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Firewatch To Last 5/6 Hours On Average; No VR Support Planned

120v

Member
i expected this to be a $50-60 game... for some reason. good to know it'll probably be cheaper, been planning to day 1 it
 

White_sox

Member
I was looking at the developer's page on giantbomb and they have seem to have a real team of indie rockstars working for them. The game is now officially on my radar.
 
I'm down to pay $30-35. I'm picking this up to watch my SO play since she said she enjoyed the art style. Knowing her this game will probably last 8-12 hours.
 

viveks86

Member
Would have been really cool in VR. All they had to do was cut out the canned animations and may be hide the player model altogether. I think the bigger change may have been supporting stereoscoping rendering in whatever engine they use. Oh well, enough armchair designing. I'm buying it regardless.
 
5-6 hours is great, assuming, obviously, that it's priced like a 5-6 hour game.

How would you expect a 5-6 hour game to be priced though? Journey was 2 hours max and I think I paid £12 for that. Everybody's Gone to the Rapture supposedly lasts 5-6 hours and I think that was £16 on launch. Both are lavish and unique experiences though, and IMO utterly worth the asking price.
 

Sloane

Banned
How would you expect a 5-6 hour game to be priced though? Journey was 2 hours max and I think I paid £12 for that. Everybody's Gone to the Rapture supposedly lasts 5-6 hours and I think that was £16 on launch. Both are lavish and unique experiences though, and IMO utterly worth the asking price.
$19.99 on PC, $2.99 on iPad, ez.
 

Furyous

Member
Hopefully this mindset dies soon.

This mindset should not die at all. WAIT.... Are you implying that this game, estimated at five to six hours of completion time, is worthy of the full retail price? With that said, none of us understand the amount of time these developers commit to this project. It's easy to sit back and suggest they charge x amount but we need them to keep producing quality content so support them.

The mindset is a result of the time we live in. Whatever your perspective all of us agree that this game has better replay value than The Bouncer at launch. Game was full price and lasted a very short amount of time.
 
This mindset should not die at all. WAIT.... Are you implying that this game, estimated at five to six hours of completion time, is worthy of the full retail price? With that said, none of us understand the amount of time these developers commit to this project. It's easy to sit back and suggest they charge x amount but we need them to keep producing quality content so support them.

The mindset is a result of the time we live in. Whatever your perspective all of us agree that this game has better replay value than The Bouncer at launch. Game was full price and lasted a very short amount of time.

I get your point and I agree that paying $60 for five to six hour game with no replay value should not be accepted, but I think he meant the mindset that all indie games should be cheaper--a topic that I am torn on.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
good. all games should be 5-6 hours

yes, even rpgs! >_<
 
What is this game.

Official website said:
In Firewatch you play as a man named Henry who has retreated from his messy life to work as a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. Perched high atop a mountain, it’s your job to look for smoke and keep the wilderness safe. An especially hot, dry summer has everyone on edge. Your supervisor, a woman named Delilah, is available to you at all times over a small, handheld radio — and is your only contact with the world you've left behind.

But when something strange draws you out of your lookout tower and into the world, you’ll explore a wild and unknown environment, facing questions and making interpersonal choices that can build or destroy the only meaningful relationship you have.

http://www.firewatchgame.com/
 
Thank god for a focused game. Thought it was gonna be one of those "500 hour open world, do all these insignificant boring shit" type of deals, insta turn off these days.
 

GametimeUK

Member
It's so funny to me how a game like The Order 1886 gets absolutely slammed for being 6 hours long yet games like this get a pass. Yes, I'm aware about the price difference, but length shouldn't be used as a negative when determining the quality of an experience (as long as it does its purpose correctly).

Moving on, I am super excited for this game, the length is absolutely fine and not every game needs VR. I'm in for this day 1 as long as it gets good impressions.
 

Lady Gaia

Member
And yet 'hours' with a 's'. How can it be ?

Copy editing mistake. The original was clearly written as 0.8333333 hours which is grammatically correct but insufficiently precise so they switched to a fractional representation without thinking about the linguistic implications.
 
It's so funny to me how a game like The Order 1886 gets absolutely slammed for being 6 hours long yet games like this get a pass. Yes, I'm aware about the price difference, but length shouldn't be used as a negative when determining the quality of an experience (as long as it does its purpose correctly).

I understand the spirit of what you're saying, but lack of value was kind of the whole point with The Order. It wasn't worth $60 due to how short it was and also its various other problems. If it cost $20 from the beginning, no one would have complained about the length. No one is complaining about the length of Firewatch because 5-6 hours is very reasonable if it ends up costing $20. Of course, the quality of content is a whole other matter that remains to be seen.

This is totally my own opinion, but I'm not sure there has ever been a 5-hour game I would pay $60 for; such a game would have to be VERY special. But that threshold is different for each person.
 
This mindset should not die at all. WAIT.... Are you implying that this game, estimated at five to six hours of completion time, is worthy of the full retail price? With that said, none of us understand the amount of time these developers commit to this project. It's easy to sit back and suggest they charge x amount but we need them to keep producing quality content so support them.

The mindset is a result of the time we live in. Whatever your perspective all of us agree that this game has better replay value than The Bouncer at launch. Game was full price and lasted a very short amount of time.

No, I am saying that the idea that indie games shouldn't be priced above $15-$20 is something I hope goes away soon.
 

- J - D -

Member
It's so funny to me how a game like The Order 1886 gets absolutely slammed for being 6 hours long yet games like this get a pass. Yes, I'm aware about the price difference, but length shouldn't be used as a negative when determining the quality of an experience (as long as it does its purpose correctly).

Moving on, I am super excited for this game, the length is absolutely fine and not every game needs VR. I'm in for this day 1 as long as it gets good impressions.

The Order 1886 gets slammed for its length because there's not much else to the game to soften the blow, except for its visuals.
 

KC Denton

Member
It's so funny to me how a game like The Order 1886 gets absolutely slammed for being 6 hours long yet games like this get a pass. Yes, I'm aware about the price difference, but length shouldn't be used as a negative when determining the quality of an experience (as long as it does its purpose correctly).

Moving on, I am super excited for this game, the length is absolutely fine and not every game needs VR. I'm in for this day 1 as long as it gets good impressions.

The price is a huge difference. Every time I've read about someone who is positive about the game, they almost always mention how they would not have enjoyed the game as much if they had paid full price.
 
I talked to one of the Firewatch devs at PSX about Rift Support, and I can't give you the exact quote, but this is what he told me:

The team had a prototype version up and running using a VR headset (I think it was the vive, might've been psvr) but all the scripted first person scenes caused horrible motion sickness.


The game isn't well-suited to VR at all. Yes it's first person, yes it's a neat atmosphere that would be cool to see in VR, but the game's scripted sequences make it a complete miss for VR.
 
Cue Angry Joe slomo FIIIIVE HOOOUUURRRSSS here.

But srsly, I was expecting a shorter, more lovingly crafted experience from this anyway.

The lack of VR is a bummer, though. Ah well, someone will hack it in. :p
 

Fhtagn

Member
It's so funny to me how a game like The Order 1886 gets absolutely slammed for being 6 hours long yet games like this get a pass. Yes, I'm aware about the price difference, but length shouldn't be used as a negative when determining the quality of an experience (as long as it does its purpose correctly).

The price and the genre matter a lot for what length is appropriate. 5-6 hours and $15-30 is the right space for a walking sim/detective story/interactive fiction, whereas 5-6 hours for a $60 TPS is baffling. Combat scenarios take a lot of player time where as individual story beats and puzzles tend not to (unless the puzzles are hard) so I don't think they are directly comparable.

And besides, The Order catches shit for being short and being a disappointment in other ways. It's that classic joke "the food here is terrible" "yeah, and such small portions!"
 
5-6 hours seems like a very reasonable length for this kind of game. I'd much rather have a short and focused experience, than having it watered down by filler contents added to stretch out the length of the game.
 

Cryxo93

Banned
Sounds good. Can't wait

xiSkMhi.jpg
 

Fitts

Member
Good deal. I was afraid that it would be padded with bland traversal, but I don't think that will be the case. If this is a lean 5-6 hours I'm going to be incredibly pleased.
 

Fat4all

Banned
I expect to spend much more time with it, considering all the contextual and non-mandatory moments of dialogue between the two main characters.

If the demo is anything to go by, you can literally just talk to the girl in the other tower abount practically anything and everything you see.

I'm gonna be standing around a listening a whole lot.

I talked to one of the Firewatch devs at PSX about Rift Support, and I can't give you the exact quote, but this is what he told me:

The team had a prototype version up and running using a VR headset (I think it was the vive, might've been psvr) but all the scripted first person scenes caused horrible motion sickness.


The game isn't well-suited to VR at all. Yes it's first person, yes it's a neat atmosphere that would be cool to see in VR, but the game's scripted sequences make it a complete miss for VR.

I can accept that completely. Not every dev team has the resources or support needed to shoe in VR support correctly, and if they don't want to they don't have to.
 
The idea of VR has definitely come up on the team but trust me when I say there's just no obvious way to do it, haha. That doesn't mean there isn't any way to do it ever under any circumstances, just that all the specifics of our first-person exploration and animation and interactions were 100% built for normal-ass video game assumptions of "you're playing this on a monitor or TV with mouse/keyboard or controller" and it would require a LOT of rethinking and rejiggering to alter those core assumptions. Obviously any post-launch plans depend almost entirely on how the game is received and what there's demand for, etc.

Glad to see people in this thread are excited though!
 

fishbang

Member
The idea of VR has definitely come up on the team but trust me when I say there's just no obvious way to do it, haha. That doesn't mean there isn't any way to do it ever under any circumstances, just that all the specifics of our first-person exploration and animation and interactions were 100% built for normal-ass video game assumptions of "you're playing this on a monitor or TV with mouse/keyboard or controller" and it would require a LOT of rethinking and rejiggering to alter those core assumptions. Obviously any post-launch plans depend almost entirely on how the game is received and what there's demand for, etc.

Glad to see people in this thread are excited though!

I'm plenty excited for VR, but I'm just as happy to see people make the game they can and want to make instead of fitting a square peg in a round hole. There'll be more than enough of that to go around in the next couple of years. Post-release VR integration for Firewatch? Cool. No post-release VR? Still cool. I'm looking forward to whatever it is.
 

viveks86

Member
It's so funny to me how a game like The Order 1886 gets absolutely slammed for being 6 hours long yet games like this get a pass. Yes, I'm aware about the price difference, but length shouldn't be used as a negative when determining the quality of an experience (as long as it does its purpose correctly).

Who used length to determine the quality of the experience? For The Order 1886, they used length to determine how much they'll pay for it, which you claim to be aware of. So you aren't making much of a point.

Personally, length means nothing to me either. But The Order 1886 is like the worst example to bring up here given its length, price, quality and critical reception. Let's hope the only thing firwatch has in common with that game is length.
 
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