GAME LENGTH AND MAINTAINING PLAYER INTEREST

I think that if your game is good, then the longer you can make it, the better it will be. If people are having fun then they'll want to keep playing. Why would they want to stop? And in RPGs the length is doubly important, because the ramping RPG-style progression and leveling up become a cheap imitation of what they're supposed to be if the game isn't at least like a dozen dungeons or so. In a four hour RPG, there's no room for depth, you can't build and plan your party's stats and abilities and classes and talents, and there's no time for any of your choices to actually matter. There's no short term vs. long term tradeoff because there's no long term at all.

This isn't an excuse for the beginning of your game sucking balls. Designers are afraid to introduce complexity early in a game, but complexity is absolutely required to make RPG mechanics actually fun. This is in contrast to action and adventure game mechanics which can be fun even if they're very simple. In RPGs, there's no skill involved in timing or execution - 100% of the skill is in noticing details and figuring things out. So if there's nothing to learn, then the player never experiences the feeling of success, and there's no fun.

RPGs, more than any other genre except strategy games, need to start out complex. Not, like, "first time playing Final Fantasy Tactics" level complex, but... if you're not making games for people who've never played an RPG before, then I'd say probably they need to start out at about the point FF4 ends at, and ramp up from there. And I assume none of you are making games for people who've never played RPGs before. Since those people are not going to be playing retro indie RPGs. Retro indie games are for people who are nostalgic, or who have burned through all of their modern games.

Anyway the intro to Skyrim is action-packed:

*a short prayer for Libby's redguard*

author=LockeZ
RPGs, more than any other genre except strategy games, need to start out complex. Not, like, "first time playing Final Fantasy Tactics"

I rented Final Fantasy Tactics when I was a kid and I gave up immediately. Never beat the first battle. Still haven't :P

I definitely agree that RPGs can afford to be a little more complex because they give you time to think, but you can ease people into that. Hell, even for players who've never RPG'd before, you could have a short battle where players just auto-attack (to teach them the menu) and then start giving them skills pretty quick (because it doesn't take that long to learn a menu).

author=LockeZ
In a four hour RPG, there's no room for depth, you can't build and plan your party's stats and abilities and classes and talents, and there's no time for any of your choices to actually matter.

This I kinda disagree with. In a traditional JRPG, the long gameplay makes sense, and fits well with both: the slow growth of your party, skills, andequipment and the winding, epic tale. But hell, there's a few examples of games on this site that make your choices matter within a few hours - Remnants of Isolation did a great job, Wine & Roses did a great job. They both focused on short stories, customization, and battle tactics. I think their battle systems might have seen trouble if stretched over the course of 40 hours, but for these short games, they're perfect.

I think I'd like to see more short story RPGs! Certainly, I think that's where the devs on this site would excel. We don't have million dollar teams, and we're individuals with heart and personality - we're gonna be better at telling a very unique, human story than an company that has to run it by producers and a board of directors.

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EDIT: I am losing it at the cart tumbling, LockeZ.

If you think Fire Emblem is bad about padding

I don't, there's only that forest level in one game and that plains level in the other..

But yeah, I actually liked Shining Force too, but forcing you to move a specific unit at a time (you can't cycle) and making you move by walking around a flashing L1 Normal Distance Area gets annoying. I remember the Sega CD one being the least annoying and having the most content, but I never finished it. Shining Force II was also incredibly grindy.

I really don't know if I like the Shining Force series or not. I dig the epic YM2612 FM synth soundtracks, but it is safe to stick with the Sega CD version in terms of gameplay.

author=LockeZ
I would say Wine & Roses had great potential as a game. And if it'd had about seven more dungeons the size of the first one, it could have realized that potential. In order to function as a game with so little content, it had to abuse a lot of shortcuts that cheapened the gameplay, like a lack of level ups, tiny stages with boring exploration, very few strategic choice of how to build your characters, and a style of pacing that just cut out all the "normal enemies" and therefore had no hills and valleys of excitement, just constant nail-grinding.

Please don't take this as me not liking Wine & Roses, as I think it's probably got the best gameplay of any RPG I've ever played. I mostly just wanted way, way more of it.

I'm personally super glad Wine & Roses was as short as it was - that's probably the only reason I actually finished it. I think it did a good job with a small but clever system, and I don't think that system could've been stretched out over 7 dungeons. In theory, it could have kept going by slowly introducing new elements to work with (equipment types, party members, battle options) but 7 times the length would've been far past its limit, and what little story there was would have fell to pieces. I think the level-ups worked great as well: beating a battle gives you a new skill to play with, or maybe a stat up. No repeat battles, no grinding - the game doesn't waste a drop of your time. I do agree that the highs and lows could've been meted out with more (any) coordination, however.

Still, I am happy with taking a break from 20 hour RPGs to play a 2 hour one. I understand wanting more, of course, but not if the "more" would've been weak and forced.

I think is wrong to have a lot of skills when you start the game, I will just pick the strongest one and spam it, (This is worse with games that are "creative" with the skill names or skills with debuffs that aren't explained very clearly) I think is better to have a few (2-4) skills but with specific uses (Healing, Damage, Buff, AoE, etc.) and you get more playing the game, (to keep interested the player) if a skill is very different to conventional skills (How about reducing by 20% the HP of the party and deal the amount as damage to enemies?) is better to add a very short tutorial, a good description, or if you learn the skill with levels make sure that is the only skill you will learn at that level...

author=Sooz
Otherwise, you'll just keep coming up with fantastic ideas that are awesome and cool but not actually necessary for the work you're making.

I'm saying, though, that you build the game so that you include everything that is necessary. Tacking stuff on that isn't necessary is adding length rather than substance, so, yeah, of course you wouldn't add that. It all needs to feed into the whole.

author=Sooz
There are a lot of other reasons to limit the amount of game time tho. Not every limitation comes from cynical business stuff.

Well, if you have reasons like, "I can't spend enough time to make this into a 50-hour epic" or "my development tools aren't enough," then of course that's valid. But, in that case, you change your idea rather than make concessions. You'll just end up regretting the fact that your game didn't match that initial vision.

My post was more in response to the apparent demand that games shouldn't be lengthy. I was just saying that games should be as long as they need to be; sometimes that's fifty hours, sometimes that's ten minutes.

How long/short a game tends to be depends on the rise/fall of interest in it. There's actually a lot of studies into how to keep someone interested in a game, and finishing it at a satisfying point. It is not always that a game is too short because they want to play more...but because you ended it when the player's interest was still peaking, and without a satisfying cool off. Usually for games, the final boss fight is the final 'peak' of action, and the cool off is the ending sequence (Final Fantasy 6 for example, killing off Kefka's final form is the peak, and the escape from the tower is the declining action portion).

In the same vein, if there's not enough peaks between start and finish, the game feels overly long and dull. Whether it be story moments, interesting boss fights, or the like, you have to keep the player interested. At the same time, you have to give them cool-off periods, calm times, less strenuous encounters, character building, etc. If you have too many peaks, and are just constantly ramping it up, the player gets overly stressed...and thinks the game is going on too long.

Here's an interesting graphic showing it for Wind Waker, to give you guys an idea:

Well, if a dungeon feels like filler, you're probably doing the valleys wrong. Dungeons should never feel like you're wasting time, but maybe its a bit less important, like a dungeon to get through a mountain range. If every single dungeon is fighting to save the world versus the end boss, you may be relying too much on peaks.

The side quest point is definitely on the nose though, often after major events, you'll notice side quests open up in games. As a note though, the same interest/cool off curve should also apply to side quests and the like. Hell, should apply to every aspect of a game.