught in a gang fight, become ganster, take over city, you get big boo boo and go into comma (saints row 2 begins) there was no possable way of playing though the storys without that ending. sounds prity liniar to me.
Just cause a Story is Liniar dose not mean you must skint on the world.
From the concept artwork, Im expecting to see ruins and mountans along with rivens that decent into Prehystoric/Modern glaciers.

[wormguy]

Invisible walls shatter suspension of disbelief. ... invisible walls would just break that completely.

I feel the solution used in the original Lugaru was entirely adequate.

Lugaru did have straight up invisible walls.

This is what baffles me about the intense rhetoric in this thread. In the 68000+ posts on this forum, fan mail, hate mail, reviews (user created and professional; good or bad), etc. no one has ever complained about Lugaru's invisible walls, which is why the fact that this is such a contentious issue is such a surprise to me.

Do you guys really want us to invest our dev time in solving this?

I guess my memory failed me. I would enjoy infinitely scrolling terrain, but that would probably be difficult and it would be hard to do well.

I've always had an obsession with cliffs. I loved the giant cliffs in Halo, for example. Maybe if you go far enough there is a huge, scenic drop? Best thing I can think of at the moment. I just don't think you should punish your players for curiosity.

Game that handled this really well was Ocarina of Time: You could see major backdrops in the game, and think "I want to go there!" and it would blow your mind when you actually got to go to those places. The players curiosity was rewarded.

[Bjartr]

'feral' animals, the further you go from the 'inhabited' areas the more often you are attacked by unreasoning/nonsentient animals, after the 'edge' just use autogenerated terrain or make a 'soft' edge before the real edge, after a short distance they become overwhelming in number and strength and will 'inevitably' kill you, thus maintaining the immersion and being an invisible wall without breaking the 4th wall.

[Chainsaw man]

Or you could use dehydraton/Malearia/Frostbite effects at such ranges?

[invertin]

I say some kind of elephant tribe or something similar that just attacks you out of nowhere if you go too far. Would make for a random story element.

Turner: Why the hell am I getting stalked by this elephant guy?

Elephants count as mammals, right? I think so.