THE MAN'S PROFILE

I tend to agree for the most part. I love longer games, but the story has to progress and be good. I am very forgiving if the story starts slow. Why? Most stories do. It's after a little plot and character development that the player SHOULD start to like or dislike the characters. If they do, and the story is good you can aim for a longer game. If you get a 50+ hour game, and do things right, the player should still be saying "Man, I wish it was longer."

Very hard though, to hook people at the beginning. The greasest story in the world will still loose people after the opening "It was a dark and stormy night". How do you combat this? I'm not to sure. I try to make the start very easy and fast. Fast no brain battles, (And I mean very fast), some flashy effects if you can do it, and good mapping. If the player gets hooked then you can reduce the Flash, make the battles harder, and add the hours to the game. Of course, doing that you get comments like "It's just a button mash". But you can't please everyone.