Getting too lazy for games with long plots, is some else in this situation?

[Zen]

I don’t know why but the last moths I have noticed that my favorite types of games(RPGs with longs plots such as FF, mass effect, Dragon age, skyrim, etc...) just can't keep my attention, or cause me the disposition to play.

Has anyone else had/have this problem? Recently I've been finding myself simply TOO LAZY to pick up a controller and play long games, I rather just waste some time online or read something.

I've been trying for weeks now to get myself off the computer and onto the PS4 and play some nice RPG.

I was obsessed with Dark souls the past years, I played for hours collected all the items solved all my lore questions.

Now I have my long waited Dark souls 3 and bloodborne sitting there waiting for me to play but just the thought of getting from level 1 to the end makes me feel sooooooo bored.

Even now that I'm on vacation and I don't have any real responsibilities, long video games just don't hold my attention like they used to.

I still enjoy mindless games such as MOBAS(Smite) hero shooters(Overwatch) and fighting games. Mostly because I won't have to go from zero all the way up to hero.

Rpgs just seem sooo boring and slow now, with all the talking, and the exposition, and paying attention to plots. After literal YEARS of waiting I finally got a copy of Final fantasy XV.

I put the disc and the game starts with a flashback scene of some guys facing a huge demon, I sigh about all those characters I'll have to get invested. So I turn it off and decided to play some matches of smite since I have time and I should end the distractions now. I end up playing smite the entire afternoon and not having time for FF anymore.

Second day, I put the disc again and the first "action" scene is all the boys PUSHING A CAR! That turned me off so quickly I decided to stop and watch some movies.

Today it tried again and the girl who works at the gas station is wearing such a ridiculous fan service outfit I can't take the game serious anymore, just to think that I will have to kill a bunch of weak AI controlled monsters and buy so many weapons... I get so bored just thinking about it.

Games where I basically have access to everything from the start are so much more fun for me now, even if they lack a plot(Something that used to be essential for me, I used to play games with terrible graphics as long as they had a good plot) look so much more appealing to me than game where I have to fight my way thought from point A to point B, maybe it is because I have less free time now? I dunno.

How about you guys? Does someone else feel this way?

[Sajiri]

I kind of do but for different reasons. I love long plots, in fact Im disappointed when a game has a short plot, but I can't bring myself to get invested in them. I've got Breath of the Wild and Mass Effect Andromeda sitting out in my living room unfinished, even though I had a lot of fun with them. I like to enjoy a game across a long while but with all the adulting I just can't bring myself to relax enough or feel I have the time to invest in a game like that. Something that I can just play for short bursts tends to be my go to because even though I want to play a longer RPG, I tend to feel like 'well, I'm going to have to go do this thing today so I wont really have time to enjoy it if I try to get into this rpg first' 'I worked today and Im pretty tired, better not be up late playing games, I should go have an early night for work tomorrow'

I'm on vacation right now too and have all the time in the world to catch up on those games right now, but its just become habit for me to feel this way. On top of that, I have a really old phone that is now at the point that it cant even recieve half the text messages people send me because of some new messaging format, so my computer with skype on it is the easiest way to keep in touch with friends. I would like to go sit on my couch and play something on the ps4, but I tend to go back to my computer just for skype and discord and such. Last time I was able to get over this was when my computer was broken for a while and in the 3-4 weeks I was waiting for it to get repaired I was forced out of my usual game habits and started enjoying console rpgs again and having fun reading old books and such

[danzibr]

Ooohhh that's a tough one.

Looking back, my favorite games are RPG's. Final Fantasy VII (in particular, I've played them all from I to the XIII trilogy (except the MMO, plus a few others), Breath of Fire III (again, in particular), Baldur's Gate series, et cetera.

And I still consider RPG my favorite genre.

But... when's the last time I played such a game? My wife bought me FFXV a couple *months* ago and I only played it for like 1 hour. I play WoW on a regular basis, but that's WoW. Also... phone games. I think that might put me in the exactly the same situation.

[Zevox]

I'd say I've experienced something similar, but not identical. In recent years I've found I use less time on playing even big RPGs I very much so enjoy than I used to, and I have a tendency to just stop playing them without completing them. In large part I attribute to a combination of having less time for such things than I once did and having more different things that I want to do with my free time than I used to - less time getting spent on gaming is sort of a natural result of that. That doesn't explain the tendency to just stop playing them, though, which I admit I don't really understand.

Another thing in my case, I think, is that in the past seven years or so I've become a lot more interested in games that are a lot faster-paced than RPGs. Getting into BlazBlue, and through it fighting games in general, and then getting into action games via Devil May Cry after MvC3 inspired me to try that added those genres to my favorites list right alongside RPGs, and those are a lot easier to enjoy in short bursts when I have less free time for gaming than RPGs are. It's kind of telling that when I think of games I'm looking forward to right now, the only two that jump immediately to mind are Marvel vs Capcom Infinite and Dragon Ball FighterZ - and the latter despite the fact that I haven't been a Dragon Ball fan for over a decade.

More recently still there's also the tendency for some RPGs I once liked to move in a direction I dislike - becoming open-world games. Bioware has all but lost me because of that. I keep telling myself I'll try Mass Effect Andromeda someday, but honestly, I don't feel any real desire to, and my interest in Anthem tanked as soon as it became clear it would be another open-world, even pseudo-MMO title. If the next Dragon Age continues that trend... well, that loss will be complete.

But even those that haven't done that, I still either drift away from, or at best take a very long time finishing. Tales of Zestiria and Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE being two recent examples of the former - started playing them, liked them, got quite a ways into TMSFE even, then just sort of stopped for no reason. I want to go back and finish them, but Zestiria I'd definitely want to start over from the beginning if I did, and even TMSFE I may be tempted to do so at this point despite how far I was. And for the latter, well, I'm still not done with Persona 5, the sequel to literally my two favorite games of all time, and we're approaching the three month mark since its release. That one I am still playing steadily and loving, though, no way in hell do I see myself drifting away from it.

[warty goblin]

Oh most definitely yes. I think there's a number of reasons this happens to me, can't speak for anybody else

1) The plots are kinda samey Which isn't to say they're bad, but they're often kinda just a justification for the next dungeon/combat area/whatever. Which is totally fine in a lot of ways, but when you know with 98% certainty that upon completing this quest the questgiver is just going to explain why you need to go to the village of Boredomsville to get the Thingy of Whatevering, or tell you that there's some problem they can't explain so go talk to somebody with more ranks in Deliver Exposition, it starts to wear slightly thin. Again, I'm not saying the plots are bad, or aren't doing their job of explaining the story and setting up the action. This can work quite well if the characters are decent or the action bits are fun and creative, but the lustre starts to wear off after a while.

2) The gameplay isn't rich enough to sustain 70 hours. Partly this is because RPGs tend to have an inverted difficulty curve, so the thing is actually the most challenging and fun at the beginning, or you've misbuilt your character and so are just gonna beat your head against the wall for the next 30 hours. Partly because being built around numerical superiority means the roll of player skill is lessened, and at some point the change from Sword of Killing Things Dead+3 to Sword of Killing Things Deader + 4 just doesn't grab me anymore. Or the gameplay never really advances at all, and the numerical stuff is just a pointless treadmill that forces me to deal with the interface all the time.

3) (and probably the big one) A sense of ennui at the whole thing. Look, I've played games for a reasonable number of years now; over half my life in some capacity or other. And at some point the magic starts to wear off, you know? It's not that they're getting worse, it's that I'm chasing the feeling of being 12 years old again, and playing Sacred with my best buddy, knowing that it's just violent enough that if we're caught, we'll get a stern talking too from our very disappointed mothers. I haven't been 12 for - well let's go with a while now, and that feeling ain't ever coming back, and maybe at some point it starts to dawn on me that spending 70 hours trying to recapture it isn't going to work, and maybe thinking that this bazillion hour epic packed with sidequests and loot and monsters and everything isn't going to really be any different than the last one. I'll go there and kill the dudes and talk to the people and it's good - often much better than the stuff I used to play - but there's no mystery left. And you can't have magic without mystery.

[Spore]

Oh I definitely know what you mean. I have about 40 items in my Steam Library which I played for 40 minutes tops before quitting because the game didn't grab my attention in the time I alloted for its story to pull me in. Weirdly the actually pretty bog standard story of FO 4 pulled me right in, as did Deus Ex but not because of the obvious reasons. Not because I had compassion for the protagonists. But because it showed me a thing I don't have in real life, a stable relationship and a good education and then took it away from me. I enjoy story experiences that develop from extremely mundane and relatable situations for that very reason. I loved Shadows of Mordor because it started up as Happy-Family-Simulator Middle Earth edition. Or Fable.

I'll go there and kill the dudes and talk to the people and it's good - often much better than the stuff I used to play - but there's no mystery left. And you can't have magic without mystery.

Basically that is why I enjoy Pen and Paper more than Computergames. At some point or another you get to understand the underlying engine good enough to base your gameplay decisions on that rather than what would make sense ingame.

Now I have my long waited Dark souls 3 and bloodborne sitting there waiting for me to play but just the thought of getting from level 1 to the end makes me feel sooooooo bored.

That being said I greatly enjoyed Dark Souls 3. And I quit DS 1 in the Tomb of the Giants because Darkness is a s**t mechanic. And I quit DS 2 because frankly I didn't know where to go.

Played Dark Souls 3 as a standard Knight (Str/Dex Dark Sword scrub build) and I had fun. I had a sense of progression.

Still took me about 60 hours to complete it (because I tried an Assassin first and couldn't find uses for the spells other than pushing Int with Rosaria's character reset and use Magic Weapon/Greater Magic Weapon). But the fun in Dark Souls is the exploring and the sense of slowly growing as a player not as a character. Because you become better at it.

(That being said, me returning to my character for the DLCs made me realize that I didn't get THAT much better).

[gooddragon1]

I don’t know why but the last moths I have noticed that my favorite types of games(RPGs with longs plots such as FF, mass effect, Dragon age, skyrim, etc...) just can't keep my attention, or cause me the disposition to play.

Has anyone else had/have this problem? Recently I've been finding myself simply TOO LAZY to pick up a controller and play long games, I rather just waste some time online or read something.

I've been trying for weeks now to get myself off the computer and onto the PS4 and play some nice RPG.

I was obsessed with Dark souls the past years, I played for hours collected all the items solved all my lore questions.

Now I have my long waited Dark souls 3 and bloodborne sitting there waiting for me to play but just the thought of getting from level 1 to the end makes me feel sooooooo bored.

Even now that I'm on vacation and I don't have any real responsibilities, long video games just don't hold my attention like they used to.

I still enjoy mindless games such as MOBAS(Smite) hero shooters(Overwatch) and fighting games. Mostly because I won't have to go from zero all the way up to hero.

Rpgs just seem sooo boring and slow now, with all the talking, and the exposition, and paying attention to plots. After literal YEARS of waiting I finally got a copy of Final fantasy XV.

I put the disc and the game starts with a flashback scene of some guys facing a huge demon, I sigh about all those characters I'll have to get invested. So I turn it off and decided to play some matches of smite since I have time and I should end the distractions now. I end up playing smite the entire afternoon and not having time for FF anymore.

Second day, I put the disc again and the first "action" scene is all the boys PUSHING A CAR! That turned me off so quickly I decided to stop and watch some movies.

Today it tried again and the girl who works at the gas station is wearing such a ridiculous fan service outfit I can't take the game serious anymore, just to think that I will have to kill a bunch of weak AI controlled monsters and buy so many weapons... I get so bored just thinking about it.

Games where I basically have access to everything from the start are so much more fun for me now, even if they lack a plot(Something that used to be essential for me, I used to play games with terrible graphics as long as they had a good plot) look so much more appealing to me than game where I have to fight my way thought from point A to point B, maybe it is because I have less free time now? I dunno.

How about you guys? Does someone else feel this way?

Hadn't really thought about it much, but pretty much exactly. I feel like it might be not liking being railroaded. I basically just cheat my way through the games that aren't online games.

Two games are still interesting to me as online games:
+Dota 2: Playing All Pick pub as Legion Commander and playing as a tank that can become more DPS as the match goes on.
+Planetside 2: No one cares if you join or leave or what class you play. I just pick up my railjack sniper rifle and find some people who aren't moving enough after getting into a good position. Haven't played for a while since they made the game require a 64 bit OS and my PC is a 32 bit OS.

[factotum]

It's not that they're getting worse, it's that I'm chasing the feeling of being 12 years old again

I think in some ways they *are* getting worse, though. For instance, I replayed Might and Magic VI a couple of years ago, and it dragged me in the same way as it did when I first played it 20-odd years ago--100 hours flew by while I was playing it. Very few modern RPGs do that for me, and I can't actually pin down why that is. I wish I *did* know why it is so I can explicitly play the sort of games I like!

[Grimmnist]

I think in some ways they *are* getting worse, though. For instance, I replayed Might and Magic VI a couple of years ago, and it dragged me in the same way as it did when I first played it 20-odd years ago--100 hours flew by while I was playing it. Very few modern RPGs do that for me, and I can't actually pin down why that is. I wish I *did* know why it is so I can explicitly play the sort of games I like!

Not sure if I agree they are getting worse, but then again I drop ~50 hours in a week on Morrowind every few months and struggle to get into newer RPGs. For me playing the game at a formative age shaped what I value in an RPG. I'm never going to find an RPG I like as much as Elder Scrolls III because I've already played it. Kind of a depressing thought, but at least I can find games that fit other niches.

[warty goblin]

I think in some ways they *are* getting worse, though. For instance, I replayed Might and Magic VI a couple of years ago, and it dragged me in the same way as it did when I first played it 20-odd years ago--100 hours flew by while I was playing it. Very few modern RPGs do that for me, and I can't actually pin down why that is. I wish I *did* know why it is so I can explicitly play the sort of games I like!

My operating theory for a lot of evolution in entertainment products goes something like this. They change over time, not necessarily getting better or worse according to some universal quality metric, but simply adapt to the changing cultural and technological landscape. You still have some excellent stuff, lots of basically mediocre stuff, and some real terrible stuff, but overall it's just different.

(This isn't precisely true for games, because Moore's Law means a game today can do things that simply were not possible five or ten years ago, let alone twenty. Because the possibility set expands, we should in fact expect some general improvements. Which you certainly see with graphics if nothing else. However I don't think this point really undercuts the central argument of the next paragraph.)

So you've got games just evolving away, which is all well and good. The problem for an individual is that the sort of games they like is probably mostly determined by how games were when they started playing them. Taste evolves over time to be sure, but not necessarily as fast as the zeitgeist. My taste in shooters for example was pretty much set over a decade ago, when even most multiplayer and pretty much all singleplayer shooters were totally devoid of leveling up mechanics. So these always seem kinda pointless to me, because unlocking a new skin or gun isn't why I play shooters. Somebody who started playing shooters a year ago is, I suspect, likely to find something like Far Cry 2 or STALKER or Crysis unsatisfying in some fairly major ways, because you don't improve your character or unlock customization options or anything. The AK-47 is the AK-47, you have 100 health at the beginning of the game and you have 100 health at the end of the game, and that' pretty much it. Our hypothetical new player might be enjoying their contemporary shooters as much as I enjoyed my now dated shooters back in the day, so I can't see any way to sensibly claim that the games have gotten worse. They've just gotten less well suited to me, because I'm not a dominant player in the new ecosystem. I'm still chasing that feeling of being 12, so I'll buy the damn game anyway.

[Shamash]

I think that as you grow up, you release that 200+ hours in persona 4 won't look awesome in your CV. It just feel like a waste of time, sure it can still be a hobby but you can't dedicate as much time as when you were a kid.

Besides is it just me or the days are getting shorter?

Besides besides, new games have great graphics, great graphics are more expensive; been more expensive the worlds are smaller and less interesting. That's just math. That’s why Morrowind world feels better than Oblivion and Final fantasy IX or VIII better than XIII.

[factotum]

I think that as you grow up, you release that 200+ hours in persona 4 won't look awesome in your CV.

And watching telly or playing football *will*? I've never really understood this desire from companies to know what I do in my spare time--as far as I'm concerned it's none of their business, as well as being entirely irrelevant to how well I can do the job they're hiring me for.

[Shamash]

And watching telly or playing football *will*? I've never really understood this desire from companies to know what I do in my spare time--as far as I'm concerned it's none of their business, as well as being entirely irrelevant to how well I can do the job they're hiring me for.

It... Was a joke, I meant this time could be best spend with something more productive that is going to look good on your CV like a language course or volunteer work.

[Winthur]

RPGs nowadays consider it a selling point that they have 200 hours of gameplay packed into them, 10000 pages of script, etc. etc., but a lot of the time the writing that is jampacked in there is just padded content. The writing isn't particularly good, there's just a ton of it. NPCs offer a ton of exposition, and all the "deep lore" contained within are just walls of text that are frankly unnecessary.

I enjoy the amount of work putting into voice acting of all the characters and stuff in games like Dragon Age, but I *will* find myself skipping the voice work if it's Leliana delivering a ton of exposition I can just read instead. I don't feel like spending 2 hours listening to every single little piece of dialogue, I want to get into the action. Listening about all the wonders of the outside world, of locations that aren't even in the game, is probably not a good way for me to spend my time. Play Gothic 1 or Morrowind again - you start off as a nobody prisoner, "nobody cares who you are" at the start, and all the stuff about what's going on is very immediate and relevant, contained to the place you're in. If you want lore, it's out there on the shelves that adorn Morrowind - but you aren't obliged to read through all that stuff. Play New Vegas again - there's a vague allusion to what's going on in Colorado and other Legion controlled territories, but aside from Raul or Joshua telling you about them, you don't really have to learn about all that stuff. Maybe smile and nod when you see allusions to Fallout 2 or something.

RPGs should show more than they tell. RPGs shouldn't consider it a point of pride to have a ton of text on the screen, wall after wall. It doesn't make you elite, it doesn't make you more literate to play games like this. A lot of the time it's padded. Worldbuilding is important, but it doesn't warrant extremely lengthy explanations about political systems in a world that is likely, a ripoff of ASOIAF, LotR, or a hamfisted extrapolation of what's going on in the real world.

I got into oldschool games like Might & Magic 3: Isles of Terra because the writing in them, due to various technical constraints and different schools of philosophy (more emphasis on dungeon crawling) is just simply more compact. It's still fun to discover, the worldbuilding is nice, but it's not nearly as in-your-face and it doesn't provide lulls in the gameplay. I still cherish Fallout 1, because it's a compact experience that takes around 20 hours to complete on your blind playthrough at most. StarCraft: Brood War and Warcraft 3 are excellent, story-heavy games that don't, however, force you to stop gameplay all the time to breathe in all the dialogue. More dungeon-crawly games are like this. Most RPGs available on portable systems or older consoles are like this.

Less novelization and more actually utilizing the medium. Corvo does not need a long exposition every time you slash up a whole bunch of guards and innocents on your way to the target saying "Your deeds have brought the wrath of the chaos upon your fragile, fleshy self". Instead, Dishonored shows the world changing for the worse instead of offering a pop-up or an introspective dialogue about the nature of the Soul with some random lore dump NPC. When your Jedi Knight in a Star Wars game kills people, he gets more Dark Side points and goes down a slippery slope.

The "renaissance" of RPGs recently has shown that there's a lot of people wanting AAA RPGs for big budgets, but seriously, games like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, ME:A are not really doing those things right. I have way more appreciation for Divinity: Original Sin's wacky writing and emphasis on the gameplay mechanics than PoE's endless banter and multitude of NPCs; PoE really missed its mark, didn't have encounters as entertaining as the ones in BG2, it all felt very sterile. RPG developers should stop thinking more text is inherently good. Then people will actually finish their RPGs and we're all gonna be happy.

I mean, really, the other day I found out that there are hentai games that are better, more palatable and challenging RPGs than some of the stuff I've played recently. For real. The hentai angle makes something like Rance VI a must play for Bioware fans, they work off of a similar angle: manipulate a dialogue path properly and get rewarded with a sex scene and feel-good feels at the end. Except it's less intrusive and beneath it all is a deeper game than Dragon Age 2.

[Grimmnist]

RPGs should show more than they tell. RPGs shouldn't consider it a point of pride to have a ton of text on the screen, wall after wall.

Super well said!

I always feel bad when I skip the voiced dialogue in RPGs, but I don't have the patience.

[Aotrs Commander]

The "renaissance" of RPGs recently has shown that there's a lot of people wanting AAA RPGs for big budgets, but seriously, games like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, ME:A are not really doing those things right.

Personally, I was extremely pleased with PoE, and felt that I got pretty much exactly the experience I backed it for. I enjoyed Tyranny (ending quibble aside) - though I cannot speak to ME:A (I have not had any desire to play DA or ME after ME3, which is unfortunate, since up until that point, I was a huge Bioware fan).

But I list PS:T as one of my top three games of all time (and I very much enjoyed Tides of Numenera, for all that is was a bit short), which was a LOT of dialogue, and I also have become a relatively recent convert to Paradox grand strats, where a single play through can be hundres of hours (I'm about 60% of the way through my first ull CK2 game at 276 hours), so...

[Winthur]

Personally, I was extremely pleased with PoE, and felt that I got pretty much exactly the experience I backed it for. I enjoyed Tyranny (ending quibble aside) - though I cannot speak to ME:A (I have not had any desire to play DA or ME after ME3, which is unfortunate, since up until that point, I was a huge Bioware fan).

But I list PS:T as one of my top three games of all time (and I very much enjoyed Tides of Numenera, for all that is was a bit short), which was a LOT of dialogue, and I also have become a relatively recent convert to Paradox grand strats, where a single play through can be hundres of hours (I'm about 60% of the way through my first ull CK2 game at 276 hours), so...

Well, then it doesn't seem you subscribe to the OP's grievances. Which is okay.

[Erloas]

I've found a lot the same thing. What I have also found is that what draws me into a game has to do it early and what exactly it is can't be easily defined.
A great story is important, but I'm wanting to play a game and not read a book, so if that story is 100 pages of text it may as well not be there. I've got plenty of books on my *I need to get around to reading them list*, I don't need to start adding games to that list.
The gameplay has to be engaging too, and I know some of that has just changed with age/expectations/time. I don't really want to play a game where I have to put in several hours before things start developing and getting fun. Many RPGs fall into that though, adding abilities is the easiest way to show "improvement and gaining power" but if you spend half the game not being able to do anything fun, well what is the point?

I used to spend a lot of time playing games like Sim City, and having tried some of the other new version like Banished, and closely related games like Civilizations, they might be fun but it only takes a few games before they seem more long than fun. It gets to the point where I'm thinking more about "what else could I have done with that large chunk of time." I know some of it is perception though, because spending the same amount of time playing a game that works in bite-sized chucks feels like a bit more was accomplished.

What I've found is that for the most part action RPGs tend to be what I find the most fun in. They have stories (some better than others for sure) and the combat is fast. They also seem to have designed most of them to have a lot of the "end game content" for after the "slowly get your skills" has been taken care of. They also generally have a flow design where it isn't that hard to jump in and out so you can actually do something even if you don't have a lot of time.

[factotum]

Personally, I was extremely pleased with PoE, and felt that I got pretty much exactly the experience I backed it for.

But have you played Divinity: Original Sin, the other game he mentioned? While I enjoyed my time in PoE, I wasn't enamoured enough of it to buy the DLC--I found D:OS to be a much more fun game, as Winthur apparently did.

[Aotrs Commander]

But have you played Divinity: Original Sin, the other game he mentioned? While I enjoyed my time in PoE, I wasn't enamoured enough of it to buy the DLC--I found D:OS to be a much more fun game, as Winthur apparently did.

No, because it did not appeal to me. (It's not a party based RPG for starters, as I recall.) I was never hugely struck with Larien's previous offerings, having played Divine Divinity (which I never finished) and Beyond Divinity (which I did and it was okay, but not much more than that.)

PoE on the other hand I had already kickstarted the expansions anyway, and they definitely improved the experience. (Not particularly the elements that would pertain to this thread really, but the mechanics were certainly better, as was the encounter design). (And I couldn't snap their hands off fast enough for PoE2 Deadfire.)

[factotum]

No, because it did not appeal to me. (It's not a party based RPG for starters, as I recall.)

Well, you have two characters of your own creation at all times in D:OS, and you can recruit up to two NPC hangers-on as well who you also directly control in battle, so I think it's near enough as party-based as PoE is. What was it specifically about Divine Divinity which prevented you finishing it? (We'll ignore Beyond Divinity, since that really wasn't a very good game and I didn't finish it either).

[Aotrs Commander]

What was it specifically about Divine Divinity which prevented you finishing it? (We'll ignore Beyond Divinity, since that really wasn't a very good game and I didn't finish it either).

I don't even remember. But it simply didn't hold my interest in any capacity (mechanically, lore or story - since I can't remember anything about either of the latter, beyond the vague "protagonist is likely some sort of divine doofer person"). I mean, it wasn't BAD or anything (else I'd have not picked up the sequel), but... I was never motivated to finish it or go back to it, even after Beyond Div, which tacitly says it just didn't do anything for me; one day, I just stopped playing it and never picked it up again. The fact it was a single-character only game is probably a large reason for that. Games have to try quite hard to get my attention to bypass that.

(Witcher 1 & 2 did, I haven't bought Witcher 3 yet (I may or may not before the end of the Steeam sale). I did play through Diablo 2 at least maybe twice (though perhaps mroe because everyone at my wargames club was playing it), but I also did not make it beyond act 2 of Diablo 3 (which was a much better game in terms of story and plot in that it basically HAD one (D2 is about the only game I've played where it was plot optional). I played through a lot of Morrowind but never finished, less of Oblivion, even less of Fallout 3 (and the first two have never peaked my interest, despite the favourable way people talk about them, heresy, I know) and after that, I stopped buying Bethsada games, because if I didn't finish them there was no point. I managed Beyond Divinty and NWN, but I am not likely to ever pick either of those up again.)

[Winter_Wolf]

The short answer is that for me, the RPGs and more complex games are too much freaking work after a full day. That's assuming I can muster the will to turn on the computer anymore. I'm right at the point where given the choice between any leisure activity and Sleeeeeeep, I have a greater than 50% chance of going for the latter. I'm old enough to Need my 8 hours.

I have too many time-intensive games (i.e., more than two) installed on my computer. So amidst decision paralysis, I have started to default to Minecraft. It's easy to play for minutes or hours, and there's virtually no problem with breaking immersion/mood when inevitably a family member decides that whatever their thing is, it trumps me having more than five bloody consecutive minutes to do something for myself.

I once spent literally a half hour trying to decide which of my games to play, and there's only a handful of choices there. And then I realized that I just couldn't be arsed to play anything more involved than a virtual board game (cards, chess) or virtual blocks (Minecraft).

And yet I've just purchased a bundle of RPGs to play. Because I'm apparently bad at decision making when I'm tired.

[Aotrs Commander]

I once spent literally a half hour trying to decide which of my games to play, and there's only a handful of choices there.

Now, THAT I can relate to, because I do get that sometimes (earlier this week in fact).

The problem is for me, that games that don't require any mental effort are not games I find appealing, so there isn't really an option for me to do as you do with Minecraft - by very definition, that sort of game is not the sort of game that hold my interest. I actually find I just can't/am not interested in playing games that you can just play for an hour or two. (Technically, stuff like Cities: Skylines or Banished - or OpenTTD - I do have fall into a similar sort of vein.)

Sometimes, this effect will end up havig me spending a good couple of hour faffing with installing on old game, which I then barely play before the end of the day - I am nowadays not above just re-buying the game if I can from Steam or GoG, just so that I don't have to find/install/fiddle with the games/mods to get something to work. (Sadly, I don't think I have an option with my old standby of C&C...!)

So what usually happens in that instance is I end up watching stuff on youtube or something.

That said, the amount of shows on actual telly that I make time to actively go and watch can be counted on the fingers of just barely one hand (and all but MLP and Doctor Who are now between seasons), so it's not like I veg in front of the telly frequently, so I remind myself I probably shouldn't worry about those times.

[Winter_Wolf]

Now, THAT I can relate to, because I do get that sometimes (earlier this week in fact).

The problem is for me, that games that don't require any mental effort are not games I find appealing, so there isn't really an option for me to do as you do with Minecraft - by very definition, that sort of game is not the sort of game that hold my interest. I actually find I just can't/am not interested in playing games that you can just play for an hour or two. (Technically, stuff like Cities: Skylines or Banished - or OpenTTD - I do have fall into a similar sort of vein.)

I have two small children; I'm not exaggerating when I say I get no more than five consecutive minutes to get into something. Shoot, a few of my games (looking at you, Civ V) take at least three minutes just to load the start menu. Also I love building things up so Cities:Skylines (I still think Simcity 4 Deluxe is the better game) and Banished end up being the "just one more minute...oops it's three in the morning" games for me. I used to be like you, though; games that didn't absolutely require mental effort weren't that interesting. Now, because of my schedule, the last thing I want to do is computer gaming that requires a lot of mental effort. I tried playing a Civ 4 scenario a few days ago and lasted all of about forty minutes before I had to tap out. In single player against dumb AI. I wasn't even losing, just fatigued.

I suppose it's forgivable considering I read things like history, science, and technology texts and articles for fun. Maybe less so since I also spend a fair bit of time with YouTube (not the past couple weeks, but in general).

[Triaxx]

I largely agree with Warty, though for a slightly different reason. I like long games, but they have to have some progress for the plot. Telling me the story is 70+ hours, means I'm going to get 10 hours of actual story progress and 60+ hours of the next person in line repeating to me the same thing as the last person, plus one or two new things.

Very much the difference between show and tell: Tell me all about the wizards and dragons and that's great, but when my wizard has just spent half an hour getting his face melted by a dragon and you're telling me there's a way I can bring it down where I can return the favor, then bloody well hurry up and tell me, instead of spraying exposition all over my face. Keep me enthused and enthralled, or I wander off to make my own fun, usually by summoning several tons of cheese.

I don't mind long plots, as long as the plot moves. Grinding doesn't bother me, because it's interactive, but once I meet the requirement, get on with it.

Freelancer, is one game I hold up as an example here of balancing grinding and story. You go, and complete a story mission and gain a 'level'. Then you're told to go earn money, and reach the next one before the story continues. But every time you do, the story actually moves on. You're not just statically flying back and forth between the single hub city and the next story destination, or collecting Squid Feet to no avail. (Or worse being told that only the rare Purple Squid Feet actually count.)

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Y'know, I think I'm falling into this, but couldn't tell you why. Maybe it's just because I've gotten bad about sticking to a game. It's taking me a terrible long time to finish anything...

...and when "anything" is 15-hour games (Life is Strange, the Starcraft/Warcraft 3 campaigns), that's saying something. Like, I'm not even into talking about super mega long games like Skyrim, which I know I don't even want to touch. I had to sit down and commit to playing an episode a week for Life is Strange, even when I was emotionally invested in the game. I just get really sidetracked by inconsequential things.

And yet, I will pour tons of time into certain games that I can pick up and come back to, or games that I can complete a go-around of in a reasonable time. For example, I can play Civ in less than 10 hours per game. Which means I play a lot of games of Civ, compared to how many playthroughs I get for other games.

Only time I really played a super-long game was Dragon Age: Origins...and that was when I got to play it on a friend's console, during a period of my life where I didn't have a whole lot of work and needed to occupy myself.

[Mikemical]

I guess that when the plot and the gameplay are repetitive you just get tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Skyrim was fun until I noticed every damn dungeon was exactly the same, every quest involved going to some ruins to fight the same enemies with bigger stats, and the rewards were just "here's a shinier sword that you could've forged anyway because you min-maxed smithing."

I've been replaying DMC4 Special Edition even though the the plot is exactly the same regardless of characters you choose to play as, but the gameplay is fun, so Bloody Palace is enough to keep me coming back. Resident Evil 4 also has a lot of replayability for me.

[factotum]

The fact it was a single-character only game is probably a large reason for that. Games have to try quite hard to get my attention to bypass that.

Well, now you know that Divinity: Original Sin isn't a single-character game, you no longer have an excuse to not play it!

[warty goblin]

RPGs nowadays consider it a selling point that they have 200 hours of gameplay packed into them, 10000 pages of script, etc. etc., but a lot of the time the writing that is jampacked in there is just padded content. The writing isn't particularly good, there's just a ton of it. NPCs offer a ton of exposition, and all the "deep lore" contained within are just walls of text that are frankly unnecessary.

The "renaissance" of RPGs recently has shown that there's a lot of people wanting AAA RPGs for big budgets, but seriously, games like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, ME:A are not really doing those things right. I have way more appreciation for Divinity: Original Sin's wacky writing and emphasis on the gameplay mechanics than PoE's endless banter and multitude of NPCs; PoE really missed its mark, didn't have encounters as entertaining as the ones in BG2, it all felt very sterile. RPG developers should stop thinking more text is inherently good. Then people will actually finish their RPGs and we're all gonna be happy.

There's also this. My desire to read sixteen books worth of mostly unedited prose in a tiny font on a monitor is curiously well approximated by zero. At least PoE let a person ignore the yammering of the companions by using custom-built NPCs, but alas, this was not nearly enough to keep the entire thing from drowning in buckets of stilted prose and oh look another bloody combat encounter. That and the world was just nonstandard enough to require me to pay substantial attention, but not nonstandard enough to be worth that extra effort. I much prefer something along the line of Drakensang: River of Time, which does an enormous amount of work with lighting and level design to tell you about your location, has a plot that actually progresses when you complete an area, and is entirely happy to be a game about mystical elves and grouchy yet softhearted dwarves. Which I'm totally down with.

I liked everything about Original Sin, except how often one would wander into a totally unwinnable fight because of being insufficiently leveled. There's no point in giving me a lot of options for what to do next if 80% of them result in getting eaten by wolves.

I largely agree with Warty, though for a slightly different reason. I like long games, but they have to have some progress for the plot. Telling me the story is 70+ hours, means I'm going to get 10 hours of actual story progress and 60+ hours of the next person in line repeating to me the same thing as the last person, plus one or two new things.

Wait, you agree with me? Quick, is it also raining blood, because this might be a sign of the apocalypse.