I remember a day when old RPG games had either a level cap or a definite ending. From Pool of Radiance to Secrets of the Silver Blades to Final Fantasy the game had a final boss or stage and often had some type of level cap. Today, gamers don’t want it to end, they’d rather have the option to wonder around aimlessly or completing minor quests in order to soak up every ounce of money they spent on the title.
Now even Bethesda is saying “we’ve learned our lesson” from the whiplash of ending their game title and capping levels. Gamers want to go back and re-try content they missed, they want to run side quests and talk to everyone in the world they want to grind themselves to über powerful levels and become a god in their fantasy world. Can you blame them?
You can’t really blame them for wanting to maximize the content, although it’s slightly more evolved than RPG’s of old. Perhaps it was World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s that brought us to the stage in life where we all want to squeeze every last RPG dime out of the title. As a kid I wondered the world of Hyrule and covered every tile of graphical color, burned every bush, bombed every stone looking for all the content. However, even Zelda had an end with scrolling credits – you didn’t just land on a platform with your master sword and a dream.
Other titles have used level caps to limit you and draw you into the next release of the game. This was popular in the D&D world because the game is designed to target specific levels of difficulty. They may only allow you to gain level 10 because the enemies are no tougher than level 13, allowing the challenge to be good but not overwhelming. If they allow you to get to level 50 they’d have to design the game so all the enemies grow powerful along with you — that’s not always a desired result.
Final Fantasy is a popular franchise that typically allows you to grow infinitely powerful depending on how much time you want to spend repeat killing the same enemies. Gamers aren’t always into the grind, they just want to grind “enough” to make the challenges a little more do-able.
Today, however, with larger storage capacity, larger development teams and the desire to build more value into your gameplay experience titles have dozens of side quests and sub-plots that are totally optional. The result of so many sub-quests results in a player who is much more powerful at the end of those quests compared to a player who sticks to the narrow path of the main plot. So, games much grow dynamically challenging to keep the fun per dollar high.
Do you like your RPG’s to have a definite end and a high but capped level?
Jonah, you can simply skip the iOS and Facebook games 🙂
@NGP to be called the PlayStation Vita: … I liked more the NGP … Now I could be biased, I never saw the ad you guys mentioned.
@PS4 in development .. oops, no it’s not: Now, if we ignore the PSN security issues, I would consider this kind of inconsistencies funny. Now, what if they’d do the same with PSN? I can imagine the dialog:
Q: Is PSN secure?
A1: PSN is air tight secure.
(a few weeks later)
A2: PSN is not that secure.
@Dungeon Empires out of beta: I see this becoming a pretty big game. It blends some sort of ‘Farmville’ and WoW. It’s … nice!
@Dead or Alive 3DS = child porn?
Besides the age of the characters, proper rating would make this easily avoided.
@Call of Duty: Elite announced: good point, Jonah. They didn’t handle the information properly, and that can turn against them, with or without a real reason.
Jordan, the game you mentioned, ‘Eternal Darkness’, I am following a ‘Lets play’ for it.
@QOTW: none, unfortunately. Well, maybe Rage. While id’s games are not the most cinematic ones, I have to admit I liked most of what they released.
I have not listened to this episode yet, but I’m sure it will be good. I’m glad to see that you are keeping it going. Listening to the show since last November and I’m happy that its not going to die.
Hey fellas, glad to see the TD Gaming Podcast is still alive! I’ve been a fan since episode #118. Just a heads-up – the Schommers used to use a program called “Levelator” to even out their audio. I don’t know if you guys do as well, but if not it might help your output.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelator
I’m keeping the Schommer family in my prayers and wishing you all the best as I continue listening faithfully 🙂
Just listened to the podcast, really enjoyed it, but thats what I expected.
About the “Vita”, I’ve been hearing complaints about the naming , but it seems like no matter what they name it, people are still going to complain.
PS4 – I’m glad that they aren’t working on a new console, they need to work on getting the PS3 back to where it was before all the hacking, but again, it seems like no matter what Sony does, people will still complain. They just can’t win.
Bungie – I can’t wait to see this game. Bungie has really only been known for Halo, and I’m very curious to see what they are going to be able to follow it up with. This game will really show what Bungie can do now that they aren’t tied down to one franchise. Also, saw the trailer for Halo 4, seems unnecessary, I thought the trilogy was fine, but 343 seems capable of making a solid Halo without the help of Bungie.
Call of Duty Elite – I am one of the many that watch Call of Duty commentaries on Youtube, and it was clear to see that the majority weren’t happy about the announcement that you will have to pay. That was before it was announced that you would get most features free. Patience certainly isn’t too common in this community. It sucks that that was the way it had to be revealed.
QOTW – I am really excited for Bioshock: Infinite. Have been waiting to see more on it since the first trailer came out. I love this series and to see that they are taking it to the sky makes it seem like the series is being reborn.
@Will, PS4 issue:
It’s more complicated, the ugly way I’m afraid.
The issue with PS3 is that (1) the root key, the one that validates if the DVD is legal or not, was ‘coded’ in the silicon chip, and (2) that key was discovered.
This means that anyone can build custom software (or pirate games) and ‘stamp’ them as legal.
One way to ‘fix’ this is to change the key.
This means that future PS3 have encoded in them the new key, and all games that follow will also use that key. The issue is that the new PS3s won’t be able to play the older PS3 games (different keys), and that the old PS3s cannot play the new games.
The PS3’s root key issue was using a sloppy “security by obscurity” strategy.
The PSN case is strikingly similar: once the hackers discovered the what (old) version of software PSN used, they could then use a list of known security exploits for them.
If you’re wondering where the podcast is, it’s coming soon. We will be adopting a regular schedule once things settle down post-E3.