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What is the Longest Spiderweb Game?


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This sounds like a stupid question but I don't know how much of Howlongtobeats website is true. Some people said that Jeff's games got shorter as it became more current. I wouldn't know because I haven't completed all his games. I knew that Avadon 1 was short, Avernum The Pit was pretty massive and Geneforge 1 was about the same size of Avadon 1. Thats just from my experience.

 

Avernum 4-6 are all screwed up as there are differences in opinions.

 

Avernum 4-69 hours-Huge!

 

Avernum 5-38 hours-Avadon short!

 

Avernum 6-44 hours-medium/short

 

Ive heard some people say that Avernum 6 was a long game. And Geneforge series had the longest games.

 

Of course Geneforge got the highest amount of length on that website.

 

Geneforge 1-41 hours-medium/short (my time was about 30 hours)

 

Geneforge 2-59 hours-long

 

Geneforge 3-59 hours-long

 

Geneforge 4-69 hours-really long

 

Geneforge 5-60 hours-long

 

Thats again just an opinion. Theres a big difference between long main quest/huge world and short main quest and massive world. Avadon is probably in that category.

 

Im starting to wonder just what some of these people are playing. I finished half of Geneforge 4 within 12 hours yet they say the game is 69 hours? Thats misleading and confusing. Did the other half of Geneforge 4 just add 40 hours?

 

The question is which are the longest games and which are more like Avadon. Its obvious that howlongtobeat's site is crazy. They rated Avernum 1 as 41 hours when Avernum Escape from the Pit was rated 67 hours. I thought the game got shorter.

 

Jeez..

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I mean, this question takes a lot for granted. For instance, do we count replay time for different factions/sides/whatever or just time to do one playthrough? Do we stick to the bare bones of what we HAVE to do, or do we include all the option quests? How carefully do people actually read the text? I think that's why there's such a large range in howlongtobeat's data.

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I mean, this question takes a lot for granted. For instance, do we count replay time for different factions/sides/whatever or just time to do one playthrough? Do we stick to the bare bones of what we HAVE to do, or do we include all the option quests? How carefully do people actually read the text? I think that's why there's such a large range in howlongtobeat's data.

 

Thats the thing though. I have never once thought of going back a few saves to get an extra ending. Each ending represents a certain group of characters/creations I make. I never knew people actually do that.

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I mean, this question takes a lot for granted. For instance, do we count replay time for different factions/sides/whatever or just time to do one playthrough? Do we stick to the bare bones of what we HAVE to do, or do we include all the option quests? How carefully do people actually read the text? I think that's why there's such a large range in howlongtobeat's data.

 

The site does have three different categories to reflect that: completion of the main game, completion of the main game plus extra content, and 100% completion (seen every piece of content and achieved every goal in the game). The distinction between the first two can be a bit blurry, though.

 

Thats the thing though. I have never once thought of going back a few saves to get an extra ending. Each ending represents a certain group of characters/creations I make. I never knew people actually do that.

 

more things in heaven and earth, horatio

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I haven't played Exile or Nethergate, but of the rest A3 is certainly the longest.

I agree, though my first playthroughs in any of these games is always very long, being a bump-into-walls type of player.

Length to finish isn't the best measure of content; I've spent much more time playing Avernum 2.

Nethergate was never as long for me as an Avernum title, the game world seems pretty tiny after a while.

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Of the Second Avernum Trilogy, I think that they increase in length (A4 is shortest, A6 is longest). I think that A1 and A2 were about the same size as each other, and A3 was nearly twice as long (and is also the longest game Spidweb has ever made). I'm not sure about the Geneforge series; I think they're all comparable in size, but I may be missing something. Nethergate and Avadon are both notably shorter, I think, especially Avadon.

 

The differences are dramatic. Avadon can be finished in a long weekend of more or less continuous play. A3 took me about a month of what had to have been 8-10 hours a day.

 

Of course, BoE is the longest of all.

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On the average Geneforge game I spend about 2 hours before my playthrough doing prep in strategy central and going over all my notes. Then the playthrough takes me roughly 15-20 hours.

But then there are different classes to play, and different factions to join, and it makes a HUGE amount of variety for seeing different parts of the story, and taking fights in completely new ways. I have spent hundreds of hours on the geneforge saga. Maybe over a thousand.

 

None of the avernum games really compare to that amount of gameplay, even if their worlds are generally larger.

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The only game where I have had any indication of playing time so far is Avadon thanks to the Steam overlay; and I'm messing up that estimate pretty badly by idling or forgetting to close. However, I'd estimate that A3 took me over two weeks to finish; possibly as much as 100 hours. I tend to be thorough with the side quests and exploration.

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I'm as always amazed that you can come up with even a rough approximation of the number of hours it takes to complete a game, let alone knowing a value that isn't even rounded off to the nearest multiple of 5.

If the game is played through Steam, it tells you exactly how long you've played it.

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Going by the time labled on Steam, Avernum 4 took about 59 hours, Avernum 5 took 55 hours, and Avernum 6 56 hours. My LP of Geneforge is recorded as 34 hours (Though the recorded time is less, clocking in at 26 hours, likely due to editing and other things) and G2, which I'm doing now, is currently at 25 hours. About 2/3 done. The rest of the games? I can't say.

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I'd say all the Avernums are on the long side, probably 50-80 hours, with A3 closer to the high end of the scale and perhaps up to 100 hours. I'd call the Geneforge games slightly shorter but not substantially so, and playing through the different factions and endings can make them longer. Nethergate and Avadon are shortest, but of course Nethergate is really two very similar games in one. Both 30-50 hours, perhaps; Nethergate's doubled if you play twice, of course, but much of the content is duplicated between playthroughs.

 

—Alorael, who made up numbers to sound educated and informed when in fact making up numbers is exactly the opposite.

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Geneforge is the longest?

h.jpg

Because we need MOAR!!!

-----

I think the Avernum series are the longest, and by far, the longest in the longest games of Jeff's longest games. I completed Geneforge 1 in five hours, no walkthroughs and stuff, but I didn't stop to explore and smell the fragrance of the other places. So, it actually depends on how the player plays it. And I don't like judging Jeff's games because I haven't played all of them in full versions or thought about setting a stopwatch.

-----

Plus, we need MOAR Geneforge

-----

-Nightwatcher

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In my experience, "Avernum: EFTP" is the longest. Although, I played it on torment, did basically everything, and it was the first Avernum game I ever played, which might all have slowed me down some. But it took me over 100 hours to finish.

 

Second longest, was Avernum 5. Which, again, I played on torment, but it has so much hitpoint bloat and trash mobs that it was endless even though its area doesn't seem as big as some of the other avernums. I finished it without lowering the difficulty out of sheer determination, but I seriously don't recommend playing that game on torment just because it's insanely tedious. It's not so much challenging as it is boring as it doesn't make the game harder, just longer.

 

Avernums 4 and 6 were both under 100 hours on torment, though, so they aren't as long.

 

I did all the Geneforges on torment as well, but they were all in the 30-50 hour range. In fact, I played through the first three Geneforges in the time it took me to finish "EFTP" alone, which again might just be because I was a relative Spiderweb newb when I played EFTP, but even despite that, there's no doubting that the Geneforges are waaaaaay shorter. Not only is travel quicker via the overland map (so no endless and repetitive back tracking to towns on foot to heal), but the Geneforges tend not to have the 30+ minute boss battles of attrition that the Avernum games have and there seems to be less hitpoint bloat on harder difficulties than the Avernums. Playing on torment seems to add at least 20 hours to any Avernum playthrough, but doesn't seem to affect the length of Geneforge playthroughs that drastically.

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Avadon is by far the shortest. How could you say Geneforge 1 was the same size? The demo for Avernum 3 is the longest demo of the series if I remember correctly, with Avadon by far the shortest (only one zone with action). I don't think A:EFTP was any longer than any of the geneforge games. Of course G1 and 2 have single global maps, G3 has many, and G4 and 5 have 2, though I don't remember any being significantly longer or shorter than the others.

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I always thought that Exile II took longer than Exile III when you're just trying to finish as quickly as possible - Exile III is huge and takes forever at first, but you really only need to stop a couple plagues and then be strong enough to survive the final battle. Singleton, combat mode, Avatar.

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I went on a Geneforge binge a couple years ago, and blazed through G1-3 pretty quickly. Right after I started G4, though, A:EFTP came out so I switched to that, and haven't been back. I never really track the number of hours I spend playing games, but if you go by number of calendar days from start to finish, those early geneforges would probably tie with Avadon for the shortest. I could believe that I was spending more game playing hours than normal during that binge though, so maybe by actual hours played they are longer. I really do at least feel like G1, in particular, was a pretty short game. Fun, certainly, but short.

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Demo size is always shrinking.

 

It also depends upon how you want to complete the game. In Geneforge 1 you can race for the docks and skip the Geneforge and most of the island to reach an ending. Geneforge 5 has a special ending if you attack a friendly NPC in combat and can end in less than 10 minutes. :)

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I found the A:EFTP demo quite depressingly small. I hope the whole thing isn't as small.

The demos on spiderweb games have been getting shorter relative to the full game length recently. It's a balance between providing enough of a demo for people to get a taste of the game, without giving away so much that people decide they can have all the fun they want with just the demo.

 

A:EFTP (the full game) feels at least as big as Avernum I and Exile 1.

 

Edit: Ooops, didn't see that that comment had already been made on the second page ....

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The demos on spiderweb games have been getting shorter relative to the full game length recently. It's a balance between providing enough of a demo for people to get a taste of the game, without giving away so much that people decide they can have all the fun they want with just the demo.

 

This is a real concern, too. Across the entire gaming industry, 80-90% of people who buy a game will never finish it.

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The demos on spiderweb games have been getting shorter relative to the full game length recently. It's a balance between providing enough of a demo for people to get a taste of the game, without giving away so much that people decide they can have all the fun they want with just the demo.
This is a real concern, too. Across the entire gaming industry, 80-90% of people who buy a game will never finish it.

This. And to back it up with actual stats from an actual Spiderweb game, look at the achievements for Avadon. Less than 35% of players have met Redbeard (something you do after the very first quest), and less than 20% have finished the first Zhethron quest. The 80% mentioned above are not only not finishing the game, they're not finishing the freely available demo.

 

(Things seem to be a bit better for A:EftP, but the "80-90% not finishing" rule of thumb still stands.)

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The demos on spiderweb games have been getting shorter relative to the full game length recently. It's a balance between providing enough of a demo for people to get a taste of the game, without giving away so much that people decide they can have all the fun they want with just the demo.

 

I think large demos are more likely a casualty of the rise of digital distribution. Games are so cheap these days that people barely have time to play the games they own, much less massive demos to games they don't own. All a demo really needs to do is demonstrate how the UI and combat work, and then set up the story line just to give people who are curious a sense of how the game plays. I don't think there's really need or demand for massive demos in this day and age as the cheapness of games (especially indie games) has replaced the demo..

 

Example: a whole boatload of people just bought the entire spiderweb catalog for 5 bucks. I doubt most of them bothered with the demos, just because it's only 5 bucks. If it turns out you hate the games you really aren't out much, so most people are willing to risk without bothering with the demos.

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Well Avadon has problems because people don't like the beginning. Most think its boring. Avernum the Pit has problems because late in the game you don't gain lvls as fast and its just a real drag. Im at lvl 25 and gaining a lvl is like a chore as the only thing that gives exp is random encounters/exploring. The problem is that exploring can start out good where you are gaining exp until you run out of enemies and then need to go back to finding enemies. Random Encounters sometimes occur but other times don't come up.

 

I find that Avadon is more balanced with gaining exp and even if you don't do a lot of sidequests, you can still finish the game relatively early and at lvl25 or whatnot. Even though Avadon is a little boring in the beginning, it picks up once you get to Zhethron and once you do the beast as well. Those are fun quests.

 

I can understand why someone might not finish the Avernum games if they don't like long games but Avadon really gets very engaging at Zhossa Mindtaker. You really got to pay attention there.

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  • 1 month later...

Well that's not the last time, but I'll take a small break from Geneforge 1. I completed the game my second time with a total of 12 hours. This is strange as Agents are supposed to be 2nd place in melee, turns out my guardian on 1st playthrough was 18 hours. Guardian was stronger but Agent could actually evade some hits and was more versatile.

 

Geneforge1- 12-20 hours if you know the game.

Avadon 1- 20-30 hours usually always for me.

 

Im hoping to next go Avernum 4. Im thinking if I just follow the story and level outside a little, I can complete the game with a party of 3 or 4 with the similar amount of time it took for Avadon.

 

Has anyone any idea how long Avernum 4 is compared to Avadon? They are both linear but I read they are somewhere around 40-45 hours which isn't bad at all. I got some time this weekend to complete it.

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Avernum 4 takes longer only because you spend a lot of time moving your party around. While there are travel pylons, you can't use them for the first third of the game and have to find them to speed up travel. Plus there is the Honeycomb maze that takes a few hours to explore. So 40 to 50 hours is about right.

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If you ignore everything optional you can save more time in Avernum than in Avadon. The bare-bones plot might be around 30 hours as well.

 

—Alorael, who on the other hand doesn't think the optional content is really very removable. You don't have to do it, but you'll want to and you'll stumble into a lot of it. It takes effort to just plow through the plot and ignore everything else.

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  • 1 month later...

:blush:

 

There must be something wrong with me. Steam reports that I took 237 hours to complete A:EFTP w/ 2 main quests completed.

 

Memory is a little fuzzy on beginning, but I did have another/other party(ies) I scrapped after they were not doing so well, so really kind of hard to say how much time w/ one party did it take...

 

237 is most likely on the low side of total time played considering I think Steam's Time played counter resets if a game is uninstalled {could be wrong on that}

 

In general I am not a player that "beats" games sadly. I'm not talking about newer games that are kind of supposed to be beaten - like maybe the first Dragon Age game. I'm really referring to old school games which I feel that A:EFTP falls in to the category of.

 

In addition to 237+ hours there is probably another 25 - 30% more to investigate. Not sure how to approach doing that though. If I load an earlier save when my team is in the lvl 25 range a lot of the fun would be nullified by exploring lower level areas with too strong characters. Aaaagh, I should have periodically saved the saves at lower levels -

 

Option 2 : load up game winning team at earlier save and complete main quest I didn't get too ....

 

Looks like I need to pay Erika a visit and start planning Option B.

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