Why do they still use those ANNOYING invisible walls in some new games?!

It was so guided it felt like an arcade gun-game on tracks.
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Despite all the high production standards and spectacular eye-candy this is exactly how I feel about all the COD series. But then again they are known for this so I cant really whine about it. Just bummed that I couldnt enjoy the surroundings more. And dont start me off on endless out-of-thin-air respawns of bad guys lol.
 
The start of HL2 is great for this. You come out of the train station and you are presented with a city. You now know that the Citadel you can see is probably where you will aim for later in the game. Also, every path you shouldnt go down has some form of visual indication saying "No". Barney already told you that you should stay away from patrols, so if you see one down a street its probably the wrong way to go. There is only one way out of that section and its the only place there isnt a patrol or a coherent obstacle.

However that said, HL2 is still on a set path and doesnt allow you to freeroam, but I personally never got the feeling that I needed or wanted too.
 
I enjoyed COD 1, after that it has been steadily down hill for me. Glad I haven't bought Black Ops and am yet to be bothered about getting MOH.

On the other hand I did play the demo of COD : WaW. Perhaps only because it was a taster but I did quite enjoy that.
 
KatanaDV20 said:
I hate invisible walls
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It's always irritated me. I think the worst example of it was in Stalker, it was billed as being an incredibly open world where things happen all round you and it was completely free form...except you couldn't hop over a 2' wire fence blocking you from a field...that was completely lazy design.

But more importantly than that...get your behind back to your 'I'm chasing a girl' thread and give us an update...make it good for your 1000th post! ;)
 
The more a game promises a free roaming environment i think the more people go out of their way to find the limitations to it. I found Crysis did a decent job of letting you trot around the place, most of the restrictions were natural which were believable.

I remember one of the first vids of COD4 showed you that level where you dropped in by helicopter, and once you hit the ground one of the first things you see is a soldier trotting along with barbed wire to block you off from gettting down a street. The cod series though for all the fapping people do over it has been incredibly on rails from the very first iteration.
 
It's a fair point, but not something that I got particularly annoyed about in Call of Duty. I see it, as you said, as an interactive movie of sorts, and I enjoyed it SO much.
 
Have to agree with you with Crysis (and Far Cry if I remember correctly), the early jungle sections were fantastically open world.

On my last play through I was very chuffed to find that I could climb up the little hill by the roadblock before you find the frozen ship, then it went onto an on the rails shooter again with the aliens. :(

From the trailers I've seen of Crysis I'm not holding out a lot of hope for it, it seems to be more on the rails and dazzling people with big effects rather than free roaming...not my ideal.
 
Shamrock said:
L4D2 crippled the hunter somewhat when compared to L4D due to invisible walls limiting potential high pouncing spots.
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Those are just ****ing annoying. There are so many buildings that you simply can't get onto because of a random invisible wall and some invisible walls that just seperate areas so you can't walk straight between them.

Tbh i don't really recall many invisible walls in BC2... though in that its even worse. You wind up limping into the bottom of the terrain in some places its just infuriating. Not just hills, random objects, trees, everything.
 
hideki said:
Games new and old have invisible walls, you really cant go anywhere you please.

A sandbox is still a box, there are limits. Look at Oblivion or fallout when you reach the edges.
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I've only ever been to the edge of the oblivion map a couple of times though - I pass invisible obstacles in games like COD every time I play them. I think a better game would result if they simple pushed the invisible walls a long way out of whatever little village you're playing in, so you don't have reason to go there, as they did in oblivion. However, I suppose the one thing I do like about the walls is that it keeps the multiplayer matches a lot more hectic with fewer players than would be needed for a similar effect on a bigger map... also, great fun can be had on your own or in some servers working out ways to get over or around these walls, but overall I think it detracts from a game. But I suppose developers aren't out there to make the best game, they're there to make the most money.

One thing I did think about oblivion though: If all the dungeons and caves etc. are randomly generated, why not just do the same thing with kilometres of deserted woodland at the edge of the map - then you could theoretically keep going for ever...

AH, just thought of a problem - with the whole backstory, players would be wanting to come across some other locations.
 
well there are other games that do offer more freedom, i think you would be better off playing these if you dont enjoy the linear gameplay of call of duty, burnout paradise and forza are both racing games but are very differant, i dont want more realism in my burnout or more freedom in my forza so just play a stalker, fallout, farcry 2 if you want a more open environment.
 
Tefal said:
Or you know do some proper level design and make realistic obstacles, like a house or a burning road block rather than a 1 foot high ledge with a invisible wall on it.
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They are just as unbelievable, tbh, because you end up having to over-use them no matter what.

"Oh look, I'm surrounded on all four sides by burning trucks. What are the odds of that?"

As an example, FO3 tried to 'disguise' their invisible walls, but it made just as little sense, and hurt immersion just the same.

"Here is a pile of rubble that I can't climb over. Because... because it's sharp... and menaces with spikes of rubble..."
 
Its just the edge of the collision, it has to end somewhere! They are just badly disguised in certain games. COD etc are designed to be on small maps, open up the field over the field over the fence and you end up with a different pace of game.
 
Both Farcry2 & Crysis used high canyon like rock formations to keep you in the map which is better than invisible walls because at least you can see the limits of your movement plus Crysis stopped you swimming too far out by killing you with sharks or the ship firing at you.

Total freedom always has to be limited one way or another until games are developed that can generate totally unscripted random new areas to explore
 
Agree - invisible walls totally ruin the immersion factor.
Remember when first playing WAR and finding all the 1ft high walls that you couldnt jump over drove me absolutely nuts (and no i wasnt a dwarf...)
But i guess they are rife in console games so no reason we should expect any different :(
 
Crysis did do it a little better than blatant invisible walls although the restrictions surprised me - its nowhere close to what Far Cry was. Flashy graphics and thats about it.

But the game that took invisible walls to a new level was that awful Soldier of Fortune:Payback. Yes...please dont ask me why I spent money on that....that....ack I dont have the words....:mad:

I feel IWs are the worst thing in the gaming universe and the sooner they are extinct the better :rolleyes:
 
MikeHunt79 said:
Torchlight already has this feature.
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How is that in any way different to diablo 2? And most certainly games before that too. Having a bunch of sections that fit together in a random way to create a complete map merely makes the map as a whole never the same. Scale it down a bit and you run into the same bits over and over. Take the volcano style level on Torchlight, it uses a lot of switches and bridges and you run into them so often.
 
KatanaDV20 said:
:( Oh no! Didnt know that..



I hear ya...what Im sayin is not to let us go to the very edge of the map but to "widen the path"

Right now youre channeled through some cool scenery on a narrow path bounded by invisible walls.

|---------|
|---------|
|---------|
|---You--|
|---------|
|---------|

Make em a bit wider and you got more to explore and more options. Will make the most of some of the cool maps out there.

|---------------------------------------|
|---------------------------------------|
|---------------------------------------|
|------------------You-----------------|
|---------------------------------------|
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Having said that I know theres a mod for Oblivion that removes all the invisible walls. Although it has to be said - nothing to be seen beyond them!
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That's the Deux Ex method of level design you just described there. Multiple paths through each level, some designed for straight-out-fighting, others designed for stealth.
 
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