I have a bone to pick with myself; but maybe if I include some trigger words it will force some of you guys to discuss with me too. ;)

I have spent a large amount of time recently reading articles and watching videos about some of my most wanted upcoming games; namely The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy XV and Xenoblade X. They make themselves very attractive in people's eyes; promising hundreds of hours of content and huge maps. Therein lies the bone-picking part: I am paradoxically attracted and repulsed by those increasingly large numbers.

Do I really want all that content?

Whenever I hear that large of a number in regards to map size or possible playtime, I start wondering how much of that content is worth those extra hours, and how much is just repetitive filler. How much variation can you get out of quest design when you have a set number of gameplay mechanics, puzzles, and combat possibilities? Negating the possibility of addictive mini games and DLC expansions, how do you keep the player engaged for all those promised hours after the storyline is complete?

In Skyrim, you had an almost endless amount of questing to do thanks to randomly generated quests. You could talk to locals (whose behavior towards the player did not differ, no matter if you were the High King or some pleb; but I digress) and gain jobs from them long after you had completed every storyline quest. Being randomly generated however, these quests were blatantly similar to one another. For example, an old man asks you to go find his family heirloom which is at the bottom of a Draugr infested crypt that has been "sealed for thousands of years". You face the same old leveled Draugr in the same old dungeon and gain randomly generated loot. Old dude gives you 500 gold. The world before and after that quest will be exactly the same. Big whoop for your family heirloom old man, there are 800 other people like you asking for the same favour. I absolutely loved Skyrim, but after completing the main questline as well as Winterhold/Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood questlines, I had no interest in it. People convinced me that there were over 300 hours of content in that game but I did not make it nearly that far.

To anyone who played Episode Duscae, I have seen the feedback from the survey and I want to ask you this: What makes repeating those same combat sequences for hundreds of hours worthwhile? Really that's a trick question since the final game will have more combat implementations, but it still poses a great question. Once the main story has been completed, how can you narratively contextualize a quest in a fulfilling manner to make the combat redeemable?

I see a huge difference between random NPCs repeatedly asking you to fetch or kill in exchange for gil, and established NPCs begging you to retrieve a magic stone (persay) that will save their life from a dangerous threat. Consequences and rewards things should be implemented in the game's world and not just implied. The threats and set pieces should be dynamic. After you have finished, the NPCs should treat me differently. The world should feel different. That is how you make extra quest content worthwhile.

Am I asking for too much? Am I wrong in my criticism of dev's claims? Do you have anything to suggest? Reply cos I'm lonely.

i agree, mindless side missions can be fun for a little while, but after that they become, well, mindless.

Great thread Reim, lots of good points in there.

And the answer is that a game may be as long as it wants, so long as it is handled correctly. By that I mean so long as the content and the gameplay is not only sufficient for such a Length, but that the story and locations support it the whole time.

If you're just doing the same thing over and over and it's more a chore than a game, then there's little point in playing it for that long. But if it's done well that it really engages me, then it's possible but unlikely to hit 300 hours. Perhaps 100 hours but 3x more focused would be better in most cases.

This is a surprisingly good question. I think that too much content can actually be hurtful for the game. It's hard to say if the content is enjoyable for 300 hours in upcoming games like XCX though. We'll just have to wait until they come out I guess.

Thanks! A lot of play hours can also come from sandbox digging, and also from limited exploration outside of questing. Other than that you would have to rely on an addictive levelling/grinding system to reach those high numbers

Depends on your imagination skills and also the ability of making a goal for yourself in a game. I loved Skyrim's extra quest because my goal was to built a house but that cost me a lot of materials and Gold. Everytime I did a quest I would find a lot of gold and some materials but also enjoyed finding books read them and was curious what I will find.

Personally I don't think I'd ever be able to play one game for 300 hours, especially one on a home console. For me then, I'd rather they focused on giving better side quests as opposed to more...

For me 50-100h for a RPG is quite enough. And other genres 10-20 is also good.

The only game I would go over that is gran Turismo pointless drive in circles for 1000 hours, and perhaps final fantasy and kingdom hearts because I like their world.

No, I've come to the conclusion that any RPG over about 60-70 hours is just filler. I actually get turned off now when a games touts "hundreds of hours" of gameplay. An RPG needs to be a compact and powerful experience, not an open-ended filler-filled neverending game.

Because we end up getting games like Bravely Default, which recycled the game for the last 4 chapters. Games like Dragon Age Inquisition which had several large filler-filled zones that didn't do anything for the story or for gameplay.

I can't stand that anymore. Stop with "hundred of hours of gameplay" and give me a shorter and sweeter experience! It's the quality that counts, not the quantity!

I dislike when main narratives are drawn out beyond their length with filler content and unfortunately I feel this is the case with most RPGS. Alongside this too many side quests are jarring missions which do nothing to expand upon the lore or characters.

I always use Mass Effect as an example, stuff like shadow broker missions should have been in game side quests, not essential to plot but greatley informative to the lore and characters. I would take that over the endless hunts and fetch quests which essentially equates to a mercenary game.

Similarly Final Fantasy XIII main plot should have been cut in half, too much travelling from point A-B not enough substance. With those freed up resources they should have spent time creating side quests which explore the lore instead players just having to look inside the encyclopedia to figure out that the world is actually interesting.

The type of content that expand a game into a 100hr+where you can max out your characters should be the DLC in any story driven RPG (so not Skyrim etc)