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Mattias Kreku
Magister of the Light
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 387
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That's a strange way of seeing it. I play RPG's because they are long. The longer, the better. (Unless the game becomes boring after 30 hours.. Morrowind..) But I only play them for like 30 minutes to one hour at a time. That's what the save function is for. A game can't be too long unless you have your priorities up the walls and have to finish every game you buy within a week. Just let it take its time and enjoy it while it lasts. |
Mon Aug 26, 2002 1:07 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
quote:
Originally posted by HiddenX
quote:
Actually, I don't think there's *that* many good releases in a year. Sometimes they come is a rush, but generally I find the arrival of new games manageable. For example, I've finished NWN SP and I have several weeks to explore user modules - now I'm keen for IWD2 next month.
I agree for normal years, but this year is different - I played
Wizardry 8 (and replayed Wizardry 6 + 7 for a good import party)
Morrowind
Jagged Alliance 2 - Deidranna lives !
Edge of Chaos 2 (released as nice price game this year)
Arx Fatalis
Warcraft 3
Divine Divinity
I am at my absolute time-limit at the moment.
Ahh..the advantage of being European (at this moment, at least). In Australia I don't expect Arx or Divine Divinity for a long time - possibly next year. 
Still, would you have enjoyed these games as much if they were 10 hours long?
Moondragon's point on short-stories is valid, but I think it equally needs a paradigm shift in philosophy and game distribution. I think the idea of boxing and distributing a 5 hour game is dubious, so online distribution would seem to be desirable to me. I'm not sure if online distribution works very well yet for a commercial product.
Certainly the Penultima NWN modules are distributed this way, but they are free. In addition, I downloaded all 6 and played the first 3 three straight through. In other words, I'm still treating this episodic product as though they were simply chapters in an epic-size game. If Penultima 1 was all there was, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much at all.
So...I do like short stories, but I *love* an epic novel.
[This wasn't a very coherant post. Sorry for rambling.] |
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Mon Aug 26, 2002 1:09 am |
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HiddenX
The Elder Spy
Joined: 20 Jul 2001
Posts: 749
Location: NRW / Germany |
Arx Fatalis was a bit too short, Morrowind gets boring around level 12, because you get too powerful too fast, Divine Divinity is lengthened by too much easy combat, the others are just right.
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Mon Aug 26, 2002 9:29 am |
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Michael C
Black Dragon
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 1595
Location: Aarhus, Denmark |
quote:
Originally posted by MoonDragon
As far as I see, epicness of a game has nothing to do with its length. I could be wrong, but I still can't see it.
What's to prevent you from saving the world in 5 hours instead of 50 hours?
-In only 5 hours gameplay, I predict that the diversity and involvment in the stories will be very limited.
- In only 5 hours gameplay, the development and personalization of your characters will be very limited, unless it will be rushed accordingly, but this will surely loose the satisfaction of a well "earned" / "developed" character(s).
- In only 5 hours of gameplay, gameworlds with more interesting variation of societies and there involvment on each other, will be out of the question, unless you can play many "5 hours games" from the same gameworld". But then again whats the point in the small stories, instead of the bigger ones.
I can follow the point that it's easier to make small 5 hours CRPG's, all using the same "Engine" and interface. We can start and finish a game the same day we started it, and don't have to remember anything if we are the kind of gamers who only play once every 14 day or so.
With only 5 hours gameplay, anybody could make a module, with a good editor, and it would be hard for the company to charge money for their own modules.
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Mon Aug 26, 2002 11:32 am |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
Michael, I already answered your questions in my previous posts. I proposed that the framework be one world and the "5 hour games" be missions/chapters/adventures that plug into the basic framework and extend it.
Think of having a game where the framework is a city. You are a private eye and have an office (and maybe a house). Your 5-10 hour plug-ins are your assignments. You buy a new module from the publisher and in game you get a new assignment or two. Your character grows for as long as you want.
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Mon Aug 26, 2002 2:24 pm |
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Michael C
Black Dragon
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 1595
Location: Aarhus, Denmark |
quote:
Originally posted by MoonDragon
Michael, I already answered your questions in my previous posts. I proposed that the framework be one world and the "5 hour games" be missions/chapters/adventures that plug into the basic framework and extend it.
Think of having a game where the framework is a city. You are a private eye and have an office (and maybe a house). Your 5-10 hour plug-ins are your assignments. You buy a new module from the publisher and in game you get a new assignment or two. Your character grows for as long as you want.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I can't see that you have answered satisfied on my issues about short episode games:
Comparing a 45 minuts episode of a serie with the full length movie, alas 5 hours gameplay with 60+ hours, will truely have issues of better and more involving stories in favour of the full versions. I'm not interested in a little side-quest on 5 hours only, I like intriging plots in a bigger scale.
If you tell me I just can buy the next and next module etc. to get that, then I can't see the point in the small modules anymore.
If it's your intention that the characters should develop like in ordinary CRPG's then you probably need to balance the modules for a certain level of characters, hench making the modules successors to previous modules, hench loosing the meaning of the small adventures.
NWN and Morrowind is via their editor already trying making this idea possible, also for ordinary users. There are already many modules out for those games, any many are surely played with great amusement, eventhough they are very short in gameplay. But if the developers of NWN or Morrowind were to make an expansion themself for a gameplay 60+ or so with the same edito, I'm sure they could claim 40-50$ and still be able to sell a lot of this exopansion pack, eventhough users could download 1000+ of free modules, each with 5-10hours gameplay, because most gamers would miss the issues I've mentioned above in my previous post.
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Mon Aug 26, 2002 3:20 pm |
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Gig
Southern Spirit
Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters |
Every individual has to decide what's too long or too short for themselves.
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Tue Aug 27, 2002 9:39 pm |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
Michael, that's like arguing that because you like Dostoyevski type novels, Poe's short stories have no business existing.
And as the last nail in the coffin, you argue that because fans can write short story fan-fiction set in Dostoyevski's novel world, that should, of course, be more than enough to satisfy anybody's fill for shorter stories. And if ever Dostoyevski decides to write another book, well, of course it would be as long as the first one, therefore proving that there is no room, ever, for any type of short stories. Therefore, Edgar Allan Poe is a worthless endevour.
I know I exaggerated the example, but that is what it comes across. Besides, who says that chapters need to be 5 hours long? Why not 20? 30? How about 18.2381 hours long? Point being, I personally find games as of late very tedious. They try so hard to provide me content and fail miserably. Their plots are shallow. They twists and turns predictable. Their epicness is boring. "Oh geez, I saved the universe, yet again, while everybody treated me like a dork. Wow!" I mean, even the NWN SP module was such a drag. All these "heros" just standing around idle, while I single handed take on hoardes of undead, dragons, demons, etc. WTF can't all 8 or 10 or however many hirelings go our and do the same job? Well, then there woudlnt' be much of a game, now would it? Why coudln't I punch out that moron Nasher at the end when he was a dork himself? After all, if I can single handedly fight some evil ancient power that has the ability to change world wide climates, why coudln't I just kick his butt? So much for epic.
Ugh, now I started ranting and that's not what I wanted to do. All I'm saying is that there should be some room for succint, well thought out, self-contained elements of the story. Elements that do not need to suffer from content padding just to become X many hours of gameplay on the S/W box. To be honest with you, I long for games that I could finish in a day. Generally, those games could be replayed every day for a month and never get stale.
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Wed Aug 28, 2002 12:30 am |
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Michael C
Black Dragon
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 1595
Location: Aarhus, Denmark |
First of all, I don't say that good short CRPG's ain't possible, and your hole idea as one is also possible to be a succes, I just try to say thats not the only future we all are hoping for.
Dragging some innocent celebrities into the discussion, and dishing bad told stories in long CRPG's is not gonna prove your point for short CRPG's. Short CRPG's can have bad stories too, and that would be an even bigger disaster than in longer CRPG's hence this is one of the fewer issues a short CRGP has to offer.
Suddenly your willing to accept longer games 20-30 hours, just they don't get bored and predictable in the story. This surely contradict the possiblity for playing the game in one day, But I guess it nails your real issue down to that games should make you feel absorbed right until the end of the game, and not only the first 20-30 hours like most newer games seems to have that effect. I fully agree with that, and shorter games could be a solution, but I in my naivety I still hope that more developers can make long CRPG's interesting all the way, because most epic games (in my book) is bigger games with richer RPG elements. Agreed only a few games have shown the way, and to many failed!
Replay ability with games is certainly a interesting issue, and is quite a challenge to make with CRPG's. I don't mean random generated dungeons or gameworld, but different plot, characters, way of solution, good/evil etc.l I think random genrated dungeons / gameworld looses a lot of character and appealing. A CRPG who is worth playing twice is very few in numbers, but certainly give you more game for your money, and is quite a factor to calcultate with when buying a game.
If you want eternal interesting replaying ability then buy "Civilization III".
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Wed Aug 28, 2002 9:57 am |
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Provis
High Emperor
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 872
Location: Middle of the Forest |
I think it depends solely on the game.
There are some games out there that are long but the story is so interesting and the designers have thought the game out well that you don't really notice that the game takes 100 hours.
Then there are games like Diablo/Dungeon Siege where all you do is fight over and over and over and over again until you can feel yourself getting stupider every minute you sit there.
Bottom line. I've thought some RPG or RPG-like games were wayyyyy to long and other that can take the same or longer amount of time to play are not long enough. It all depends on what one is doing for that length of time. If all one does if fight then yes it will get tedious after the first 10-15 hours but if one is constantly finding new plot twists then it can hold one's interest for any length of time.
This has probably been said before but I didn't feel like reading all the posts. 
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Wed Aug 28, 2002 2:27 pm |
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ButtOfMalmsey
Village Idiot
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Mississippi |
If you want true replayability with ultimate difficulty scaling, play Europa Universalis II.
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I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
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Wed Aug 28, 2002 3:13 pm |
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Michael C
Black Dragon
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 1595
Location: Aarhus, Denmark |
quote:
Originally posted by ButtOfMalmsey
If you want true replayability with ultimate difficulty scaling, play Europa Universalis II.
Is it any better than Europa Universalis I, or is it just a minor extension???
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Wed Aug 28, 2002 3:19 pm |
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ButtOfMalmsey
Village Idiot
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Mississippi |
quote:
Originally posted by Michael C
quote:
Originally posted by ButtOfMalmsey
If you want true replayability with ultimate difficulty scaling, play Europa Universalis II.
Is it any better than Europa Universalis I, or is it just a minor extension???
It's got an added dimension of domestic policy that heavily affects gameplay. There are a few more diplomatic options, and you can play as any country on the map (including the native american tribes). It also has two hours of music, as opposed to the six minutes in the original, and it covers 100 more years of history (1419-1819).
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"It has been a grand journey- well-worth making once."
-Winston Churchill, 1965, on Life
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
-Homer Simpson
=Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Member of The Sixth House=
::Captain of the Black Company:: |
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Wed Aug 28, 2002 4:04 pm |
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Kabduhl
City Guard
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 127
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I think a good crpg should account for a high amount of character development and you need a lenghty adventure to develop a character. In MoonDragon's example you can get the lenghty quest in the form of many smaller quests, but then you are doing the exact same thing as having a lengthy game, only you are forcing people to buy several chunks of the game rather than giving them the full story all at once.
I disagree that this is a good way to present a product. Give us the whole story, in one package, with some length to it, but make it interesting.
Some greatly enjoy playing short episodic adventures in NWN but I personally don't. When I play an RPG I want some substance, and I want a story that allows my character to develop over time. |
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Sun Feb 02, 2003 11:04 pm |
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Northchild
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 232
Location: New York, USA |
One of the reason that I like the Discworld *novels* is due to the persistent world/many storys theme. |
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Wed Feb 05, 2003 8:18 am |
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