Games Should Be Shorter and Easier

[Carnevil]

You can also break the content up in the menus for more 'bite-sized' gaming (though it's really just an aesthetic measure)

Part of the reason for the whole episode system in Wrack is to essentially do that: Break a complete gaming experience into pieces about as long as a movie (though Wrack episodes have ended up being longer) so that you could sit down and play through an entire episode in a sitting - and hopefully REPLAY it multiple times. I don't know how much people would actually do that nowadays with so much else to do (and a lot of people seem to be unwilling to replay through something like Wrack, which is pretty sad because it's loads of fun), but that was certainly the idea behind episodes.

And actually, playing through Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 is what prompted me to write that post in the first place. Their length is such a goddamn contrivance - there's so much padding it's ridiculous, and I hate it. I think people's time is valuable, and it shouldn't be wasted on boring mechanics to make the game take more time to complete. It doesn't make the game any more fun - it just makes it more annoying and gives them something to brag about in terms of hours typically required to complete it (which in and of itself is just silly). Wrack doesn't do anything of the sort. We're trying to make every second of the game fun, and feel that there's more than enough content there to keep people entertained for a long time without having to do anything artificial to extend its length.

[SweatyGremlinsClub]

Yeah FFXIII was a real oddity, there made some really bad design decisions; for example the overdrive meter, it implies that as you fill the meter your characters do more damage, but the reality is that your damage output is gimped at the begginging of each battle, not doing proper damage until you fill the meter (which turns each battle into a grind). I played FFVI alongside FFXIII and the speed at which FFVI (a game from 1994) moved through battles etc. was well over double. I think I put 15-20 hours into FFXIII, then as you said, realized my time is actually valuable so I stopped lol.

Modern FPS seem to have a similar problem, the player moves slowly and has to sit through so many scripted sequences.

[Micha]

I have quite some 50€ games that I never finished. I didn't think: Enough of this game now, the game is too long, I want something else. I just came to a place in the game where I thought: Not now, I continue tomorrow. The next day I started at the same place and thought: Not now, maybe tomorrow. The next day I forgot about it.

In FPS games this stopping place is usually a scene where I keep dying over and over again. After each death I get 1 minute of frustrating gameplay, then a 1 minute loading screen.

So if you want the player to see the ending screen, design a game that keeps him playing. See player death as an important game element and design it to be fun, not a punishment the player has to go through for making a mistake. Don't make the player paranoid and have him quicksave every minute. Keep the flow!

Breaking the game down in episodes is a good thing. I didn't see the doom2 and quake2 ending very often, but I finished the doom1 and quake1 episodes often. I'd say the best episode length is 6 maps + 1 secret map, like in Q1. The inexperienced player should take max. 15 minutes for 1 map, the experienced player should be able to do it in 3 minutes. Episodes also means that the player has to find all the weapons again, which is fun.

[SiC]

Death and getting hit not being a punishment is not an improvement. Not for me anyway.
People have tried making getting hit less frustrating and that is why we now have health regeneration in practically every shooter, which for me totally sucks. You get a pad on the back saying 'it's ok son, try again, no biggie', and people can get away with everything.
Most shooters now have a cover-system too ofcourse which adds insult to injury, because almost every one of them degrades into a game of whack-a-mole where it is near damn impossible to die. Unless you fucking suck, which is what most devs nowadays assume because their game was designed around mass appeal, meaning that you and your grandmother should be able to sit down together and finish a game.

Now health regeneration was also designed to make sure there was less back-tracking through maps to find health and armor pickups, and as such to be an improvement to gamedesign.
Unfortunately it backfires because as I said above it throws challenge out the window and spits after it. The solution is better map design and imho Wrack does that well (from the playtests I've done before the game was released, I have no experience of the new map or the updates to the existing ones), where players return to the start of a map through a natural flow, going a circle as it were, without walking all the way back through parts of the map now filled with dead monsters.

And now I'm gonna do a bit of barking up the wrong tree here, because I'm me and the subject is like pandora's box to me.
See, the wrong tree part is where I say I generally don't like shooters like Wrack, and the only reason I ever tried it was because my best friend is working on the game (hi Rulero! I know you are going to enjoy this and facepalm at the same time going 'fuck, not again' in equal measure).
In fact, the games I like are tooth and nails hardcore tactical shooters like the old school Rainbow Six, Hidden and Dangerous 1/2, Operation Flashpoint: CWC, SWAT 3/4, Red Orchestra and the ArmA series. And in these games backtracking is non-existant because when you get hit, you die. Unless ofcourse you are hit in the arms in legs, which result in lasting injuries which can deny you the ability to sprint or severely fuck with your aiming.
(That's why my friend valued my opinion on this game: I am unbiased to the genre and do not succumb to hype about the games in it. I can remain very objective that way)

Now that genre is, with the exception of the ArmA series, completely dead, and that is down to developers deciding that games should be easier. So they added a shiny button that sticks you to walls looking away from the enemy (smart move douche) while still being able to look around the corner, and then decided that hey, grandma still can't win this game, lets give her her health back if she gets hit. Oh, and if a team member dies, here's a magical syringe that grants you everlasting life.

Now you might think that a game as punishing as what I described earlier (1 hit kills, mission-long lasting disabilities, permanent character deaths) are not fun but there I disagree completely.
To me it adds a sense of dread and tension, and you start thinking about when to move, and how to move. When you figure out the tactical way to move (how to enter a room being an example, how to ascend a stairwell properly another) you start to realise that hey, I died because I made a mistake. And mistakes can be corrected. And in tactical situations, both in true tactical shooters as in real life, there are a hundred ways to do something right, and a hundred ways to do something wrong. That keeps me engaged and replaying a game forever, IF ofcourse enemies are randomly placed throughout the map each time (something which the original Ghost Recon unfortunately failed to do, but which keeps Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear ever fresh).
And though Rulero despises tactical realism-based shooters in general, that even kept him wanting to play Rogue Spear when he was over at my place, and it was these aspects of the game that made him literally jump out of the seat every time he got shot.
It added spice to the experience, while death is meaningless in so many other games which keeps them utterly bland and forgettable.

Ofcourse it is not only hard consequences for your actions or failings that turns people off, there is also the image that a tactical shooter must be slow by necessity.
And while that might be true for a game like ArmA, that is equally untrue for a game like SWAT 4, where lightning speed is of the essence. Your ability to enter a room quickly and in a proper tactical manner is absolute key to both your survival and that of the hostages and suspects (remember, SWAT is a life-saving force, hence every kill you need to make because you lost control for that split second is a failure). Speed and agression is what wins the day there every time, and the lack thereof what kills you.
I've seen clans playing through a map that in single player with AI teammates lasts for nearly 20 minutes, blitzing their way through in a few minutes. No sooner had they neutralized a room and handcuffed every suspect than the team had already stacked up the door and the flashbang was flying into the new room. They simply did not stop, they were a raging machine.

Anyway, I'm getting more and more off topic, but that's basically my take on games needing to be easier.

EDIT:
One last thing. The one thing that stops me from playing most games is bossfights. If I can't get through them in a single run and I have to go through another 10 minute encounter trying to defeat a single fucking guy I just throw up my hands in disgust and turn the game off, usually never to boot it up again.

As to game length, I don't think a long game is necessarily bad.
What counts is what the developer manages to do with that playtime. Filler content with meaningless encounters get old fast.
You can look at RPG's as an example. I could create an RPG that lasts for over 200 hours to finish, but if every quest is a 'kill 10 wolves' or a 'fetch me this object' quest then I will never ever fucking finish that game.
Dragon Age: Origins however is a game that managed to keep me engrossed throughout almost the entire experience (with the exception of the Dwarven city) which lasted for over 80 hours for me, because you had interesting and meaningful story twists, character advancements, interesting tactical engagements, etc. taking over from eachother constantly, giving you something new in a different department of the game at near perfect timing.

[insightguy]

Im gonna pitch in my 2 cents here:
I never usualy finish a game if for 2 personal reasons that may or may not apply to you guys.
1.fear of losing its fun: most games i have played games that are nice but lose replayability after finishing. So I stop playing so i can reserve the fun for future use.
2.lack of mods: if i do finish a game, i usualy look for the presence of any good modding community. It helps 8n the replay and comeback value.

EDIT: One last reason why i never usualy finish a game is because i only have one chance to play it to judge. If i dont like the 1st run then i wont finish it.

[FDA Approved]

I think shortening the game is just a cop out. It's also robbing the people who do play out games to their full extent.

Honestly I think the only way for games to have any real longevity these days is to either have, incredibly open ended gameplay(see bethesda titles), multiplayer aspects of some sort, or both.

I know you don't plan on doing multiplayer, but I think that's the only way this game could have a very long life span. There will be those who love it, and play it all the way through, and replay it often. But a lot of people will start playing it and eventually peter out.

[Xao]

Honestly I think the only way for games to have any real longevity these days is to either have, incredibly open ended gameplay(see bethesda titles), multiplayer aspects of some sort, or both.

i would argue that there are cases where that isn't all the factors, especially for speedruns, mutliple classes to play, or randomly generated content, just for examples.
as for wrack having multiplayer, the timetrial community & the modding community will help cover that imo
just my two pennies

[insightguy]

mutliple classes to play,

That may actually happen since Carn is putting up character bios of several other characters.
either the 3 episodes feature a different character or each character has a different ending

Actually another thing to consider is the release day. people have more chances of finishing the game if its their vacation.