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Comfortable length for RPG games

What length do you prefer?

  • 10-20 hours

  • 20-30 hours

  • 30-50 hours

  • 50+ hours


Results are only viewable after voting.

octavius

Arcane
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games that kind of overstayed their welcome include great games like Magic Candle and Wizardry 7.
W7 was one of the longest games I've ever played, but I enjoyed most of it, and it's length was fine as long as you're aware of the investment you're putting into it.

People always complain "Now that I'm older I don't have time for long games" So maybe just play less games and savor the ones you do play. Or stop playing games altogether if they've become such a burden.

Nice strawman you put up there.
 

pippin

Guest
Lenght can be one thing, but the game should have stuff to keep you interested even past 40 or 50 hours. That could be subjective though, one man's trash etc.
 

Somberlain

Arcane
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I don't know about specific amount of hours, comfortable length is as long as the game stays enjoyable. There are really long games where I hope they would have lasted longer, and then there are short games where I'm just hoping they would end.
 

naossano

Cipher
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Aug 26, 2014
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Marseilles, France
It pretty well depend on the game.

I would say my current situation is that i didn't play much solo stuff in years and i want to catch up. I have A list, B list and C list of games already released since long or recently released, of early access, or not even released that i want to play, and i would much prefer not having to sink 200 hours into it, like Fallout: New Vegas. About games being sorta good, not being played, i would say that it would be kinda hard as, IMO, no game is perfect. There is always something to complain about it.

I picked 20h-30h personnally, but it isn't a rule. I enjoyed some games that could be finished in 10h-15h, like SR DMS or Remember Me. I was also very disapointed by games being shorter than 10h, DLC included.

On the other hand, some games that are longer than 30 hours, could be just gold. I don't know exactly how long The Witcher was, but the fact there is so many plots, so many characters to interact with, so few fillers, and that is was splitted in chapter, made the experience quite great. I didn't feel i was overwelmed by unecessary filler contents, which matter the most.

But even if the game is great 100 hours feel like overkill to me. When i see written that game X has more than 100 hours of content, it feels like a factor for NOT getting the game.
 

Trodat

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I would say 30-50 hours with little filler, I still voted 50+ hours because of foolish hope for a long and EPIC RPG that takes you through varied environments like snowy mountain tops, lush forests, dark caves and all sorts of murky places, with interesting quests and NPC's.
 

Karellen

Arcane
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Jan 3, 2012
Messages
327
Ten or fifteen years ago, I could easily sink seventy or eighty hours into a RPG of questionable quality if it had a story that interested me. Nowadays, it seems to be the other way around - I've gotten much more picky when it comes to story-based games, whereas if an RPG has exceptional gameplay, I can still keep going for a hundred hours or even more. That's a distinction for games like Dark Souls or Valkyria Chronicles, though, in which the story is largely understated and secondary to the actual gameplay experience.

I suppose that if the game is primarily about the story in the sense that you're reading text, watching cutscenes and picking dialogue options, it must deal with the same issues of pacing that novels and films do. In that case, I think it's a good rule of thumb is that it should be just about as short as possible. Does a film or novel get better for being twice the length? Generally no; in fact, they often get worse. That's why cutting a film and editing a novel are essential parts of the process of making them. In the same vein, a game in which the narrative is the main attraction benefits from being edited in this way; it places focus on the best, most importants parts of the story and away from what is secondary. This sort of thing is why adventure games and horror games have such memorable stories, despite often being around five to ten hours in length - they're carefully edited and paced.

That said, if the game is about gameplay, it can be as long as the gameplay remains fun, so at the end of the day the sky's the limit there.
 

treborSux

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Messages
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games that kind of overstayed their welcome include great games like Magic Candle and Wizardry 7.
W7 was one of the longest games I've ever played, but I enjoyed most of it, and it's length was fine as long as you're aware of the investment you're putting into it.

People always complain "Now that I'm older I don't have time for long games" So maybe just play less games and savor the ones you do play. Or stop playing games altogether if they've become such a burden.

Nice strawman you put up there.
My second comment had nothing to do with what you said. All I was saying is I regularly see people say shit like "10-15 hours for a full play through is perfect since I don't have time anymore." As if games should be short, forgettable and disposed of after a couple weeks.
 

JarlFrank

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If the content is of high quality, I could take 200 hours or whatever. I played so many Thief FMs, many of them excellent, if you combined them into one game they'd easily reach a 100 hour mark, and I enjoyed most of that time (depending on mission quality). I would also play a 50 hours long Shadowrun Dragonfall, if the rest of the game had as high quality content as the rest.

But what kills the fun of a game for me is filler. Ugh. Filler combat in Dragon Age made it soul-drainingly tedious towards the end and it was so annoying to fight yet another copypasted darkspawn encounter. Meeeeeeh.
Frequent unskippable cutscenes are also a killer, especially if I wanna replay the game. Nah, sorry, don't wanna spend all my time watching awkwardly animated characters talk to each other, I wanna play a game. If I wanted a movie, I'd watch one. LET ME PLAY DAMMIT.

So, answer: a game can be as long as the devs can reasonably make it, reasonably meaning without sacrificing quality for quantity.
 

Metro

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games that kind of overstayed their welcome include great games like Magic Candle and Wizardry 7.
W7 was one of the longest games I've ever played, but I enjoyed most of it, and it's length was fine as long as you're aware of the investment you're putting into it.

People always complain "Now that I'm older I don't have time for long games" So maybe just play less games and savor the ones you do play. Or stop playing games altogether if they've become such a burden.

Nice strawman you put up there.
The argument is silly, anyway. A video game is not like a carton of milk that must be consumed in a certain time frame. If you only have two hours to play a week... just play two hours and pick it up again next week. One's schedule has no relevancy to whether or not they can play a lengthy game.
 
Joined
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Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath
In childhood I spent a year playing Magic Candle. It was an awesome experience, but I'm not sure if I am able to do the same now. As a rule I prefer something between 30-50 hours. E.g. KotOR feels too short to me, while Darklands or Might & Magic series become exhausting near to the end.

But still I really like when game gives a feeling of huge adventure. That's why I prefer Fallout 2 to Fallout 1 and Arcanum to Fallout 2. And that's why once or twice a year I have an overwhelming desire to play (or replay) some really long RPG.
 

Mustawd

Guest
games that kind of overstayed their welcome include great games like Magic Candle and Wizardry 7.
W7 was one of the longest games I've ever played, but I enjoyed most of it, and it's length was fine as long as you're aware of the investment you're putting into it.

People always complain "Now that I'm older I don't have time for long games" So maybe just play less games and savor the ones you do play. Or stop playing games altogether if they've become such a burden.

Nice strawman you put up there.
My second comment had nothing to do with what you said. All I was saying is I regularly see people say shit like "10-15 hours for a full play through is perfect since I don't have time anymore." As if games should be short, forgettable and disposed of after a couple weeks.


Why does "short" have to mean disposable and forgettable? Some of my favorite games have been shorter ones, which I replay again and again. Same thing with short stories.
 

treborSux

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
1,677
games that kind of overstayed their welcome include great games like Magic Candle and Wizardry 7.
W7 was one of the longest games I've ever played, but I enjoyed most of it, and it's length was fine as long as you're aware of the investment you're putting into it.

People always complain "Now that I'm older I don't have time for long games" So maybe just play less games and savor the ones you do play. Or stop playing games altogether if they've become such a burden.

Nice strawman you put up there.
My second comment had nothing to do with what you said. All I was saying is I regularly see people say shit like "10-15 hours for a full play through is perfect since I don't have time anymore." As if games should be short, forgettable and disposed of after a couple weeks.


Why does "short" have to mean disposable and forgettable?
Because most games ARE short, disposable and forgettable. It's how games are designed to be. Gotta keep the cash flowing and crank out another shitty one next month for the consumer.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Because most games ARE short, disposable and forgettable. It's how games are designed to be. Gotta keep the cash flowing and crank out another shitty one next month for the consumer.


:roll:

If I write a crappy short story it doesn't immediately mean all short stories are crap.
 

Trodat

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Why does "short" have to mean disposable and forgettable?
Because most games ARE short, disposable and forgettable. It's how games are designed to be. Gotta keep the cash flowing and crank out another shitty one next month for the consumer.

Only a retard would buy a new game from the same developer if the previous installment was already forgettable.
 
Last edited:

Athelas

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Jun 24, 2013
Messages
4,502
games that kind of overstayed their welcome include great games like Magic Candle and Wizardry 7.
W7 was one of the longest games I've ever played, but I enjoyed most of it, and it's length was fine as long as you're aware of the investment you're putting into it.

People always complain "Now that I'm older I don't have time for long games" So maybe just play less games and savor the ones you do play. Or stop playing games altogether if they've become such a burden.

Nice strawman you put up there.
My second comment had nothing to do with what you said. All I was saying is I regularly see people say shit like "10-15 hours for a full play through is perfect since I don't have time anymore." As if games should be short, forgettable and disposed of after a couple weeks.


Why does "short" have to mean disposable and forgettable?
Because most games ARE short, disposable and forgettable. It's how games are designed to be. Gotta keep the cash flowing and crank out another shitty one next month for the consumer.
Historically, RPG's have never had the problem of being short. The 'quick cash grab' AAA RPG's of today offer hundreds of hours of content.
 

Carrion

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I voted for 20-30 hours as it felt like the best average for a non-completionist playthrough (and also because I find it more likely that someone in the near future will make a good 20-hour RPG rather than a 50-hour one, as sad as it is). Games shorter than that often feel too limited in their scope (although there are notable exceptions, like the first Fallout), and going over 30 hours causes many games to lose their steam before the end. Still, a great deal of my favorite games go well over 50 hours if you're being even somewhat thorough, and it really isn't a problem. It's more about finding the right balance between the mandatory content and the optional stuff, as more linear/focused games generally work best when they're shorter. The tighter the pacing is, the harder it is to maintain the proper intensity throughout the length of the game. A combat-focused dungeon crawler might work best clocking under ten hours whereas an open-world game with tons of optional content might remain fun for a hundred hours or more. I never felt that BG or BG2 was too long whereas the notably more straightforward and shorter Icewind Dale started to get tiring around the halfway mark or so, for example.
 

Modron

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One more for the depends on content crowd, I am perfectly willing to throw way too many hours at New Vegas for example but there have been plenty of rpgs where the last few hours have been a complete chore and went the way of uninstall. Ideally, anywhere in the 20-50 hours of content window is great if the game's content is good and sometimes even 10-15 hours is acceptable (eg South Park, Banner Saga) because some games wear out there welcome.
 
Last edited:

Kos_Koa

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
Joined
Feb 12, 2006
Messages
315

"Comfortable length for RPG games"
"RPG games"
:shunthenonbeliever:


And what is your preferable length for a single playthrough?
I used to think the longer the game the better, but nowadays I wouldn't mind a well designed 10-15h campaign. Though ideally a well designed 30-50h campaign would be preferable, if I have the time to play it of course. I guess length doesn't really matter to me anymore, I mostly prefer girth... err I mean depth.
 

Damned Registrations

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games that kind of overstayed their welcome include great games like Magic Candle and Wizardry 7.
W7 was one of the longest games I've ever played, but I enjoyed most of it, and it's length was fine as long as you're aware of the investment you're putting into it.

People always complain "Now that I'm older I don't have time for long games" So maybe just play less games and savor the ones you do play. Or stop playing games altogether if they've become such a burden.

Nice strawman you put up there.
The argument is silly, anyway. A video game is not like a carton of milk that must be consumed in a certain time frame. If you only have two hours to play a week... just play two hours and pick it up again next week. One's schedule has no relevancy to whether or not they can play a lengthy game.
Eh, I dunno. While it's certainly possible to play two hours a week (or a month, or whatever timeframe you care to name) some things just become incoherent shit if you stretch them out too much. If you play for two hours a week and I play for 8, then something that happened 7 hours ago for me will have haopened 3 weeks ago for you. Can easily make a fast moving, complicated plot difficult to follow. And not just the plot, things like game mechanics you haven't made use of in a while, or locations you meant to backtrack and re-explore later on, all sorts of crap like that.

I suppose you could keep extensive notes as a journal or something, but it's definitely a different, and I'd argue inferior, experience compared to being able to play a game like a kid on summer vacation dumping in 12 hours a day for a week.
 

Avellion

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Any game should only be as long as the content and depth will allow it to be.

I would rather have a 20-30 hour RPG than a 80 hour RPG that pads itself out. Chances are I will replay the 20-30 hour long RPG anyways whereas I will uninstall the padded out 80 hour RPG after a few hours. That said, I don't mind an epic every now and then like Wizardry VII.
 
Unwanted

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I would say 30-50 hours with little filler, I still voted 50+ hours because of foolish hope for a long and EPIC RPG that takes you through varied environments like snowy mountain tops, lush forests, dark caves and all sorts of murky places, with interesting quests and NPC's.

I've waited for that "EPIC RPG" myself. Most of the RPG's I play don't vary their environments much. I'd like to point to Oblivion + Skyrim for instance. You would think that all developers would intend to do so, but many are too concerned with content consistency, something that makes a lot of games just plain boring.
 

Xenich

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Mar 21, 2013
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Hmm....

Ok... I am confused by the discussion here.

Is it the "length" of the game that is the issue or rather that it is a shit game? If it is a good game I would hope you would want it to last as long as it possibly can. If it is a bad game, then the complaint is not that it is a long game, rather that it is a bad game.

If you think a long game that is good should be shorter? Please shoot yourself, preferably over a hole you have already dug and set with a rube goldberg machine to bury you in the process (so you don't inconvenience anyone).
 

SniperHF

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Messages
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I'm kind disappointed by recent attempts of devs to make games as lengthy as possible (I'm looking at you D:OS & W2) and packing them with tons of filler, so the games become tiresome.

I don't really think D:OS has all that much filler. Cyseal has virtually none and Luculla Forrest is more quality content than filler. I think the latter can feel like filler because the difficulty curve vanishes but the content isn't filler type content at all. The Dark Forrest is awful overall on filler but the Hunters Edge section was good. So to me a good 2/3rds of the game were filler free.

Wasteland 2 certainly has more filler combats.
Far as quests and other content goes though I don't think it's so much filler as it is repetitive. There's only so many ways you can spin the use skill > accomplish/fail task>start combat/avoid combat loop. The limitations on quest structure expose the mechanics.

It's more a case of Wasteland overstaying its welcome rather than being outright filler. If you hacked out all the filler combats there would still be repetitive content. If you hacked out all the filler combats in Dark Forrest D:OS wouldn't have hardly any filler.
 

Ellef

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The guy hangs out in Weaboo town and complains about filler? :smug:
 

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