@Fuchsschweif and @SuddenReal
Please move your dissertation defenses to PMs...
Alright, let me just reply a last time because there's so much misinformation in the last post. After then I'll stay away from discussing this here further, promised.
Because you're the one who suggested area's tied to certain characters.
No, I didn't - and that's what I say all the time, you seem still not to understand my suggestion as a whole.
I said it's better to start off with 1/4 of the game and deliver more streamlined content in each update rather than having the whole empty open world right from the start.
Then you said "
They can't do this. What if a character needs one of the stores in its storyline that is part of the map that's not avaiable yet?"
This is (!) when I said: You would of course plan it out from the beginning in a fashion that all the neccessary buildings are there. So if you know one of your characters requires to go to the gym early in the game, then the gym is an obvious choice for the first 1/4 of the game. And if you want some chars to have a coffe-shop date in the first quarter of the game, the coffee shop is another obvious choice.
I hope you got it now. I also said that there must not be a specific shop for every single event on the world map. They could, and I repeat that, add something like a taxi, subway or whatever for quick travel to go to certain locations where you'd then just spawn interior right away. Also special events can be approached with fade in / outs, let's say a romantic restaurant visit that is only supposed to happen once in game, when they don't want to implement that into the city.
Tons of ways to get creative when implementing things.
The previously built stores aren't any dead ends, they can be used further as the map expanses and the story progresses. Who said you can't do another questline or sidequest at 80% of the game progression that leads back to the coffee shop or gym from the beginning with newer characters?
Exactly.
Just.
Not.
All.
At.
Once.
*grunts*
But why unlock later if you can unlock it now?
Because this way developers can ensure players will for now experience only areas that matter, without running around and exploring for nothing since there's almost nothing to explore yet. Also they can put more love and effort into those parts for now and add other things later when they become important.
Again, start of the development. Give it time. We barely made it past the intro.
That's not the point.
The point is what we
could've now if focus was tighter. And the same goes for every upcoming update.
So I'm sure this is valuable feedback for the creators.
It's simply not practical to do the whole bottom-up approach at once, for an open world if early access and playability is the goal.
Then how would you introduce new characters if you want to put in complete questlines from the get go?
Complete questlines doesn't mean complete character questline finished. It just means that a particular
questline for that char is done. For instance, the gym line with Cassie, even if she will have 10 other questlines later.
So there's no problem - if cleverly planned - to introduce new characters mid-game and implement them into already
existing story arcs.
/ Over and out.