Time commitments to some games are just crazy!

I've just been looking through an online guide to levelling up fast in warcraft. The author claims that you can build a high level in character in only a few weeks by simply playing 20 hours at weekends and a couple of hours a night in the week, so let's assume a couple is 3, not 2 since this is an MMORPG, you've got fifteen hours in the week, 20 at the weekend. So ur 35 hours a week playing one game?

Instead of 35 hours a week on warcraft for six weeks, imagine spending that time on blitz programming, you'd have several simple games written by that time, or the foundations of a full size complex game.

actually on this topic. The first player to reach level 70 on the new WoW expansions already happened, a french player did it in 28 hours straight witht eh help of loads of other players keeping him alive while he took on the highest level monsters. Apparently he planned his sleep patterns on the days before to allow him to stay up for this length of time without getting to knackered.

I don't like MMORPGs but I do like single player offline RPGs. I recently read a post by some guy who claimed that he was seventy hours into Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2, and thought that this was a good thing. Personally, I'd much prefer a focused, streamlined RPG that can be completed in 25 hourse to some 40+ hour behemoth that I will never finish. Ironically, I'd say that most games these days have maybe a few hours of real gameplay, and the rest of their length is made up of filler and tedious repetition - this goes doubly for MMORPGs.

It seems like there is no middle ground these days; games seem to either be bloated and never ending or faddy, episodic or excessively shallow things with a couple of hours of real gameplay.

I agree completely, I loved the old lucas arts adventure games cause they kept you hooked on the story line, 95% of games like Wow are simply grinding (killing hundreds of wolves trying to collect items that sometimes get dropped). Or travelling long distances in the game for no good reason.

some of the final fantasy games fall foul of this type of gameplay too, I remember watching my housemate play FFX a few years back and it was litereally taking her hours to kill one boss, simply by pressing X over and over again to keep the attack going, hardly any skill involved and so repetative.

> Instead of 35 hours a week on warcraft for six weeks,
> imagine spending that time on blitz programming,
> you'd have several simple games written by that time,
> or the foundations of a full size complex game.

Well I've been saying that for years :) You either play games (a lot) or you make games.

I'm probably not the only one who aims for the coding but trips and ends up playing games. (I'm wasting my life!!!!)

heh, I'm the otherway round. I switch on my PC in the evening and think, "Right I'm going to play a game" and end up coding or doing some work or research...

I used to play games loads but now I make them. I still do find time to play a few Indie games of course, but I'm not touching an RPG until I know I can devote time to it. I also agree that it's better to have a shorter RPG than one that takes ages due to repitition or whatever.

heh, I've done that - loaded a game for "inspiration" or "research", but ended up just enjoying it and forgetting what I was meant to be doing!

yeah, I'm meant to writing an RPG and using WoW as "inspiration"

That's gotta the worst combo I've ever heard lol. Or you could have said "writing an MMORPG and playing Oblivion".

Yah i'm not a big fan of MMORPGs type stuff...a while back my coworkers convinced me to join in and play City of Villians....and before I realized it, I was litterally living and thinking City of Villians for 2 months straight (or rather whenever i had free time). Then when my girlfriend began bitching about it was when I finally came back to my senses and realized I was too addicted to this and needed a break.

But yah...the determination and commitment to constantly level up does take up a lot of your time....

"I remember watching my housemate play FFX a few years back and it was litereally taking her hours to kill one boss"

I hate people who play RPGs like that. Much more fun to be under-leveled and beat the boss by actually fighting and using tactics. Not just whacking at the thing cause you are 20 levels too high.

Yeah FFX was a warning bell to me (to not get addicted again) as I clocked up around 100 hours on it. Lots of repeating the same bit after you play for an hour then die, back to the save point, then repeat. GAH!

I put in about 150 hours, getting everything. Mainly cause I was broke and bored and couldn't afford any new games. I normally just beat a game and then go get anything that struck my fancy along the way. I don't typically get 'everything' in a game Or hang around to level 100 or any of that crap.