Fallout 3 allowed for a lot of “freedom”, but in the end the main plot is still quite linear. You just have the freedom to explore the wasteland and go whereever you want, thanks to level scaling of creatures and quest locations often not having much if any impact on other quest locations. So you have basically only a bunch of stories/quests you can do in any order you wish. The only major choice is at the end of the game, and if you want to continue playing one of the DLCs like Broken Steel, your death gets of course reverted and another plot choice is taken.

The problem with level scaling is that it is a very crude way to assess player char capabilities and often pits the player against random mobs stronger than boss encounters, or, more common, the mobs are pathetically weak.

I think this still gives Fallout 3 the advantage of feeling the most like a world. There are many stories, and the main story is just one of them. It is also easier to add almost infinitely new quest/story content locations to the game.

But it does not really work out that well. The more you explore and the more you get, the more problematic it becomes to fit new content into this power creep. The Point Lookout DLC saw me in Hellfire armor and all that, and it had a very primitive/rural setting. I wonder if a “lose all items temporarily” trick would not have been better. It was just absurd that I suddenly had to fight rats and farmers that could stand full minigun sweeps or several plasma blasts.

I think MMOs would profit greatly from the level scaling that singleplayer games offer. But in a persistent world, this is hard to do. I think the Guild Wars approach worked best so far, everyone is really quickly at max level, and it depends on your skill selection and skills if the “mission” works out.

But given the fixation of players on gear/item progression and their own level progression as well, I wonder if the reboot with Guild Wars 2 was not inevitable. GW1 has so many skills by now, it is a bit a mess. And I am not sure if players would really accept expansions that offer only new weapon skins and only 1-2 new or improved abilities. LOTRO does that a lot. Siege of Mirkwood was quite a gear reset.

I think “freedom” of exploration is basically that what is known as side-quest. This would make MMOs “Worlds of Sidequests” – but even they have usually a very strong main quest storyline. Even GW locked areas of the world till you did certain missions/things with your char before.

Despite all its flaws, Darkfall might be the next thing to a world of total freedom nowdays. EVE also has no major storyline, but a lot of background story. The upcoming SWTOR is supposedly heavy story driven and I wonder how much this will turn it into a single player game online and impact “freedom” compared to games like EVE.