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?
Nintendo has already announced the Wii Motion Plus at E3. This device is supposed to fine tune the motion sensing capabilities of the Wii controller and make it a bit more refined for gaming. Sounds, to me, like a hardware patch, no?
Hi guys great episode, nice to hear Dan again 🙂
@Noriega sues: Yeah I thought like Jordan that generally former Dictators are dead ones. He should just be happy to have made it to 80.
@Sims 2 Ultimate Edition: My wife and I both got our CD versions redeemed for the digital Ultimate edition and I have to say I’m pretty happy to have access to all those packs and expansions I never bought. I still find myself spoiled for some mods, and I had to tinker with special settings to get a resolution other then 800×600. It is nice to play this game digitally and not have the hassle of some 20 cd’s to go through when wanting to install the game to a new computer. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia glasses or not but I swear the game looked better than what I started up in Ultimate Edition.
I remember you mentioning in regards to Sims 2 not liking that your Sim ages while a neighbor doesn’t and you’d have to go to their lot to age them. For me it’s the inverse in what they do in Sims 3. I like to jump from lot to lot controlling multiple families and creating Dynasty Legacy families. I didn’t like in Sims 3 if I was playing a family and went to another house, only to find the first family had moved, split up or had a baby without me. This happened to my wife who was trying to get one sim with someone else and she went to another house and when she game back he was gone, he had moved out. So for me I like the “rabbit holes” or “hamster cages”. If you couldn’t tell I like gameplay that allows me to feel like a god controlling the lives of these mere digital blips on my computer.
@Codemasters respond: Yeah people need to realize that giving money to companies promotes them to make more of what your buying. Vote with your wallets people, this is why I backed Pillars of Eternity, to show my support for the types of games I want to play.
@Ex-Call of Duty found new studio to make more FPS like we need that. I don’t think people are going to want to play with a big headgear thing on their head. I’m sure they will make a game with Ninja mutant Zombie Nazi Robotic terrorists for all the kiddies to play. Okay bored now next topic
@Adam West playing himself. I’ve been entertained by his role of being “himself” like in Family Guy, I appreciate when an actor embraces a role that made them famous, as opposed to being resentful about it.
@Civ Beyond Earth: I am looking forward to playing this game, I’ll probably be Harmony since you get Sand worms, I look forward to assimilating Dan with the Mother Brain Flower.
@Sony Remakes: Yeah I’m not sure about remakes for PS3, now if they remake PS1 or PS2 games that might interest me. Namely Suikoden, need more Suikoden.
@Spore: “Install spore and see if I like it again” See that’s just an incorrect statement, that game is completely unlikable.
@QotW: I think I am looking forward to Pillars of Eternity the most since it’s a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate of which I want more of. I also am looking forward to Civ Beyond Earth as well for MP with my Polycast/craft friends. My family is looking forward to LittlebigPlant 3 and my wife wants Sims 4 but I’m very cautious of it, I didn’t like the “buy next expansion pack merry go round” with sims 2 and 3. I have to admit I am tempted by the Dragon Age Inquisition as well, I really enjoy the open world gameplay and not being handheld or railroaded from point A to Z. I like taking my time and savoring the game.
Looks like Alphashard had a slow work day 😉 Good job with the comments!
@Sims2 – I never played the game as I’m not that interested in endless titles and I also hate interior design and decoration. However, I saw online somewhere that the Sims2 are being given out for free to anyone who has an Origins account and enters a special code in there. I’m not sure if it includes all the expansion packs or not. I redeemed the code and maybe one day I’ll look into that or have my wife try it out.
@Sony Remakes: I don’t think all the remakes are such a bad idea from a money making standpoint. They have the numbers and they probably see that a lot of people how didn’t own a PS3 jumped on the PS4 and they want to accommodate them by remaking some really great games (TLoU). As a PS3 owner since 2009, I managed to play through most of the recent hits so I don’t really care that much about those remakes.
Obviously, I would prefer to have new titles to play, especially new IPs, but I’m so far behind with my backlog, I don’t mind the ‘drought’ so much. I just finished Bioshock Infinite so that says something. On the other hand, I understand I might be the minority and there are thousands of gamers hungry for new and exciting experiences. Well, 2015 is the year to look forward to.
@QotW
Looking at the list of fall releases I don’t think there’s anything I’m particularly excited about. Maybe the Infamous DLC. I enjoyed the game and I liked the Fetch character so this could be cool. There’s also NHL15 – the first PS4/XBone title in the series. I might give it a go. Far Cry 4 had an interesting demo at E3 and people seem to be excited about it. I haven’t played any of the Far Cry games but I’m not sure I want another open world game from Ubisoft just yet.
By the way, Alphashard’s LittleBigPlant could be amazing 😉 What kind of plant are we talking about? Nuclear?
Hey Pawel the Ultimate edition give away does include all expansions and stuff packs.
I obviously did a typo and meant LittleBigPlanet 3.
Hey Alpha.
Sure I knew it was a typo but LittleBigPlant sounds so much cooler 🙂 Even though I really like platformers, I never got into LBP that much. I beat the Vita version but I didn’t spend endless hours playing user-generated levels.
Thanks about the Sims tip.