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RambOrc
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Crimson Wizard
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Firebrand
Crimson Wizard
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Crimson Wizard
RambOrc
Firebrand
Crimson Wizard
RambOrc
Firebrand
Crimson Wizard
RambOrc
Firebrand
Crimson Wizard
RambOrc
Firebrand
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Crimson Wizard
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(...) many hubs in the game will have a quick punchthrough path that allows the player to skip most of the exploration and fights and advance quicker in the main storyline. Since it is possible to travel back to previous maps of a hub, the player can return to easier areas any time to boost levels and acquire money for better equipment, or tackle difficult quests when he is stronger. It is also possible to skip most maps/hubs in the game. The only ones required to complete at all are those that contain an important milestone to advance the main storyline.Imagine playing the original Hexen with a fighter that does only 1/4 of the damage he did in the original game (i.e. needing 12 instead of 3 hits with his fists to kill an Ettin) and has a maximum of 25 HP and you should get a pretty good image of what it means to use the shortcuts instead of leveling up by doing all the monsters in the rest of the hub before the boss. The extremely hardcore will be able to take this shortcut, but the average player not so much. This also gives a very strong RPG vein to the game, most RPGs are of the type "I can't beat this encounter now, let's go to somewhere else, get better weapons and more experience then come back when it's easier". Also, in my experience more important than the actual length is replayability. I played some of the orginal Heretic and DOOM maps probably over a hundred times because they were really fun. In Hexen, the number of times I played through the whole game was maybe 10-20 times because I was a Hexen freak, but still much less than Heretic where I could pick my favorite maps and play them one by one (original DOOM and Heretic maps are all designed in a way that you can warp there and play normally w/o cheats because you get several weapons in every map). In Half-Life, I played the game through once, then when I tried to play it a second time I stopped pretty quick. So while playing through Half-Life took maybe 15-20 hours, it's 1x20 hours = 20 hours total, whereas while it maybe took only 10 hours to play through Heretic, it's 50x10 = 500 hours total play that was enjoyable. Despite the RPG and the big world and travel, KRPG should be more like Heretic due to the shortcuts in the story hubs and all other dungeons being completely optional. That means except for a few key maps and fights (which should be very well done so they don't feel repetitive/ugly), every other part of the game one can pick every single time differently. This should help achieve a better ratio of development hours to gameplay hours. I would guess in a game like Heretic for 100 hours spent in development, the game could be played for one hour or something like that, whereas in a Half-Life 2 for example it was probably more like 10'000 hours of development for one hour of gameplay.
RambOrc
Crimson Wizard
Firebrand
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Crimson Wizard
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Firebrand
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