Persistent world games

Typhus733

All this Spore news has given me an itch for something to play but I can't find what. I'm looking for good games with a persistent, moving world that isn't always canned.

What I mean is like Space Rangers 2 (basicly an open galaxy for you to play with and the AI acts differently every game), a Civ game (newly generated maps and many levels of difficulty give variety to each game), X2 or 3(a very open space to go at as you feel), anything like that. Though not something like Oblivion which has a persistent world but is always the same; the same quests will be in the same place every time and there isn't much else to do outside of that. It's a really specific interest which is making it frustrating to find anything.

Genre isn't so strict though, as anything from an RPG to strategy to action could work. Basically I'm looking for something with a lasting and dynamic-ish world to keep me occupied. Sorry in advance if this request is a bit hard to work with.

Mantra

This thread is relevant to my interests.

TychoCelchuuu

Like, single player? Or multiplayer? EVE Online for example is always changing, but that's as a result of the aggregate actions of thousands of players instead of just you.

Typhus733

Sorry, single player/non-mmo was what I meant.

Axen

Might I suggest Europa Universalis III? It is not turn based its actually real time (though not really an RTS). I made a thread on it a while back. The thread is dead now, but my OP outlines the game. Aside from not being turn-based it does fit what you are looking for I think.

-edit Excuse me. Got confused with the other thread. The one looking for a turn-based strategy game. Anyway my suggestion still stands!

Impersonator

The Elder Scrolls series, more specifically Morrowind and Oblivion, you'll get really sucked in, especially if you fancy fantasy and magic and all sorts of unrealistic things. The worlds in them are immense, you even have books to read. You can talk to dozens or hundreds of people, have lots of equipment, spells, you can cook food, be an alchemist and prepare spells, repair your own weapons with a hammer, etc. etc...

You should really look into this, I think it's a safe bet

EDIT: Or not..:oops:

Xtarath

Impersonator wrote: »

The Elder Scrolls series, more specifically Morrowind and Oblivion, you'll get really sucked in, especially if you fancy fantasy and magic and all sorts of unrealistic things. The worlds in them are immense, you even have books to read. You can talk to dozens or hundreds of people, have lots of equipment, spells, you can cook food, be an alchemist and prepare spells, repair your own weapons with a hammer, etc. etc...

You should really look into this, I think it's a safe bet

Let's not forget you can punch anyone or anything in the face(if it has one)

Gorilla Salad

Impersonator wrote: »

The Elder Scrolls series, more specifically Morrowind and Oblivion, you'll get really sucked in, especially if you fancy fantasy and magic and all sorts of unrealistic things. The worlds in them are immense, you even have books to read. You can talk to dozens or hundreds of people, have lots of equipment, spells, you can cook food, be an alchemist and prepare spells, repair your own weapons with a hammer, etc. etc...

You should really look into this, I think it's a safe bet

He said NOT LIKE OBLIVION in the OP.

Remember kids. Reading is FUNdamental!

jothki

Dwarf Fortress, maybe? It takes place in a randomly generated world, and you can either set up and manage a fortress or wander through the world as an adventurer, including through the ruins of any fortresses that you've abandoned. There's a thread for it somewhere here.

Ravenlock

There's not a whole lot of storyline to it yet, just a bunch of generated quests to do, but for sandbox-y persistent world medieval combat it's very hard to beat Mount & Blade. Some very good mods help the longevity as well, and they just finally got picked up by a publisher, so development on the game should accelerate towards v1.0 from here.

Mayday

Dwarf Fortress is basically what you want. If you have ASCII-rash, try this version: http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/~mayday/df.htm

Mr.Brick

Fable?

Alfred J. Kwak

Ha, no, but maybe the game Molyneux was promising us instead.

Boar

I think we'll have to wait about another 10 years until we have computers capable of running the game that Molyneux promised us...

Fable is pretty good if you've never played it though. And Dwarf Fortress on adventure mode is pretty much exactly what you are looking for, but the low tech graphics may be off-putting to some..

Perhaps not a perfect suggestion, as I assume you are looking for RPGs, but what about a total war game? Things never quite play the same way twice on the world map...

Iriah

STALKER - Shadow of Chernobyl

Patched and modded to hell and back, of course.

Couscous

Iriah wrote: »

STALKER - Shadow of Chernobyl

Patched and modded to hell and back, of course.

I just bought it. What are the recommended mods?

Typhus733

Thanks for all the suggestions, I love the Total War series and they are right on what I was asking. Fable is too linear/focused with it's missions though not a bad game regardless. STALKER I've heard of and it looks interesting, is it very objective/mission focused or a completely open world for you?

Boar

If you love the Total War series and have Rome, download the Europa Barbarorum mod, completely changes the game, adds close to 1 gig of new things and is essentially the game as it should have been.

Otherwise both the Napoleonic Total War mods are well worth picking up.

Couscous

Typhus733 wrote: »

Thanks for all the suggestions, I love the Total War series and they are right on what I was asking. Fable is too linear/focused with it's missions though not a bad game regardless. STALKER I've heard of and it looks interesting, is it very objective/mission focused or a completely open world for you?

From what I have played of it, STALKER is more mission based with a bunch of stuff to do outside of the main missions. The prequel is supposed to be more open ended than the first one as they had to cut out a lot of stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Clear_Sky

# The player assumes the role of a mercenary whose goal is to kill the Stalker Strelok. It is confirmed that you can't kill Strelok. But the player will be able to see him in the game, and the storyline is directly tied to him.
# Rather than having a linear plot (as with Shadow of Chernobyl), the story focuses on an AI-driven faction war, where groups are fighting to gain control of new areas formed by a landscape-reforming blowout. Territorial wars, territory capture, and fan-created missions will be included.
# You can join one of eight factions and lead them to victory. Confirmed factions that are joinable are the Bandits, Duty, Freedom, Clear Sky and Final Day. Other factions included will be the Loners and the Ukrainian Military.

Sorenson

Typhus733 wrote: »

Thanks for all the suggestions, I love the Total War series and they are right on what I was asking. Fable is too linear/focused with it's missions though not a bad game regardless. STALKER I've heard of and it looks interesting, is it very objective/mission focused or a completely open world for you?

There are missions, some of which are time-based, but in general you can go where you want within the Zone barring several story-related areas that "shouldn't" be entered until you do the main story missions for them.

titmouse wrote: »

I just bought it. What are the recommended mods?

Oblivion Lost seems to be the big mod when it comes to STALKER, and for very good reasons: it fixes up a whole bunch of bugs and quirks that range from mildly annoying to piss-you-the-fuck-off-to-no-end levels and really does a hell of a job with the atmosphere by improving lighting (especially night - sneaking around at night and ambushing people is actually a viable option now) adding several enemies that were cut before release and adding random scary-as-fuck phenomenon. Only bad thing about it is that it changes ALL of the dialogue to Russian, which sucks for stuff that doesn't have subtitles, and the only way I've found to restore it to English is to go through the game data files (which are organized in the most assinine manner imaginable) and extract the english dialogue stuff which you overwrite the mod dialogue audio with.

Oh, and save often.

Couscous

Oh, and save often.

I learned that after it crashed on me several times. I stupidly started playing the game before I patched it. Luckily, I didn't get far what with it running slow as molasses.

Steel Angel

Typhus733 wrote: »

What I mean is like Space Rangers 2 (basicly an open galaxy for you to play with and the AI acts differently every game), a Civ game (newly generated maps and many levels of difficulty give variety to each game), X2 or 3(a very open space to go at as you feel), anything like that. Though not something like Oblivion which has a persistent world but is always the same; the same quests will be in the same place every time and there isn't much else to do outside of that. It's a really specific interest which is making it frustrating to find anything.

Closest thing that comes to mind is the Pirates! remake from a few years back. Not as randomized as Space Rangers since the geography has to stick to the Caribbean, but what power owns what territory does change since the different nations can invade each others colonies (and you can speed that process along, as in doing it yourself).

Jigrah

Europa The Guild: 1400 is a very fun sandboxy game.

Its a very quirky game, but something I absolutely fell in love with. You are in the 1400's and you choose a profession, goldsmith, baker, cemetery keeper, bandit, guard, carpenter and the list goes on. You start off small and do what you can to build wealth by hiring work, being watchful of prices and buying raw materials when its low, selling your stuff when its high. You upgrade your building, and your house, run for different government positions, get married, have kids, have affairs, raze opponents houses and just the list continues.

Its full of content and fun things to do, its a never ending game (as long as you have kids, always get a wife early).

Its not for everyone, and its buggy, but overall one of my favorite games.

JerikTelorian

Steel Angel wrote: »

Typhus733 wrote: »

What I mean is like Space Rangers 2 (basicly an open galaxy for you to play with and the AI acts differently every game), a Civ game (newly generated maps and many levels of difficulty give variety to each game), X2 or 3(a very open space to go at as you feel), anything like that. Though not something like Oblivion which has a persistent world but is always the same; the same quests will be in the same place every time and there isn't much else to do outside of that. It's a really specific interest which is making it frustrating to find anything.

Closest thing that comes to mind is the Pirates! remake from a few years back. Not as randomized as Space Rangers since the geography has to stick to the Caribbean, but what power owns what territory does change since the different nations can invade each others colonies (and you can speed that process along, as in doing it yourself).

Yeah-- the other neat thing is that you can indirectly manipulate the political terrain as well. While you're free to capture ports, you can also sink troop transports, or assassinate new Governors that would otherwise bring economic recovery to some poorer nations.

There is a story you can follow, but the game doesn't seem to penalize you for avoiding it like I did.

Iriah

titmouse wrote: »

Iriah wrote: »

STALKER - Shadow of Chernobyl

Patched and modded to hell and back, of course.

I just bought it. What are the recommended mods?

Basically, go to the stalker mod database and download the ones which take your fancy. Stuff like improved enemy AI, skyboxes, weather, that sort of thing. I probably won't play this game until sometime next year when I have a PC that runs Crysis on Very High smoothly and when I come back I am going to pump this game to the gills with mods.

Stealtharcadia

Are there any mods for Oblivion that do add a persistent world to it?
Persistent worlds without the need of player interaction are pretty awesome in my book, though.

s3rial one

It's quasi-MMO, but there are a number of persistent world servers/mods for Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2. Most of them that I've tried tend to be roleplaying-oriented, and while they do have player interaction, you're talking a total pool of about 20-50 players in the entire world, plus GMs. It feels less like an anonymous MMO and more community.

I had good experiences on Layonara back in the original NWN. I haven't tried one since NWN2, but I do know they're out there.

(And I'm suggesting this because you said "single player/non-MMO" and I'm not entirely sure how to parse that; I'm assuming merely being a non-MMO persistent world is sufficient, since the single player bit would make the latter rather redundant)

RichardTauber

Would a serving of Diablo be adequate? Randomly generated dungeons and items, missions also random to a degree.

Noxy

I was actually thinking about Diablo too. Now it is installed and I am deciding what one of the three amazing classes I would like to play as.

itylus

The UnReal World might fit the bill.

Stealtharcadia

This is really a field in which games are currently lacking.