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?
Erm, it’s a … different … intro 🙂
I guess this is due to Mass Effect?
In the hospital?! Diabetes?! Man … Jonah, I think you’re now avoiding the doctor just so that you don’t get diagnosed with God knows what.
@Microsoft: Xbox Live Arcade will be phased out eventually
Erm, dunno. I don’t think that an established digital distribution channel will be removed on a whim. You don’t back out from a market unless it generates losses, and I doubt this is the case for XBLA.
Ok, change the name, don’t care. But I think Microsoft will keep providing the service.
@Leaked images “nothing to do with” Doom 4
Doom 2 was set on Earth however. Dunno. From my point of view, anything goes.
The engine is idTech 5, that powered the Rage game.
@SimCity 5 coming in 2013:
never played, never cared.
@GAME drops 5% in shares after Mass Effect 3 no-show
Tough times for retailers. A lot of publishers either use Steam, or have developed their own digital distribution channels. So now they can afford to place heavier conditions to the retailers.
Now if you also add bad management in the mix, well, that’s a recipe for bankruptcy.
@Rumor: PlayStation 4 ditches Cell processor tech
To be honest, as long as you manage to create a nice API for the game developer, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a cell processor or 2-4 80×86 compatible cores.
I still can’t forget what they said at one point, that the cell processor was intentionally made hard to work with, so that the PS3 has a longer life.
Who thinks like that?!
Thanks Paul for sending my PD, my lil 5 yo bro will love this game (i’m 21 btw)
jordan, watch out for that C6H12O6!!! they are evil! deliciously evil!
paul, bronkitis sucks, i have it too.
jonah, go get a check up ASAP!
i hope you know that i am very glad all 3 of you are fine =]
@xbla no more eventually
it is a money maker, they will not give that away, its a name change for sure.
@sim city 5 comming 2013
meh… never liked the sims series very much (all sims, not only THE sims). i like destruction games more.
@ps4 changes processor
as long as it works with quality, I mean, as long as sony doesn’t screw up more stuff ¬¬
get well guys (be careful jonah, u might be next)
mwa hahahahaha (evil laugh if u dont get it)
take care
Can you guys make it a bit shorter? Some guys like me don’t have internet at home so we download it thru a phone. I can’t download it when its over 50M. I hope you take it to your attention, Cheers!
My god, that was the best intro ever! I’m pretty busy right now with my pre-GCSE exams, so don’t expect any long comments for now. You should be honored that you’re one of the things I will still be doing between studying.
Oh and Paul, I never got to hear your thoughts on Skyward Sword. Have you finished it, and if so, what did you think?
Hey guys, first time listener. I enjoyed the show, but I cringed at the narration of the news headlines. I’m by no means a good public reader, so I know how hard it is to vocally string together a poorly written sentence. Slow it down a little and you should be just fine.
Keep up the good work, and thanks for the listen!