BLITZEN'S PROFILE

I'm moving up a notch from two colours to four! That's 100% more colour! (colours are actually shades of grey, offer void in Utah.)

I watched some of this on TV and it was pretty much the most exciting tennis match I've ever seen.

I see it completely differently. I really don't see how play length is a factor at all. If the game is fun people will go back to it. If its not people will say it is too long because its boring and they are having to force themselves to play it. Its not your fault if you don't like a game, its the designer's fault for failing to capture your interest and create a stimulating experience, even if you prefer a certain type of game over others, because good design will transcend personal tastes and make a sharp impression on the player.

Mog, that shouldn't be any kind of an attitude at all. "RPGs are supposed to be slow." What kind of idea is that? The conventions of the genre have little to do with pacing, and more about how you balance and advance your party or stats in order to progress. If you take a roguelike like Diablo II, you'll find that compared to other RPGs its a relatively quick play, and doesn't suffer from "have to sit and watch for 6 hours" syndrome.

Believe it or not, you can make RPGs exciting by learning about how to make compelling gameplay, and by condensing and simplifying the experience so that it doesn't reqire a 50 hour investment (more like a waste of time to me) more people will be able to get more out of your game in less time.

It sounds like you're saying "My gameplay is supposed to be sort of slow and uninspiring, because its an RPG." That's a horrible attitude to have, especially when we have the power to make our games in any way we please. Everyone, stop making excuses and start making your games fun.

In a word, that's what's important for the game. Fun. I liked FF8 better because I remember having more fun playing it. Why? Because the game was CHOCK FULL of interesting things to do, and the way it was achieved was relatively novel, much moreso than any of its predescessors. And I, like many other humans, find doing novel and interesting things stimulating. Some people may have found the story and characters more compelling, and well that depends on their tastes, but as a stand alone game (without all the emosquall story stuff) FF8 wasn't bad at all.

Good game design is something that can be applied anywhere and in new ways, so if you think that RPGs are somehow supposed to be slow, then I hope you learn more about why they don't have to be.

To be honest, a lot of the games just don't look all that good or interesting. I'm not a big fan of jRPGs, but I sincerely think the problem is a lack of knowledgeable interest in actual video game design and there seems to be this unconscious attitude that RPG design (what most of us do) is somehow a thing of its own that invloves things like cool chipsets and crafting compelling characters (which is complete baloney, btw).

We don't play each other's games because they are mostly all the same and they are mostly no fun, and we don't know how to make fun games because we've fooled ourselves into thinking we know what we're doing. This is because the greater part of us are (or used to be) 15 year olds who've fallen in love with the idea of being able to make Squeenix-style game.

Amateur RPG designers need to decide to be students of actual game design and stop trying to thrive off this circlejerk, "show and tell" culture. Maybe then, will the games we make be something more than what they are.