作者：Gauss

许多设计师和玩家认为开放场景设计是终极目标，胜过传统的游戏形式。

我并不认同这一观点。然而开放场景仍是游戏设计的必杀技。Rockstar的《侠盗猎车手》（以下简称GTA）系列似乎印证了这是一个有效、稳定的开放场景游戏设计模式。但这种模式的成功性有多大呢？当然它可以为游戏创造收益，然而我怀疑游戏结构的连贯性。开放场景设计不仅引发了全新而且通常无法解决的设计问题，它还延续了线性游戏中长期存在的设计问题。

GTA4(from kasparu.hubpages.com)

以下我将直接引用相关文章阐述Dr.Pwn对《GTA4》的评语：

“在《GTA4》中，玩家扮演的角色将被分为两个部分，其一反射出正常玩法中玩家的决定（冲出人行道，杀掉一伙警察），其二是通过编写的顺序单方面强行加入的剧情（游戏邦注：比如，Niko表达对Kate的爱，以及他对犯罪的糟糕感受）。虽然这两个角色相互矛盾，但是《GTA4》赋予第二个角色“选择”的特权。游戏坚持让玩家角色说出对Kate的爱，而玩家并不赞同此做法，这就使玩家不得不做出‘违心’的选择，而事先安排好的互动方式则成了‘真正的’选择。”

这存在一个问题。鲜有开放场景游戏会操纵玩家的行动。首先玩家在这个连贯世界中会惊讶地发现，自己的自由替身居然被严格地割裂为一半“虚假”一半“真实”。我们所扮演的Niko，“伪装的”Niko，无论在开车、穿着，甚至同好友约会或出行，都处于随心所欲的精神病状态，他可能随时会危及好友的生命。他只是通过愤怒或极端行为来宣泄自己，然而他此时完全受到玩家的掌控。

但游戏并不会永远保存这些记录。警察会对着正路过医院准备去接堂兄Roman的Niko摇头说道：“哦，没用的东西。”

如果我们想要继续发展故事情节，我们需要触发任务过场动画，重新设定“真正”的Niko，尽管他是我们的玩家角色，但我们对他却没有多少控制权；游戏给我们的感觉是，好像我们在自由城中肆意妄行的3小时或者30小时的这段时间从未发生过。

游戏会告诉玩家，看：继续前进，享受乐趣，但是你做的任何事情不会对游戏中的真正故事产生影响，因为它们存在于与故事任务平行的密封空间中。当玩家默许并开始一项故事任务，他们会懊恼地发现，目前自己处于一个拥有固定结局，事先编写好的线性任务中，而这种元素在其它游戏中也可找到。这算是“沙盒”游戏吗？

尽管从技术上说，故事任务发生在与玩家角相同的世界中，但他们却是受到旧规则的掌控。我们看到在过场动画中，Niko的情感表现与我们对他的操纵情况并不一致。他穿着同我们的Niko相同的衣服，但在其它方面却是完全不同的性格。我们在此得到了一个类似电影的真正故事，虽然设计师可能会勉强同意让玩家支配一个微不足道的道德选择。

这种精心设计的谜语来源于开发者对电影这种截然不同的媒介及其情感特点的模仿欲望。游戏毕竟不是电影，游戏越是试图模仿电影制作方式，玩家替身感就会进一步被削弱。

为玩家Niko制作其可能选择的、含有动作捕捉、配音模式的所有电影式内容是一个大忌。所以与其设计并制作出可能遵从玩家替身行为的故事内容，游戏设计师选择了违逆玩家意志以遵从电影形式的做法。

《侠盗猎车手4》任务设置的典型场景：

简介场景（1），因为Niko必须杀掉NPC X，所以游戏应提供合理的设置，最终都会以追逐画面作为结尾。接着玩家到达指定地点，进入另一个短暂的场景（2）在那我们会遇到有趣的NPC X，他总会在我们重新输入控制前，战胜Niko。这时，NPC X会跳进一辆小汽车或者跳上一辆摩托车，而车辆总是坚不可摧，直到你成功追赶他到另一个地方，而他可能又会对玩家冷嘲热讽。（3）在那我们需要同许多武装暴徒作战，最终我们在另一场景中见到NPC X，（4）可能会有关于是否该杀掉他的道德选择，这意味着最终会出现一个呈现最终结果的短暂过场动画。

在这一任务过程中的许多时刻，聪明的玩家可能会想出各种各样的方法在最后任务结束之前杀了NPC X，但游戏通常不允许发生这种状况，因为A）这样就无法迫使玩家看完整个过场动画，或者B）玩家就不知道后来要面对是否杀掉NPC X这一道德选择。

GTA4(from forums.guru3d.com)

我承认自己佩服这款游戏居然可以在每个任务都呈现几分钟的过场动画。然而电影式的内容限制玩家为Niko作出任何认真的选择；最终这些都是个陷阱。

因为投入所有时间和费用之后，参与开发游戏的团队就不愿意将内容设置为玩家可选择的结果。假如同许多玩家一样，我也没有被Kate所吸引，那么我的Niko将不会主动和她出去闲逛？那么我们将会失去游戏涉及Kate的悲剧故事。

我们爱猜想的制作人会指出：“如果我们为配音和动作捕捉付出成本，那么我们就应该让玩家看到这些内容。”而如果故事中的某些点允许玩家做出重要的选择，那也仅限于一些关键点，这样才能压低制作成本。而原先用于培养玩家沉浸感或投入感的过场动画，最终也只是削弱了玩家替身的作用。

Dr. Pwn继续指出：

接着我以相似的方式观察了《GTA4》的“场景”。如果有人将《GTA4》视为一个上流社会、任务世界的集合体、无数脚本序列，那么他就可以在游戏中发现平行状态。整个游戏场景是一个单调、无互动性、而且基本是空旷的地方，而玩家可以操纵任务激活指示灯。它并没有反映任何有意义的玩家行动。我们可以在任务中找到实际的动作（以及所有独特的NPC、对话和目标等内容）。可惜，这通常与故事无关，大多数取决于单一的无互动脚本事件，这并非一种好的做法，我们应及早制止。

我由衷地认同Pwn的看法。我并非完全否定大量依赖过场动画的游戏，但我希望人们不要将过场动画视为制作游戏的唯一方式。

这就好像我正在阅读一本书籍，然后被要求排队等候观看DVD或者Youtube，而最后我还是继续读书。采用此手法的小说可能会被认为是一个娱乐性的新颖做法，但不太可能因为它依赖另一种媒介而被视为优秀典范。这就是我对过场动画的看法——它们多半是在力图模仿另一种并不相似的媒介形式。而我最喜欢的游戏却甚少采用过场动画元素。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Open world issues Part 1: the Rockstar model

by Gauss

Many designers and players consider the open world design a kind of ultimate, one that trumps more traditional forms.

I would argue that this simply isn’t true; if only on the grounds that no one genre or design style can trump all others. (Chess is likely not improved by changing the board from 64 squares to 128.)

Yet it remains a kind of holy grail. The success of Rockstar’s GTA series seems to prove there to be a valid, stable model for open world game design. But how successful is it? Certainly it makes money, but I question the coherence of the structure. Not only do open world designs open up new and typically unresolved design problems, they inherit longer-standing design issues with linear games.

The main criticism of GTA was so well formulated by Internet Rockstar Dr.Pwn that I will quote the relevant post directly:

The actions of the player character in GTA4 can best be described as the actions of two separate characters, one who reflects the player’s decisions during normal gameplay (run over a sidewalk full of people, kill a bunch of cops), and one that is unilaterally imposed through scripted sequences. (Look at Niko as he shows that he loves Kate. Look at Niko as he feels bad about crime.).The game privileges the “choices” of the second over the first, even when they’re in direct contradiction. The game’s insistence that the player character, say, loves Kate even when the player has indicated the opposite, makes Niko defined by player choice the “fake” one and the one defined by scripted interaction the “real” one.

And therein lies the problem. Few open world games truly commit themselves to the operative paradigm. What at first appears to be a coherent world in which the player has surprising free agency turns out to be rigidly separated spheres of “fake” and “real” play. Our player Niko, “fake” Niko, drives around, dresses, and acts as psychotically as he pleases, even on dates or outings with friends, where he might endanger their lives any number of times. He may only express himself in terms of infantile rage or excess, but here he is wholly under player control.

But none of this makes the permanent record. Cops shake their heads and say “aw, shucks” to the preeminent mass murderer of the city, who goes by the hospital to pick up his cousin Roman who forgives him for the tenth or so exploding or sunken car he was abandoned to.

When we want to advance the story, we trigger a mission cutscene and re-inhabit “real” Niko, who despite being our player character we exercise little to no control over; it is as if the three hours or thirty hours we have spent running amok in Liberty City have not happened at all.

It says to the player, look: go ahead and have fun, but nothing you do will impact the true story of the game, which resides in the hermetically sealed parallel world of the story missions. Once the player acquiesces and begins a story mission, to their chagrin they are now in a linear, scripted mission with fixed consequences as one would find in any other game. And this is a “sandbox” game?

Despite the story missions taking place in technically the same world as the player’s free-form antics, they are governed by the old rules. We watch cutscenes where Niko emotes in a manner often inconsistent with how we have played him. He wears the same clothes as our player-Niko, but otherwise might as well be an entirely different character. We are handed down the real story of the game in film-like format, though designers may stoop to allow the player ruling on a paltry MORAL CHOICE (please read Clint Hocking’s revelant comments on this if you haven’t already).

It is an elaborate charade stemming from the desire to emulate the entirely dissimilar medium of film and its emotional hallmarks. Except games are not film, and so the farther games move toward emulating film production, the farther player agency will necessarily close down.

It is exponentially prohibitive to create motion-captured, voice-acted movie-like content for all the many possible actions that player-Niko might choose. So instead of devising and building story content that might suitably conform to player agency, the designers choose instead to cripple meaningful player volition to conform roughly to that of film.

A typical scenario for GTA4 mission:

Introductory cutscene (1), which gives plausible set-up for what will invariably end as a chase sequence since Niko must kill NPC X. Player then drives to designated point, and is treated to/mocked with another short cutscene (2) where we meet colorful NPC X, who usually outwits Niko before we regain input control. At which point NPC X hops into a car or onto a motorcycle and is generally invulnerable to damage until chased successfully to another location, where he might taunt the player again (3). There we fight a number of armed goons, conjured ex nihilo, until finally we meet NPC X in yet another cutscene (4), possibly with the explicit prompt of a MORAL CHOICE to kill him or not, which means a short final cutscene to render this verdict (5a and 5b).

At several points during this mission a clever player might think of various ways to kill NPC X well before the end of the mission, but this is generally not allowed because how will the player A) watch the great cutscenes toward the end of the mission or B) know that he has a MORAL CHOICE in whether or not to kill him? (Nevermind the 20 or so dispatchable goons who stay alive as a result of NPC X and the player not arriving at the second location.)

I profess admiration for the incredible army that create several minutes worth of cutscenes that show up with every mission. But these nougats of film-like content are what hobble the player from making any serious choices for Niko; they are ultimately a trap.

Because once all that time and money is spent, those that are involved become increasingly unwilling to relegate the content to optional, possible outcomes of player choice. What if like many players I am singularly uncharmed by Kate and my version of Niko never voluntarily hangs out with her? Then we lose the entire ham-fistedly tragic arc she is involved in.

“No,” says our hypothetical producer, “if we’re paying for the voice-acting and the motion capture for all these sequences, they’re going to be seen.” Or if there points in the story where the player can make significant choices, they must be limited to key points, in order to keep costs down. Cutscenes, a technique that might have been initially deployed as an aid to player investment or immersion, ultimately end up crippling player agency.

Dr.Pwn (a real, accredited medical doctor and professor) continues:

I then looked at the “world” of GTA4 in a similar manner. Parallels can be found if one views GTA4 as an overworld, collection of mission-worlds, and number of scripted sequences (a scripted-world, if you will). The overworld is a flat, uninteractive, and basically empty place in which the mission activation beacons can be driven to by the player. It is neither host to nor reflective of any meaningful player action. The actual action (as well as all of the unique NPCs and conversations and objectives and such) are found in the missions. Unfortunately, these bear little relevance to the story, which is defined almost solely through uninteractive, scripted events. This isn’t good and they should stop doing this.

I agree wholeheartedly. I’m not completely against games that rely heavily on cutscenes, but I want to make sure that they are not understood as the only and certainly far from the best way to make games.

It is as if I am reading a book and am asked to queue up a DVD or youtube clip, at the end of which I return to the book. A novel that employs such a technique might be well regarded, maybe as an entertaining novelty, but likely not considered a superior example of the form by very nature of its reliance on another medium. This is how I feel about games with cutscenes: invariably most of their energy is going toward aping a dissimilar form. The games I have fondest memories of employed cutscenes infrequently, if at all.

But what are the solutions? What might an open world game look like when we eschew cutscenes as both an emotional/story crutch? How far propagated might player agency become, and is there such a thing as giving the player too much influence? How do we activate the play space of an open world in a way that does not rely predominantly on canned, linear-style missions?

Tomorrow we’ll look at the solutions we might plausibly consider to resolve these design issues. In other words “stay tuned,” cutscene fans. (source:gausswerks)