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              <h5 align="right"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#00025E"><img src="../../images/icons/mail_final.jpg" width="192" height="243" align="left"><loonystart>Vol. 
                2, Issue 6<br>
                December 17, 1999<br>
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                <p align="center"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="3">The 
                  MailBag </font></i></font></b></p>

                <p align="center"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="6"> 
                  Issue 2.6</font></i></font></b></p>
                <p align="right"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Comments 
                  by Stephanie &quot;<a href="mailto:bobbi@loonygames.com">Bobbi</a>&quot; 
                  Bergman</font></p>
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              <p align="left"><b><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">On 
                those long games...</font></i></b></p>
              <table width="90%" border="0">
                <tr bgcolor="#D7B582"> 
                  <td> 
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Subject: 
                      </b>Response to &quot;games are too long&quot;... </font></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hey! I just recently 
                      finished reading Nick F.'s &quot;games are too damn long&quot; 
                      column and thought I'd chip in my few cents.</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm a bit of 
                      the exception in that I'll very rarely find a game that 
                      I think was too long. On the opposite side of the coin, 
                      if I game isn't especially interesting to begin with, I 
                      usually never get around to finding out whether or not it 
                      was too long. Certain games (such as Final Fantasy VII) 
                      are actually incredibly short unless you decide to go wandering 
                      around subplots aimlessly for a few dozen hours (gold chocobos, 
                      anyone?). Which is good considering the incredible lack 
                      of any kind of driving story or character development.Final 
                      Fantasy VIII, on the other hand, seemed to be the exact 
                      opposite to me. From personal experience, it seems players 
                      either love the game (myself and some friends) or can't 
                      stand it (other friends). I managed to play through the 
                      entire game in a little over thirty hours (without summoning 
                      a single GF, courtesy of some bleem! issues) and spent the 
                      next day in a state of depression that I wouldn't ever be 
                      able to see Squall and Rinoa and Quistis again.For other 
                      games, length isn't really an issue. Does it *honestly* 
                      matter whether you got to the end in Quake? Or Quake II? 
                      Admittedly, Shub &quot;Big Tub of Lard&quot; Niggroth (pardon 
                      the spelling) was intimidating and we've all wanted to telefrag 
                      someone in a single-player game, but it didn't matter. There 
                      was no question of the plot in Warcraft II or Starcraft. 
                      You could play and go for the occassion plot twist if you 
                      wanted to, but most people play the games because they enjoy 
                      playing the games.</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Role-playing 
                      games are a bit of a fine line in that, regardless of how 
                      long or short they are, some people will whine that they 
                      blazed through, others will argue that no-one needed the 
                      second disc at all, and there will be a precious few that 
                      wouldn't have it any other way. If you sympathize with the 
                      characters - Squall, for the chronically-depressed teenagers 
                      out there; Terra, for those that think their entire life 
                      has been for nothing; Cecil, for those who want to save 
                      the world - just as you might sympathize while reading a 
                      novel or watching a movie, the experience is amazing. If 
                      you don't - which says nothing about you one way or another 
                      - then so be it. I'm sure there is some game out there for 
                      you that will captivate you for a day straight and leave 
                      you weeping or laughing at the end.</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">If it's not the 
                      same as mine, all the better. Thanks for the article...</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">- Kyle Davis</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">[Wow. This turned 
                      out much longer than I had originally intended. Sorry. :) 
                      ]</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">For the record, 
                      I loved Quake, and was very proud of myself for finishing 
                      it. :)</font></i></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p></p>
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                  <td> 
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Subject: 
                      </b>Pad Happy </font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 
                      I couldn't agree more with your recent Pad Happy tirade 
                      against overly long games. That last game I finished was 
                      &quot;Return to Krondor&quot; - about twenty hours of fun. 
                      I look at the advertisements for games like &quot;Baldur's 
                      Gate&quot;, see claims like &quot;Over 100 hours of original 
                      gameplay&quot; and I do the math - Two to three hours a 
                      day for over a month, just to beat the game. If I skip a 
                      day or two, or god forbid try to read a book, watch TV, 
                      or live my life, those games will take far too long to beat.</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">What I don't 
                      get is that long games make poor business sense.</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Take Diablo 2 
                      as an example - instead of selling a 4 CD game for $50, 
                      Blizzard could break the game into four separate products, 
                      each taking a reasonably amount of time to beat, and each 
                      costing about $25 - about the price of a hardcover novel, 
                      and they get to sell four of them.</font></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm remiss to 
                      pay $50 for a game I won't have time to finish, but if each 
                      &quot;chapter&quot; of Diablo 2 came out every three months, 
                      not only might I finish it, I'd end up paying twice as much, 
                      which would make the game creators happier. (And we'd get 
                      the games sooner - apparantely Blizzard is done with chapters 
                      one and two of Diablo 2 - they could be making money on 
                      those two discs as I sit here.)</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It's like John 
                      Carmack said when he announced Quake 3 Arena - the iD artists 
                      hate that so many folks never finish the games, because 
                      if you don't finish, you don't see the work that went into 
                      the product. If I were a game designer who sweated blood 
                      over each level, I'd make damn sure most of my customers 
                      got to that level.</font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">---matt wecksell 
                      </font></p>
                    <p></p>
                    <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">That&#146;s 
                      true, but then again, do you REALLY want a game that can 
                      be finished in 2 days? (which was how long it took me to 
                      beat Quake 3, by the way.) People play games like Ultima 
                      Online for years, I myself played on one MUD for 4 years, 
                      and I&#146;ve been on another for 3 years now. Single player 
                      games are more appealing to the mainstream, so wouldn&#146;t 
                      it follow that someone would try to recreate the multi-player 
                      experience...hundreds of hours of gameplay...for single 
                      player? It would be a hit, wouldn&#146;t it? </font></i></p>
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