This topic does apply to Bethesda games, but I wasn't really sure which section to put it in.

Anyways, whenever I'm browsing the forums, I usually see a few people making posts that talk about how they've grown bored of Oblivion/Fallout/et cetera, and they usually say that the game developers should have included more content in the game, and that perhaps the developers were lazy and made a short game. These people also mention that they have played the game for only 150 hours, which is much too short.

I really have to question if these people are really thinking straight. Honestly, the majority of video games have a single player campaign that lasts about 6-12 hours, and then it's over, and there's really no incentive to play through the game again. A "long" game is 20 hours of gameplay. RPG Developers like Bethesda know that the majority of people playing their games will probably only play through the main quest before putting the game down, and the other 130 hours or so of gameplay will be forgotten. A small minority of gamers will actually spend over 100 hours with a single player game, and the gamers who do enjoy the rest of the content really should cherish every second of it. Anybody would become bored after doing the same thing for 100 hours, and games are no different.

This also applies to multiplayer games. A current issue I'm seeing is that many Call of Duty players are getting bored of Black Ops. Some claim that the game is bad or that Treyarch just can't make good games, but seriously, the Call of Duty franchise has remained mostly the same since CoD4. Players have basically been playing the same game for countless hours of the past 4 years, and now they're angry because they've finally grown bored of doing the same thing over and over.

Really, these people have nobody to blame other than themselves. Can anybody really give a valid reason to complain about something like this?

It is most difficult to satisfy those who are already satisfied but demand more.
And of course, when talking about long franchises like Fallout, it's difficult to satisfy anyone.

And it's just plain fun to complain. I guess it makes you feel superior.

What is important is length of game multiply by the intensity of the game play.

Take "The Witcher". You might have just 50-70h of gameplay but the intensity is so much that you won't forget any minute of it.
Far different is Fallout3 where you spend hours exploring boring expenses of "wasteland" with repeating encounters with supermutants, ghouls or raiders. I can tell you that there are 1000 of places I forgot in Fallout.

Oblivion is a bit different. It has a very repeating aspects but the landscapes are worth of it.

I think the frustration with CoD is more based on the fact that both Infinity Ward and Treyarch have failed utterly at making a balanced online experience since CoD4 (which would have been perfect without the M16).

I don't think people tend to apply the same 'hours played' criteria to multi player as they do with single player. I judge multiplayer by the amount of fun I'm having no matter how long I'm playing it, whereas I will tend to judge single player games partly on the amount of content I get for my money and, in the case of RPGs, partly on the amount of scope there is to make my own fun aside from the story missions. I got well over 600 hours clocked on Oblivion but on Fallout 3 I think I hit total of roughly 200 hours before I felt I'd exhausted the game, but in no way did I feel that was too short.

Some people like to be able to play the same thing for hundreds of hours. *Raises hand.*

I agree that 150 hours is a long time for a single campaign or character or whatever, but I'd rather have a game that lasts longer than that. Replayability is largely ignored by developers (especially of RPGs) and that svcks.

That said, I do think Oblivion and Fallout 3 were too short. Neither lasted me anywhere near 150 hours. Morrowind lasted me years of my life. Partly because it was so fun to play and replay - there'd always be stuff to do - and partly because I had obsessive character creation disorder...

"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little."
- Epicurus

100 hours is a long game to me, and I don't think I've ever put 150+ hours into a single game without multiple replays or something that wasn't an MMO. Like I said in my thread about game length, I tend to lose interest in games around the 40-50 hour mark, regardless of how much I enjoy the gameplay or story. Even in a bunch of my favorite games there's a point where I'd just like 'em to end before they drag on and lower my opinion of the experience as a whole.

For example, Final Fantasy IX takes me about 40 hours to beat just focusing mainly on advancing the story, 65ish doing a handful of sidequests. That's about the perfect length IMO. At 40 hours the story has played out without too much pointless filler. It hasn't had to repeat itself too many times, drilling the same themes into your head over and over. The adventure began, there were twists and turns along the way, and it was done, with (IMO) enough side content to keep you busy.

Games like Oblivion or Fallout, I just can't spend the kind of time some people do (partly because I have very mixed feelings about some of the gameplay and story aspects). Without mods I simply cannot believe there's enough content to last the hundreds of hours people pour into them. I think I clocked in about 60 hours each doing everything I could find. I'm sure there's a decent amount I missed since I was only keeping track of progress via Achievements. As I described above, after those 60 hours I was burnt out and I still never wanna touch either game again. Not sure what got into me when I first played 'em, but I think if I hadn't overdone it I'd feel differently about them now.

IIRC, I clocked ~80 hrs for FO3, and ~300 for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l6dJifZoaI.



I think they are blaming the developers for not giving them something new. They have achieved everything possible, broke all challenges, but they are addicted to it, and they wanted it to last.



And at the end of the game, I cried (well... almost) because it ended, not because of the ending.

This can be remedied with many, many replays.

Well i get that you sometimes get bored of a game after playing it for a large amount of time, same thing happened to me with Oblivion "alot".

But i always came back, cause who am i kidding it is the best game ever....

Now i think i have about 550 hours in Oblivion :toughninja:

Hey, I've played pokemon gold version for 430+ hours, and it's still fun.

If i got 150 hours out of a Bethesda game I would be very dissappointed, right now I have around 1,500 in Oblivion.

Heh, I have 1,000 or so hours in Fallout 3 and have completed the entire main quest (Broken Steel incl.) twice.

1500 hours is ludicrous. I'm guessing that less than one percent of one percent (.001%) of Oblivion players have logged over 1000 hours on the game. Really, if you're disappointed by a 150 hour game, then you are spoiled. Was it 1500 hours of Vanilla or did you have unofficial mods?

My magic number for a main quest is 17 hours, although I wasn't disappointed by Shivering Isles' 14 hours. If it's much less than 10 hours, I feel a little short-changed, but the importance is in making the time good - I'd rather that Bioshock, for instance, had been shorter with less repetition. Oblivion's main quest was about the right length.

In terms of total game content, I very rarely put more than 60 hours into a game. Morrowind is pretty much unique in clocking up over 200 hours. I think I've probably put about 150 hours into Oblivion across various savegames, and given that I haven't done every quest in the game, it tells me that there's more than enough there. Even doing a lot of the sidequests, I've only clocked up about 35 hours each in Mass Effect 1 & 2 - or 50 hours in the first game if you count my initial playthrough on the 360.

I've been playing Oblivion for over two years, so I don't see how it is short and I've gotten more than 150 hours out of it. I haven't been playing Fallout 3 quite as long, but again, I've gotten more than 150 hours of it. I've gotten more gameplay time out of Oblivion and Fallout 3 than any other games... Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind included, so I really have no clue how anyone can say either one was too short, but whatever. Oblivion and Fallout 3 are technically smaller than Morrowind and, especially, Daggerfall, but they were both still incredibly long and, unlike the other two I mentioned, they seemed to contain enough unique content that I've never gotten permanently bored with either one. Of course, that's just my opinion, but I fail to see how either are too short and what I've really enjoyed about them is that their content is generally pretty interesting, which I would rather have over another hundred or two hours or so of repetitive content, which I found Morrowind and, especially, Daggerfall to be oversaturated with.

Hmm, I found Oblivion to have a quite good replay value. First time I got through it, I only did some quests, then second time around I did them again and even more some. I've been playing it since 07, and only last year, I learned there was a quest that was started at the Bloated Float in the Waterfront district.

There are plenty of people who have logged in that amount of hours if not more from a Bethesda game.

For Oblivion I have probably around 300 hours on PC and the rest on 360.

How do you know this to be true? Was there some sort of study that determined this?

Bethesda's RPGs are famous for providing hundreds of hours of gameplay with one playthrough. If you just play the main quest, it only lasts around 15-20 hours. I would be incredibly shocked if the majority of people who played Oblivion only beat the main quest and stopped playing.

In particular, the past several Bethesda RPGs are designed get the PC involved in various side quests. It would be very difficult to solely complete the main quest without getting involved in a number of other quests.

I've played a few hundred hours of Oblivion and haven't even gotten around to finishing the main quest yet.

My first playthrough of New Vegas lasted 160+ hours.

I probably have 1,000+ on Morrowind in my life (probably a lot more, I'm just embarrassed to say), 150 on Oblivion. From that perspective, can I complain about Oblivion? I don't...I just stick to Morrowind without commenting on Oblivion.

Majority of players don't play real RPGs, so I agree with the OP. Studies? I only look at the market and sales figures.

If a game lasts 30 hours, I'm satisfied. :shrug: Longer than this (we're talking about linear games) and I get bored. Exceptions: PES 2011, some non-linear sandbox games (with Morrowind being the game I've played most, around 100 hours I reckon).

^^^^
That basically sums up that statement. A very small percentage of players will play the game after the main quest, and these players are generally the ones who register on the forums.