Reply to Re: Epic length
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Using reductio ad absurdum you can pretty much discredit any type of game content you want. We're talking real DMODs here, not hypothetical constructs. I think the consensus has always been that the playing time is the playing time for somebody playing the DMOD for the first time. Playing a DMOD for the first time includes exploring screens that don't contain anything needed for the story, it includes talking to NPC's which don't say anything needed for the story, it includes killing creatures that don't need to be killed for the story. If you play a DMOD without visiting unnecessary screens, talking to as few NPCs as possible and only killing the endbosses you basically have the bare minimum length. The consensus has long been that first time playing time should count. Changing that would basically mean reconsidering the entire classification, which would require reclassifying every DMOD according to this 'bare minimum standard'.
Not the minimum length. I'm not talking about speedrunning through the game here. I'm talking about the main story length, which is essentially all the dialogue/scenes as well as map exploration that moves the main storyline of the game forward. This is what "the length of the D-Mod" has always been ranked by, and what it should be ranked by still. Surely you're not expecting every little detail in the game to count for length, are you? I sure as hell am not expecting people to talk to every NPC and examine every object and complete every side-quest in HH2 and add it to the length of the D-Mod. The length of the main storyline itself is where the Epic length comes from. As I said, rest is just a nice plus. Malachi can barely reach the Epic length if you include EVERY little prolonging detail there is.
That fluff helps so much with a feeling of expansiveness. I would go even further: Any DMOD without optional dialogue is probably not a true epic. It doesn't have a world to be explored. Skull seems to only relate this to the size of the map, but dialogue is an equally valid way of exploring the world. Should any map screen that doesn't progress the story not count? In that case not a single DMOD uses 75% of the map...
If you're gonna use walking around in empty screens that the D-Mod doesn't require you to as an excuse for the D-Mod's length, then no, it shouldn't count. My map argument is more about the size of the D-Mod, which is a completely different thing from the length. If on your first playthrough you go around unnecessary screens beheading ducks for two hours, is that a valid argument that the D-Mod is now two hours longer? Of course not.
How can the player tell that the dialogue isn't progressing the story? He doesn't. He has to try to talk to the NPC to find out. Not knowing up front which NPC to talk to is part of the experience.
Of course a first time player doesn't know. Which is why you should cut out all the mistakes he makes from the length of the D-Mod. The author knows though. And the length should be taken from how long it takes the author to complete the main storyline, while casually playing through (after all, he's the one who's gonna categorize it). I'm sure it takes you more than 4 hours to complete Scourger, Meta (if not speedrunning). I bet Tim could beat Malachi's storyline in about 3 hours max, with the super-long storyline dialogue included. The Rise of the Goblins would take a first time player probably around hour and a half. However, I could beat it in 45 minutes, which is why when looking back, RoG should definitely be a Romp. As an example, my first time playing through Quest for the Gems, it took me more than 4 hours, because I spent an eternity wandering around, talking to NPCs thinking I had missed something and that they'd move things along. All this just because I couldn't spot two caves. By your argument, this would make QftG the length of an Epic D-Mod, then.
One thing to add here. Everybody expects an epic to have the content of an epic apart from just the length. That it has the result of hard effort in there, not the result of procedural generation or generic repetition. I already touched upon this when I talked about artificially increasing playing time. I don't think that how a DMOD feels should really be included in the ranking system as it simply isn't objective enough. I certainly don't believe that Malachi's playing time is due to such low-effort bloating (dialogue is definitely not low-effort bloating, it's a lot of work) so if it has the length, it should get the badge.
Low-effort bloating? I never claimed it was. And as I said, I think the dialogue is cool. But you know what? Having nearly if not over a hundred NPCs in your D-Mod, some with changing dialogue, as well as scripting 95% of all the objects isn't low-effort bloating either, but I still don't expect those to be counted as contributors to the length of HH2.
If you include Malachi as an Epic, then you're also going to have to include a lot of other Quests, as Malachi isn't even the longest Quest-sized D-Mod out there. So if you decide that suddenly 20 other D-Mods deserve the Epic badge too, then be my guest.
Look, as I've said millions of times by now, Malachi is a great D-Mod. But it nohow fills the requirements of an Epic (Epic meaning the size, not. the. quality). It doesn't have a map nearly as big as other Epics, it doesn't have the overall feel. Only thing it has is the length, and even most of that comes from prolonging things such as dialogue, side-quests, screenlocked areas and boss fights that aren't hard but last forever. If you were to include Malachi as an Epic, it'd be wrong towards a lot of other Quests out there, and it'd also be wrong towards the Epics. I certainly didn't create two D-Mods the size of the QfDs, POTA and Scourger, just to suddenly have D-Mods half the size of them to be claimed as big. And I'm not being egotistical, but I do take some pride in my work, as well as I respect the other Epic creators.
Not the minimum length. I'm not talking about speedrunning through the game here. I'm talking about the main story length, which is essentially all the dialogue/scenes as well as map exploration that moves the main storyline of the game forward. This is what "the length of the D-Mod" has always been ranked by, and what it should be ranked by still. Surely you're not expecting every little detail in the game to count for length, are you? I sure as hell am not expecting people to talk to every NPC and examine every object and complete every side-quest in HH2 and add it to the length of the D-Mod. The length of the main storyline itself is where the Epic length comes from. As I said, rest is just a nice plus. Malachi can barely reach the Epic length if you include EVERY little prolonging detail there is.
That fluff helps so much with a feeling of expansiveness. I would go even further: Any DMOD without optional dialogue is probably not a true epic. It doesn't have a world to be explored. Skull seems to only relate this to the size of the map, but dialogue is an equally valid way of exploring the world. Should any map screen that doesn't progress the story not count? In that case not a single DMOD uses 75% of the map...
If you're gonna use walking around in empty screens that the D-Mod doesn't require you to as an excuse for the D-Mod's length, then no, it shouldn't count. My map argument is more about the size of the D-Mod, which is a completely different thing from the length. If on your first playthrough you go around unnecessary screens beheading ducks for two hours, is that a valid argument that the D-Mod is now two hours longer? Of course not.
How can the player tell that the dialogue isn't progressing the story? He doesn't. He has to try to talk to the NPC to find out. Not knowing up front which NPC to talk to is part of the experience.
Of course a first time player doesn't know. Which is why you should cut out all the mistakes he makes from the length of the D-Mod. The author knows though. And the length should be taken from how long it takes the author to complete the main storyline, while casually playing through (after all, he's the one who's gonna categorize it). I'm sure it takes you more than 4 hours to complete Scourger, Meta (if not speedrunning). I bet Tim could beat Malachi's storyline in about 3 hours max, with the super-long storyline dialogue included. The Rise of the Goblins would take a first time player probably around hour and a half. However, I could beat it in 45 minutes, which is why when looking back, RoG should definitely be a Romp. As an example, my first time playing through Quest for the Gems, it took me more than 4 hours, because I spent an eternity wandering around, talking to NPCs thinking I had missed something and that they'd move things along. All this just because I couldn't spot two caves. By your argument, this would make QftG the length of an Epic D-Mod, then.
One thing to add here. Everybody expects an epic to have the content of an epic apart from just the length. That it has the result of hard effort in there, not the result of procedural generation or generic repetition. I already touched upon this when I talked about artificially increasing playing time. I don't think that how a DMOD feels should really be included in the ranking system as it simply isn't objective enough. I certainly don't believe that Malachi's playing time is due to such low-effort bloating (dialogue is definitely not low-effort bloating, it's a lot of work) so if it has the length, it should get the badge.
Low-effort bloating? I never claimed it was. And as I said, I think the dialogue is cool. But you know what? Having nearly if not over a hundred NPCs in your D-Mod, some with changing dialogue, as well as scripting 95% of all the objects isn't low-effort bloating either, but I still don't expect those to be counted as contributors to the length of HH2.
If you include Malachi as an Epic, then you're also going to have to include a lot of other Quests, as Malachi isn't even the longest Quest-sized D-Mod out there. So if you decide that suddenly 20 other D-Mods deserve the Epic badge too, then be my guest.
Look, as I've said millions of times by now, Malachi is a great D-Mod. But it nohow fills the requirements of an Epic (Epic meaning the size, not. the. quality). It doesn't have a map nearly as big as other Epics, it doesn't have the overall feel. Only thing it has is the length, and even most of that comes from prolonging things such as dialogue, side-quests, screenlocked areas and boss fights that aren't hard but last forever. If you were to include Malachi as an Epic, it'd be wrong towards a lot of other Quests out there, and it'd also be wrong towards the Epics. I certainly didn't create two D-Mods the size of the QfDs, POTA and Scourger, just to suddenly have D-Mods half the size of them to be claimed as big. And I'm not being egotistical, but I do take some pride in my work, as well as I respect the other Epic creators.
