The exploration/continous overland map is one of the reasons I prefer BG1 over BG2, actually. However, that map was really "continous", in PoE1 not that much. Granted, Bioware reused and paste&coped a lot of art assets back then, so that a lot of maps look similarish. Plus, not every map connects with one another that seamlessly. Still, travling from Candleep to The Friendly Arm, that was an actual road you could take (it was also safer to keep staying on this road). Which made it feel like going on an adventure in actual world, as opposed to jumping from one setpiece to the next (in BG2 you never find locations for yourself, they're all revealed by quest givers and all exist for the sole purpose of those quests). http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?...tach_rel_module=post&attach_id=23892
But PoE with its Kickstarter budget never went all the way and/or was naturally a good deal more "compressed". Still liked some of the wilderness though!
Originally Posted by Rhobar121
In fact, time has virtually no meaning in WoTR. Apart from one quests in the first act, the others either don't have it (at least it's high enough that it doesn't matter)
Yeah, was speaking Kingmaker. That game had timers, but they were mostly flavor. I think the key to implementing timers is that when they run out, they should never lead to a straight game over screen. Unless perhaps you do something deliberately stupid. Such as: spending months looting and leveling on the Bays of Eversunshine, when the game constantly warns you that soon The Big Bad is about to crash on your world hard.
Instead, the world should move on. But with other paths still being kept open. IIRC Kingmaker even did this early game, but that may be my memories playing tricks on me. You hear about a temporary camp of the Staglord's minions someplace, and are encouraged to travel their quickly. If you don't do that within time, the camp is gone. However, that doesn't mean game over. Thinking about it, stuff like that could be explored by more games imo, as if everything is freezing in place, that doesn't feel like a world. It feels more like a movie setpiece solely existing to wait for you to show up.
