349 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Wozearly wrote...

Couching that in the Iron Triangle terms from Imperium Alpha's link, that's because post-2000 games have allowed expanded cost in order to allow greater quality, but with the focus on quality tending to be graphical performance or far greater audio scope (e.g. fully voiced NPCs and PCs).

And since I deny those things have anything to do with quality, I would suggest that the illustration fails to apply.

Now, if the definition of quality is "market success", then I can see the argument for the Iron Triangle.

[MerchantGOL]

Nashimura wrote...

Mass effect didnt start anything....

My playtimes of Kotor, Dragon age, Jade Empire never went over the 50 hours mark - the same files record the time and the longest first play was Dragon Age at around 35 hours. DA2 sat around 25. My thoughts are that you plunked this out of thin air.

[Fishy]

MerchantGOL wrote...

Nashimura wrote...

Mass effect didnt start anything....

My playtimes of Kotor, Dragon age, Jade Empire never went over the 50 hours mark - the same files record the time and the longest first play was Dragon Age at around 35 hours. DA2 sat around 25. My thoughts are that you plunked this out of thin air.

DA:O in 35 hours with all DLC  and side quest and every part of the game explored ? The funny part I think it`s possible. But you have to possess somekind of playstyle when all that matter is doing the quest the fastest possible.

I explain myself. Today I was playing some Age of Conan and doing some quest in Whitesands. Has I am just running around and doing them.. Looking at the scenery ( Aoc still look beautiful to this day at ultra setting and better than 90 % of modern console game. For instance it`s much more gorgeaous than ASS creed 3 and Dark Soul) ..

I saw that guy who started killing the same crap has me.. Doing the same quest. I started here before him and I left much after him. He was not better. at killing stuff than me. But somehow it felt like he had a fire in his ass. All he cared about was killiing the fastest possible so he could turn the quest up. He probably also did the quest in  ''batch'' . So I was just looking at him and wondered what was so urgent. A game is meant to have fun in the end and should not be a chore. Than he just sprinted away jumping like a bunny ( Maybe that give him more speed ?) ..

A couple of hours later he was five level higher than me. It`s a mmorpg .. So I guess some people are making alt but I see this kind of playstyle everywhere. Some people simply can`t immerse themselves without third party help  (Like a script or cutscene) .. It`s kind of sad but of each their own. Just like how some people can`t read a  book because it`s bore them .

Some people seem to care more about the ''reward'' and not the experience of doing it and enjoying yourselves in the process. It`s like someone in the car always asking when we get thereé

Modifié par Suprez30, 17 octobre 2012 - 08:23 .

[shimoyake]

My general rule is "Hours played should equal or surpass dollars spent," as silly as that might sound. Maybe it's just that games are such a luxury these days, but anything less and I do feel a little cheated. :/ That said, it's not a hard rule and I usually include multiple runs in that equation.

Generally speaking, Bioware titles have never disappointed me in the length-of-play area, most probably because the replay value of a Mass Effect or Dragon Age is off-the-charts. Different genders, choices, personality types are a huge bonus.

All said and done, however, I know that there must be a sort of 'singularity' when it comes to length vs replay of any rpg. Eventually, increasing one will just decrease the other, despite my complete agreement with the 'have your cake and eat it too' feelings mentioned earlier. In an attempt to be constructive here, I had (and am still having) great fun with replays of DAO and DA2, but a single run of DA2 felt shorter to me and that was a little disappointing. I cannot say for certain that if this was because of the 'segmented' years in DA2, but I would like to get a little bit more out of DA3.

Mm, cake.

[AndreyBlaze]

I agree. To feel the atmosphere of the game takes time.

[Plaintiff]

AndreyBlaze wrote...

I agree. To feel the atmosphere of the game takes time.

Why? What does "atmosphere" mean? How does one "feel" it?

Does that statement apply to all games, or just to all RPGs?

[SpunkyMonkey]

DA:O was a great length - a few of the mundane, non-descript quests like gathering potions & ingrediants for the mages collective etc could have been trimmed, but overall it was damn near a perfect length.

I think that so long as the game feels that each quest is significant in some way then it can be as long as it wants. I'm about 50 hours into Kingdom's of Amalur, and played about 60 hours of Skyrim, and both felt so pap because every quest was just so "meh". Ideally side quests should help shape the perception of the world and feel as if they contribute in some way to the bigger picture, not just be random people with random problems.

plnero wrote...


I had a nerdgasm the first time I explored a planet in ME1, but I guess most people didn't like the feature. Most people just wanted to do the mission that the planet offered then leave. I think it had something to do with the mako being a pain in the ass.

Planet exploration wasn't perfect, but if they just touched it up a bit it could have been a really awesome feature.

Me too - I think some of Mass Effects most atmospheric moments were found exploring planets. Suddenly I was in the job I'd alwasy dreamed of as a kid - off exploring space - and it really helped me connect with the ME universe.

Modifié par SpunkyMonkey, 17 octobre 2012 - 02:51 .

[SpEcIaLRyAn]

The problem with Mass Effect 1 and its planetary exploration wasn't it in itself it was the copy and paste of different worlds. They all felt the same except a color swap. Other than that I rather enjoyed planetary exploration. Mass Effect 2 did better with no reused environments. But there was no vehicle exploration which would've been good. Overlord was a great example of what could be accomplished. For some reason in ME3 they decided to scrap vehicle exploration altogether. Which to be fair would've been a but unrealistic with reapers all over the place but they could've made it work. Overall the first Mass Effect is my favorite just because of exploration and the innocence of everything.

Modifié par SpEcIaLRyAn, 17 octobre 2012 - 03:07 .

[Perlicka]

DonSwingKing wrote...
What are your thoughts?

70 hours will work for me
but i want also good story (without plotholes) and lots of minor quests, but not like in DA2
... so i proly want too much

[Rune-Chan]

I don't think it needs some arbitrary time to be good, but Dragon Age 2 was just simply rushed. Not just in terms of production time, but in relation to the story itself. The third chapter could have (and should have) been at least twice as long..

The beginning of the third section should have been a much later occurrence, and had much more of a build up. Rather than "Arishok defeated, now it's the mages turn".

So what they need to do is just take their time and pace the story properly, put in a decent amount of side-quests (hopefully ones with a little more depth than "Go grab this object from a place you need to go for a main quest and return it" and put in more areas to explore.

Modifié par Machines Are Us, 17 octobre 2012 - 04:25 .

[Foune]

My first playthrough of BG2 and Throne of Bhaal went over 100 hours total, that was the best gaming experience I ever had.

[naughty99]

SpunkyMonkey wrote...

plnero wrote...
I had a nerdgasm the first time I explored a planet in ME1, but I guess most people didn't like the feature. Most people just wanted to do the mission that the planet offered then leave. I think it had something to do with the mako being a pain in the ass. 

Planet exploration wasn't perfect, but if they just touched it up a bit it could have been a really awesome feature.

Me too - I think some of Mass Effects most atmospheric moments were found exploring planets. Suddenly I was in the job I'd alwasy dreamed of as a kid - off exploring space - and it really helped me connect with the ME universe.

Yep, that was the best part of ME1. If only they could have populated the planets a bit more with some random encounters or procedurally generated stuff

[Wozearly]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Wozearly wrote...

Couching that in the Iron Triangle terms from Imperium Alpha's link, that's because post-2000 games have allowed expanded cost in order to allow greater quality, but with the focus on quality tending to be graphical performance or far greater audio scope (e.g. fully voiced NPCs and PCs).

And since I deny those things have anything to do with quality, I would suggest that the illustration fails to apply.

Now, if the definition of quality is "market success", then I can see the argument for the Iron Triangle.

The problem with 'quality' is that its a highly subjective attribute.

My personal view is that high fidelity graphics and full voicing of everyone in the game is a mark of increased quality in a sense...if you were to compare Da2 to Morrowind, for example, a quick glance would have most people say "Well, yeah, DA2 is clearly graphically superior. And the voice acting is much more in-depth".

However, despite that, I'd say that Morrowind actually created something far more aesthetically powerful than DA2. As the primary purpose of graphics and audio are aesthetics, it does suggest an element of focusing so much on the trees that sometimes people lose sight of the wood.

But mileage varies - some people really do value graphical precision highly and would see that as an important sign of increased quality. I'm not one of them, however.

[EricHVela]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

plnero wrote...

I had a nerdgasm the first time I explored a planet in ME1, but I guess most people didn't like the feature. Most people just wanted to do the mission that the planet offered then leave. I think it had something to do with the mako being a pain in the ass.

Planet exploration wasn't perfect, but if they just touched it up a bit it could have been a really awesome feature.

The problem for me is that it started to get repetitive, and contrasted with the excellent crit path I found it started to slag on.  I did a lot of those planets, but ultimately moved on and I know there are ones I didn't do.

And that's most of the point.

It was optional.

Don't require players to put in 200 days non-stop to get to the end. Give players the option to explore what they want to explore to fill their experience with experiences.

Yet, it comes down to effort versus payoff. All that extra, optional stuff takes work to create. Is it worth it for all the work it would take to fill 50 hours of play time if the players just skip it for speed runs? To many of us who define RPG in certain terms, it's yes because we'll play it. To others, they don't care, and that is an answer of "no".

How EA see it, I can't say, but I suspect their view is they believe that players shouldn't be overburdened with too many options.

[LinksOcarina]

ReggarBlane wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

plnero wrote...

I had a nerdgasm the first time I explored a planet in ME1, but I guess most people didn't like the feature. Most people just wanted to do the mission that the planet offered then leave. I think it had something to do with the mako being a pain in the ass.

Planet exploration wasn't perfect, but if they just touched it up a bit it could have been a really awesome feature.

The problem for me is that it started to get repetitive, and contrasted with the excellent crit path I found it started to slag on.  I did a lot of those planets, but ultimately moved on and I know there are ones I didn't do.

And that's most of the point.

It was optional.

Don't require players to put in 200 days non-stop to get to the end. Give players the option to explore what they want to explore to fill their experience with experiences.

Yet, it comes down to effort versus payoff. All that extra, optional stuff takes work to create. Is it worth it for all the work it would take to fill 50 hours of play time if the players just skip it for speed runs? To many of us who define RPG in certain terms, it's yes because we'll play it. To others, they don't care, and that is an answer of "no".

How EA see it, I can't say, but I suspect their view is they believe that players shouldn't be overburdened with too many options.

That is not how people work.

You give them the keys to the kingdom, they will search every nook and cranny and break the game as much as possible to get what they want, optional or not is no excuse to the design in the end.

Take Skyrim as an example, its optional to not upgrade your smithing, but everyone uses it due to armor bonsues.

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 17 octobre 2012 - 09:54 .

[Cody]

A long RPG that comes to mind would be the ones from the Persona series. See these guys right here?http://www.giantbomb.com/endurance-run-persona-4-part-155/17-1380/ They finished Persona 4. Having clocked to about 99 hours and 59mins, thinking that they reached the time limit. They didn't though cause the time can exceed 100 hours. They were just a little short.

Thing is though, they didn't even experience the whole thing. There were still quite a bit of social links that they had to max out. Which you can do in one playthrough quite easily. But to get up to 100 hours without even completing a good chunk of the games content yet tells how long the game is.

That isn't even including it's replay value, sweet jumping jesus. There is all these personas that you can unlock in order to complete the games collection and get 100% completion. Loads of side missions(which most were missed in the run i previously mentioned) multiple routes that a social link can go through, multiple different social links that you can only play in 1 playthrough(like you can only join either the soccer club or basketball club for example) and there are the social stats which unlock more conversations within the game as you level them up. You can easily clock up to 150+ hours in the game.

It isn't even the longest in the series. Persona 3: FES is having around 25-50 more hours of content then Persona 4. Then there is Persona 3 portable which allows you to play as a chick(which surprisingly actually does effect the overall game, not so much the plot but the social links) Which adds just as much or more content to it then what FES did.

So..yea. If you want to play a long ass rpg that is rly good and highly regarded..check those games out.

[kingjezza]

For me personally I would rather have a much longer game as, Origins aside, I never play games more than once.

I'm not overly bothered about replay value but I realise this differs for others.

[AlanC9]

naughty99 wrote...

SpunkyMonkey wrote...
Me too - I think some of Mass Effects most atmospheric moments were found exploring planets. Suddenly I was in the job I'd alwasy dreamed of as a kid - off exploring space - and it really helped me connect with the ME universe.

Yep, that was the best part of ME1. If only they could have populated the planets a bit more with some random encounters or procedurally generated stuff

Well, that's.... kind of the problem. Shepard's job isn't to go "off exploring space." It just isn't. Now, it's nice to throw in a little space exploration, but once you throw a lot of resources at this stuff you're diverting zots from things that the game's about to things that the game is not about.

Whether this has any relevance to DA3 depends on how the PC's job works. Does he hunt up enemies on his own, or is he being directed somehow?

[Volus Warlord]

There was a time when a good SP was about 10 hours.

[EricHVela]

LinksOcarina wrote...

That is not how people work.

You give them the keys to the kingdom, they will search every nook and cranny and break the game as much as possible to get what they want, optional or not is no excuse to the design in the end.

Take Skyrim as an example, its optional to not upgrade your smithing, but everyone uses it due to armor bonsues.

That might be how you work, but don't speak for everyone.

Allan has already contested your statement by stating he didn't search every nook and cranny despite having the opportunity.

You (I think) and I would explore everything we can. Not eveyone will.

How the studios will distribute their resources (or how they're allowed to do it) depends on if they think it's worth the extra effort. There's a finite amount of resources and something's gotta give. What goes first? Optional stuff (right behind overall quality in many situations, but not always).

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

Well, that's.... kind of the problem. Shepard's job isn't to go "off exploring space." It just isn't.

Shepard's job is to do what he thinks is best, pretty much.  The Spectres seem to work without much oversight.

And even if we accept that Shepard's job is to track down Saren, there's no reason why Shepard can't perceive the exploration of those worlds as part of that job.  He might not trust the intelligence he's getting, and head off to find his own.  He might find those reports he hears on the elevators at the Citadel really suspicious, and think Saren is involved.

That the exploration is even available makes it valuable, regardless of whether the player ever explores it.  Offering options - even options not taken - makes the world seem bigger and more real.

[Gerry79]

Nashimura wrote...

Mass effect didnt start anything....

My playtimes of Kotor, Dragon age, Jade Empire never went over the 50 hours mark - the same files record the time and the longest first play was Dragon Age at around 35 hours. DA2 sat around 25. My thoughts are that you plunked this out of thin air.

Gimili, my dwarf warden, spent 60 hrs from beginning to end. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Volus Warlord wrote...

There was a time when a good SP was about 10 hours.

When?  Even the earliest CRPGs took quite a bit longer than that.

[Sylvius the Mad]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Quality is a highly subjective attribute as a lot of people have their priorities for that on different things in a game.

Which is why trying to use it systematically within a rigid framework like an Iron Trangle is folly.