RPGWatch Forums - Grim Dawn - State of the Game Address II

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Grim Dawn - State of the Game Address II

Medierra has posted a huge development update on the Grim Dawn forums - way too big to post here in full - but here's a snip:

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It seemed we were due for another big update on the overall progress of development. Now that we've hired up 4 additional full-time people and one part-time, we're making excellent progress. An amazing amount of work has occurred since the end of the KS, probably almost as much as the previous 2 years of development. Grim Dawn has grown both in terms of progress toward completion but also we've expanded content laterally and improved a lot of things.

The world redesign is one of the most obvious places where that has happened. In the map below, which only shows the first "act" you can see the green areas we intend to release for alpha are about 3x the volume of the original map from the first state of the game address. Plus, you can see the new levels look tight and represent a continuous, completed area as opposed to the chaotic mix of crap on the old map.

It is clocking at around 2-3 hours for someone who knows the levels and plays relatively straight through, skipping all the side content. Doing that you wind up finishing around level 11-13. An average play-through for someone who didn't know where they were going and explored a bit more would probably be 4-5 hours and reach level 13-16. To clear everything could probably take 6-8 hours, maybe more.
So the levels we intend to release in alpha are pretty much finished! Note that there is a lot of additional world area but that image just shows what we have ready for alpha as compared to what we previously had. I'm starting to think we may be making Grim Dawn too big! At least, bigger than we had originally intended. Instead of 10-15 hours for final release, we may end up closer to 20+.

While world development for alpha is pretty much complete, there are still a number of things we're trying to wrap up. Those include skill masteries (of which we have 5 nearly finished as opposed to the 3 we originally expected to release alpha with), story stuff, some crash bugs, finishing the act-1 boss and getting a first-pass balance on everything. Plus there are also just a bunch of little stupid things like fixing the teleport map. We also had thought we might have to release alpha without a female PC but we're well on the way to getting her in-game now - we've got female versions of all the equipment done and just need to finish skinning them so they'll animate. We're not far off now though.

Here is a detailed run-down of some of the more critical aspects of the game…

More information.

How is 20 hours too big? Most rpgs are at minimum 30+ hours and can range up to hundreds of hours. A 20 hour game is done before I even really get started playing and likely I wouldn't even buy.

15-20 hours is about the sweet spot for me. Anything longer and I won't finish it. Between work, kids, woman, other hobbies, I don't have the desire to invest much time than that.

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Originally Posted by guenthar (Post 1061173770)

How is 20 hours too big? Most rpgs are at minimum 30+ hours and can range up to hundreds of hours. A 20 hour game is done before I even really get started playing and likely I wouldn't even buy.

To me the 20 hours sound like one play through in one difficulty. To get 100+ hours in any ARPG you do not just run through the content once.

I guess in a shallow hack & slash game it would be that way since all you have is mostly just combat and not much else. I thought they were making a game more like Divine Divinity where it has more substance which would be hard to do in 15 to 20 hours.

PS. If this is just a Diablo clone then I guess it gets taken off of my list

It looks more like a shoot em up than a Diablo clone, imo.. it's pretty in screenshots but seeing the hectic combat and colorful spells flying all over the screen makes the game look like those japanse arcade shooters imo. I was impressed until i saw it in action, but i'm also not a fan of "RPG's" which are 99% combat.

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Originally Posted by guenthar (Post 1061173770)

How is 20 hours too big? Most rpgs are at minimum 30+ hours and can range up to hundreds of hours. A 20 hour game is done before I even really get started playing and likely I wouldn't even buy.

Well it's aRPG so it's expected to playthrough on multiple difficulty if it have 3 difficulties like TQ that will come down to 60 hours without expansion(already announced).

Titan Quest wasn't very long and it also did not feel too short. 20 hours sounds about right for Titan Quest. Grim Dawn is Titan Quest in a new setting…

They said 20+, not 20 or 15 hours. To me this is more than enough particularly I am confident the world will be better designed. Moreover, huge effort seem to have gone into equipment and skills (and there is also a female PC coming too!). All I can say is WoW, glad that I have contributed to this project and can't wait for the release. Well done to them.

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Originally Posted by ToddMcF2002 (Post 1061173805)

Titan Quest wasn't very long and it also did not feel too short. 20 hours sounds about right for Titan Quest. Grim Dawn is Titan Quest in a new setting…

TQ in 20 hours? TQ has ton of fillers with artificially expanded repetitive dungeons and fights, ton of boring drops to sort and multiple drops elements not that easy and quick to combine and figure, plus some tricks not so easy to detect, I'm surprised it can be beat in 20 hours for a first play.

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Originally Posted by Ihaterpg (Post 1061173808)

"Ihaterpg" - Hmmm..:thinking:

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Originally Posted by Ihaterpg (Post 1061173808)

On normal maybe.On epic and legendary lot of those "filler" dungeons have some of more powerful bosses.Also boring drops problem has been completely solved with soulvizier mod with lot of new drops like,Souls(powerful ring slot items each is unique drop for each boss/hero mob),mystic times(rarity above legendary,drops only on epic or higher),mercenary contracts(artifact slot items with powerful summons),+bunch of new normal items that make hybrid classes more viable.

Also playthrough speed in TQ can change drastically depending on you class combo.Playthrough with Defense/spirit character can take 10+ more hours than Dream/earth combo for example.