244 réponses à ce sujet

[johannes1212]

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

In an age where the average game length is 10 hours or less, why is a 40 hour average a bad thing? Origins had at least 10 hours of filler that should've been cut to begin with.

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

[DTKT]

johannes1212 wrote...

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

In an age where the average game length is 10 hours or less, why is a 40 hour average a bad thing? Origins had at least 10 hours of filler that should've been cut to begin with.

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

What?

How is that even possible? I'm sorry but it wouldnt make much sense for it to go that low.

[PrinceOfFallout13]

pretty close and i doubt most people will ever hear all those lines ever

[Kloreep]

Abstract wrote...

In my opinion this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it could result in a very tight, focused experience.

Agreed. DAO went a bit overboard with side content for my taste. (It probably would have been fine if I had simply chosen to ignore some of the completely optional subquests. What can I say, I have bad completionist tendencies. ) I'm not sure I like the sound of a decrease in spoken lines; as the story says, that's pretty dramatic considering that each scene now has more of them thanks to Hawke being VOed.

But I do like the sound of a more focused game. I loved that ME2 abandoned much of the sidequesting in favor of fewer but excellent tight, story/character-driven quests. If DA2 is following something like that approach, I imagine I'll be a happy player.

Junri wrote...

Well, you got to consider that Dragon Age:
Origins had unique lines for each race and gender combination as well,
while DA:2 is a focused storyline with only one character.

Good point. That does somewhat counterbalance the inclusion of Hawke.

[Kloreep]

johannes1212 wrote...

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

If they are still charging $60 in 2011 money for that 1 hour game, I suppose that wouldn't be so good.

But as long as prices are adjusted accordingly, I'd love to see more shorter-form SP games.

[johannes1212]

DTKT wrote...

johannes1212 wrote...

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

In an age where the average game length is 10 hours or less, why is a 40 hour average a bad thing? Origins had at least 10 hours of filler that should've been cut to begin with.

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

What?

How is that even possible? I'm sorry but it wouldnt make much sense for it to go that low.

Well theres a ton of factors that could reinforce this prediction, rise in piracy, rise in production costs, rise in households with broadband connection (multiplayer capability, growing disinterest in 'long gaming' experience) and the business goals of large corporate publishing companies (usually goes along the lines of maximizing profits and minimizing costs).

[ItsFreakinJesus]

johannes1212 wrote...

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

In an age where the average game length is 10 hours or less, why is a 40 hour average a bad thing? Origins had at least 10 hours of filler that should've been cut to begin with.

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

I doubt it.  They're bottlenecked right now thanks to HD graphics and the storage limitation of the 360.  In the next ten years, storage limits won't be an issue.  And we'll be hitting peak uncanny valley soon too, so graphics are going to reach a point where they won't be able to become anymore lifelike.  Once we get to the point where graphics really can't get any better, more time and effort will be invested into the game itself rather than the look of the game, which should increase the length of games on average.

And keep in mind that not every game needs to be 30-75 hours long.  A 12-15 hour game is perfectly fine.  What isn't fine, however, are the games that, cinematics and average gameplay included, are 5 hours max, like Force Unleashed 2.  Either way, none of this will impact the length of RPGs. 

[corebit]

After playing and re-playing Mass Effect 2 many times, I am really not fond of in-game cinematics anymore. I don't know about the rest of you but when I am on my fourth or fifth replay of ME2, I skip all the cinematics as fast as I can and get them over with.

I would happily trade all the cinematics in DA2 for an extra city to explore or extra companions

Modifié par corebit, 01 mars 2011 - 03:27 .

[Anathemic]

Expected, I thought it was known DA2 would take a more cinematic approach.

Not saying I support this, but that it was just expected.

[Kileyan]

DTKT wrote...

johannes1212 wrote...

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

In an age where the average game length is 10 hours or less, why is a 40 hour average a bad thing? Origins had at least 10 hours of filler that should've been cut to begin with.

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

What?

How is that even possible? I'm sorry but it wouldnt make much sense for it to go that low.

Have you ever seen that Solid Snake game? It was like 40 hours of cinematics and a few hours of gameplay, am I exaggerating, maybe a little.

I don't really care about hours played and much of those stats, but the number of cinematics bugs me. The demo was just a demo, but it felt like every 10 yards of walking, a cinematic directed me, told me what I was doing, where i was going, and often just dropped me into combat.

2500 cinematics? Am I going to be be able to do something simple like walk down a street without a cinematic every 15 meters?

Mostly I hope that when I get a full on bit of freedom, I don't have Varric scenes suddenly appear to make me feel like nothing I did matters, as he directs me to important events. This story telling style while a cool experiment, is giving me a feeling of playing an actor in a play, not actually playing the character and doing real things. 

Modifié par Kileyan, 01 mars 2011 - 03:30 .

[Thullon]

I wonder how many of those numbers went into the DA:O origin stories and how many were used in a 100% complete play through.

[chelseaisthepan]

How are they counting the words? Subtitles, or the paraphrased lines?
Also, even if Origins had more words, it pretty much came out to three basic pathways.

Oh, and 40 hours isn't bad. At all.

Modifié par chelseaisthepan, 01 mars 2011 - 03:33 .

[TheCreeper]

Origins was going to have more dialogue anyways do to the origin stories and the changes they caused on the main story. The only fair comparison would be one full playthrough of origins (not counting DLC baring Shale) and one full playthrough of DA2

[johannes1212]

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

johannes1212 wrote...

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

In an age where the average game length is 10 hours or less, why is a 40 hour average a bad thing? Origins had at least 10 hours of filler that should've been cut to begin with.

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

I doubt it.  They're bottlenecked right now thanks to HD graphics and the storage limitation of the 360.  In the next ten years, storage limits won't be an issue.  And we'll be hitting peak uncanny valley soon too, so graphics are going to reach a point where they won't be able to become anymore lifelike.  Once we get to the point where graphics really can't get any better, more time and effort will be invested into the game itself rather than the look of the game, which should increase the length of games on average.

And keep in mind that not every game needs to be 30-75 hours long.  A 12-15 hour game is perfectly fine.  What isn't fine, however, are the games that, cinematics and average gameplay included, are 5 hours max, like Force Unleashed 2.  Either way, none of this will impact the length of RPGs. 

Actually I think graphics, in current gaming generation is largely a non-issue already, what IS an issue in RPGs at least is voice acting and the 'need' for games to feature full voice acted dialogue.
Voice is a feature that requires maybe 60-65% of dev resources to implement, anything that the writing team places in the game must also be complemented by the correct dialogue, this involves calling up the said voice actor, setting up a meeting date(s), and recording the line(s). This process is extremely cumbersome when compared to simply writing dialogue and placing it straight into the game.
Voice also prevents character involvment in future DLCs for the above reason, which is why ME2 DLCs such as project overlord or firewalker featured a feel of 'disconnected' teammates.

[corebit]

chelseaisthepan wrote...

How are they counting the words? Subtitles, or the paraphrased lines?
Also, even if Origins had more words, it pretty much came out to three basic pathways.

Oh, and 40 hours isn't bad. At all.

It is bad if the gameplay hours keep shrinking at the cost of cinematics which add zero replayability and get old very fast.
I don't want Bioware games to turn into certain recent Japanese RPGs where I spend more time watching the game than playing it.

[ItsFreakinJesus]

corebit wrote...

After playing and re-playing Mass Effect 2 many times, I am really not fond of in-game cinematics anymore. I don't know about the rest of you but when I am on my fourth or fifth replay of ME2, I skip all the cinematics as fast as I can and get them over with.

I would happily trade all the cinematics in DA2 for an extra city to explore or extra companions

Would you want RPGs to have a bunch of things like this?




As much as I love Persona 4, I'd much rather have cinematics than static screens with a giant avatar that consumes 1/3 of everything I see with subtitles on the bottom of the screen so I know who's talking.  Doubly so since I hate subtitles.

[PrinceOfFallout13]

the cinematics includes all the different outcomes of da2 classes,choices and romances etc... so it wont be a mgs whats so hard to understand people

[bluewolv1970]

one plus though is that there are more spoken lines per character than in origins...may mean more depth to charcters...

[Anathemic]

bluewolv1970 wrote...

one plus though is that there are more spoken lines per character than in origins...may mean more depth to charcters...

Since when did more lines equate to more depth?

[bluewolv1970]

Anathemic wrote...

bluewolv1970 wrote...

one plus though is that there are more spoken lines per character than in origins...may mean more depth to charcters...

Since when did more lines equate to more depth?

first,  I said MAY MEAN, which is deifned as a possibility not a conrete fact.  Second if each charcter has more spoken lines it can mean that character development for that character is longer and more in depth..It is really not a diifcult concept to grasp...

[shaneho78]

Do all the dialogue options in DAO equate to spoken lines? Or only the ones spoken by voice actors?

Modifié par shaneho78, 01 mars 2011 - 03:49 .

[ItsFreakinJesus]

PrinceOfFallout13 wrote...

the cinematics includes all the different outcomes of da2 classes,choices and romances etc... so it wont be a mgs whats so hard to understand people

Hey, I happen to like Metal Gear!  In fact, Metal Gear Solid 2, the one with the largest cutscene to gameplay ratio, is my favorite!

[Yrkoon]

johannes1212 wrote...

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

In an age where the average game length is 10 hours or less, why is a 40 hour average a bad thing? Origins had at least 10 hours of filler that should've been cut to begin with.

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

Sure, but there's so many other factors at play here.  Not the least of which is the fact that with the exception of a few freakish titles,  single player  RPG lengths have stayed fairly consistant  over the past Decade, thus bucking the trend.

Look at the Fallout series.  The first 2 were short games.  20-30 hours   tops....  now look at the 3rd  one, released more than a decade later...  its longer than the first two.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 01 mars 2011 - 03:48 .

[Lord_Saulot]

I had a thought.

For Dragon Age Origins, what proportion of that word count was accounted for by the codex?

And in Dragon Age 2, what proportion of the word count will be accounted for by the codex?

While there is no evidence, I have a hunch that the codex is not getting the same attention this time around. As for the game being shorter - that is neither here nor there for me honestly. The game is coming out so quickly after Origins and Awakening. If it were three years later, I would be far more demanding of a long game.

[johannes1212]

Yrkoon wrote...

johannes1212 wrote...

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...

In an age where the average game length is 10 hours or less, why is a 40 hour average a bad thing? Origins had at least 10 hours of filler that should've been cut to begin with.

Because judging by trends, in 10 years time or even less, the average single player game length will barely be 1 hour or less. THAT is a frightening thought.

Sure, but there's so many other factors at play here.  Not the least of which is the fact that with the exception of a few freakish titles,  single player  RPG lengths have stayed fairly consistant  over the past Decade, thus bucking the trend.

Look at the Fallout series.  The first 2 were short games.  20-30 hours   tops....  now look at the 3rd  one, released more than a decade later...  its longer than the first two.

Good point, but then again Bethesda is possibly the sole publishing/development company that has stayed true to the essence of RPGs throughout their whole exsistence.