129 réponses à ce sujet

[LoK-y-Yo]

About the book analogy, I agree with it, and I usually have involvement with them such as I have the history in my mind, enjoying the history through the words making images in my mind.



Krytheos, I am sorry I didn't see the thread

[MrStorm2K]

deathlord413 wrote...

The analogy is actually spot on and if that doesn't make much sense to you how about this. Instead of releasing the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogies as seprate films what if they just released two films for the Star Wars and one for Lord of the Rings. People would have to sit in a theater for 6+ hours just to watch a single movie. I garuntee that their box office numbers would have plumeted even if they studios had take extra time to improve them just for such a release.

I think you just reinstated my point. I'm not arguing that the 8 hour long epic is repulsive to people, it's that the idea of chopping them up into segments is what is being done by shrinking the story and adding DLC.

If they had taken a similar approach to Star Wars, they'd compress the entire the 3 episode arc into the original film. The remaining two films would be Luke and Han adventuring on random planets. 

I'm not quite sure if I'm articulating this well. Please point out any areas I'm being ambiguous. 

[deathlord413]

[/quote]

Books and movies cannot be compared to games in this situation. The former 2 require you to sit still, and require no involvement. Games do, which is why they can be long.

[/quote]

A video game requires you to sit in front of a flashing screen, much like a move, and read information, like a book, and then make decions based on that information, like a choose your own adventure novel.

I fail to see a difference. People who say that games can't be compared to movies or books are missing a very very important fact, Games are the evolution of both entertainment mediums. In essence the game industry is the grandson of the book industry.

[Skyweir]

deathlord413 wrote...

MrStorm2K wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...
Think of it this way:

The Harry Potter series is wildly popular. There are seven books that range from 77k-202k words in length.

Imagine that instead of releasing seven books, the publisher had released a single book that was 1,413,000 words long. How many people would buy that book and finish it?

I'm not sure that analogy is correct.

What you propose would seem to be more of an argument for an episodic game, like what Telltale does. Abbreviating the game cuts out potentially powerful story arcs spanning a game for isolated adventures. Harry Potter wasn't the story of Harry v. Voldemort in one book, with other random exploits in the other books. That's what a game supported with DLC tends to be.

The analogy is actually spot on and if that doesn't make much sense to you how about this. Instead of releasing the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogies as seprate films what if they just released two films for the Star Wars and one for Lord of the Rings. People would have to sit in a theater for 6+ hours just to watch a single movie. I garuntee that their box office numbers would have plumeted even if they studios had take extra time to improve them just for such a release.

The film analogy is less apt, since the main problem is that you have to watch the movie in a 6 hour stretch. The game can be broken up in multiple parts regradless of it's acctual length, much like a book.

The book analogy is good, but it does not make the decision any more rational. Only a fool would pay someone to divide his game into multiple parts when all you have to do is take a break to achive the same. And DLCs are on the whole either pretty bad and non-sensical or integral to the main storyline (and should thus be included in the main game).

I do not dispute that Maria Caliban is correct about her assesment, but that does not mean that these people are making rational decisions about how they want their game to be.

[LoK-y-Yo]

Anyway, returning to the main point, were the people who didn't finish the game more than those who did? If 50 finish the game with that lenght, and other 50 didn't, do you make it shorter, or try to find why they didn't finish it (deep roads and fade was a little more...bored than the average of the game, perhaps the controll in consoles again?)

[Krytheos]

Mr. Gerbz wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

EA wants shorter games and more DLC because that means more money for them. Only an idiot would want to pay full price for a game , then pay even more for stuff that they just held back from including anyway... At least one would think that.

This.

It's pretty obvious all of us want games to be as long as possible, who cares about reaching the end, as long as I am having a good time?

EA Just needs to readjust their strategy, because they're pissing of a lot of gamers by not delivering full games, instead making us pay extra for half the game, and covering it up with useless free items which you can often only get by doing stuff they want (like preordering from a certain retailer, or making sure their demo gets downloaded and played by a large enough audience so their money doesn't go wasted, etc).

Uhm, what? You get the full game you buy. You really, really do. The free DLC items? Aside from big one's that everyone who doesn't buy used get -- like Black Emporium for instance, which is an optional part of the game that doesn't need to be paid for unless you buy used, in which case it's around..7 dollars? I think, which has vendors, a transformation mirror, a shady propietor, and a mabari warhound, which is well worth the price, I would think -- the DLCs are optional. They are not required to play the game. 

People seem to miss this quite frequently. Aside from the big one's, the only things exclusive to certain things are: 

Amulet of Ashes for Play.com, no Fadeshear or Lion of Orlais shield; said Amulet is easy to make as it is not a visibly wearable item and only has some vague, small tangible benefits from it, so it really isn't needed. 

Irons Belt for EA.com again, a small item that can be easily made in any toolset with relative amount of time, 5 minutes or less if you know what you're going to make. 

Ring of Whispers for EpicWeapons.com which is a ring that amounts to giving some little extra benefits. 

Two usable books that grant XP and gold, but not in such a tangible amount that it is necessary to enjoy the game. 

The Armory from Gamestop -- yes, this is a decently sized one as it adds new weapons to the game, but Gamestop is a major retalier, and one has to remember that since it is a major retailer it'll get some unique things with it that are marginally more useful, but again, unnecessary for the game. And no, they were not cut, just ahead of time; DLC is items that would not have made it in the game at all if they were not DLC. 

Sir Isaac of Clarke's armor from buying a physical copy of the game; this is again, optional, not needed, DLC added. 

Possibly some I have missed. Fadeshear and Lion of Orlais are the two more intentsive items, along with the Gamestop armory, due to needing animations and models and model consistancy, etc. but probably not -too- difficult to make, all in all. all of these are OPTIONAL. 

Sebastian is a full companion character who is, again, optional, and no, he is not 'exclusive' to SE buyers. He will likely be available as a mere 5 dollars on a later date, if not Day One DLC. Well worth the price? You be the judge. 

And not all of us want games to be as long as possible. Some of us just want -good- games period, not for it to drag on and on and on, which is the way Origins started to feel after awhile for some of us. Obviously this is not true for everyone; this should be clear. 

Getting the vanilla game, you get the whole game. There -is- no magic cut-off button that lets you cut off content if you don't pay. That's not just silly, it's ridiculous, and if any developer did it, the gaming community would be up in arms over it. And as you can see, the majority are not because this is far from truth. 

hmn, did I miss anything? Oh right. 

EA is not so bad anymore. They made mistakes in the past. This is not one of them. Because marketing changes, and often that means giving incentives to buy your products. This is -nothing new.- Marketing changes as the consumers change, marketing follows the trend so they can best sell the game they want to sell, with as many copies as they can. 

Often this does include DLC incentives, especially towards certain retailers. You don't have to agree with it; iit's just how marketing is evolving. 

[rumination888]

...I wonder if the devs are counting a person who opts out of uploading feedback to BioWare halfway through their saved game as someone who never finished the game?

[Tarahiro]

Origins wasn't too long. Look at the old Final Fantasy games....mainly 7 and 8. Both of those took upwards of 100 hours to complete. RPG's are supposed to be long, shooters are the short games



From what i've been hearing though, DA2 should be a good length. We'll see when it's released I suppose

[LoK-y-Yo]

We didn't said it was to cut content. I said it is strange to want the game shorter, but because is shorter, the need of more dlcs to carry on the history. 

And a DLC is about 1-1 30' hours for 7 dollars. The game was 40 hours - 50€ in Spain, you can make the relation hours-value. So they shorten the lenght about 10 hours, and add later other...mmm...7 hours in dlcs? for 5-7 € each one, 5*5 25, 5*7 35, lets say 28 € (and remind that some of you pay in dollars, but some of us pay in euros, which are a little more expensive and we get a 1dollar-1euro conversion >.<)  so we get a 10 hours shorten game, full game, but 10 shorter hours game, and those 10 hours of lenght difference we CAN get some of them payed with gold. (we don't have to pay for them, but hey, if you thought 30 hours was good, you could have stopped at that time)

[Drowsy0106]

Could be worse



Dragon Age 3 will feature chapters that last a maximum of 45min with the previous chapter being summerized at the start of a new.



I blame Americans and their attention span.





*hides*

[LoK-y-Yo]

Drowsy0106 wrote...

Could be worse

Dragon Age 3 will feature chapters that last a maximum of 45min with the previous chapter being summerized at the start of a new.

I blame Americans and their attention span.


*hides*

LOL, but don't be a smartone   that is an internet new generation issue all over the world, even you can see if it happens to you. Do you start reading an article, read the first sentences, stopp at it and start reading jumping from sentence to sentence all over the article? you are then one of those if you answers is yes

[Sengoku no Maou]

I swear it's as if a new world order of idiocy is taking over gaming.

[TwistedComplex]

Yes it was too long, and not for good reasons



I could have done without the fade and deep roads taking up 6 hours of gameplay



I could also do without the boring side quests like "Ser Herpis McDerpis needs you to collect 15 mushrooms for the Durr guild of Hurreldun"



Hopefully DA2 rectifies that



And if the DLC is GOOD, than bring it on

[Krytheos]

LoK-y-Yo wrote...

We didn't said it was to cut content. I said it is strange to want the game shorter, but because is shorter, the need of more dlcs to carry on the history. 

And a DLC is about 1-1 30' hours for 7 dollars. The game was 40 hours - 50€ in Spain, you can make the relation hours-value. So they shorten the lenght about 10 hours, and add later other...mmm...7 hours in dlcs? for 5-7 € each one, 5*5 25, 5*7 35, lets say 28 € (and remind that some of you pay in dollars, but some of us pay in euros, which are a little more expensive and we get a 1dollar-1euro conversion >.<)  so we get a 10 hours shorten game, full game, but 10 shorter hours game, and those 10 hours of lenght difference we CAN get some of them payed with gold. (we don't have to pay for them, but hey, if you thought 30 hours was good, you could have stopped at that time)

I was refering not to you, as you didn't imply that; sorry if it was confusing. I was posting to the person who quoted you. 

[rob_k]

To put it into perspective regarding books, about 75k words is probably the recommended amount for a first time author.



When it comes to fantasy, that can go up to about 150k. (Of course, these are only recommendations.)

[HTTP 404]

I think they base this off stats taken from players in game. many people do not finish playthroughs and many people buy dlcs is what was taken from the "numbers"



I do see OPs point tho

[Syrellaris]

Tarahiro wrote...

Origins wasn't too long. Look at the old Final Fantasy games....mainly 7 and 8. Both of those took upwards of 100 hours to complete. RPG's are supposed to be long, shooters are the short games

From what i've been hearing though, DA2 should be a good length. We'll see when it's released I suppose

FF10 400+ hours and i still havent finished it

[AkiKishi]

Syrellaris wrote...

Tarahiro wrote...

Origins wasn't too long. Look at the old Final Fantasy games....mainly 7 and 8. Both of those took upwards of 100 hours to complete. RPG's are supposed to be long, shooters are the short games

From what i've been hearing though, DA2 should be a good length. We'll see when it's released I suppose

FF10 400+ hours and i still havent finished it

I never did all the side stuff like Penance etc. Even without that though it was still a great game just for the main story alone.

I think DA2 will come in short. Just because the combat is faster and there is less thought required in matching character to responses than in DA. It's hard to judge on locations from demo's but that is my feeling.

[Sinvx]

deathlord413 wrote...

MrStorm2K wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...
Think of it this way:

The Harry Potter series is wildly popular. There are seven books that range from 77k-202k words in length.

Imagine that instead of releasing seven books, the publisher had released a single book that was 1,413,000 words long. How many people would buy that book and finish it?

I'm not sure that analogy is correct.

What you propose would seem to be more of an argument for an episodic game, like what Telltale does. Abbreviating the game cuts out potentially powerful story arcs spanning a game for isolated adventures. Harry Potter wasn't the story of Harry v. Voldemort in one book, with other random exploits in the other books. That's what a game supported with DLC tends to be.

The analogy is actually spot on and if that doesn't make much sense to you how about this. Instead of releasing the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogies as seprate films what if they just released two films for the Star Wars and one for Lord of the Rings. People would have to sit in a theater for 6+ hours just to watch a single movie. I garuntee that their box office numbers would have plumeted even if they studios had take extra time to improve them just for such a release.

No one is forcing you to sit infront of your computer for 6+ hours to get the story, so your anaology doesn't apply here. I seriously do not want this game to turn out like Fable 3, where it's tons of fun but over way to quick. Also I feel really ripped off now, I pay'd 59.99 for this game to not get the full game? Now I have to wait and buy DLC's to continue over the history of Hawke? I am Canadian bud, and money exchange adds up... There is absolutely no justification to this, you arent forced to rush through dragon age, nor do you have too. People generally don't finish games because of certain aspects, like the Circle of Magi Tower, that was a huge pain in the ass. It doesn't need to be shortened. Or like how I didn't finish ME1 cause the tank was a huge turn off for me.

If the Length of the game is anything like ME2, I am totally cool with that, but if it turns out to be over just as quick as Fable 3, I will be very disappointed.

[dackota]

Completed it about 8 times, wanted to see how different I could make each playthrough.

[Aradace]

Im guessing DA2 will be in the ballpark of 30-40 hours (side quests included). Which Im fine with. Sorry guys but in my opinion, the age of the 100000000000000000 hour RPG is over with. Im not happy about it, but then again, Im not sad about it. Im merely shrugging and embracing the change. Which is ultimately what one has to do. That, or just dont buy/play the game. When you dont judge a game based off it's predecesor and view it from the scope of complete objectivity, you can begin to actually judge the game based off of "what it is" and not "what it's predecesor was".



And judging it based off of what it is, DA2 is shaping up to be a damn great game IMO. The only way I'd be pissed off about it's "length" is if it were 10-15 hours from start to finish. (which probably will be for some folks who tend to "skip" through lines of dialog and cutscenes. To which I personally never do.)

[WrexKroganKing]

Maria Caliban wrote...

LoK-y-Yo wrote...

Which makes me wonder, did the Pc players had problem finishing it?

The majority of players on all platforms never finished the game.

How long is the game without making any secondary quest? 30-40 hours?

50 hours. 

*shrug* 18 for me. He did say without side quests though.

[Ieldra]

MrStorm2K wrote...
This has been an issue that game developers have been wrestling with for a while. As consumers are becoming more and more of the adult population, they have things to do and places to be. Naturally, a 50 hour RPG is asking a lot from them when they can complete most games in 8-12 hours. As a result, many gamers get fatigued of playing the same game for long periods and just quit and move on.

I'd imagine few people on the boards are going to complain about this, considering the audience. But this is an industry-wide issue, and it's why you're seeing so many publishers push for smaller single-player modes and more multiplayer modes. Essentially, the single player epic is quickly becoming a niche product that doesn't return on the money invested in it.

Take that as a sign of the apocalypse or not, but it's the way things are. And unfortunately, I don't believe they'll be changing any time soon.

I can only say if they don't make single player epics any more they'll lose me as a customer. I'm not interested in multiplayer or games that tell a chapter-length story. If that trend continues past a certain point, I'll go back to reading more books.

Having said that, DAO was very long. I liked that, and I finished it about four or five times, but being shorter than DAO isn't a sign of the apocalypse. What we'll probably see is that the important events of a story will be spaced more closely. While that's acceptable it's also unfortunate. I know many people didn't like the Deep Raods in DAO, but I think many stories profit from such places where the sense of desolation and being cut off from all civilization is palpable. It did become old after two playthroughs, but those players who play it more often are a very small minority anyway.

[Zigzaggy]

LoK-y-Yo wrote...

 What was my surprise to read in an interview in which Fernando Melo, productor, said DA2 was shorter because the first one was too long and there were lots of players which couldn't even finish it .
Anyway, I was even more surprised that he said that they realiced that the game had to be shorter so players could finish it, but had to have more dlc to extend the history of Hawke (so more than with the warden). Isn't this contradictory?

Yes...

Isn't it good to be awake.

[Aradace]

I gotta say Im in agreeance with Ieldra. Ive been an avid gamer for 30 years. When the day comes that the industry decides to shift to focusing more on "multiplayer" and less on "single player", I'll be hanging up my controller for good.