Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV Pre-Release Thread [RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[agris]

*scans*

Needs more JPEG compression.



But really, PNG will do a better job and use less bandwidth.

edit:

We sit around playing Skyrim, Hearthstone, Witcher and all these other projects, and we want to be right there with them, but in our own unique way.

[...]

If my brain is not engaged by the systems, then I'm checked out.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Huh. I spent 100 hours in BG on my first run. I play slowly, though.

I care about raw hours, to be honest. A) I want the fact of knowing that the game offers a huge scope and will be a larger investment for me. That is step one. And B) I like playing an RPG I'm interested in for a long time. Even if I don't finish it I will enjoy it greatly if it offers at least 80 hours (hopefully more) of mucking around in the world they've created.

 

[Bester]

Somehow.

It's a really short game. Do they read slowly?

I'm an extremely slow reader (can't help it, training techniques fail, etc). And it took me 80h in W2 just to reach California. And I skipped a lot of stuff, like everything that has to do with the monks.

First time I played Fallout and BG, took me ~180h to finish each of them.

 

[Grunker]

Demanding hours from games is a symptom of why the medium is stil wallowing in juvenile crap. Somehow we still think "But how many pages does the book have?" constitutes relevant criteria for criticism

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Or maybe some people just like a huge scope when it comes to some things. If I'm enjoying an RPG I want to love it long time. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy good RPGs that are 30-60 hours, either. You can do both.

I'm not really a slow reader but I don't rush at all through games. I've seen others who play games on YouTube literally sprinting to the next objective, or just acting like they have to beat the game in an hour. I like to enjoy the experience. A huge 100+ hour RPG is something to really be savored.

 

[Lady_Error]

I kind of agree that RPG's shouldn't be too short. MMX is one recent example of a game that felt too short and too small. Though it always comes down to money if you want more good content and not just some tedious filler crap.

 

[Dorateen]

MMX is one recent example of a game that felt too short and too small.

Did you get to play the post-release DLC, The Falcon and the Unicorn? I played it immediately afterward finishing Legacy, and it helped extend the scope the adventure somewhat.

 

[AbounI]

Better play a short but good RPG (AoD's in my mind) instead of a long and boring one (PoE)

 

[Lady_Error]

With White March and other changes, PoE is not that bad now. I actually like it for the most part.

 

[V_K]

I don't think MMX's mechanics and level design could support a much bigger game. I tried starting it twice, and both times got bored way, waaaaay before the end. But then again, that was my experience with all the other M&M games too.
On the other hand, my experience with BT titles was that I ragequit after fighting 15 battles in the first 10 steps, so I really don't have high hopes for this one.

 

[Zombra]

My experience with BT titles was that I ragequit after fighting 15 battles in the first 10 steps, so I really don't have high hopes for this one.

You can't go wrong with low expectations, but for better or worse, inXile are shooting for "fewer, quality combats" and not the 50000 trash fights of the previous games. I don't know how grindy it will be, but I'm sure it will be nowhere near that grindy.

 

[Jarpie]

The same wisdom applies to games as to films; great game is hardly ever too long and shitty game can't be over too soon.

 

[Gord]

Grunker is right that extending games for the sake of reaching some arbitrary length measure does usually not help the quality (and thus neither makes it more fun).

 

[vonAchdorf]

Yes, but if you want to write a novel, you can't approach it the same way as a short story. And in writing as a business, like making games as a business, you can't deliver a short story instead of a novel if the later was agreed on. Within the genre, there's flexibility between War & Peace and a 250 pager though.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

You can appreciate all RPGs, IMO. But don't try to limit developers who want to do a War & Peace if they want, because the average casual fan says it's full of "filler" and "needs to be more compact" or "didn't hold their attention until the end", etc.

I don't tell short game making RPG devs to make their games longer, leave my long RPGs alone or I will fight you.

 

[Excidium II]

30-50 hours is a nice spot

 

[V_K]

Problem is, most developers who want to do War and Peace, end up doing 50 Shades trilogy instead.

 

[Kem0sabe]

You guys are assuming that Fargo is not lying and misrepresenting the game.

If torment fails to move enough units, this game will be butchered and cut so they can afford to release it, it will be all graphics and front loaded in content to make it pass reviews.

 

[jungl]

How hard can it be to make a blobber that is better then might and magic x and lords of xulima? I'm hopeful this will be inexiles first good game.

 

[Iznaliu]

How hard can it be to make a blobber that is better then might and magic x and lords of xulima? I'm hopeful this will be inexiles first good game.

InXile is fundamentally InCapable of making quality games due to the company's ineffective structure. I would be very surprised if BT4 wasn't universally panned by both the Codex (crap quality, Codex vendetta against InXile) and mainstream critics (game isn't dumbed-down enough, and even they will notice InXile quality). I'm also expecting a T:TON-level scandal at some point.

 

[DemonKing]

I actually prefer a game of between 10-20 hours these days. Anything longer and the chances of me finishing it is slim as my gaming time is pretty limited these days. 70 hour+ games were great when I was single without kids but there's very little time for me to finish a game of that size these days.

M&MX was one of my favourite games of the last few years so if BTIV can come close to that I'll be happy.

 

[Iznaliu]

Length is always a secondary concern to quality. Refusal to look at games due to qualities irrelevant to its quality such as length has lead to the contraction of quality RPGs. (a game can be 'too long' or 'too short', but that is more dependent on effective, even, and judicious. utilisation of game mechanics than actual length; I would call this 'longevity'. Having said that, my ideal RPG would be an epic: 100+ hours, start and endgames totally different in both gameplay and scale of plot. Nothing like this has really being accomplished, despite some valiant attempts.

 

[undecaf]

MMX is one recent example of a game that felt too short and too small.

I thought MMXL was quite spot on with how big and long it was; for what sort of a game it tried to be.

 

[Alienman]

I actually prefer a game of between 10-20 hours these days. Anything longer and the chances of me finishing it is slim as my gaming time is pretty limited these days. 70 hour+ games were great when I was single without kids but there's very little time for me to finish a game of that size these days.

M&MX was one of my favourite games of the last few years so if BTIV can come close to that I'll be happy.

Never understood this argument. If the game is long, and you have limited time, it will just take longer for you to complete it then others playing. You don't have to change game just because something new comes out + you save money not having to buy new games as often. Personally 10-20 hour RPGs are way too short for me. How are you going to have an epic journey if the game is over in 10 hours? There is just not enough time to establish the characters, plot or anything else for that matter.

 

[V_K]

Because having limited time means much lower tolerance to filler content, and longer games naturally have much larger amounts of it. When you only have a few hours on a weekend, and the next opportunity may not come in weeks, you really don't want to spend this time on grinding trash mobs, long backtracking or doing logistics stuff. Another thing is that when you have long "downtime" between sessions, and the game is large and open, you'll likely forget half the things you did or need to do by the next time you play it. Finally, our brains are wired in such way that we can only keep being excited about something for so long, so if a game takes too long to finish, it inevitably starts to feel like a chore.