Mass flop is 20 hours long, deal with it.

TC managed to churn up 8 pages of failboat. Congrats.D0013ER

Thanks for the compliment.

1- I didn't say side quests are a bad thing, but it is not an excuse to cover the main problem, which is the longevity of the game, it is short with the addition of side quests, let's say all the side quests are between 5-8 hours long, add it to the main story, it is only20-30 hours max which is short for an RPG.

I agree that side quests are an important feature to make RPGs outstanding, but it doesn't mean it will surpass the main story, what lemmings are saying is beyond believing, why is it called a "side" quest?

Btw, I know what is the meaning of character development.

credibilityzero

Mass effect does not take as long to finish as other RPGs. I wonder if this makes it shorter or not. What percentage of an RPG's 60 hours are taken by menu selection screens? What percentage is taken by actual storytelling?

A side quest is called the way it's called because it's parallel to the quest that follows the canonical story - what you would call the "main quest". Side does not necessarily (and indeed, in a real RPG should not) mean secondary or backup - it just means it doesn't move in series to the "main" one. It is these side quests what make an RPG an RPG, moreso than a static main quest- actually, they could be considered to offset the fact that a static main quest would immediately disqualify a game from being an RPG.

And regarding character development, I did not mean to imply you don't know what it means. I just wished to clarify that I didn't mean that sidequests were important because they were a tool to level up your character.

2- No, just no, Im not sounding stupid or like a wise man, I only replayed with that answer because I don't want to answer his question because he didn't ask the right way.

A true RPG IMO, is role playing which means turn playing not decision playing, it has to be some kind of turn based system in it, well written that you most see, there is no different paths,the JRPG waywould make the story more compelling, alot more fulfilling, it doesn't have anything to do with decision to ruin the plot, to ruin the writers main plot, even some WRPGs didn't have different paths and it was great.

It has more character development more than Bioware games, every character has a past, has a background, the main character is not created/customized which make it more memorable, it is great to have 2-3 big decision making, but it is not great to have it in every natural conversation, there will be no motion captures, there will be no acting which make you believe every character more.

Look at a game like Xenogears, it is one of the best RPGs Square ever made, yet it doesn't have to make interactive decisions in the game, as linear as it gets, story wise, it was one of the best compelling stories I've ever experienced, his past was mentioned in a way so amazing, the combat system was great, it has combat system which was one of the best, if you have played this game, you will know how the developers was focused in the main story, it didn't have side quests, only the main story make you satisfied, maybe I don't remember if there is side quests or not, even so, only the main story is 60 hours, and it was fulfilling, nothing boring in it, it has also one of the most complex love stories, the story in general was complex too.

If for any reason FFXIII is short, I will admit that square-enix is becoming weak, I will not say anything to justify the game, if an RPG is shorter than regular RPGs, it means, it is weaker.

Im sure I'll be disappointed if FFXIII don't last 40 hours at least with the main story.

credibilityzero

Congratulations, the vast majority of this post either describes a subset of adventure games or are nowhere close to being inherently important to what an "RPG" entails. I know you mean this is what "RPG" means to you, but focusing on having your own definition of a word (in this case an acronym) that markedly deviates from it's true meaning basically makes it impossible to further communications. What your "definition" of an RPG did was akin to me suddenly saying "A bed must be fruity, tasty, with a wrinkly orange colored skin, and should grow on trees". I can say that's a bed 'till I'm blue in the mouth, and say than in my experience that is what makes a bed, but it doesn't make me any right.

Still, going point by point:

Turns are hardly necessary for roleplaying. Turn-based gameplay is based on the old PnP RPGs, where realtime was simply impossible to handle -too many stat checks, too many people trying to do things at the same time. When CRPGs came, it was no longer necessary at all, but was maintained as a concession to the "traditional" way of doing it.

"role playing which means turn playing not decision playing. That sentence is absolutely, completely and unarguably wrong. "Role" in roleplaying means being a part of the process - this should imply that you are part of the shaping of the process, otherwise you're nothing but a bit part. In no point is "turn based" expressed or implied in there.

As for the story - you're making an unfair comparison here: You're comparing a good jRPG story with a poor RPG story. A story which you can affect can and should make much more of an impact within you assuming both have the same level of quality. In a good RPG, the story should be as flexible as possible, and any branches you take should lead to interesting situations. While replicating a reality (either this one from another perspective or another one) is too big to be in the scope of any game -computer or paper-, the generation of a believable environment is necessary, where cause and effect go well beyond "if you do right then you advance else reload game". It is true that some wRPGs do not have choice, and that would make them fall on the wrong end of my argument here -conversely Chrono Trigger is a rather decent example of roleplaying for it's time and system, and it's a jRPG.

Character customization can go either way, and I really have the impression you don't even try with those. A well generated character can be as memorable or more than your random stock cliché ridden hero. After all, it's yours. Still, you can get a true rpg experience without this option, so it's not very important to either your or my argument.

It seems you're basically a jRPG fan. A quick heads-up: The majority of the jRPG genre has nothing to do with RPGs. It's the single biggest misnomer in the history of gaming. That does not mean they're bad games -it just means they're as far from being what the words in RPG entail as, say, Halo or Super Mario Galaxy are. Xenogears is a great game, but it's a very, very poor RPG. This is not an attack on the game's quality: After all, Mass Effect is a terrible dating sim.

3- Ok, my bad, 20 is the main story, with side quests, it would be 5-8 hours moreaccording to who are playing it, some guys also said it is 20 with everythinghe/she did, I'll go with 25-30 with side quests, which is way short for an RPG.

Side quests is no excuse, that's my point.

credibilityzero

But side quests are, in the context of a wRPG -and arguably, in the context of any RPG- an integral part of the experience, even if it's possible to ignore them.

[QUOTE="credibilityzero"]

[QUOTE="SpruceCaboose"]And Ratchet and Clank is less than 20, as is Uncharted, and Heavenly Sword. Point?Juggernaut140

My point? It is an RPG, RPGs last at least 40 hours with main story.

Yeah, JRPG which have almost no side quests