Do games feel short to you?

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 6:48 pm

A game takes a couple of hours to complete and I really feel like I'm missing out on so many opportunities. Don't get me wrong, I have lots of fun playing for those few hours, but wouldn't it be great if you could play for days on the same map, expanding, creating new businesses, battling it out with your competitors?

sherc · Post by **sherc** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:18 pm

i totally agree, i mean, it takes like 2 hours or less and your map is full !!! nowhere to expand, all you can do is to update trains

Wolfwood · Post by **Wolfwood** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:47 pm

It seems that lately Sid's been making games that are aimed for the new generation of impatience. The standard unmodded Civ IV game takes a fraction of the time that one game of Civ III used to take and similarly Railroads! now seems to offer a mere fraction of the joy that it could, if only the map sizes and game lengths were better optimised.

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:26 pm

Yeah but in Civ4 you can still select Epic mode, so it's your own choice then.

Wolfwood · Post by **Wolfwood** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:34 pm

Falconer wrote:Yeah but in Civ4 you can still select Epic mode, so it's your own choice then.

Well, the epic mode is merely a stretched normal game, iirc. You merely play the same game but it takes longer. If you want to play an epic game as you could in Civ3, you'll have to mod the game yourself...

Seems to me that Sid's focussed on making cute little games lately, rather than memorable "epics"... Of course, that's what Pirates! and prolly the original Railroads also were, so one cannot quite blame him...

zzbusch · Post by **zzbusch** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:51 pm

It would be nice if we could choose map size, like I could in Civ. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to play the whole East coast, or midwest, Pacific coast, or when I'm feeling nuts, the whole USA/North America.

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 5:53 am

Yup, problem with map size is latter-game performance though. I cannot be certain but it seems to me that the decision to make maps the size they are comes from difficulties to keep the game running smoothly in the last 30-45 mins of the game.

sherc · Post by **sherc** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 7:32 am

it would be nice to see some campaigns

+ scenarios don't get marked as completed after u're done with it

mangadrive · Post by **mangadrive** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 3:32 pm

I kinda like the shortness in game aspect for the degree that your first few choices really matter. I've been playing the CPU a lot on Tycoon and notice its really easy to get 2 million behind *fast* if you make the wrong moves.

I don't nessicarily belive he made it for the 'twitch' crowd but more for the quick and dirty multiplayer aspect in that you don't go for 10 days like in RRT2 (sometimes almost literally) and theres a decided outcome. Think of it more like Command and Conquer with trains so to speak ;) I'm fine with it and realize this game is a different approach but would like to see Sid bust out a RRT3 upgrade with a really good GUI.

Rook · Post by **Rook** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:48 pm

My only gripe so far with everything is that there is no "End game" so to speak. You start out, grow, expand, and begin to dominate your competitors, eventually buy them out and youâ€™re done. After you complete a scenario, there is nothing truly achieved. At least make other more difficult scenarios to unlock after completing the basic ones.

leo · Post by **leo** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:50 pm

I believe this game was made with multiplayer in mind. Fast furious and thrilling. Sometimes a little too fast for my liking. I think the online multiplayer part is good. Single player stuff is a different story for me tho.

I think soon enough this game will be very customizible , hopefully some decent scenarios will be made and hopefully the ability to slow down the time line a little ... I remember civ4 flew by as well , most of the time I would start a conflict with a spearman and end with bombers before I defeated him. But I heard thru mods you are able to slow the timeline down.

Hopefully something like slowing down the timeline a little will be an option thru mods for this game as well. Just for single player.

KingWilly · Post by **KingWilly** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:42 pm

Well, I've only been playing the demo so far, but to me the game moves a whole lot quicker than what I was used to wit previous Railroad Tycoon games.

I like it in one way, because you can just get into it and play But from the point of view of being able to step back and plan before making te next move, the game is a little quick. Maybe the short attention spans of todays younger generation of gamers has something to do with it.

mangadrive · Post by **mangadrive** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:37 am

[quote="KingWilly"] Maybe the short attention spans of todays younger generation of gamers has something to do with it. [/quote]

Well I've read a ton of posts on this theory. Some more blunt than others, but truth be said the market does appeal to a different generation than some of us grew up with. I was in the 386 era when if a game didnt come with a 400 page manual that you could use a doorstop, then it just wasnt a game. Now a days anything overtly difficult or complex remains far and few between in the PC market. Its harder to find these titles amongst the same RTS with a different tileset we've played since Dune and the same FPS we've played since Doom. WW2 has been done more ways than I care to endure.

Theres always been Civ though and its gotten more streamlined through better graphics and interface but the core never changed. I somewhat expected that with this game. Not that I'm dissapointed and I see Railroads for what it is: Yes a fast multiplayer experience. Also right now its hard to sell anything to a mass audience you can't play online. That was different in the BBS days too :)

Ironically though this game taught me some concepts that I didnt quite grasp with the first go around of RRT2. Mainly the loading car options and being able to set one route to switch cars in out to maintain a high profit line. I've pulled my RRT2 platnium out of hybernation and been enjoying it greatly while we wait for the patch, cause I get a bit frustrated with CTD when I get to the meat of the game. I have to say though I don't find a great deal of challenge in Railroads by comparison. RRT2 gives me long periods of waiting and its so much easier to mess up and go broke a whole lot faster. I couldnt fail in Railroads if I tried.

I think my dream game would be the RRT2 core imported into this graphical world.. but not with the system requirements. RRT3 I've tried and tried to play but I can't seem to get my trains to do what I want as far as loading/unloading with the system they have in the game. RRT2 is almost identical to this game and the interface to me just made it so much more fluid than RRT3 :)

It seems this game is like the 'best of' for RRT's but splashed right into fast MP territory. And yeah the scenario 'tree' was a big dissapointment. Theres really no progression. Only pick a map and go with it. At least theres a ton of random options to use, but I would like to have the bronze/silver/gold be retained other than for purposes of 'higher scores'.

mangadrive · Post by **mangadrive** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:45 am

[quote="Wolfwood"]prolly the original Railroads also were, so one cannot quite blame him...[/quote]

The original RRT was an epic masterpiece, but today of course shows its age. The map was far, far more expansive it seemed than any of the other games. You had a ton of liberty to start almost anywhere in the US and see familar cities of your homestate and others around the nation and even in the Deluxe version you had multiple countries represented. The distance scale wasnt really put in perspective with the isometric view in RRT2, but 3 did a good job with the 3d maps of making cities seem truly distant and numerous. Theres a lot to be said about pioneering 2,000 miles and actually feel like you went that far instead of not even having to move to mouse hardly to go from New York to Philly.

Rook · Post by **Rook** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:19 pm

The smaller area map we have now does kinda offer a "Sandbox" feel to everything. The game offers more of a Model Train ambience then a real train simulator. Being an old model train hobbyist to begin with, I prefer this new feel. Large scale maps would be fun to play on though, however, with as much detail that is all taking place simultaneously with all the trains, people, city effects and water, performance will take a massive hit. I'm pushing a P4 Dual Core 3.2 with 2 GForce 7900GTs in SLI mode and 2G DDR and I still get chop when I zoom out during the latter part of a game. It clears right up once I zoom back in under the cloud layer, but still.