作者：Aleksander Adamkiewicz

当你回想起自己最棒的游戏体验时，可曾想到这些体验有何共同点？

是令人惊叹的画面保真度，还是高质量的音效？还是像我一样，更看重游戏的“流动”状态？游戏过程中准确而完美呈现的“内容”（游戏邦注：即你在游戏中所做或体验的事情）间隔？

对我来说，这种间隔体验就是游戏设计的最重要元素。它就好比是节奏或者乐曲。

当我为自己的桌面游戏“设计”新冒险或战役内容时，我通常会遵循一个特定的叙事结构。

“三步走结构”

我很早就在自己的设计试验中发现，这种结构并不仅适用于叙事内容。例如，我们可以像设置故事情节一样，用这种三步走结构策划遭遇战和地图设计。

如果将这种结构用在自由漫游游戏中，并适当调整以便观察理解，我们就可以看到在游戏中发现新内容的间隔如何带来令人满意的体验。

示例：《天际》

在《天际》中，玩家执行有意义的活动间隔最多为60秒左右。想想看，你是如何在《辐射3》这类开放游戏世界中进行探索的？

假设你并非身负重任，而只是向某个特定方向出发。

这些游戏如果是第一人称视角（或者第三人称视角），游戏中发生的首件事情就是你前往一个目的地，这就是以上图表中显示的引入阶段。

如果你发现了一些有趣的东西（或内容），这就意味着游戏出现了第一个“情节点”（plot-point），它可以是龙和熊之间的打斗，也可以是一座庙或者一个有待探索的地下城。

你接近这项内容时对应的就是图表中的“上升动作”（rising action），你的探索过程开始变得紧张。

第二个“情节点”对应的就是你到达该内容。

当你得知该内容的含义时就会出现危机，例如与僵尸大战，或阅读石碑上的文字，或只是欣赏远景。

然后又开始一轮循环。

而《辐射1》等游戏却与此相反，《辐射1》没有第一人称视角，它通过不同方式处理这个问题，但也采用了同种结构。

在《辐射1》中，探索机制取决于全景地图及其随机遭遇系统（游戏邦注：作者认为这是史上最出色的随机遭遇系统）。

你走得越远，就越可能遇到一场随机遭遇战。当然也有一些随机遭遇内容可能完全没有战斗元素。

《天际》中的地下城“设计”也同样如此。

《天际》地下城通常都很复杂，其设计实际上是线性结构。

这并不意味着它们没有通向目标的多条路径，其结构和激发的情感却都是精心设计的结果。

所有的地下城在接近入口处都有一个引入区域，该区域的敌人力量较薄弱，分布也较稀少，但深入地下城后敌人密度和强度会越来越高，通常还会伴随一些boss战斗以及一个不会遇到敌人的出口捷径。

遭遇战例1：《黑色洛城》

虽然《黑色洛城》的游戏世界规模小于《天际》，但给人的感觉却是比《天际》要大得多，也乏味得多。

首先，玩家在地图中的任何一个位置四处张望时，都难以找到易于辨识的路标。这可能要归咎于游戏采用了城市背景环境，玩家的视野基本上被几乎没有差别的建筑所阻碍。

玩家通常难以判断自己所在地点要与地图上的哪个区域相应对，并且不同区域间的视觉差异也很小。而《天际》由于拥有多变的环境，玩家在其中就不易迷自己的所在。

其次，这款游戏中的“内容”与“非内容”难分彼此。

《天际》中的兴趣点都比较容易辨识，虽然有些内容处于隐藏状态，需要玩家投入一番功夫去探索才能发现，但接近时都可以轻易判断它们属于“内容”。

《黑色洛城》几乎就是一个普通填充器，毫无内容。除了执行任务和搜集物品之外，玩家在其中找不到有趣的内容可探索。

第三，玩家只能通过街道穿越这座城市，而《刺客信条》这类也发生于城市背景的游戏却不存在这种问题。

另外，玩家穿越城市还得采用“合理”和“现实性”的方式，不允许超速驾驶和撞车。

遭遇战例2：《堕落星球》

在此我不想讨论《堕落星球》本身的优劣，但想说说它和《辐射3》的地图设计差距，以及为何后者是一个更有吸引力的开放世界。

《堕落星球》是一款玩法和风格很像《辐射》的游戏，其故事背景是大劫难之后的地球，其中充斥突变生物、僵尸以及一片废墟的城市，采用第一人称视角。

玩家在游戏中第一个漫长旅程是从完成了“扩展教程”之后，从Terrance赶到Embry Crossroads。

你骑马从Terrance到Embry Crossroads约3-5分钟时间（如果走的是道路还会更快一些）。

在这两地之间除了一些快速复生的mob、采矿点之外，几乎没有出现任何兴趣点，也没有玩家可以获取的任何任务目标。

而《辐射3》及多数Bethesa自由漫游型游戏却与之形成鲜明对比，它们的内容出现间隔较为紧凑和均衡。玩家每步行一分钟就可以遇到一项内容。

《堕落星球》的第一个缺点在于，它采用了典型的任务中心系统，要求玩家必须在“城镇”领取任务，然后“跑”到附近区域或穿越到另一个任务中心完成任务。

游戏中不存在任务可促使玩家探索这个有趣开放世界的动机。

这也是游戏设计师易陷入的误区，即设计极具现实感的大型世界，但却不提供玩家与其互动的动机。

大型世界本身并不能满足玩家参与其中的需求，设计师必须在其中添加内容，才能让玩家觉得有必要投入时间进行探索。

MMO游戏设计师尤其如此，他们常误以为只要有足够的玩家填补空白区域就可以自行解决这一问题，因为玩家本身就属于一种内容。

但事实并非如此，除非玩家在游戏中做一些对他人有意义的事情，否则这种方法根本不能奏效。

设置穿衣打扮的功能本身并非内容，它与游戏玩法无关。它也不具有交互性，但很有意义和吸引力。《堕落星球》呈现的兴趣点与非内容并无明显区别（就像《黑色洛城》的做法），当你接近这些内容时却没有解决这些上升动作的方法（例如与mob战斗以扫清障碍）。

游戏最好能够让玩家经历一些事情，如果能让玩家参与自己所遇到的事情那就再好不过了。

因此需要精心设置游戏内容的出现间隔，要提供有意义而富有变化的内容。

设计师不但要考虑在游戏中设置哪些内容，还要考虑在何时何地设置内容。（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）

The importance of content-spacing and level-design in free-roam games.

by Aleksander Adamkiewicz

When you think back at your best gaming experiences, what do these have usually in common?

Is it the marvelous graphical fidelity?

The high quality audio?

Or is it, like it is for me, the “flow” of the game? The precise and perfect spacing of “things” that you do or experience during gameplay.

This space in-between experiences is, at least for me, the most important thing to nail down in game design.

It is almost like a rythm or a musical composition.

When I “design” new adventures or campaigns for my tabletop games, I usually follow a certain narrative structure than can be called “classical”.

The Three Act Structure

I found out early on in my design experiments that i can use this structure for more than narrative, or conversely, to apply narrative to something that is normally seen as narrative.

For example, combat-encounters and map-design could be plotted in the three-act structure, as well as the plot/story itself.

If we apply this structure to free-roam games, and adjust it a little for a visual interpretation, we can see how discovery of new content and its spacing correspond with a satisfying experience.

Example: Skyrim

Skyrim is ~37 km² (14 sq. miles)

Content in Skyrim is plotted so you are about at maximum ~60 seconds away from meaningful interaction.

If you think about it, how do you approach exploration in open-world games like TES and Fallout 3?

Lets assume you have no quests active and just set out in a particular direction.

Since the games are first person perspective (or 3rd person if you really want to), the first thing that happens is you start walking in a direction of interest. This is the introduction-period of our graph.

The first “plot-point” happens if you notice something of interest (content), be it a dragon fighting a bear, a temple or an unexplored dungeon.

Your “rising action” section of the graph corresponds your approach of the content, you grow tense at the exploration, the discovery.

The second “plot-point” corresponds with you reaching the content.

The crysis happens when you resolve what the conent means (to you, the game), be it fighting a cult of vampires, reading a stone tablet or just appreciating the vista.

And then the cycle starts again.

The contrast with other games like Fallout 1, which didn’t have a first person perspective, this delivery was handled in a different way, but with the same structure.

In the case for Fallout 1 the exploration mechanic relied on the overworld-map and its random-encounter system (which is still the best random encounter system ever created).

The travel itself generated rising action the furter you traveled, as the probability went up to have a random encounter. And then of course there was the random encounter itself, which could be completely non-combat.

In Skyrim this extends as well to the dungeon “design”.

Skyrim dungeons are, while often being complex, essentially linear in their level-design.

That doesn’t mean they don’t have multiple ways of approaching objectives, but the  structure and the emotions they invoke are carefully engineered.

All dungeons have an introductory area near the entrance, the enemy-density and strength is low. The deeper you go the higher the enemy density and their level, usually culminating in some sort of “boss-fight” and a very quick exit without any enemy-encounters.

Counter Example #1 LA Noire

LA Noire is 13 km² (8 sq. miles)

While LA Noire is smaller in size than Skyrim, it feels larger and traversing it is a lot more tedious than Skyrim.

First, there are no easily discernable landmarks when the player looks around from any given position of the map. This is due to being in an urban environment, most of your view is blocked by buildings, generic buildings no less.

There is little to no visual pointers to where you are exactly in relatation to the game-map, there are only subtle visual differences between districts. When you compare this to Skyrim, due to the varied environments the player always knows where he is.

Second, content is not distinct from non-content.

In skyrim points of interest are distinguishable, some are hidden, yes, and need a large deal of exploration and dedication to find, but they are upon reaching recognizable as content.

LA Noires city is mostly generic filler, non-conent. Outside of missions there is no interesting things to explore or do, beyond collecting collectibles of course.

Thirdly, traversing the city is restricted to streets, a problem games like Assassins Creed for example do not have, even though they are also set in an urban setting.

Furthermore, the traversal is even restricted to “proper” and “realistic” traversal. Driving fast, aggressive, crashing is not possible.

Instead of making the large and open world interesting, the game makes it an obstacle that needs to be overcometo get to the things you want to -do- as a player.

LA Noire nails the 50s America visuals, the mood, the noire perfectly, yet it shows us that this is not enough, the level-design and content-spacing works against the toolset presented to the player.

Its one thing to see a map-marker and drive towards it looking at the map, and another thing entirely to actually see the actual content and approach it.

Counter Example #2 Fallen Earth

I don’t want to discuss the merrits and/or flaws of FE per-se but rather show the difference between the map-design of Fallout 3 and FE, and why Fallout 3 is an engaging open world and Fallen Earth is not.

Fallen Eeart is a game that looks and plays reminiscent of Fallout. The game is set in the post-apocalypse of earth and starrs mutants, zombies and destroyed cities as well as a first-person perspective if you so desire.

This is the map for Sector 1 of Fallen Earth (there are 3 sectors). Fallen Earths size is 83 km².

Your first longer journey as a new player will be from Terrance to Embry Crossroads after finishing the “extended tutorial” in the starter area (Terrance).

The time that it takes you to travel from Terrance to Embry Crossroads is about 3-5 minutes on horseback (roads give you increased speed).

In between Terrance and Embry, there is nothing of interest, beyond quickly respawning mob-packs, mining-nodes and non-accessible quest objectives aquired from.

In contrast Fallout 3, like most Bethesa free-roam games, keeps in line with having content closely spaced and concentrated. No content is further away than one minute of travel on foot

The first flaw in the map-design is that Fallen Earth features a classical quest-hub system where you pick up quests “in town” and then “run out” to complete them in the vicinity or travel to another quest hub.

There is no incentive to just set out into this huge, interesting open world and just discover things.

This is a trap that game-designers often fall into. Creating large worlds, realistically large, but with no incentive to -do- anything in it.

A large world by and off itself does not suffice to make it interesting for the player to partake in it, there must be -content- in it to make it worth-while for the player to invest the travel-time.

Especially in MMOs designers often think that with enough people playing the empty spaces will “fix themselves” because players are a part of content.

Unfortunately this is not true unless the players do something that is meaningful to the -other- player.

Set-dressing isn’t content by itself, it needs to be relevant to the gameplay. Not necessarily interactive, but meaningful and engaging (lore, for example). In the way that Fallen Earth visually presents Points of Interest in the distance they lack distinction from non-content (like LA Noire), they lack resolution for the rising action (battling through mobs blocking your way) when you reach them.

Games are best when you experience things, and even better when you -do- things to experience said things.

Content needs to be carefully spaced, it needs to be meaningful and varied.

Repetition can not provide a crisis.

Designers not only need to think of -what- to put in their game, but also -where-.（source:gamasutra）