I've done 160 hours and am nowhere near finished what I wanted to do. I'll be a Field Commissar Silver by the end of the weekend and that isn't enough, believe me! I'm not quitting until I hit General. I will indeed, kick myself otherwise.
Lots of questions to answer. The thread was started because I wanted to know if my statement was generally agreed or disagreed with, it wasn't meant as a flame thread, but it did create 3 pages of replies so it wasn't a total failure.
My thoughts on the shortness of the game come from my past experiences playing online games, specifically FPS games. I played Quakeworld for around 6 years (By the way this was released in 1996 with a ranking system that recorded gamer stats, this was abandoned when the ranking system was overwhelmed), I played Counter Strike for around 3 years, I played Battlefield 2 for around 350 hours, I have played Battlefield 2142 for around 200 hours. So I suppose my view on game longevity doesn't match someone like BrKnPhoenix, yes most games are painfully short and boring, but online FPS games keep interest for much longer. If you need evidence, simply look at the QuakeWorld community, it had active servers and players for something like 8 years, look at Counter-Strike, released in 1999 and in May 2006 was still the most played/popular online FPS after 7 years. Both of these games had sequels that didn't really capture the fun of the original.
So you could say why am I talking about 'completing' and 'easy' with Battlefield where I played other online games for much longer and never got bored of them. I think it's because the creators of Battlefield have taken a conscious choice, they have decided to have a high turn over of games, one every 18 months or so I guess, and put goals into those games for players to 'complete' and keep their interest. That's fine, I personally think I would have got bored of Battlefield long ago without the reward aspect because parts of the gameplay are in my opinion average compared to other games. But the reward aspect needs to be balanced with the life of the game, I got Brigadier General yesterday after 190 hours, in my opinion this hasn't taken long enough. If you remove the reward aspect of the game by making it too easy I think you lose a really important part of the game, in BF 2142 this is more true because once you have enough rewards you have all the unlocks. Perhaps some people will tell me that they don't care about the reward aspect and actual in game shooting and tactics are what they enjoy, but I think for a pure contest of aim and tactics Quakeworld and Counter Strike are still kings among men. BF has lots of frills like the vehicles, the graphics and the environment, but I don't think those are the heart of any FPS game.
My thoughts on the shortness of the game come from my past experiences playing online games, specifically FPS games. I played Quakeworld for around 6 years (By the way this was released in 1996 with a ranking system that recorded gamer stats, this was abandoned when the ranking system was overwhelmed), I played Counter Strike for around 3 years, I played Battlefield 2 for around 350 hours, I have played Battlefield 2142 for around 200 hours. So I suppose my view on game longevity doesn't match someone like BrKnPhoenix, yes most games are painfully short and boring, but online FPS games keep interest for much longer. If you need evidence, simply look at the QuakeWorld community, it had active servers and players for something like 8 years, look at Counter-Strike, released in 1999 and in May 2006 was still the most played/popular online FPS after 7 years. Both of these games had sequels that didn't really capture the fun of the original.
So you could say why am I talking about 'completing' and 'easy' with Battlefield where I played other online games for much longer and never got bored of them. I think it's because the creators of Battlefield have taken a conscious choice, they have decided to have a high turn over of games, one every 18 months or so I guess, and put goals into those games for players to 'complete' and keep their interest. That's fine, I personally think I would have got bored of Battlefield long ago without the reward aspect because parts of the gameplay are in my opinion average compared to other games. But the reward aspect needs to be balanced with the life of the game, I got Brigadier General yesterday after 190 hours, in my opinion this hasn't taken long enough. If you remove the reward aspect of the game by making it too easy I think you lose a really important part of the game, in BF 2142 this is more true because once you have enough rewards you have all the unlocks. Perhaps some people will tell me that they don't care about the reward aspect and actual in game shooting and tactics are what they enjoy, but I think for a pure contest of aim and tactics Quakeworld and Counter Strike are still kings among men. BF has lots of frills like the vehicles, the graphics and the environment, but I don't think those are the heart of any FPS game.
Last edited by corce (2007-03-20 05:40:34)