[Lucien21]

Well there is Myst Online which is kinda open world. It may be more MMO than GTA, but it has a lot of similarities.

Otherwise, a crime type game would be the obvious choice.

Think Heavy Rain meets GTA or the old Police Quest games.

Drive around city as a cop responding to crimes small and large, but there would be an overarcing story of multiple murders that you could investigate in various ways.

[jhetfield21]

i also like the fact that in rpgs there are a lot of sub plots and stuff.....and sometimes you uncover mysteries long forgotten.i think it's because of the extra time they put into making a history for the game that gives it the illusion of reality and the idea that you can choose if you want to find out more about it or ignore a side quest which gives a unique feeling to the adventure that you end up going through.even though everyone can play the same parts in the end the whole story of your adventure is different from others' stories,apart from the main plot that you have to go through anyway.

[Venkman]

Originally Posted by mrLOL

IMO I don't think you can make a good adventure-game plotless (like you could with a GTA-style game)

None of the GTA games are plotless and they wouldn't be as successful if they were.

Originally Posted by Origami

It's impossible.
Confining adventure games to little areas is the only way to go. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to create such detailed environments and not a lot of hotspots to interact. And lets say for instance the developers managed to create an open world game brimming with hotspot, the game would become too much of a chore. Remembering every location and every item in place.

This post is lunacy. What are you considering "little areas"? Not counting text adventures, here are a list of adventure games that have a large number of locations accessible for a fair chunk of the game:

King's Quest I II III IV V VI, Police Quest, Quest for Glory, Monkey Island 1 & 2, Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Leisure Suit Larry 1 3 6 7, Myst, Riven, Sam & Max Hit the Road.

Are those games made with current 3D graphics? No. But the King's Quests for example could be remade very faithfully in 3D with none of the problems that you posit.

Can current adventure game studios like Telltale do a non-linear open-world adventure game with a large game world? No. What does that have to do with other studios who have more resources?

Originally Posted by Pyke

I cant help but think that that would be quite a boring game tho...the joy of an adventure game is discovering a new area. Just being able to walk there would kill out a lot of the feeling of 'unfolding story' you get in an AG.

See above list.

Originally Posted by jhetfield21

another thing......have you played any adventure game that the story is of less importance?adventure games are adventure games because the story is the main thing.let's face it.otherwise it's an rpg.as i said the witcher is point and click and open world.but it still classifies as rpg.

Not true. King's Quest and Zork were not concerned with story in the way you presumably mean it. In all of the games I listed, story is secondary to exploration and puzzle solving.

Most of you have become stuck in this mindset that adventure games should always have heavy and linear non-interactive story elements, and should have a small number of locations that you progress through in a linear fashion. Like Telltale's games. Those games are okay for what they are and for your niche, but adventure games are never going to come back to prominence like that.

[jhetfield21]

hey i never said anything about linearity.i only wanted to stress out that story and an interesting plot have a lot to do with an adventure game.otherwise imho at least it's not worth playing it seriously,just casually.and what i said in the quote was just between the two genres not in general.

and another thing i don't have a problem with side quests in adventure games just as long as they progress the story in a way......or at least giving you possible info about it.in the rpgs you do it for the level up and the money mostly but in the adventure genre you don't need that.

[mrLOL]

None of the GTA games are plotless and they wouldn't be as successful if they were.

Hence the >could<, I'm sure there probably is a plot somewhere in GTA 1 & 2 but at least I never noticed any trace of plot (I probably didn't read the missions texts carefull enough).
Also the guy behind the original GTA's is strongly against what R* is doing with GTA3 and onwards in that he believes strong plot doesn't belong in sandbox, which is why his newer Crackdown (GTA-clone) had bare minimum plot. (I don't agree with him tho)

Agreed with most of your post.

Drive around city as a cop responding to crimes small and large, but there would be an overarcing story of multiple murders that you could investigate in various ways.

Yes I believe that's a great situation for a open-world adventure-game, and hopefully that's exactly what LA Noire is.

Well there is Myst Online which is kinda open world.

Ah, true indeed.