188 réponses à ce sujet

[Peter Redfern]

I feel I'll mention it here as I think it's an idea that can relate to game length.

Sometimes I'll only have the time to sit at my computer for an hour or so, and find myself only wanting a short game to encompass that. This was one thing I liked about the Origins in Dragon Age. They filled this niche for me.

This got me to thinking, would a game made up of 20 or so of these can of things be bad? (20 being just a random number i just plucked out of the ether)

20 or so 1-2 hour levels. Kind of like a TV series. Each mini story can stand on it's on, but there is an over-riding story going in the background which culminates in the finale.

Was just an idea anyway as I would have gladly payed for a few more 'Origin' stories that didn't even feed into the main story

[AshenSugar]

IGN have absolutely zero credibility in my opinion, and I have zero interest in anything they have to say.

In any case, it's not as if all the 'padding' in the form of optional side quests is mandatory in order to complete the game - the key word being the 'optional' part of optional side quests. If a person feels it's too long or boring they can simply skip the side quests and just play the main missions or story arcs surely?

[andraip]

So if this IGN reviewer would see a 0.5 L bottle of coke and a 1.5 L bottle of the same coke in a store, both for let's say 0.99€ he would critizise that on bottle has too much content? Realy IGN?

Well, I prefer to get the maximun bang out of my buck.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sure. If you have one game series that's successful and people liked it, why wouldn't they want more? Its like sometimes when I go to a favorite restaurant, I might go with the intention of trying some new dish yet I'll maybe end up getting some old favorite.

The principle thing for me is that, if Schafer had made a sequel instead of Psychonauts, we wouldn't have had Psychonauts.

Part of my resistance to PST at first was that it only looked like Baldur's Gate. I actually stopped playing. I then revisited it and actually prefer it.

(Though since you use food as an example, I'm much more conservative for food. Go figure haha)


As for the $60 price point, at least where I lived I grew up saving allowance to buy $70-$80 SNES and N64 games, which likely makes me innately less resistant to the $60 price point. Though I've since been much better at being disciplined and waiting for prices to drop for games that I don't consider sure things.

This probably feeds back with what I mentioned before that I rarely find myself without some sort of video game entertainment, so I don't have much issue waiting for a game. XCOM is Day 1 though

[deuce985]

milena87 wrote...

deuce985 wrote...

I prefer a formula that builds a game shorter with more replay value.

Totally agree.

I find the existence of fetch quests in so many games completely pointless: why create content so boring when time and resources could be spent doing interesting secondary quests or reinforcing the main storyline?

That's another thing that I loved about Alpha Protocol: all content is there for a reason and Thorton neither eavesdrops or uses telepathic abilities to fetch someone something completely useless in the end.

Filler content in open world games is expected and doesn't really bother me, though.

That's why I prefer a shorter experience that's more polished. I honestly can't think of any RPG I've played over 40 hours first time through, that lacks filler content. I absolutely LOATHE fed-ex quests in RPGs. I hated it in ME3 and I hate it in Skyrim(my god do they have nothing but fed-ex quests in this game).

I wish more games would make side-quest content more meaningful. This is where most of the filler content comes in games. It's like, devs think just because it's suppose to be optional content, means it should feel mundane compared to everything else in the game...

I liked how ME3 had a narrative for all the side-quests(outside the fed-ex ones). I'd like to see Bioware stay on this path and make more polished side-quests. They don't have to tie into the main story like ME3. Part of Dragon Age is exploring the many different things about Thedas. I'd like to see side content have its own little story though. Walk into a ruin and discover more mysteries about the Eluvian that doesn't tie into the main story...something like that. DA:O and DA2 does this a bit. But I'd like to see it expanded more and get rid of all those filler fed-ex quests...

Less quests that are longer, with more narrative/story/discovery.

Modifié par deuce985, 05 juillet 2012 - 05:44 .

[Furtled]

IGN is for the most part the Fox News of gaming journalism and their writing reflects that, only site I pay any attention to these days is Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Don't know if there's a sweet spot for RPG game length but 40+ of good quality content is usually what I like to see.

Modifié par Furtled, 05 juillet 2012 - 05:49 .

[Pasquale1234]

Peter Redfern wrote...

I feel I'll mention it here as I think it's an idea that can relate to game length.

Sometimes I'll only have the time to sit at my computer for an hour or so, and find myself only wanting a short game to encompass that. This was one thing I liked about the Origins in Dragon Age. They filled this niche for me.

This got me to thinking, would a game made up of 20 or so of these can of things be bad? (20 being just a random number i just plucked out of the ether)

20 or so 1-2 hour levels. Kind of like a TV series. Each mini story can stand on it's on, but there is an over-riding story going in the background which culminates in the finale.

Was just an idea anyway as I would have gladly payed for a few more 'Origin' stories that didn't even feed into the main story

That's an interesting idea - and reminds me of how Joss Whedon constructed each season of BtVS.

Most (not all) of the individual episodes were self-contained stories that would also include some content dealing with the overall season arc, or big bad that the gang would face at the end of the season.

That kind of structure could be really helpful for gamers with smaller blocks of playtime.

[Iakus]

To my mind a really good RPG should have a good 50 hours of content per playthrough to have that "epic feel" Sure that could lead to pacing issues, but I like to be able to feel like I'm in a world, not a campaign. Long, epic central plot. A variety of different types of side quests. People to talk to, etc.

[Arthur Cousland]

For me, I'll play one or two games a year, and I'll aim to see and do everything, including unlocking all of the achievements. When I start up a new game, I have to get used to a brand new control scheme, and I always end up restarting the game a dozen or so times before I finally see the ending for the first time, because I must achieve perfection with each playthrough.

While I don't want my rpgs full of filler just to pad the game length, if there is a deep story, plenty of side quests, and well developed dungeons full of enemies to stab, then I'll have plenty of fun over a 60-100 hour playthrough. I've enjoyed mmorpgs and jrpgs in the past, with their level grinding, so I've become immune to certain kinds of filler, though I prefer the game to not include tons of backtracking and doing other things which are obviously just filler to stretch out a game.

I'm not in a hurry to finish my games. I don't buy 2-3 games at once and get annoyed because I'm spending too much time with one game, while the others are collecting dust. I always try to avoid buying new games until I'm completely finished with the previous game and am starving for something new.

With games like Origins, Tales of Vesperia and etc., even though I had spent 100-150 hours with that particular playthrough, I was having too much fun that I didn't want the adventure to end. Many times, when I approach the end of a game, I'll get a feeling of depression, knowing that the grand journey is almost over, and rather than just starting a new playthrough, I want the existing one to keep going.

[bEVEsthda]

Peter Redfern wrote...

I feel I'll mention it here as I think it's an idea that can relate to game length.

Sometimes I'll only have the time to sit at my computer for an hour or so, and find myself only wanting a short game to encompass that. This was one thing I liked about the Origins in Dragon Age. They filled this niche for me.

This got me to thinking, would a game made up of 20 or so of these can of things be bad? (20 being just a random number i just plucked out of the ether)

20 or so 1-2 hour levels. Kind of like a TV series. Each mini story can stand on it's on, but there is an over-riding story going in the background which culminates in the finale.

Was just an idea anyway as I would have gladly payed for a few more 'Origin' stories that didn't even feed into the main story

Well, some years ago, something similar seemed to be a requirement from publishers and marketing, on developers of strategy/simulation/tycoon games. That they should provide games with a conclusion in an hour or two. The result was IMO a total disaster for the gameplay (and maybe genre too, judging by what happened next). There wasn't any reason to play them at all. I think the consequence for RPGs might be something similar.
And I don't think it's needed. I play for as long as I want, then I save and quit to continue another day. The fact that the gears in motion are so involved or complex, that it takes more than a couple of hours to reach any conclusion, is what makes the game worthwhile in the first place.

You could also compare with tabletop board games. Those which are fun, takes awhile to finish.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 05 juillet 2012 - 07:04 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

DarkDragon777 wrote...


Are you implying that ME2 was even close to being 40 hours long? I easily went through the game in 24 hours and I did every quest available in the game.

I took 33 hours in ME2, but I also scanned every planet.  And I paused to aim almost every shot in combat.

PsychoBlonde wrote...

I don't voluntarily play first-person ANYTHING games any more, because I hate the constrained viewpoint and the inability to tell where the hell my feet are.  Even in Bethesda games where targeting ranged in third-person mode is, frankly, arse, I still play 90% of the game in third-person, only switching when I ABSOLUTELY have to.  Isometric top-down, on the other hand, is okay.  I can live with it, and I definitely PREFER it for some TYPES of games.

You could make God's Gift to the RPG Genre, and if it's a first-person only game, I still probably won't want to play it.

I'm totally with you on this.  Luckily, VATS made the poor aiming in FO3 moot, but I still had to switch to first-person for archery in Skyrim.  That was irritating.

Probably a large percentage of the forum ire about the DA2 changes results from various people finding that DA2 didn't "feel" like DA:O.  I went into DA2 hoping, in a lot of areas, that it WOULDN'T feel like DA:O.  Some of those hopes on my part did not materialize, but I think the lack of wholly defined expectations let me like the game as it was instead of instantly rejecting it because it wasn't DA:O.

I go into any roleplaying game expecting to be able to control what my character says and does.  I disliked DA2 because it failed that basic test.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

As for the $60 price point, at least where I lived I grew up saving allowance to buy $70-$80 SNES and N64 games, which likely makes me innately less resistant to the $60 price point.

If you adjust for inflation, those SNES games were actually costing you something like $120 in today's money.

$60 is cheap.

[Allan Schumacher]

If you adjust for inflation, those SNES games were actually costing you something like $120 in today's money.

$60 is cheap.

Oh yes.  Adjusted for inflation I agree that the cost of gaming has gone down significantly.  Other factors (such as me actually making money, which I didn't do when I was 9....) also make funding my addiction hobby a lot easier than when I was a child.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

If you adjust for inflation, those SNES games were actually costing you something like $120 in today's money.

$60 is cheap.

Oh yes.  Adjusted for inflation I agree that the cost of gaming has gone down significantly.  Other factors (such as me actually making money, which I didn't do when I was 9....) also make funding my addiction hobby a lot easier than when I was a child.

This is certainly true.  The $160 (2010 dollars) I spent on Ultima IV when I was 11 was a massive investment.

[Fast Jimmy]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

If you adjust for inflation, those SNES games were actually costing you something like $120 in today's money.

$60 is cheap.

Oh yes.  Adjusted for inflation I agree that the cost of gaming has gone down significantly.  Other factors (such as me actually making money, which I didn't do when I was 9....) also make funding my addiction hobby a lot easier than when I was a child.

This is certainly true.  The $160 (2010 dollars) I spent on Ultima IV when I was 11 was a massive investment.

This only reinforces my idea that the $60 price point for game is ludicrous. A game like Call of Duty should only be $30, with a charge for multiplayer every month. That would be proportional to the amount of content you get (and the amount of replayabilty you get with MP). 

Similarly, I would GLADLY pay $100 for Origins, while I felt cheated I spent the full $60 on DA2. 

My compromise? Gamefly. I can rent a game for over a year with no penalty, if it's that good (I had Skyrim rented for six months) and then I can return it, get a game that is a little more risky (like KoA) and, if Inhate it, like I did with KoA, then I return it, no sweat of my back. And if at a game I want to play again, I just check it out again (like I am doing with FONV). 

Its as easy as that. ME3 may be the last game I buy, ever. And I received that as a gift. 

[Fast Jimmy]

Also, the ME3 side quests were nice with the more fleshed out reason/story for the fetch quest, but the way they are given, by eavesdropping on people in the Citadel was a little... creepy. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 06 juillet 2012 - 12:43 .

[Realmzmaster]

Fleshed out Fed-Ex quests are fine. I do not mean that someone gives you a scroll for delivery to s specific place. I mean that the quest giver tells you that the scroll can be found in a cave. The PC discovers that the scroll is protected by a puzzle (riddle) that must be solved first or protected by a creature that must be defeated to get the key to the room that contains the scroll.

The scroll is then delivered to the party in question but the PC must find the village or location. The major cities in the area are located on the overland map but not the location of the scroll recipient.

The quests Lost Swords and Forbidden knowledge in DA2 are decent sidequests. Rem-Rot knife or Eustice's Pommel are not. Simple Fed-Ex quests are okay for quick experience and money at very low levels but not beyond that.

Quests where combat is not the only way to conflict resolution but may actually be a detriment or incur negative consequences would be welcome.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Quests where completing them at all might have negative consequences would also be interesting. If, in some cases, the best possible outcome arises from not doing the quest, that would turn the choice of whether to accept the quest in the first place into something more than a trivial exercise.

[Fredward]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Quests where completing them at all might have negative consequences would also be interesting. If, in some cases, the best possible outcome arises from not doing the quest, that would turn the choice of whether to accept the quest in the first place into something more than a trivial exercise.

Spoilers from ME3

Yah know there was this crazy paranoid Asari in ME3 who killed Joker's sister and after hearing her whole story (which is a pain btw) you can use the Spectre terminal to authorize giving her a weapon. Now the whole while I was doing this my brain kept saying "HEY THIS IS DUMB!!!!" but then I rationalized that since it was a option it automatically had to lead to good consequences!!!!! It didn't. She killed herself. There's a couple examples of this through ME3, but that one stuck. So yeah I like this idea but only if used sparingly and it shouldn't come as a complete suprise, there should be signs that it is a stupid idea, either before accepting the quest of during it.

[Wulfram]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Quests where completing them at all might have negative consequences would also be interesting. If, in some cases, the best possible outcome arises from not doing the quest, that would turn the choice of whether to accept the quest in the first place into something more than a trivial exercise.

Well, you could argue that applies to Merrill's Act 3 quest in DA2.

[ScotGaymer]

For myself RPGs have to have at minimum of 35 to 40 hours of gameplay.

Anything less and the game will just not have enough content, enough to do to truly satisfy the RPG gamer in me.
Bioware's own games as an example:-
Mass Effect 1 was on the long side in places, mostly some of the side missions are just long and boring and repetitive. The Citadel section was especially excruciating.
Dragon Age Origins was great except for the Deep Roads and Fade sections simply because those sections just dragged on and on and on. It got tiresome by the end.

Then we have ME3 and DA2.
Both games while strong in some areas (and very weak in others) can be completed in 20 to 25 hours. With pretty much everything done - which is clearly not satisfactory.
Both game's might well have been open to the accusation of having content cut out in order to sell DLC had they both not been so clearly rushed out.

For me I think in terms of length and content Mass Effect 2 struck a really nice balance between the overly long ME1 and DAO (only in places did you feel that way tho); and the noticably short ME3 and DA2.
It took me around 45 hours to complete ME2.

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Quests where completing them at all might have negative consequences would also be interesting. If, in some cases, the best possible outcome arises from not doing the quest, that would turn the choice of whether to accept the quest in the first place into something more than a trivial exercise.

Well, you could argue that applies to Merrill's Act 3 quest in DA2.

I choose to do Merril's quest every time. The search for knowledge should never be stifled. Merrill took the right precautions, it was the Keeper's bull-headedness that caused her to loose the Pride demon and, in turn, cause the clan to turn on Merrill. 

Just because things end badly doesn't make it the wrong choice.