I feel that New Vegas is fucking huge. I know that Obsidian games don't skimp out on the content, but god damn the game is big.
Games with Too much content
- Thread starter krazykidd
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Dragon Age:Origins is a prime example for me. When i first watch the video review of it on GameTrailers, one of the things the guy said was that there was so much content that you basically lost sight of your primary goal and that the entire game seemed to really drag on and overstay its welcome, something which a lot of people may find off-putting. Naturally i scoffed at the notion, since my thought was that no game can have 'too much content'. The very idea is counter-intuitive.
But then i got to played it, and i have to say, he was right. As much as i adore the world and the lore and wanting to get to know my party better, i had only just finished the Arl of Redcliffe's chain before wondering what in blazes i'm doing and why i'm supposed to be doing it. All the running around Denerim and pissing about on the map screen doing countless side missions for the mages guild and the black-something mercenary band had me completely forgetting the apparantly "urgent" business of the big-ass dragon sending the minions of hell to take over Ferelden. Even when i tried to get back on track, all the running around long and seemingly padded out dungeons with the same 5 encounters every now and again felt like too much busywork just to further a story that i was already lost on.
It's not so much about content as it is about pacing. This is something that Fallout and Oblivion did surprisingly well; despite the relatively short nature of the campaigns, you could drop it and pick it up again at your own pace. You didn't feel pressured to continue it immediately and once you picked it back up again you weren't exactly lost for direction, narratively or literally speaking. (Although the cost of this is info-dumps from key NPCs instead of gradual character development). Mass Effect also had a good run of this. I felt like i could piss about searching random plants with the buggy or scan for minerals, and maybe take on a side mission or two and still know that i had to go to X to stop Y and without getting too distanced from the plot.
But then i got to played it, and i have to say, he was right. As much as i adore the world and the lore and wanting to get to know my party better, i had only just finished the Arl of Redcliffe's chain before wondering what in blazes i'm doing and why i'm supposed to be doing it. All the running around Denerim and pissing about on the map screen doing countless side missions for the mages guild and the black-something mercenary band had me completely forgetting the apparantly "urgent" business of the big-ass dragon sending the minions of hell to take over Ferelden. Even when i tried to get back on track, all the running around long and seemingly padded out dungeons with the same 5 encounters every now and again felt like too much busywork just to further a story that i was already lost on.
It's not so much about content as it is about pacing. This is something that Fallout and Oblivion did surprisingly well; despite the relatively short nature of the campaigns, you could drop it and pick it up again at your own pace. You didn't feel pressured to continue it immediately and once you picked it back up again you weren't exactly lost for direction, narratively or literally speaking. (Although the cost of this is info-dumps from key NPCs instead of gradual character development). Mass Effect also had a good run of this. I felt like i could piss about searching random plants with the buggy or scan for minerals, and maybe take on a side mission or two and still know that i had to go to X to stop Y and without getting too distanced from the plot.
I can think of no game that I played, and that I enjoyed, where I felt that there was too much content. I wanted to explore and interact with everyone I could in Fallout 3 and I'm still trying to do that in Morrowind. I wouldn't have minded if there were more ruins to explore in either of the first two uncharted games (haven't played three yet). I suppose one of them major differences is that I tend to play games that are journey centered, not goal centered.
Good games are like good soup, you can't get enough.
Good games are like good soup, you can't get enough.
I never stopped playing a game because it had too much content, but I did feel overwhelmed at times when I played Morrowind, Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood and The Witcher 1.
For its time, Shadows was groundbreaking with the Snowspeeder level. I agree with you though about having too much variety. I would have left out the vehicle sections of the game and focused on the shooting aspect, but then the game would just be Dark Forces version 2. And fuck the speeder bike chase my god was that tedious.Squilookle said:
GTA 4. Actually, GA: San Andreas also. Once you got to defend territory from rival gangs, it was too nerve-wracking to do missions that would leave you vulnerable. Couldn't get into it past that point.
Sorry to be that guy, but too much content is not an issue with an open world game, particularly TES/the new Fallout games and MMOs (there's no such thing as too much content in an MMO - it's something WoW forgot since WotLK or so). You know what it is an issue with? A linear game.putowtin said:
OT: Dragon Age: Origins. I rounded up everyone but the dwarves and when it was their turn, I was just like "Jesus, will this ever end?". Later in the capital I got a bit of my spirit back, but I was still a bit fatigued by it (and I barely did any side quests).
Don't get me wrong, I loved the game (one of my favourite RPGs for sure), it was still fun, but it's literally the only gaming example I can think of that actually had too much to do. Fact is, the "round 3 factions up" was a little repetitive. Not a lot, but it did have that "ok, elves done, time for the dwarves, here we go again from being a nationally/racially praised hero to a shunned outsider" feeling. That's kinda the problem with these kind of games, they need a bit of world reputation to prevent the feeling of atmosphere repetition.
Anyway, that and the fact that DA:O has rather simplistic, repetitive combat... in its defense, I did play on Normal and I did use 3 mages and a warrior, which I found to be a ridiculously overpowered combination.
It was also the case with DA2, but that was less "too much content" and more "bad game design"
Definitely Oblivion. I just bought the game this year because my roomie kept nagging me. I played over 30 hours and outside of the initial dungeon mission, I haven't done ANYTHING to do with the main story plot. Seriously, way too much content.
At least with Assassin's Creed, a lot of those side missions actually work into the story and aren't just totally unrelated faffing shit.
At least with Assassin's Creed, a lot of those side missions actually work into the story and aren't just totally unrelated faffing shit.
let me just highlight this for the crowd who don't know, i just finished it recently.believer258 said:
i did alot of the quests, all the companion ones and two DLC's built into origins (not Awakening or the others, the ones in the main game). but i did not do ALL the sidequests, im sure i missed some, and even though i knew what i was doing most of the time, where to go, who to talk to. and i my party set up was probably over leveled for alot of the content, aside the end, that shit is insane. i clocked in, in excess of 60 hours, in a A->B non open world structured RPG. i thoroughly enjoyed it. i did it mostly on Normal, some parts i did on hard, and others like fighting the OP Dragons on Casual, 'cus i got tired of repeated deaths. the only part i didn't like was the Fade section in the Tower (not Harrowing) that, that wasn't fun)
also i played Awakening with an imported character and well i started by being 3or4 levels above everyone else, and ended up being maby 6 or 7 so nothing was a challenge, i beat the end boss without a healer. and had like 200 health pots unused, and it was too short, it felt like it was just getting good and BAM over. Witch hunt has the same issues, i was OP, it was too short. Leliana's song was fun.
also Beth games sometimes get what im coining as "Fallout Fatiuge" named for what happend to me while playing Fallout 3.
its where you go, ive played too much of this game i need a break.
Correction. Daggerfall is set in Hammerfell and High Rock, 2 provinces within Tamriel. Still huge though.Irridium said:
That said... it's all randomly generated (bar the major cities and key dungeons) and that possible 3000 hours is more like 100 hundred hours multiplied. EDIT: Even more, probably 200~ hours, but the rest of the game is copy paste.
It had a great sense of scale though (flat as it is). Travelling from province to another is marked by days and weeks, not hours like in Morrowind and Oblivion. You would have to do some odd jobs just to afford the cost of travelling and staying at inns to recuperate.
We will never see a game like Daggerfall again. Which is tragic, but reasonable.
There is no such thing as too much content.
Assuming that the content is of good quality, you can't have too much of it. I find it absurd that people complain about not having time for 40 hour games and that they preffer the newer 6-10 hour single player campaigns that are slowly becoming the industry standard. Longer games simply take longer to finish. And one 40 hour game is cheaper than 4 10 hour ones...
That being said, there is such a thing as stretching the content you do have, padding it with crap, watering it down to get a longer runtime. That IS bad, but that's not a case of too much content, it's a case of low quality.
Assuming that the content is of good quality, you can't have too much of it. I find it absurd that people complain about not having time for 40 hour games and that they preffer the newer 6-10 hour single player campaigns that are slowly becoming the industry standard. Longer games simply take longer to finish. And one 40 hour game is cheaper than 4 10 hour ones...
That being said, there is such a thing as stretching the content you do have, padding it with crap, watering it down to get a longer runtime. That IS bad, but that's not a case of too much content, it's a case of low quality.
"Too much content" definitely does sound like a bit of a misnomer; and depending on how you look at it, the phrase really is a misnomer. Many of the cases here can actually be explained as "poor pacing". Hypothetically speaking, a game can be as long as it wants (though I would at least like the thing to have a definite ending) provided it remains engaging throughout.
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To start off with the obvious, we have the sandbox RPGs made by Bethedsa -- The Elder Scrolls series in particular. The pacing in these games might as well be non-existent, their purpose is to give the player a large world to play around in and explore. This leads to the player defining their own pace, which can be anything from "make a beeline to the finish of the central storylines" to "run around in circles". They also have what could be called "unnecessary content", but the parts which one finds worthwhile varies from player to player (if not playthrough to playthrough). What some view as an unnecessary quest can be vital to others. It's fairly safe to assume that the developpers aren't expecting most players to do everything there is in the game... though that doesn't stop some from trying.
MMORPGs and their persistent worlds aren't much different than sandboxes, only that the "pacing" and "storyline" are even less important. Again, the player defines their own pace; however, the community tends to gravitate towards "beeline to the level cap and the best gear available". While some games do award those who try to complete all the content in the game (for example, the "Loremaster" achievement in World of Warcraft), it's generally expected that most will not bother with that; what is expected is that they'll endlessly repeat doing the newest content for the best stuff.
Anyhow, both catagories could also be called "endless games". These cram in as much content as possible, regardless of if it's necessary or not. "Too much" is a bit hard to apply when the only limitation is the player's interest in it (even if most are unlikely to stay all the way through).
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In more story driven games, pacing is present rather than non-existent. However, longer games do have a tendency to have bad pacing; this is arguably very apparent when the player is given the choice of which order they want to do the objectives. In other words, Bioware's games generally have poor pacing. Dragon Age: Origins is a very lore-intensive game, but the sheer size of the adventure makes it exhausting. If you take the time to do every single sidequest, it can feel even more arduous. Dragon Age II has even worse pacing, thanks to it's unfocused plot; this is made even worse with the repetitive encounter design (waves! waves! WAVES!) and excessively recycled environments, which are the two inexcusable issues with the game. Both games have loads of "unnecessary content", but they can be trimmed down a fair bit if you want to; compulsive completionists might run into burn-out issues, however. Mass Effect (1)? Exploring worlds in the Mako for resources and other trinkets are almost certainly "unnecessary content", but the central storyline is fairly tight & cohesive; it only feels like "too much content" if you're trying to do all the sidequests. ME2 has better pacing than the two games in the Dragon Age series, but not quite as good as ME1's central storyline; the sidequests feel less extraneous, at least.
---
Then we have games which are a bit more focused in their story (and have a slight tendency towards linearity), but still come out to a sizable length. The first group is the Final Fantasy games (particularly looking at those from previous generations, the recent batch hasn't been quite so good) tend to be very long games, but their pacing is good enough that they don't feel too long even after 40-50+ hours. They're just an epic adventure (in the classical sense), long journeys and remain engaging throughout. Even if they do open up towards their conclusion with a "last-minute-sidequest-binge", the sizable adventures whisk you from one event to the next without ever having the player loose interest. Final Fantasy IX stands out for me, with a near-perfect pacing of peaks & valleys constantly inching the player forward through the storyline.
Another group is the almost universally acclaimed Legend of Zelda franchise, and strong pacing helps the games along immensely. Interestingly, most games these days start off with a big band... but not the LoZ games, which begin with a fairly lax pace to ease you into the adventure. Most of the games are a fair bit shorter than the others mentioned here, but Twilight Princess actually gives them all a run for their money at 25-50 hours; that's comparable to both Dragon Age titles and many Final Fantasy titles. For some reason, some people felt it was too short despite being longest LoZ title by a longshot (pun not intended); so unlike many of the examples of games having "too much content", it didn't feel too long nor exhausting despite having a similar amount of content. And that is the power of good pacing.... or maybe people were complaining for the sake of complaining (as usual). A recent bit of news had Nintendo say they felt Twilight Princess was too unfocused, something which they've corrected in Skyward Sword; how that turns out remains to be seen.
---
To look at the other end of the spectrum, there's the recent batch of short action games. First person shooters and hack-&-slash games usually run between 7-10 hours, with the odd one going up to fifteen or so. The pacing in these games tends to be stellar, but at the same time you're more or less on the rails. No chances for exploring or that. While these games certainly don't have "too much content", they're trimmed to their essentials; much of their "longevity" comes from great replayability and/or multiplayer.
---
Anyhow, I think the main issue isn't so much "too much content" as it is a mix of poor pacing (if any at all, in some cases) and "unnecessary content". Done right, a game can be as long as it wants. Easier said than done, of course; keep good pacing & making all the content feel necessary to the whole becomes exponentially more difficult as the game gets longer.
Still, some games have managed to do it right.
Oddly enough, one of the best examples of such is NOT an RPG.
---
To start off with the obvious, we have the sandbox RPGs made by Bethedsa -- The Elder Scrolls series in particular. The pacing in these games might as well be non-existent, their purpose is to give the player a large world to play around in and explore. This leads to the player defining their own pace, which can be anything from "make a beeline to the finish of the central storylines" to "run around in circles". They also have what could be called "unnecessary content", but the parts which one finds worthwhile varies from player to player (if not playthrough to playthrough). What some view as an unnecessary quest can be vital to others. It's fairly safe to assume that the developpers aren't expecting most players to do everything there is in the game... though that doesn't stop some from trying.
MMORPGs and their persistent worlds aren't much different than sandboxes, only that the "pacing" and "storyline" are even less important. Again, the player defines their own pace; however, the community tends to gravitate towards "beeline to the level cap and the best gear available". While some games do award those who try to complete all the content in the game (for example, the "Loremaster" achievement in World of Warcraft), it's generally expected that most will not bother with that; what is expected is that they'll endlessly repeat doing the newest content for the best stuff.
Anyhow, both catagories could also be called "endless games". These cram in as much content as possible, regardless of if it's necessary or not. "Too much" is a bit hard to apply when the only limitation is the player's interest in it (even if most are unlikely to stay all the way through).
---
In more story driven games, pacing is present rather than non-existent. However, longer games do have a tendency to have bad pacing; this is arguably very apparent when the player is given the choice of which order they want to do the objectives. In other words, Bioware's games generally have poor pacing. Dragon Age: Origins is a very lore-intensive game, but the sheer size of the adventure makes it exhausting. If you take the time to do every single sidequest, it can feel even more arduous. Dragon Age II has even worse pacing, thanks to it's unfocused plot; this is made even worse with the repetitive encounter design (waves! waves! WAVES!) and excessively recycled environments, which are the two inexcusable issues with the game. Both games have loads of "unnecessary content", but they can be trimmed down a fair bit if you want to; compulsive completionists might run into burn-out issues, however. Mass Effect (1)? Exploring worlds in the Mako for resources and other trinkets are almost certainly "unnecessary content", but the central storyline is fairly tight & cohesive; it only feels like "too much content" if you're trying to do all the sidequests. ME2 has better pacing than the two games in the Dragon Age series, but not quite as good as ME1's central storyline; the sidequests feel less extraneous, at least.
---
Then we have games which are a bit more focused in their story (and have a slight tendency towards linearity), but still come out to a sizable length. The first group is the Final Fantasy games (particularly looking at those from previous generations, the recent batch hasn't been quite so good) tend to be very long games, but their pacing is good enough that they don't feel too long even after 40-50+ hours. They're just an epic adventure (in the classical sense), long journeys and remain engaging throughout. Even if they do open up towards their conclusion with a "last-minute-sidequest-binge", the sizable adventures whisk you from one event to the next without ever having the player loose interest. Final Fantasy IX stands out for me, with a near-perfect pacing of peaks & valleys constantly inching the player forward through the storyline.
Another group is the almost universally acclaimed Legend of Zelda franchise, and strong pacing helps the games along immensely. Interestingly, most games these days start off with a big band... but not the LoZ games, which begin with a fairly lax pace to ease you into the adventure. Most of the games are a fair bit shorter than the others mentioned here, but Twilight Princess actually gives them all a run for their money at 25-50 hours; that's comparable to both Dragon Age titles and many Final Fantasy titles. For some reason, some people felt it was too short despite being longest LoZ title by a longshot (pun not intended); so unlike many of the examples of games having "too much content", it didn't feel too long nor exhausting despite having a similar amount of content. And that is the power of good pacing.... or maybe people were complaining for the sake of complaining (as usual). A recent bit of news had Nintendo say they felt Twilight Princess was too unfocused, something which they've corrected in Skyward Sword; how that turns out remains to be seen.
---
To look at the other end of the spectrum, there's the recent batch of short action games. First person shooters and hack-&-slash games usually run between 7-10 hours, with the odd one going up to fifteen or so. The pacing in these games tends to be stellar, but at the same time you're more or less on the rails. No chances for exploring or that. While these games certainly don't have "too much content", they're trimmed to their essentials; much of their "longevity" comes from great replayability and/or multiplayer.
---
Anyhow, I think the main issue isn't so much "too much content" as it is a mix of poor pacing (if any at all, in some cases) and "unnecessary content". Done right, a game can be as long as it wants. Easier said than done, of course; keep good pacing & making all the content feel necessary to the whole becomes exponentially more difficult as the game gets longer.
Still, some games have managed to do it right.
Oddly enough, one of the best examples of such is NOT an RPG.
Dark Souls is tricky with this. Everytime i walk into a new area, i go "Holy shit this is huge and beautiful and im going to be dying here for 5 hours."
Lots of content, magically lengthened by running through it 20 times apiece.
18 hours in, and if i started fresh i could probably get back here in 4. =D
Lots of content, magically lengthened by running through it 20 times apiece.
18 hours in, and if i started fresh i could probably get back here in 4. =D
I'll go a round with you, and I'll name my fists Lewis and Clark. But, as has been mentioned, Daggerfall is mostly randomly generated. So, the question becomes, "why WOULD you explore all that?"Arluza said:
In all seriousness, though, I'll add in another vote for The Witcher 1. But as many have said, it's not so much a content thing as a pacing thing. Baldur's Gate II had an absurd amount of content, but it managed to keep me engaged the whole time. I knew where I was, where I was going, and how I was getting there, regardless of side missions. But The Witcher 1 lost me in Vizima. I just couldn't keep track of all the plot threads that seemed to be randomly tying themselves up and fraying out again, without any change in scenery or meaningful plot progression.
Too much content? Honestly I don't think there can be too much content unless it all isn't that good. Metal Gear Solid 4 comes to mind, too much story and dialogue and it all wasn't even really that good...>=/