The choice means nothing if the journey is lacking, so, the journey, I suppose.
But I have to say choice is *part of* any good journey and a journey with no choices quickly becomes stale.
Having said that, choices on a journey are more than just picking the path, I suppose.
Kilsin said:What Matters Most - The ability to select your own path or the journey? Please explain your answer.
Choosing a path is preferable to being forced onto one because nothing else exists. I've never played a game where the path the game developers railroad me onto ended up being better than one I made myself.
If choosing a path is not illusory then the journey offers a revelation of self.
I far prefer having choices. Doing the same zones in the same order for the same reasons gets old fast for an altoholic.
Being the hero or being the good guy also gets limiting after a while. As opposed to a game like EQ where you were a passenger in a large world not a driver.
But on balance I have to agree with disposalist. I have played crappy sandbox games and well done "playing on rails" games. A good game - a good journey - matters more than having choices.
The journey down the path I choose. Why? Because if I'm in the real Terminus, what path I take should be all about my choice. Not some predetermined path, the path I make by going wherever I want. Not some preset on the rails path. Now when I've made my choice of the path, then it becomes all about the journey. Making friends, enjoying the incredible scenery VR has developed, trying to out think this mob. Life or death. But even with that, have a laugh. Enjoy all the hard work VR has done. Even the decisions of which path down a dungeon I take. There's a path to follow for sure, but there it's all about the journey. Ultimately I'm gonna enjoy Terminus immensely.
I will pick selecting your own path I guess because you gotta live with your choices and move on. No do over buttons for the sake of a forced journey.
If you are a known murderhobo you can't be hailed as a hero because a quest demands it. If you leveled up as an ogre you can't just race swap to human. If you spent all your time grinding in a dungeon there will be plenty of people who see you as a nobody. If you put 100 hours into mastering defensive abilities you can't just flip to offensive.
I don't want to be taking the exact same path as every other person or person of the same class. I don't want to be in a group of a thousand chosen ones for the sake of the journey. I don't want everyone to be FOTM clones because the class journey wants everyone to overcome the same obstacles. I want choices to have consequences.
The path, everyone needs to be able to select their own one.
It's better when we all start out as nobodies, and try to make something of ourselves by ourselves through actions and reputation, not through artificial elements that the game provides to everyone.
Not through rails that guide everyone from quest hub to quest hub where everyone of the same level will go to the same place and do the same things, tick all the boxes until the last NPC sends you to the next place like a theme park tour.
I don't care at all for PvE in Guild Wars 2 because every single player is The Commander, saviour of Tyria. We all play exactly the same story, we are all the same individual hero that has saved the world...
Having just come from Lore comments, I have decided the conflict between my characters path, and my characters journey is what is important. That sounds like a cop-out but if I am a gnome and I am learning to play in the gnomish way when I log in, I can then choose to go full gnome (pls, no "tropic thunder" references) culturally or rebel and be a gnome but disatisfied with everything gnomish and work that character path. Then how I behave and interact in the world with adventuring, questing and grouping is the journey which can cause some cathartic realizations for the character.
If I want to express it online to whomever will hear, or just make up the story to myself.
Like, learning my history involved the almost complete genocide of a cat-race, of which I am appalled and behave as such, then wanting to walk a tranquil path which just so happens to be contrary to my class (because of the deity locked in on char creation, I didn't know) I stuck it out. Being an "exotic" or so I thought, I pursued exotic races; dragons being the pinnacle. Being one of the few that could converse with fairies, gnolls, orcs and other racials I did what I could to get to dragons and by that time- a year or so later- I made friends, was in a guild, was doing stuff, and killing giants to be able to get enough favor to talk to dragons. I killed so many giants it was considered a genocide...omgosh. All for some - what started as something earnest and erudite. How do you reconcile that? Well, I worked on improving and getting good faction with the remaining cats, and I always took back her toys and brought chocolates for Miranda and I would make it a point to show other player characters the catnip she would give me, and the ball of twine which you could not get anywhere else. Because Miranda was a surviving kitten from the cats my ancestors had almost completely wiped out.
Choosing your own path is the most important for me as a player.
For the overal appeal of the game I would say, its the journey that matters most.
Where the players' paths are the streams, currents and rivers, the journey is the headwater source, the cascades, the riverbeds and the delta's.
So in a way the journey is the environmental experience the players have while they are paving their path in the world VR puts in front of them.
If the choice is to the exclusion of the other I would have to choose journey. A game where I am following a rich storyline is way better than an open world with no purpose.