This week the guys discuss Electronic Arts soccer, Far Cry 7, Vampire Survivors, Sony vs. Gaming Heads, Starfield, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, The Talos Principle 2, and Unity getting games canceled.
Let us know what you think.
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?
We’re pretty beat up this week, sickness is running wild so Don and Derrick blow through some news items while Jennifer remains offline being ill. We’ve shortened the episode so that we can cover everything we have with enthusiasm before falling over in an ill stupor. The news includes three items:
The gaming flashback this week is DuckTales for the NES. This weeks Question of the Week, put on your game designer hat and tell us what you think would be a great game design. Would it be more social network gaming, casual gaming or something more complex?
This week the gang reacts to Ubisoft’s pseudo-E3 presentation showing off their upcoming games, including Watch Dogs Legion, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World: The Game: The Remaster, and Riders Republic, and Yves Guillemot’s strange pre-show video.
Other news items include:
Let us know what you think.
