In many games, especially the older ones, there are invisible walls, boundaries, unjumpable fences, instant death zones, random character launches from an edge of the map to the middle, and so on.
This seems to have died down with the newer systems and the ability to hold and run more information at one time. The invisible wall still exists simply a little further away. One game that comes to mind at the moment, I know there are more, is Halo 3 having boundaries that kill you almost instantly or sections in the campaign that won't allow you to jump off to your obvious death.
My question is, are they necessary? With the next gen systems abilities should games still have this irritation? I am personally sick of walking along then suddenly stop/die/or teleport to some random location on the map. I understand the purpose of them, and the fact that someone will always find them simply to mess with the game, but shouldn't we be able to find an alternative to the same old invisible wall?

They aren't necessary, but sometimes it just makes the whole process of developing a game easier. Most games with an urban setting have a nice wall-o-cars. Games that are more open and have a bigger scope tend to suffer from the famed invisible boundary. As long as it's not painfully done like we saw in Resistance 2 (You know they make it *look* like you're not supposed to go there) then it's all good in my book.

That's basically what I was trying to say. The thing that bugs me is the random wall in the middle of nowhere. For example if there was a pile of cars in the middle of a grasslands, as a player I would think "well that's strange lets investigate" then long before getting there hitting a wall.

Not just the older ones. Check out Kingdom Under Fire Circle of Doom for the 360.
They invisible walls are ever present.

"a nice wall-o-cars" that`s not nice, in fact that sucks bad and it is incredibly obvious that that is the end of the map. Smart design decisions for map boundaries and such can be made on any console not just on x360 and ps3. For those who played it, GRAW had a very nice approach to the hole map boundaries thing.

Killerbunny001:
"a nice wall-o-cars" that`s not nice, in fact that sucks bad and it is incredibly obvious that that is the end of the map. Smart design decisions for map boundaries and such can be made on any console not just on x360 and ps3. For those who played it, GRAW had a very nice approach to the hole map boundaries thing.

Well yeah, but usually Wall-o-Cars in the better games include barricades and fencing to fill in some gaps and give it a semblance of reality.

I liked the "minefield" idea used in some levels of the Call of Duty games.

A visible wall which comes to my mind is the recent ones in Fallout 3.
"You cannot go any further"
It was awfully annoying when you hit that part but i guess they have to do it...
Fable 2 is also another game that did this but in a more irritating way.
I would try to walk into a bandit camp or get to the other side of something and there would either be an iron gate that cannot be destroyed and doesn't have a key or there would be a big mountain.
At the end of the day these walls are designed to stop us from getting somewhere that is non-existent.

Zeldadudes:
At the end of the day these walls are designed to stop us from getting somewhere that is non-existent.

Yes but it should exist, the 360's more the capable of having it exist, designers were to lazy or didn't have enough time or the bugit didn't allow it. When you advertise fully explorable there should be no walls visible or not.

guywithnicehair:

Zeldadudes:
At the end of the day these walls are designed to stop us from getting somewhere that is non-existent.

Yes but it should exist, the 360's more the capable of having it exist, designers were to lazy or didn't have enough time or the bugit didn't allow it. When you advertise fully explorable there should be no walls visible or not.

Well, that doesn't make sense, you have to realise that it has to end somewhere. I mean, it's impossible to make a game that is endless, so you're going to hit a wall eventually. I think the only other option is to make the outskirts endless as in, endlessly repeating itself, but what's the point in that? Do you ever boot up Crackdown and then swim offshore for a few minutes just because you can?

guywithnicehair:

Zeldadudes:
At the end of the day these walls are designed to stop us from getting somewhere that is non-existent.

Yes but it should exist, the 360's more the capable of having it exist, designers were to lazy or didn't have enough time or the bugit didn't allow it. When you advertise fully explorable there should be no walls visible or not.

No walls = no outer map limit, whish isn't possible, unless you want miles of nothingness.

mountains! gods walls

I really like the way they did it with Team Fortress 2. It's clear that the landscape around the levels is boring, deserted and barren, which means that no one has an objection to blocking it off. I never had a second thought about the waist-high walls you can't jump over in Hydro until I went on the developer commentary.

Is it any worse than the curiously linear valley, the mountain slope of instadeath by falling, the endless ocean (e.g. Morrowind,) or the Mission Failure by leaving the area?
It might be a bit IMO, but it's just another abstract limitation on the game area. Putting a random reason on it, or even just starting the player's control right at the beginning of a linear mission, is basically the same thing. It's just how creatively the developers want to conceal the game's limitations.

I'm not saying no walls I'm saying no "invisible" walls. I have said that I undwerstand the reason for walls, but I am irratated by random invisible walls that could be replaced by something better. Infinity is impossible in any game, but it is unneccessary to put in a wall on a cliff that will kill you, if you want to jump to your doom you should be able to.

I don't mind the approach. It's better to see a wall of sorts than outright seeing where you're not supposed to be, like finding non-facing polygons behind walls.

I hate the invisible walls in games like BF2, or BF2142, that kill you when you stray too far off the map.

Don't like invisible walls at all they are really a jar you from immersion in the game. I don't like the way Oblivion and Fallout 3 did it, but it is certainly better than endlessly running into an invisible wall with no explanation. I prefer the S.T.A.L.k.E.R. method of barbed wire fences. It is after all quarantined zone the general public is discouraged from entering. Mercenaries 2 method of leaving the satellite range was ok too I guess.

they are used to decrease file size for users with older or used PC's.

Also,in Battlefield, I hacked it so I could look beyond the map restraints and I saw a negative-world, where there is no buildings, only holes in the ground where they're supposed to be, along with little 'ghost' bots. It was pretty cool.

invisible walls piss everybody off, but theyre even worse when its one of those "sometimes you can climb over me/walk through me, sometimes you cant" things. hate it when game developers do that, even worse than invisible walls. ok, not quite as bad.

Far Cry 2, go into the desert, pass out, somehow crawl back to land. That pissed me off a bit because I'd driven a Jeep out there and lost in, and had to walk miles. Better than invisible walls though I guess.

all games have walls, invisible or not invisible.

and if you're game has any open world area, invisible walls are a necessary evil

Mirror's Edge doesn't have walls. ...You just fall to your death if you go the wrong way. >_>

Zeke109:
they are used to decrease file size for users with older or used PC's.

Not that people wouldn't find invisible walls annoying on a theoretical PS3 game that has a level sized at 6GB that's game scale 600km wide.

Well, I think Super Mario 64 have the best design of invisible walls because most areas in the game had a steep incline or the worlds were floating in mid-air. I felt no compelling reason check out what might be beyond those paintings, unless I was really bored.

Yeah, in Invisible Wall Adventure 4 the damn things were everywhere.

They hopefully won't be necessary in the future, but I understand that it is incredibly complex to program the entire globe for a level. So, right now, it's forgivable that they occur.

Now, it would be more forgivable if the invisible walls were incorporated in a more organic, or at least clever, way.

I hate invisible walls. It ruins any feeling of immersion in the game, and they're just plain annoying. Especially since there are so many environmental barriers they can use. Rubble, cliffs, buildings, cars, other miscellaneous wreckage or debris, water, sex, minefields, persistent threat from enemy sniper/missle/artillary coverage, etc. Invisible walls are just silly.

Well, you could in theory have a game procedurally generate zones so that you will never reach a wall in the game, but does any game really benefit from the complete removal of barriers?

Or you could do it the Frontier way, where inhabited space is a relatively small area and while you can theoretically explore the whole galaxy, you'll run out of gas before you've made that trip.

I don't have a problem with invisible walls that are a double or even triple precaution, like having a rock that the character can almost but not quite get over but maybe with the right speed and jump point, if you put an invisible wall above the rock to make sure a player can't get by that's fine. If you put an invisible wall in the middle of a field that's something else, there are all kinds of obstacles the can be use instead, to stop players from traveling too far off course.

I hate it even more when it's inconsistant. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga springs to mind, with invisible walls left right and centre.
I also believe that Metroid Prime had invisible walls that made it impossible to jump to your doom in bottomless pits, walls that did not exist in Prime 2.

Well mate if you want them again just play WoW and go to outland. (Not sure about northrend 'cause I haven't played WoW in months) Old school WoW instances had more character than an actor, but in TBC you couldn't go within two meters of an instance wall. I think they took it out to stop exploitation. Killjoys.