The Open World

Yes, sorry, this is another Skyrim related post. There's a video blog about 3D glasses if you'd like an alternative. I suppose this does actually apply to all open world role playing games. It's the thing that makes an open world sandbox so fun to play, the emergent game play that arises and the bond people form with their characters. Even though everybody is playing the same game we all have our own unique tale to tell. That time your horse died because you didn't know there was a cliff there. Or the time you saw a mammoth fighting a dragon. Or that guy who dragged Lydia's corpse up a mountain for a proper burial. Hearing other player's tales can be as fun as the game itself. It's a single player game but with a huge community experience more than you'd ever get from an online multiplayer shooter. I was thinking about this last night as I was having a non-standard session of play. Not the most interesting of tales but I spent two hours playing the game without killing any monsters or completing any quests. Instead I travelled from town to town buying all the ingots and leather I could carry and then did some intense training on my smithing skills and made all sorts of armour and weapons. Now I'm a master smith I can finally make things from the parts of the dragons I've killed. The end result? Dragonscale Armour!