WideOpenSandBox Dilemma

Courtesy Link, since I totally garbled the subject line. <_<

A troper named Jagger's been adding a huge amount of games to this page lately, and I don't think they really reflect the concept. A Wide-Open Sandbox describes a Rockstar Games-style game like GTA, Bully or RDR where you're free to roam the world and do almost anything with minimal plot focus, but they're adding games with structured levels, linear progressions and time limits like Castlevania and Air Fortress, as well as straightforward RPG and Action RPG games like Final Fantasy and The Legend Of Zelda. I don't want to go mass-deleting their examples unilaterally, and there's a blurry line on just how many sidequests and how much free roaming it takes to push a game into this category, but certainly the first Castlevania doesn't count by any standard, and this is a distinct enough concept that simply being an RPG with a world map shouldn't really count either. If there's agreement that these examples really need to go, I'll go ahead and move them to the discussion page.

edited 16th Dec '10 11:16:41 AM by BritBllt

Yeah, that's not what the trope means. I can see where he would get the idea, but no.

edited 16th Dec '10 11:17:27 AM by INUH

Considering the first line explicitly says no time limits, no requirements... yeah, Link doesn't fit that.

But wouldn't the first Zelda game fit?

EDIT: I just saw that it's already under "Other References".

edited 16th Dec '10 1:49:06 PM by Nyarly

Any game with a single defined plotline like Zelda shouldn't count. Side quests are a part of almost any game, they don't make it a Wide-Open Sandbox.

Thanks all! Moving the oddball ones to Discussion...

Edit: I moved the notable games I felt pretty sure don't count, though I'd appreciate it if anyone else feels up to going in and checking out the remainder of the Notable Games list.

edited 18th Dec '10 6:27:04 AM by BritBllt

And now the 3D Super Mario games, the Ultima games and the Dragon Quest games have all been added back. I moved them all to discussion with the reasons for their removal, and nobody actually replied there. If anybody else wants to jump in, go ahead - if I keep trying, it'll just turn into an edit war, but we have to do something about this. Simply having a world map or a hub-based level design does not make a game a Wide-Open Sandbox, and the page is in serious danger of losing any useful meaning if people keep trying to shoehorn their favorite franchises into it. Maybe we need a TRS thread focused on tightening the definition (and while we're at it, maybe excluding RPG's altogether, or at least requiring that they go way beyond the typical 'wander from town to town and perform sidequests' structure to qualify).

edited 24th Dec '10 6:54:15 AM by BritBllt

I helped a bit with cleanup. And now I'm really suspicious of some of the other games on that list.

Thanks! I've created a TRS topic on it too, to hopefully make the definition clearer and maybe rework the Sliding Scale Of Linearity Versus Openness. People might be going to that page, seeing Wide-Open Sandbox referenced on the same level as stuff like Metroid Vania and RPG Elements and thinking it's all the same thing.

edited 24th Dec '10 7:30:39 AM by BritBllt