151 réponses à ce sujet

[Onyx Jaguar]

I meant 7 seconds, as long as it takes to load and go into the menu

Also MW was about 5 hours long and IMO much better than its 10 hour counterpart in COD2 and in a different league than the 10 hour COD3

Then you get into "RPG" marketed games and whatnot.  Hell FF12 took me 70 hours to beat, but KOTOR was way better and I plowed through that in around 30, hours not minutes.

And they both played relatively the same, except KOTOR was tighter

Modifié par Onyx Jaguar, 01 novembre 2010 - 05:16 .

[NoAngel89]

Fortlowe wrote...

Tiax Rules All wrote...

DarthCaine wrote...

NoAngel89 wrote...

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

At least 7

wow, that should be considered just a DLC or an arcade game lol

Eh? The majority of games these days are that lenght. Look at FPSs

FPS' dont count, different genre
your comment is dismissed

Well, there's Bioshock....

lol lets keep on topic, even though I know where you guys are comming from, lets not strain to far away from the subject and not get too crazy about all these different games.

Modifié par NoAngel89, 01 novembre 2010 - 05:17 .

[NoAngel89]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

I meant 7 seconds, as long as it takes to load and go into the menu

Also MW was about 5 hours long and IMO much better than its 10 hour counterpart in COD2 and in a different league than the 10 hour COD3

Then you get into "RPG" marketed games and whatnot.  Hell FF12 took me 70 hours to beat, but KOTOR was way better and I plowed through that in around 30, hours not minutes.

And they both played relatively the same, except KOTOR was tighter

oh lol nvm then.

[Fortlowe]

Tiax Rules All wrote...

Fortlowe wrote...

I really hope Brother Genitivi or another archeologist turns up. He is a side quest machine if every there was one. Mass Effect could use a character like him; well one that doesn't become a still insanely hot blue information broker. He got underplayed, but the Haven sidequest was better than some of the story missions (I'm talkin to you Tower).

Anyways, my point is, length doesn't really matter. It's depth that I want out of this game.

Haven isn't a sidequest

Oh. Derp.  Well it should have been!

[Brockololly]

FPS games can get away with a dinky donky single player that lasts an afternoon on the premise that you've got a robust multiplayer mode awaiting you. Certainly that doesn't need to be the case- I payed full price for Dead Space when it came out and loved it even if its single player only and lasted about 10 hours. But it was a fun 10 hours.

RPGs are different to me though as you're trying to build up a story and flesh out characters and provide some peaks and troughs in the narrative. You need that balance of not having it action all the time in order to make the legitimate action moments stand out. You have to strike that balance between having a game that legitimately leaves you wanting more, but you're left feeling satisfied versus the game that leaves you wanting more only you weren't satisfied with it all.

As far as pacing goes- I felt like something like Awakening, never mind its length, felt way too rushed. In the sense that you go from the slow burn of recruiting everyone to "OMG! THE MOTHER IS ATTACKING GO GO GO!" and you have no choice but to be on your way and finish the game. And then the ending just sort of materializes out of thin air.

Another example might be WItch Hunt- that was a DLC that felt like it had too much story to tell but couldn't get around to it and felt rushed as a result- rushed in terms of just sort of getting the CLiff Notes of the events, as you just sort of quickly went from place to place and then finished. Given the story, it felt like things should have been a bit slower to let things settle in. And the ending there was super abrupt too.

Origins was nice in that I was completely thinking after getting all  the treaties that you'd be thrust into the endgame- and to my very pleasant surprise you still had a decent amount of questing to do with the Landsmeet and all. And then importantly, Origins had some dénouement to sort of let things sink in after you hit the big climax.

[upsettingshorts]

Brockololly wrote...
As far as pacing goes- I felt like something like Awakening, never mind its length, felt way too rushed. In the sense that you go from the slow burn of recruiting everyone to "OMG! THE MOTHER IS ATTACKING GO GO GO!" and you have no choice but to be on your way and finish the game. And then the ending just sort of materializes out of thin air.

The pacing of Awakenings reminded me of the first time I tried to drive stick.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 01 novembre 2010 - 05:33 .

[Onyx Jaguar]

Yeah Awakening moved too quickly and felt like it ended when it was about to start

[Icinix]

Aye. It did. I was really hoping for a bit more at the end there, particularly with all the focus on upgrading the keep and so on and so fourth - just felt a little bit anti-climatic.  Don't get me wrong, was awesome..but yeah.

Modifié par Icinix, 01 novembre 2010 - 05:37 .

[Tiax Rules All]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Brockololly wrote...
As far as pacing goes- I felt like something like Awakening, never mind its length, felt way too rushed. In the sense that you go from the slow burn of recruiting everyone to "OMG! THE MOTHER IS ATTACKING GO GO GO!" and you have no choice but to be on your way and finish the game. And then the ending just sort of materializes out of thin air.

The pacing of Awakenings reminded me of the first time I tried to drive stick.

I lol'ed

[ashwind]

Like Mike says, tis about flow and pace and I agree but that concept can be a little hard to grasp.

For some, the Deeproad is too long while to others it is reasonable. Some hated the Fade with a passion, others not so much (ARE YOU NUTS! I LIKE THE FADE... sorry bout that). So I guess the feeling of flow and pace and length changes with user preference. If you like something, it feels shorter, if you hate something, it feels much longer. 1 hour passes in a blink of an eye when I was playing DA/ME but 30 minutes feel like eternity when I accompany wife shopping >.

So, regardless of how long DA2 turns out, am sure there will be some who damn it too short while others think that it is okay. But regardless of that feeling, we can still agree that it is great if it were great -- example: ME2 Lair of the Shadow Broker. Some feel that the length is perfect, others feel that it is too short but most agree that it is magnificent. That is what I hope DA2 will turn out to be.

Modifié par ashwind, 01 novembre 2010 - 06:00 .

[Dsentinel]

Tiax Rules All wrote...

Orzammar could be made better by adding in a few more "ruck" type characters (people to run into). It would have been nice to find more lost/abandoned/ancient dwarven artifacts and ruins and have companions comment on them and have more dialog about what to do with them and such.

I'm all for adding fun to a dull scene then cutting it out because it was boring and having a shorter experience.

I'm worried by the equation:
1/2 Gameplay over 5x storyline years = A whole lot of scene/time jumping around

Personally I thought Orzammar was my favorite place. It was the one place I stopped and looked around in awe, reveling in both the architecture and the lore. I think it had just enough of everything involved. I pray for some awesome ancient elven cities, like Rivendell or Lothlorien from LotR. The elven story had very little in terms of elven material. The story focused on the current problem they faced instead of the elven lineage and once immortal beings.
Plenty of material there for more. 

I do agree with you on the story jumping. Will it feel to scattered? Spanning 10 years is a long time for a game shorter than DA:O, which only spanned 2 (maybe more or less?). 

[Sakawatchi]

I guess it also have something to do wiht what kind of player you are. I'm mainly a RPG player, i.e I like to talk to everyone, build relationships, earn filthy much money, get some enemies, explore the world, so I find all the fighting rather tedious. But that also makes my playthroughs long, I think my first playthrough took close to 90 hours, and I probably average somewhere around 60 (though thinking of the ME conversation, I don't think I've gone above 35 hours on that game, ME2... around 70).



That's what I think is great with these games, if I want to, I can do a lot of interesting stuff instead of just finishing the game as quick as possible. In fact, I don't even know how quick I can finish DA:O as I've never done a single playthrough without running around doing side quests.

....

Might be the reason I've never gotten around to actually finish Morrowind and Oblivion. I never got around to actually making the main quests lol

[Maria Caliban]

I'm 45 hours into Fallout NV, have discovered 103 locations, am almost at the level cap, and still have a ton of quests. It's very cool but it's also overwhelming at times.

[AlexXIV]

Well if you ask for how many hours, you ask for content. And if you ask for content we can talk about quality content or 'grind' content. Reason why people felt that the Fade or Deep Roads were too long was that after the first playthrough it wasn't really fun to do it again and again and possibly again.

So the point is, a shorter playtime with more quality content is preferable to a long game with mostly time consuming tasks which are not really fun but 'you have to do' to get to the fun parts. So it is quality over quantity in my eyes. A game that is shorter, but fun all through the way, I could probably play 20 times in a row - because it is fun. But there are games which if you finished you really don't feel like 'going through it again.

Just saying that because if we only ask for games with a really long playthrough-time we may just get that. And hate it.

[AlexXIV]

Maria Caliban wrote...

I'm 45 hours into Fallout NV, have discovered 103 locations, am almost at the level cap, and still have a ton of quests. It's very cool but it's also overwhelming at times.

Obsidian needs to learn how to finish what they started. Fallout 3 basically screamed at me 'We wanted to make the game great but we ran out of time'. Much like KotOR 2. I didn't buy Fallout NV yet simply because I am worried to buy another unfinished project.

Don't get me wrong, I think KotOR2 and Fallout3 were great games, but it gets annoying to run in bugs all the time or have characters with the depth of a puddle of mud. If you want to compare these games to Bioware games you should always keep in mind that Bioware products are polished and finished games. while Obsidian sell more or less WIPs.

[Jonp382]

Fallout 3 wasn't made by Obsidian.

[AlexXIV]

Ohw sorry well it is Bethesda. Anyway, same counts for both of them (Beth and Obsi) compared to Bioware.

[Gtdef]

I don't know if the word long is the best for Deep Roads and the Fade. I'd say Deep Roads was chaotic, in the sense that you could not control your party. Extremely narrow corridors leading to extremely vast places with enemies scattered all around made it a nightmare. In my first playthrough I was extremely bored. In the second I just sweeped the place methodically, knowing when to just charge in and when to lure mobs for aoe, and it took me half the time.



As for the fade, the shapeshifting thing was at best irritating. If you were playing a rogue, the mouse form stealth was enough to destroy your day. If you were a warrior you had to use that extremely slow moving magic form to get close, or you would get destroyed (at least till you got the burning man form). If you were playing a mage, the whole tower was fast and easy spamming this aoe mana burn spell, can't remember the name.



Generally DAO was fast paced and kept things interesting imo. You could have a powerful yet specialized character early, using the rest of the talents to expand, though I felt the combat itself was a low point and pretty much broken, save for the klling animations .

[nijnij]

Funny, the whole broken circle thing, especially the Fade, was my favourite part. To me, that, the Landsmeet and the Broodmother really felt like the epic center ofthe game (oh and Sacred Ashes ; come to think of it, most of the game lol). On the topic of the length, I'll just paste what I've said on an abandonned similar thread :



I agree length is an important element in RPGs. On the other hand, gameplay time nowadays is often an excuse for redundant gameplay. Of the 150+ hours I put into Oblivion, most of them were spent doing the same stupid things over and over again in forts, caves, ruins and gates that all looked the same. One of the things I really admired about DA:O is that it managed to pull off that length without going for the grinding temptation so common in that genre. Although finishing a game often feels kind of sad, it doesn't if :

- you've had a good time playing and the ending is satisfactory instead of artificial

- you don't regret any of the hours spent on it (I didn't for DA, did for Oblivion)

- there's replay value



I'm primarily an adventure gamer and I really don't think gameplay time matters that much if the game is good : even if it has little "replay value" (= different ways to finish the game), you'll play it over and over if it's good and artistically meaningful, just like you'll watch a film over and over if you liked it.



Like one ofthe moderators on this forum (apparently), one of my favorite games is Grim Fandango. Grim fandango's story spans on 4 years, yet the gameplay time for someone who knows all the puzzles but does every fun thing in the game, talks to everyone etc is between 5 and 10 hours. Yet those 5 to 10 hours really feel like 4 years because of how real the game universe is, how immersive the story is and how well written the characters are (not mentioning the music which is the best in video game history).

[SphereofSilence]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Tiax Rules All wrote...

What I'm trying to say is.. When developers hear people say "i never finished DAo" they think.. oh make it shorter. But really what they should do it make it BETTER.

I agree fully, but I also believe that there are cases where making something shorter is, in fact, a big part of making it better. Every book is made stronger by an editor, even if all they do is cut out superflous words and make zero content suggestions.

Games have flow and pacing, and the longer you make the game, the harder a time you have keeping that flow and pacing consistent and engaging. Conversely, you have a point at which a game is simply too short and feels rushed. There's a sweet spot between those states where the game feels like it's perfectly comfortable within its own skin, its own design and story.

So, shorter is not always the way to fix things, but it's certainly a tool any content creator should keep on their belt.

In DAO for instance, the sequence of events from the beginning till the battle of Ostagar, till the long talk at Flemeth's hut, IMO was very well paced. There was something new to be introduced to the player at every turn, tightly placed story threads interweaved with slightly more unique battle scenarios than the rest of the game, almost every quests aren't far away distance-wise, and the quality of the physical environment in those parts were a notch or two above the rest. Here's hoping DA2 achieve at least that level of quality consistently across the board.

[Fishy]

When a game is too long .. I get uninterested.Because most of the time , the pacing become tedious and i lose interest.

Probably the reason i always finish DA:O under 45 hours with the DLC . I just can't search 10 hours for stuff in denerim , or read every little bit of hint and every codex entry and every hidden quest and open every damn chest and talk to every possible NPC and read every dialogue and do everything
(It's metagaming basicly)

So yes i miss stuff but normally after 2 playthrough i start reading the strategy guiide and check youtube and the forum and discover stuff.
But well that me.Mass Effect1 was very short actually for me . I  always complete it under 20 hours with the dlc . The main quest i complete under 5 hours . MA2 with dlc take me 40 hours.

Maybe because ME2 pacing was much faster and it did not bore me?Who know.Like makoting 50 planet and doing every mining site and satellite?So boring.
If the pacing don't bore me and i know what i have to do ..It's fun..

But when you're simply *searching* the area because you want to increase the lifespan of your playthrough artificially and end up with 100 hours of gameplay . That when i'm sleeping on my desk with the drool.I simply can't do it.

Modifié par Suprez30, 01 novembre 2010 - 12:38 .

[crimzontearz]

Uhmmm so about replayability....can a dev let us know about NG+? Pretty please?

[Funker Shepard]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

errant_knight wrote...
Thing is, DA2 isn't shorted, especially by that much, because DA:O was too long. It's shorter because it has a voiced protagonist.

Not entirely true. While voicing the protagonist is a factor, DA 2 would have been shorter than DA:O regardless. Origins had parts that dragged unnecessarily in my opinion, and this is one of those cases where my opinion affects the outcome.

Concur, I think one of the reasons I liked Awakening (more than Origins) was the tighter pacing the DLC format forced on it, in addition to the more personified opponents.

That said, I was bedridden for 5 weeks after a rather heavy medical operation when DAO came out... I scored 3 full playthroughs during those weeks, so it was a very welcome time sink. 

Edit: In fact, I was probably mistaken in my above mention of the tighter pacing being "forced" on it. Clearly DLC would tempt in doing the opposite, using lots of filler encounters to artificially expand the length. So it would seem that instead of being incidental, it was an Origins problem already fixed for that release...

Modifié par Funker Shepard, 01 novembre 2010 - 01:56 .