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How Long Should Games Last
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@Third-Eye I don’t think we were the only ones who felt like we were close to a natural ‘end’. We set out to tell a story about the return of magic, and 2.5 years in, we’d definitely hit the ‘okay, magic has returned-- now what?’ stage.
And some of that was fun to play, but there are also just big structural changes that are hard to really play through in a fun, cooperative way. So I think for a lot of players, especially those who’d been around for quite some time (we had a pretty good number who’d been there 2+ years), it felt right.
The people who were most disappointed, at least where I could see, were folks who’d joined fairly recently. A lot of folks mourned the end (I mean, I definitely did, and it was my decision!), but there was also a lot of great brainstorming and wrapping up of stories and hitting marks people wanted to hit but might not have if we were still going without an end date.
I still play around with the idea of a time skip sequel game, because I really like the setting and what we built, but I think that if one happens, we need some distance first.
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@Tat said in How Long Should Games Last:
A lot of folks mourned the end (I mean, I definitely did, and it was my decision
I was just openly crying several times at the end. I thought I was done and then Kez hit me at the end of the last Khepri/Erik scene. shake fist
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@tsar said in How Long Should Games Last:
@Tat said in How Long Should Games Last:
A lot of folks mourned the end (I mean, I definitely did, and it was my decision
I was just openly crying several times at the end. I thought I was done and then Kez hit me at the end of the last Khepri/Erik scene. shake fist
I still haven’t read it.
Can’t.
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I’m realizing that I can’t sustain a character without social connections, like, I need stuff to talk about but more crucially, I need characters to TALK ABOUT IT with. Also I hate random social RP (the ‘roulette’) so I’m basically fucking myself over constantly.
I LIKE playing for 2-3 years, but lately I’ve had trouble making it past the 3 month mark.
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@Snackness I feel this real hard.
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@Snackness Yeah, I totally agree with this. For me, a character is often done when their close IC connections dry up. I can refresh them a time or two, but after that it starts to feel real forced and artificial and without those core friendships/relationships, it’s hard to keep on.
I like social RP roulette, and it’s still a thing that’s hard sometimes, just in terms of consistency.
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@Snackness said in How Long Should Games Last:
I’m realizing that I can’t sustain a character without social connections, like, I need stuff to talk about but more crucially, I need characters to TALK ABOUT IT with.
I think this has been the most crucial piece of how I’ve stuck with Ember for three years. I have a very stable long-term “inner circle” player group with Ember, and a huge part of what makes me excited about seeing where Ember’s story goes is seeing the stories of my friends in that group and what we bring to one another’s stuff. Our excitement for one another is symbiotic.
I think that it’s why I’ve played Katarina for over two years now and at times still feel like I’m figuring out what I’m trying to do. Katarina has a much more free-flowing, looser, far less intimate cast of fellow players around her and while I am very excited about Katarina’s budding Paul Katreides messiah complex, I don’t necessarily have anyone right now with whom there’s been an organic growth of that same kind of “our excitement for each other’s stories fuels each other” on the same level that Ember’s little player group does. There have been people in the past, but Katarina’s just had bad luck as far as those people sticking around the game long-term. If I was to be asked, “can you take Katarina into the end zone and wrap up her story in three months,” right now I wouldn’t feel like it would necessarily break some rhythm I was keeping with another player or a group of players, if I was to bring Katarina in for a landing.
(edited because some sentences were bugging me. Also @Tat is correct about it getting harder each time after you lose those connections and try to reset/refresh.)
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@Tat said in How Long Should Games Last:
@Snackness Yeah, I totally agree with this. For me, a character is often done when their close IC connections dry up.
it me.
And if I can’t establish connections in the first place, I’m just dead in the water.
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I don’t know if I have a sweet spot. Sometimes I’m done with a character in 3 months, other times it’s 6 months, but I don’t think it in me to sustain a character longer than a year anymore. At least not without variety, because playing the same person day in and day out bores me very quickly. That’s probably why the idea of an anthology game appeals to me, because I get to ‘mix it up’ every few months.
I do think games tend to either end too soon or linger too long, and the latter is due to people wanting to hold onto their characters even if the story is already told. I do wish games would have more of a definitive “end” though, whether that’s meteors falling or waking up and realizing you’re just a character on a MUSH or writing your characters off into the sunset with pretty vigs, whatever makes sense for the game.
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@bear_necessities said in How Long Should Games Last:
sunset with pretty vigs,
lmao read that as wigs
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@tsar wear wigs in your vigs and ride off into the sunset on pigs!
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@bear_necessities said in How Long Should Games Last:
@tsar wear wigs in your vigs and ride off into the sunset on pigs!
don’t threaten me with a good time
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I am definitely a long-hauler with an aversion to time skips, though I suspect I’d feel differently if I knew such a thing were coming. I also tend to play one game during these long hauls and rarely do other games at the same time, or if I do? It’s a short months-long stint before I go focus back on the ‘main game.’ Maybe that’s because the few games I have played, have just been ones that lasted for years.
I think I made Kindre on NC in 1994/1995, having tried some smaller Pern games before that. I played NC until 2001, when friends there drug me over to Firan. I was on firan from 2001 until maybe 2013? I did idle on firan for awhile to play Star Wars: Sagas somewhere in there. I quit MU’g “FOR GOOD” in like 2014, until my friend Sam pinged me in May of 2016 to check out Arx. I adore Sam and had ZERO intention on MU’g again, but welp - here I am in 2022 still playing Ida there.
So I guess if a game grabs me, I plan on playing for years, unless I decide to take my toys and leave for whatever reason. I may last longer due to having the crafter tendency, as it gives me something creative to still do even if the game or rp is in a lull for me. I’m also getting kinda long in the tooth and if Arx ends or whatever, I might not jump back in. THIS TIME FOR REAL
she/her, them/they - not super particular
I have been here the whole time
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@Tori said in How Long Should Games Last:
I’m also getting kinda long in the tooth
we’re almost the same age so HUSH YOU
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@Tori said in How Long Should Games Last:
I might not jump back in. THIS TIME FOR REAL
that’s what we all say!!!
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@KarmaBum said in How Long Should Games Last:
@Tori said in How Long Should Games Last:
I’m also getting kinda long in the tooth
we’re almost the same age so HUSH YOU
I’m always POSITIVE I am ten years older than everyone because it’s like y’all started MU’g at 13 and I didn’t start til I was 23 lol
she/her, them/they - not super particular
I have been here the whole time
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@Tori I am not sure NC existed when I was 13. Certainly, I didn’t have internet to get to it! I am 5 years older than everyone else, so you are probably 5 years older than me.
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Raph Koster of Ultima Online fame once did a study on this which I got to nose around in because I was staff on the MUD he ran at the same time.
Most players give a game three months. If it hasn’t hooked them solidly by then, they leave.
A great deal of players last eight months. By then, they’ve run out of steam, they’ve done the things, and told their story. If you haven’t managed to nail them to the floor by then, they’re moving on.
And a far smaller group find a home and don’t leave until the last admin turns the lights off.
Personally, I plan for belonging in the last group when I play a game but I have often been the first. If I’m still there after three months I’m there until the ship sinks.
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I would say anywhere from six months to 3 years for most games to fully play out whatever idea staff started with. After three years, it feels like most games get a) bloated with PCs that are too powerful and entrenched to be adequately challenged without upending the board, and b) the plot is either completed, or has been dragged out so slow that it’s hard to stay engaged with.
I sort of wish more games went in with a campaign mindset of ‘this is the story we’ll tell’ and when that’s done, either tell a different story with different characters in the same setting (timeskip, sure, but also could just be on a different part of the continent, or looking a different faction of characters, etc. - I’d love to see a game, for instance, that told the story of two wars with one as the PCs as the heroes of one side, and the next with the PCs as the heroes of the other side) or look for a different story and setting entirely.
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@Pyrephox said in How Long Should Games Last:
I’d love to see a game, for instance, that told the story of two wars with one as the PCs as the heroes of one side, and the next with the PCs as the heroes of the other side
Would play.
