Open-World Restrictions?

Hey all!

For the current project I am working for it is planned to be very "open-world" in regards to how the player chooses to progress through the game. However a certain story element requires that the player return to his home two upon reaching level 10 (which is quite quick in this game). Up to this point the player is expected to play solo and not recruit any other characters or participate in certain quest lines. What is the easiest way to restrict with the player does until this point? Do I need to create a separate world map/ town maps with different events in each? Or make every event only activate once a switch has been turned on (which would be a lot of work since the majority of the game is after this)?

Any help is very appreciated!

Hmm... You could contain them in a relatively small portion of the main camp, like a valley or peninsula before opening up the rest? Leaving them to travel across half the world exploring, before forcing them to return to the starting point could prove aggravating to some people. I think regulating or containing the area they have access to would be the easiest method, unless you gain access to fast travel/airship early on.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I want to restrict it. The main home is on the mainland of the world though. So how would I be able to restrict where they have access to without countless switches or variables? i.e. make it so that they can only go to one or two places

You wouldn't really, short of creating hundreds of events that prevent passing in a certain perimeter until X switch or condition is met, I can't come up with anything beyond what I already recommended.

Well, you could make it to where his companions need to go their separate ways for now, and other villages having nothing new to be done.

Older games have countless examples of how to restrict passage to the next area. Geography is the most common, things like needing to go through a mountain pass, a dungeon, over a bridge, through a town and so on. Key items are the next most often, needing things like a key or a sword or pokemon. You could also just put a string of events along the edge of the starting area that won't let the character pass unless conditions are met with some sort of dialogue from the main character like "I'm not ready to venture that far from home yet."

it's better to create another clone of your world map with only that area... if you're concern about missing something and make people can pass through it.

There are several approaches to this:

If I don't want players to access a certain area, I make it require something else to proceed.  Maybe the next major village won't let me in their gates until I have a Letter of Introduction from a trusted outsider.  Or, someone in my party needs to be able to cast Break Seal but only learn that spell at level 20  --- implicitly requiring that character to be at level 20.    Or, I need the Ship to travel to the next island, but can't get the Ship until I do some other tasks.

And there are the obvious broken bridges which might require the party to venture through a dungeon to reach a closed off area, or the villagers need some Large Stones to fix the bridge, so you need to collect it...

Also, in an open world, I imagine you would have harder and harder opponents start spawning as the players reach more advanced areas.  These implicitly limit the player's exploration, since the party getting killed off is a pretty blunt "Don't go here yet" sign.  Of course, it's crucial to balance combat so when the party has the right levels/skills with the right equipment, the fights are fair.   But it's completely fair to have a powerful monster totally obliterate the party if they are nowhere near ready.  

As for "How do players get back to the starting area if they venture too far?"  Dragon Quest IX has a fast-travel spell which costs 0 MP.  The party learns this spell pretty early on.  The fast travel spell only goes to cities you've already traveled to before.  This allows the party to quickly travel back to earlier areas.  

And even from the start of the game, the shops also sell a fairly cheap item which does the same thing.  These together should allow you to keep players able to return to their starting point.  Personally, I'd give the party one of these items in an early treasure chest, if you really want the party to be able to get back to the starting point.

You can also reverse the switch idea. Have the switch turned on at the beginning of the game and turn off when the player reaches level 10. Then you'd just need conditional branches for pre-level 10 quests instead of the countless post-level 10 quests.