Finishing games

Ah, nostalgia. I long for the simple games sometimes just with upgraded graphics. I'd like to see remakes of Questron, Legacy of the Ancients, Legend of Blacksilver et al. I agree that the older games seemed better but I believe this is because these types of games were a new experience. Now we're all veterans of 20+ years of crpg gaming and it takes a LOT more to impress. I will say that I go back and play those 3 games though and still enjoy them and normally finish them each time. They did something right!

@Maylander

Yes, out of the multitude, playing the Orc heroes was the exception, I even remember their music theme. The Night Elves had a few too many changes of allegiances and the whole revenge mentality against Illidan was a big downer for me.

What I really hated were the many timed missions. Again success was more about how fast and well memorized you were with the shortcuts. All tactics, and little real strategy there.

DArtagnan said:

Din's Curse is infinitely better in this way, even though it's a lot less pretty.

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A polished Din's Curse would make a serious contender for my all time top 10!

Polish would definitely benefit the dungeon tilesets, animations, sounds and UI options. These are all things that can improve with time

The indie devs have a death-grip on the biggest slice of my discernible income pie chart, and that is a very good thing imo.

I never finished many games and never considered it a problem. In that matter I got much more problems with novels by wanting finish one despite I was close to be annoyed. But a day I decided it was over, if a book bore me I stop read it.

In practice it's not that easy but since that time stop reading a novel wasn't too much a problem, but I still finished read some crap after this date. I even improved the discipline up to not read any novels now, more simple.

For computer games, I started play some only some decades after to have start read novels and at this time I was already used to not finish a novel if it became tedious, so the same for games.

But why I stop play a game is more complicated than it was for novels. The point is that playing a game can take a long time and during this time some other stuff could distract my attention and time spend to play the game… then come back to it after some time is often difficult. You forgot many stuff and continue old saves is hard, saves are lost, the game isn't installed any more, you forget the appeal it had and starting all over again isn't in your current mood…

The reason I stop concentrate on a game I'm playing are multiple, that's life… but that's more than only that. The main reason I stop concentrate on a game is… another game, quite perverse particularly when you know that this second game could also be interrupted by a third and so on.

That's where come two points, expectations into games, follow games news and its unavoidable share of hyper hyping. Those are dreams and idea of games and for 99.99% of games that means those are much better and much more appealing than are the real games. So this involves two rules behaviors, not expect much in games not yet played, not follow games news and never believe any hype.

Despite all those good resolutions I still don't finish many games. But why a game or a part of a game captivates me or not keeps some part of mysteries.

What's my previous series of games, finished and if not why, from newer to older:

• Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest V, Chrono Trigger: Currently playing the 3 on my newly acquired DS XL. Weird, that remind me when I was still almost young and was so avid of reading books that I was reading multiple in parallel, that generates strange memories where different books get merged!
• Torchlight: Finished (third replay was definitely on the rail but a new toy acquired, the DS XL, broke the movement, high candidate for replay)
• Fate: Unfinished (technical problems, not one I ever plan finish but I was in a good mood to continue play a long time).
• Eschalon Book I Replay : Finished
• Avernum 6: Unfinished (didn't captivated me enough and a bit a disappointment to feel it too similar to A5)
• BG1 Replay: Unfinished (technical problems and Tutu problems disturbed me from playing the game, at end I was quoting too much the problems and that was spoiling my fun)
• DAO: Finished
• Majesty 1 Replay: Unfinished (the replay was mainly pushed by parallel playing of Majesty 2, and the desire to replay stop when I stopped play Majesty 2)
• Majesty 2: Finished
• Risen: Unfinished (started in parallel to Divinity 2 and didn't played much because it gets quickly stopped by Majesty 2)
• Divinity 2: Unfinished (started in parallel to Risen and didn't played much because it gets quickly stopped by Majesty 2)
• Puzzle Quest: Unfinished (the high random finished to bore me even if you can control it a lot)
• Enemy Territory QUAKE Wars: Finished
• Ultimate Doom Replay: Unfinished (get stopped by a quick try of Quake Wars that I never expected be a try of more than one day, but this try last much longer).
• Doom Replay: Unfinished (found a better idea and more appealing to replay Ultimate Doom that I didn't knew as well)
• Return to Wolfenstein Castle: Unfinished (didn't appeal me enough and grow the urge to try again Doom on the new engines)
• Call Of Duty 4: Unfinished (the action sequences didn't appeal me and in fact even the shooting phases didn't catch me).
• Unreal Tournament 2003 Replay: Unfinished (partially because of a small frustration to quote a much better mod support for UT2004 and not have it at this time)
• Quake Live Replay: Unfinished (not really that this sort of game is finished or not, this replay didn't last long but throw me into Doom like games, something I hadn't since a long time)
• Drakensang: Finished
• Warlord IV: Unfinished (King's Bounty throws me on it but I get somehow stuck by the high price of the ticket entrance into the game)
• King's Bounty The Legend: Finished
• Eschalon Book 1: Finished
• Avernum 2: Unfinished (didn't found the mood and appeal of the 1)
• Avernum 1: Finished
• Avernum 5: Unfinished (two points, I made an adventure choice making the gameplay a bit weird but ok anyway, I was enjoying but the curiosity to try the 1 of the series grow, and tried Avernum 1 interrupted my play of Avernum 5, and after I chained with the 2)

Some numbers:

• 25 games played during about 1 year and 3 month, all played (roughly) at least 5 hours and at least during 3 days.
• 9 games finished in more than one year and 1 was a replay.
• 10 games played for first time and not finished.
• 16 games unfinished played at least 5 hours and along at least 3 days, for few it's more that 1 month if not more.
• 7 games replayed including only 1 finished.

What's the point of this long post? Pointless… as life.

Nice statistics! I tend to be very cautious about buying games. Usually don't even think about one unless I see lots of positive feedback from people who I respect. Then when I play I usually don't get bored... Then there are the game I'll start because of a a sense of nostalgia or other emotional drive, that should probably have been better left alone...

Thrasher said:

Nice statistics! I tend to be very cautious about buying games. Usually don't even think about one unless I see lots of positive feedback from people who I respect. Then when I play I usually don't get bored… Then there are the game I'll start because of a a sense of nostalgia or other emotional drive, that should probably have been better left alone…

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You mean games that get a grade A from experts won't bore you and other games has most chance to bore you and make you not finish them?

Statistically the low gameplay value of a game is certainly the main reason you don't finish it. But for some players, perhaps older players, this hardly explain alone the reason you don't finish a game.

Many reasons have already been listed, for summarizing:

1. Player age and to have already played too many games make you a gamer hard to keep in a game.
2. Games are too long.
3. Modern games have a lower quality gameplay design.
4. Story not good enough to keep you up to the end.
5. Exploration not good enough to keep your curiosity up to the end.
6. Repetitive gameplay elements in a game.
7. Gameplay not bringing new elements/challenges through all the game.
8. Attraction and curiosity for other games not yet played and that seems more bright through your imagination.
9. You start play a low quality game for some wrong reasons so no surprise you don't finish it.
10. I certainly forgot some of the main reasons quoted in previous posts.

That list seems to me rather good and I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to get from it a little guide to help players enjoy more their games and to designers to make games players want finish. Ok I don't think game designers ever designed game to ensure players finish them but that's another topic.

crpgnut said:

…I agree that the older games seemed better but I believe this is because these types of games were a new experience…

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I tend to agree with you on this point but the subject is complicate so nothing is obvious.

If finishing a game is the key to evaluate a game quality then the player I am is in facts disagree that older games are better. Here the list of old games I tried play or replay those last years and didn't finish: Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Dungeon Master, Albion, Ultima 3, Pool of Radiance, Wyzardy 7, Wizardy 8.

I never finished the first 3 but I consider them as top CRPG. For me finishing a game isn't the first quality of a game, even if it's a good hint of its quality. The main point is how much fun I get from the game and if at one point because of any reason it's not enough to make me continue that doesn't mean the game is bad. I finished some games that never been as much fun than those three could have been.

The second point is a pure bet, I know some statistics have been made showing during the mid 90's that the percentage of games finished by a player was very low. I have the feeling that the percentage of games finished by nowadays players is higher for players at the same age.

The third point is that I don't consider at all that old games have a better gameplay quality. Many suffer of terrible problems, including some quoted in previous post like:

• Story not good enough to keep you in.
• Repetitive elements in the gameplay (JRPG and old PC games suffer much more of this problem than some modern games).
• Exploration not good enough to keep your curiosity up to the end.
• Too long game for its contents.
• And one you can add in the list, very bad interface design, ie bad controls design.

That mentioned, as many thread already explored deeply the subject a point is that modern games don't target anymore as purely the gameplay than could have tried the old games. Games evolved so make a commercial game not indie cost a lot of money even for a non A game. For example a game almost indie like Torchlight, probably cost more money than Ultima Underworld. That put more pressure on selling game than the pressure had old games.

I don't think games ever been made to be sure the player finished them. But Today games aren't fully designed so you finish them but more to attract you. Nowadays there's three fake points in modern games used to attract players:

• The first is to be long enough to please younger players for whose quantity is quality.
• The second is features list length, the more features you have to list the more impressive it will look in quick descriptions, short previews, publicities and many comments of many players.
• The third is the visuals, graphics and cinematics. MTV probably killed the music by building the fake illusion that music was pictures and movies, the same happened for games through stuff like youtube.

But don't get me wrong, I think that most modern game designers have to manage with those constraints but for the best of them, their vanity and their wish to make a good work push them to also design games that they hope the wide world will claim as great to play, after to have really play them. Eventually because of money involved too many of them failed into the creativity trap to try bet what will please instead of try creating something great without to make some bet most often not fully right.

Dasale said:

You mean games that get a grade A from experts won't bore you and other games has most chance to bore you and make you not finish them?

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No, not really. So called "experts" are usually corporate mouthpieces and can't be trusted.

wynams said:

If a game is 'light' … it works well in the 1-2 hour bursts I have most of the year. The problem is, my mind still craves the complex … i.e. Torchlight just doesn't do it for me.

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Interesting quote, a first point is that "complex" means challenge, well I read it like that. There's two main points:

• Pure brain challenges, that can be in exploration, puzzles, get through choices, and more. In this case the limit is the ability to solve the puzzles and other problems that can be a limit for some players.
• Action challenges, in fact it's not only a pure dexterity problem but also a mind challenge to find the tricks to manage better the problems involved by the action. In this case dexterity and controls complexity can be a limit for some players.

A key of gameplay is to constantly face the player to new challenges throughout all the game up to its end. New challenges so not similar challenges allowing the same solutions, nor a too low difficulty level involving no challenge.

Torchlight made a probably wrong design choice to define the normal difficulty quite lower than usual, even in modern games. The standard difficulty is in fact the Hard difficulty and if you only tried Normal and that was pure cake involving no challenge, no surprise you get quickly bored by the game. That's a key point to take care of, if a game allows different difficulty level you need choose the one adapted to you, so you get the chance to confront challenges involved by the game and so you don't get a game too difficult for you.

That's definitely a non sense to quote Torchlight as a superficial game involving no new challenges throughout the game. Lol ok not sure it was your meaning perhaps your meaning was only that action games aren't your type of game. Well I read it from a more global point of view.

Myself at Hard difficulty the game wasn't too hard and I get the chance to quote how you constantly get new type of enemies involving different type of solutions. Not many modern game succeed polished their design to achieve this. For sure it helps that the game is short but quality isn't quantity. Also for sure it could be even better and overall you can feel that there's sometimes a bit of filling to make levels bigger and have the game longer. But the design effort to bring constantly something really new and not only graphics or monsters names, is still quite good up to end of game and quite better than are most modern games I tried.

That said my fun key in Torchlight was that but also the pleasure of controls (I customized them through the settings file of the game), the whole remind me a lot Doom, I quoted many winks, for example in front screen you see your character and your pet and they do a quick head movement right and left, the tempo remind me a lot the marines eye movements was doing in Doom when there was no monsters around and you didn't do anything special. Well that's also design choices I consider keys of fun (at higher difficulty setting) and that remind me Doom design and forgotten in modern shooters even from ID, like slow missiles allowing dodging, mass of monsters jumping on you, very slow monsters you can dodge through, and many more including simple controls.

Thrasher said:

No, not really. So called "experts" are usually corporate mouthpieces and can't be trusted.

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Yeah that's your experts, that was what I was meaning but didn't wrote well.