LOTRO was always good for long journies and epic exploration. You never quite know what you will find. Also, while not quite so vast GW2 is fun to explore because stuff actually happens along the way and you earn achievements for exploring!
"And how many dungeons are there for level 30 characters?"
I went and counted the level 30 areas, there are 15 separate dungeons and areas to play in.
Do you get my point? This means that it's not an open world, it's level-distributed.
The drawbacks with that are division of players, and division of world where large chunks are off limits for exploration...and discovery...on the individual basis. This affects the economy (chunking that up too), guilds, and all other social interactions.
What else do u want a game that u can do everything at the start and kill everything, there not much reason to play if u can do it all at the beginning of the game. There will always be some kinda lvl restriction on area's be it mob lvls or gear/stat lvls there will always be some kinda of limiting method otherwise ull get bored real quick the only way i see somthing like this working is in a PvP base game where the whole idea is build a city and kill players with almost 0 PvE appart from resources. A game like darkfall u are still limited to where u can go to a degree by how difficult the mob and how skilled up your characters are, you could still go to that place though but u may need to sneak and run away from mobs that agro you this is the same as a lvl base system if u wanna explore somewhere to difficult u need 2 sneak past or leg it when u agro.
Everquest is a good way to explain thing here a lvl 1 player starting on one side of the world say kelethin (east island) can run all the way to the other side to Erudin (west island) thats a good run and 2 boat trips through low and high lvl zones but it could be done. The problem with newer games though is the agro range of mobs increases the lower lvl you are to the mob lvl which makes it harder for lowbie to travel/explore in new games.
Another solution is to allow lower end players to acualy dmg higher end mobs atm if u try hitting something 5 lvls higher than u in games you will basicly do 5 dmg instead of your nomal 50dmg or so if they scaled that back alot good players could acualy fight in higher lvl mobs for challenge.
I agree with the guy who posted above, Open world just means you can go everywhere in the game from the get go it may be hard to explore or travel through there but if ur carful you could very well do it. Also there must not be any instances because one there in the game (instance dunguens) there no longer Open worlds for me because there closed of sections in the game for single groups. Everquest was an open world to me because you could travel everywhere and there were no instances, although there were zone's that had a load screen i still classafied it as a open world becuase my criteria for it is, No instances and wernt prevented going to places due to lvls.
My point isn't that you should be able to "do everything at the start and kill everything", it's that the world should not be divided. That's not the same as saying that there shouldn't be challenges, or that a low level/skill character shouldn't need help. But by the same token, high level/skill characters should not be able to lay waste to an entire "lowbie" zone.
My point is that the power gaps should be tightened enough so that most characters can play together, so that no newbie is instant one-hit kill and no maxed-out is a deity, anywhere in the game world, including dungeons.
And the entire purpose of this is to change the way these supposedly massive multiplayer games are played to socially interactive rather than simply as a run-through. To add all the features that NEED social interaction and balance. Economies, trade, cities, politics, even exploration at times. To open the entire world up so that both players and developers can make something out of it instead of simply a backdrop.
I find it odd that statements about leveling up are often just ignored. Leveling up does literally level one out of the zone and and then other zones until what? End game? I would love to have forests and plains that my character can always return to. And if the game is large enough with roaming creatures to actually hunt down, why wouldn't I return them.
It is weird how few people talk about doing away with levels.
Yeah, I agree. They must know it's a problem in the industry because games have come out with "scaled" content to try to fix the issue. But scaling brings new problems when varrying levels meet in an open world environment. I don't know why they don't simply lessen levels/skills variance of power to something that works well in an open world, and move on with "horizontal" progression to keep the levelling/skilling process exciting. Much simpler, cleaner, and workable.
Changing the focus of such a game from big level numbers to exciting combat, exploration, etc., also allows for a much better simulation of an economy that isn't also broken up with massively multi levels of gear grind. Again, go more "horizontal" with small bonuses and cool looks and decorations (inlays and attachments, sometimes of rare things, and rare materials for cool looks like black steel).
Edit to add what I forgot: Some players like to make a name for themselves also by doing something a little unusual. In an exploration and wide open huge world, some players would no doubt love to build taverns and trade houses in wilderness. Buying and selling what's hunted and gathered, running to city trade centers once in a while to make their profits and bringing back supplies to sell for more profits, saving the adventurer time.
I have to say what I didn't like in Oblivion, an SRPG, I do like in GW2. Level scaling.
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My point isn't that you should be able to "do everything at the start and kill everything", it's that the world should not be divided. That's not the same as saying that there shouldn't be challenges, or that a low level/skill character shouldn't need help. But by the same token, high level/skill characters should not be able to lay waste to an entire "lowbie" zone.
My point is that the power gaps should be tightened enough so that most characters can play together, so that no newbie is instant one-hit kill and no maxed-out is a deity, anywhere in the game world, including dungeons.
And the entire purpose of this is to change the way these supposedly massive multiplayer games are played to socially interactive rather than simply as a run-through. To add all the features that NEED social interaction and balance. Economies, trade, cities, politics, even exploration at times. To open the entire world up so that both players and developers can make something out of it instead of simply a backdrop.
Once upon a time....
There is a huge difference between a game being instanced and a game having instances.
I have to say what I didn't like in Oblivion, an SRPG, I do like in GW2. Level scaling.