"Maybe not so much for you with the talking."Regarding length. (You know, it's
girth that really matters. Honestly.)
In a recent "interview" with the Divide, I stated that the next
The Longest Journey game (it's becoming really difficult to not name it by name (that's one of many, many Big Secrets), but I can't very well call it "TLJ2" or "the sequel to TLJ" either - because it ain't. It's...the next chapter in the saga. Not a sequel) would be shorter than the first one.
And the mail started pouring in.
Let me clarify: The next
Journey will be shorter.
Let me clarify even further: The next
Journey will be shorter for some.
I think length (not girth) has been one of those topics where people's opinions diverge to an amazing degree. In the past, I've seen comments and received mail with complaints about the game being both too short and too long. Yeah, a lot of people thought the game was
too long, and I really get that. When you want to play through the entire story, but it takes you thirty, forty, fifty hours to do so, it can be frustrating. On the flip side, there are those who loved the game, and who are skilled adventurers, and they may have played through TLJ in twenty hours (tough, but it
can be done) over one weekend, and wanted more.
How to achieve balance between the two? You can't really. So instead of trying to please everyone all the time, we're going to make a compromise that first and foremost will benefit the game. By shortening the playing time - and by "shortening", we don't mean "short"; we're still talking maybe twenty hours of gameplay - we can put a lot more effort into what's on the screen. There will be fewer locations, but the locations will be bigger and more detailed. The story will be deeper, more mature, with lots of twists and surprises. The interaction with the environment, world objects, and characters will be
much more complex. The puzzles will be a lot more inventive, a lot more logical, and much less frustrating (no silly rubber ducky). And the gameplay overall will be more varied. Most importantly, we're opening up for more replayability, as well as additional quests that the player isn't required to complete.
Keep in mind that none of this is official yet. I'm merely stating my own point of view of - and vision for - what the game will be like. My vision for the game is to have less "dead space", less aimless running about; conversations that are more focused, more interesting; locations that contain a huge amount of interactive elements, not just pretty things to look at; graphics and animations that surpass the original's in
every way; and a story that takes the saga to a whole new level. We're putting as much, probably more, passion and hard work into this one as we did the last one, but with a slightly narrower focus, to ensure that every second of the player's experience is
fun. So, yeah, it may be a little shorter, but it'll be a heck of a lot better.
Here's a question from Sebastian:
I think some people from Divide-board are interested in taking part as a voice actor if it's possible. Your answear appeared very common to me in this case. Maybe you could give them a chance of proofing themselfes somehow? Where they can send some examples of there voice in or something like that.When the time comes to cast actors for the game, we will do so through professional agencies, and - for various reasons - we'll only be using union actors. I'm sure that some fans would love to play a character in the game, and if you are a professional union voice-actor with an agent, then hey, sure, nothing wrong with submitting your bio. Like I said, though, casting is a looong way off, and we're probably going to listen to dozens - usually more - of actors for every single role in the game. And, for returning characters, in most cases we'll probably also be going back to the original actors.
If TLJ 2 is online-only, subscription-based MMOG, it will fail. Please do not allow Funcom to kill the TLJ franchise in this manner.No one's planning to make the next TLJ an online game, so don't worry. The game will be a single-player adventure for the PC and consoles, sold in stores in a nice and sturdy box, for a one-time charge with no subscription fee. You won't even need an Internet connection to play it. All right?
