LogFAQs > #905609160

I've been really fascinated by how polarizing BotW has been, especially on the "it's really dense with stuff to do!" and "it's the most empty boring world ever, there's nothing to do!!" contradictory statements.

It can't be that both sides are wrong, it must a player personality thing. Judging by the comments above, and the countless other b8 and reddit threads I've read:

Open World Gamer Personality Type A:

Every time I play, I want to be given a constructed "plot", and then I will play out this "plot" to its conclusion, and I want the "plot" to be of a high quality. Then, I want to find another "plot", and then another, and complete many "plots", and it should be well-designed and interesting and unique each time, and I want to get a permanent reward at the end of each "plot".

Examples of these "plots":

* A quest with a story behind it
* An exciting dungeon
* A well-designed puzzle with a clever solution
* A story heavy sequence
* A challenging battle where the power of my character I built matters

The important part is that they are designed, to a high degree of quality, and there are a lot.

Open World Gamer Personality Type B:

Quests bore me. I usually don't want to do what someone tells me to do, that is the opposite of a game. I want freedom. I want my head to fill up with "intents", everywhere I look I overflow with tiny meaningless ideas, I randomly pick one and do it, and immediately something happened, literally anything happened, any "reaction" happened because of my "intent". And the game didn't give me the silent treatment, it encouraged me by giving me a reaction, literally any reaction, it didn't resist me, it let me be free. And I feel like I'm there, I feel so happy. I picked up that lizard. I avoided that hog. There was a satisfying chime sound effect. The birds took off. I saved a photo in my album. The wind blew. The instruments were beautiful. I left with several bananas. I'm heading to that bridge next.

Examples of "intents" that have reactions:

* I want to cut down that tree (it worked, and I got fruit and wood too).
* I want to talk to that woman on that path (she told me gems are valuable if sold).
* I want to jump and glide onto that horse (I landed on it and caught it).
* I want to pick up that rock (I found a korok)
* I want to climb that mountain (I saw a shrine/I saw a cool view/I jumped off real far/I ran out of stamina and slipped down/I saw a secret cave).
* I want to walk around in those ruins (I found buried treasure/I found out the name of the ruins/I jumped across that gap/those bones sprung to life/I spotted a creature behind the ruins).
* I want to conquer that shrine (I explored every corner of the shrine/I stacked the boxes sloppily in the shrine and then I could climb on them).
* I want to see what that forest looks like from the other side (it looks neat/I found a korok).

The important part is, they wanted to do something, they did it, something else happened, and the player literally didn't care how good the thing was that happened, as long as the game reacted, they felt encouraged to play more. They're conquering the open world by touching it, "knowing" it, that's the satisfaction, as long as it reacts to them, it feels worth "knowing".

I think I'm definitely in Type B because I gathered thousands of plants in BotW and it felt good every single time and I used maybe 10% of them and that's fine.
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