DA:Inquisition - In Praise Of Long Games

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Well, I am really sorry for bashing potatoes… I didn't mean to to do that, besides I'll have to apologies to Coach next time I can.

No offense was taken as I prefer to be funny. Why members might ask well it's nice to be different than just criticizing games everyday that millions of gamers enjoy playing.

Originally Posted by joxer
It's me who needs to get fixed, not the game.

I don't know GG that well as I don't talk with her that much, but yes it is you Joxer.

Is someone suggesting a reduction in hormone levels?

Originally Posted by joxer
So it's not the Skyrim that's the actual problem but it's GG.
And of course, me.

Right.
It's GG and me who need to get fixed, not the game.

No you guys have it all wrong. There's a lot of energy expenditure concerning the hate of one game. We value your guys/girls opinion SO MUCH, that we just want to see that energy directed to bringing other great games to light!!!

Nothing wrong with being a bit insane It's charming in a quirky kind of way. Being in denial about it just makes it more charming!

I enjoy joxer's ridiculously over-the-top one-track mind comments

Originally Posted by Caddy
No you guys have it all wrong. There's a lot of energy expenditure concerning the hate of one game. We value your guys/girls opinion SO MUCH, that we just want to see that energy directed to bringing other great games to light!!!

What's the point?
I said LoH:TitS is great, noone cares.
Then I said VC is a gem hidden for years by stupid publisher, noone cares.
I also said numerous times phones suck because the epic Drakensang will never be on phones, noone cares.
Etc.

But when I say Skyrim is garbage because of it's bugs, suddenly the forum becomes alive.

Originally Posted by joxer
What's the point?
I said LoH:TitS is great, noone cares.
Then I said VC is a gem hidden for years by stupid publisher, noone cares.
I also said numerous times phones suck because the epic Drakensang will never be on phones, noone cares.
Etc.

But when I say Skyrim is garbage because of it's bugs, suddenly the forum becomes alive.

It was a good game, but I definitely lean towards the "too long" camp. Although I disagree that the padding adds to immersion ("world-building"), the worst part is that the combat is so hopelessly uninspiring that I found myself torn between wanting to finish the last few companion quests, and wanting it all to be over ASAP. I honestly think that they massively detracted from my enjoyment of Blackwall with both the nature of his quests and the general overall boredom that sets in after 50 hours. Of course it's something of a coincidence that I did his quests 5th (I forget exactly), but the end result is I hate Blackwall (even though his story concept is pretty damned cool). Also I didn't finish a couple companion quests (two broken, three i said fuck it this game needs to go to bed).

Hmm, that is a good idea instead of fixing Skyrim, we should fix all of those that don't like the game…. I can see EA embracing this idea straight away as their new marketing strategy for all their games!

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Hmm, that is a good idea instead of fixing Skyrim, we should fix all of those that don't like the game…. I can see EA embracing this idea straight away as their new marketing strategy for all their games!

You're starting to sound like a broken record when it comes to Skyrim. That's also known as joxer syndrome.

Yes! I made an entry in history!

I'm somewhat confused by this topic.

What exactly is a short game? Or even an average sized game? I've always found all games to be pretty long, except for maybe modern Hidden Object Adventures which pan out at about 8 hours even if you crawl through them really, really slowly with lots of breaks.

But pretty much any game I can think of is long. Heroes of Might and Magic was long, it'd take you heaps of hours to do all the maps and then the campaign. Worms would take heaps of hours, going through all the levels, heck, even Super Mario was a bloody long game. What are these short games what we are comparisoning with?

Completion time could be one measure. Completion not being the proper term, beating time would be better.

Some games have a very short beating time once you know how to beat them.
Other games have also a very short learning time.

Some of these games might have an extremelly lengthy lifetime though as they beget to be played and replayed.

The current trend, though, is products with high, very high time to beat as they are filled with content, that most of the time, is unsupported by a proper gameplay.

One example already given: ME2 took a bit less than 30 hours to beat the first time.
All subsequent completions were achieved in less than 20 hours (including watching the cinematics)

When compared to games from the mid 1980s: they also took 30 hours to be beaten first. Once it is was done, subsequent completions (including these years) take less than 3 hours.

The difference: the content. 1980s games had three hours content, extended to 30 hours by the gameplay inventivity they showed.
2010 products have 20 hours (at least) content, extented by a few hours through trial and miss based gameplay.

A product like Wasteland 2 have fourty, fifty hours of content supported by whitewashed gameplay. People who will go for a second, third, fourth run know they are going to sink fifty hours in each of them etc

Time fillers, time sinks etc This is what those products are meant to be when assessed in terms of length.

Lengthy products are those products that would require dozens of hours to be finished, even when knowing it all.

I get it.

So the thread's about Cut-Scenes

I do wish every game which came with cut-scenes had a skip cut-scene button. Then most modern games would take 3 hours…

If the content was limited to cut scenes, that would do.
That is the content that cant be compressed that has ballooned over the years.
Wasteland 2 has few cut scenes and yet, so full of content…

I thought it was the turn-based combat which lengthened the time of that game? If it was real-time combat wouldn't it go a lot quicker?

Originally Posted by lackblogger
I thought it was the turn-based combat which lengthened the time of that game? If it was real-time combat wouldn't it go a lot quicker?

If it was the same amount of combat, yes. I think having real-time combat encourages developers to include more encounters though.

The inflation of content affects all types of products in the gaming market.
WL2 is turn based so it has to be taken as such. There are other non turn based games that come with heaps of content that must be gone through before calling finished. Maybe the one that this thread is about. Who knows?