how long you think a single completionist playtrough will take?

[apolloooo]

every single quests, dungeons, stronghold upgrade, bosses/secret bosses, if it is anything like baldur's gate 2 i'm expecting at least 60 hours, and the main quest alone is 20-30 hours. probably the mega dungeon alone will take at least 5 hours to 15 hours to complete.

[Fluffsy]

It seems that devs themselves have no idea how long (time wise) the game is. I expect over 100 hours of playtime for the first playthrough.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Fluffsy

[ISC]

These things depend so much on your style of play though. Will you carefully read all the dialogue everywhere or just click through it? Will you be pausing a lot and consider tactics in every encounter?

[TheisEjsing]

The difficulty you choose will also matter a great deal to the hours you have to invest.

Edited March 10, 2015 by TheisEjsing

[Osvir]

I have the feeling that you can't complete everything on a single playthrough.

I don't know why but I remember Josh or someone from the developing team speaking about their internal playtests and how some of the players had "early endings" and some had "bad endings" as if it were two different things from a "red thread ending".

Early ending and bad ending may have been "Death", but it was commented upon by a developer as if it wasn't the "real" ending nonetheless. Meaning, there is a high possibility there are several endings in the game depending on your actions (or behavior) in the game.

Furthermore, there are multiple companions, and the Stronghold, and lots of stuff that can develop differently. There's so many parameters that's difficult to answer at the moment, but we can simply speculate.

Do companions wait for you at the Stronghold forever? Will they ditch you if you just leave them there with nothing to do? Will you be able to complete all companion quests on one playthrough? Is the story going to develop differently if you don't take the Stronghold? Will there be forks in the road that takes you down different paths? Will there be timed and/or dynamic events in the world that you can't do anything about? I can only ask more questions... these were just a few of them.

But a "true" completionist run would probably require several runs to figure out exactly how much there is to complete. That's what I'm guessing. I'm also guessing there's going to be several (or some) hidden gems in the game that might be difficult to find.

EDIT: There's the disposition mechanic in the game as well. "Stoic", "Aggressive", "Benevolant" and so on and forth. Each "personality type" that you choose will probably have different ways to finish quests at some point in their dialogue tree that's unique to their "personality type".

Parallelly:
A true completionist run in Dragon Age: Origin would be to finish the game at least once with each class and race combination... but maybe I'm stretching it for the sake of stretching it (or for argument's sake...? a devil's advocate?). What's my point? My point is that I have freaking no clue... but a wild guess nonetheless...

I'm thinking that maybe 50-60 hours sounds realistic on a single playthrough..? Granted that I don't encounter an "early" or "bad" ending (which would be like.. 20-30 hours maybe...??).

EDIT EDIT: On my BG2 playthrough that I'm doing currently... I was trying to get into Spellhold by helping out a whore at the docks, but managed to accidentally stumble upon a dude as I was exploring, who instead helped me sneak into it. Would that be part of a completionist run?

What happens when there's a fork in the road for a completionist? I.E. "Take Path B, and you can't take Path C, take Path C, and you can't take Path B".

Multiple playthroughs = My answer.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Osvir

[Sedrefilos]

Hmmm Obsidial always makes long games. I can't think of a game made by Obsidian that wasn't long. Like very long. I think you can rest asured that this isn't gonna be a short game. I would expect of 70-80+ hours on normal difficulty. This is my minimum standard for an rpg to be considered long and I think they'll hit the mark as they always did

Edited March 10, 2015 by Sedrefilos

[Bli1942]

I think if you are on at least normal and read everything and talk to everyone it'll be a good 70 hours

[SkySlam]

Considering that it took me around 60 hours only to reach Spellhold in BG2, I suppose the first playthrough of PoE will keep me busy for at least 100 hours!

[Valmy]

I would be surprised if it is less than 100 hours.

[ruzen]

dont be so suprised It could end in 25-30 hours for first playthough. But there will be lots of challanges, variables and perhaps 2 expantion, so the game will entertain for quite a long time.

[Valmy]

dont be so suprised It could end in 25-30 hours for first playthough.

 

On a completionist playthrough?  I plan on spending about that length of time in that 15 level super dungeon alone.

[Abel]

 

dont be so suprised It could end in 25-30 hours for first playthough.

 

On a completionist playthrough?  I plan on spending about that length of time in that 15 level super dungeon alone.

 

 

Yes, if you're like me, then this is needed. After all, i need 250+ hours to reach the end of New Vegas, and 400+ for Skyrim. Like someone said, the playstyle has great influence on the time needed to finish a game.

[Osvir]

^Josh played and "finished"* 1 level of the mega dungeon in about 20 minutes (Of course, it was only level 3, I think, and the levels will probably get tougher and tougher as you go further down). You're going to have to walk really slowly to get 25-30 hours out of that dungeon  I would guess the dungeon itself is 10 hours, tops 15 hours.

ruzen has an excellent point though. Setting the bar/expectation at 100+ hours sounds like setting yourself up for disappointment.

*Well, nearly finished it. Maybe 30-35 minutes if he had explored all of it. Then again, hm, might take longer for us depending on how much we have learned the combat system when we get there and depending on what difficulty we play on.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Osvir

[Abel]

I spend much time reading books, exploring character sheets, testing equipement looted, thinking of many things that would be cool, or even how i should develop my characters as they level up. I usually spend next to 50% of my playing time not actually playing, but goofing around . you would be suprised about how many hours i need just to get out of the Irenicus dungeon at the start of BG2.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Abel

[Osvir]

^And that's also a point I didn't consider (I was just considering actually exploring+combat for how long it would take). Reading is going to be a big part (something Josh jumped past a lot) and that's going to ramp up gametime by a lot.

Maybe 100 hours isn't too far-fetched after all if the completionist run includes finding all books and reading it all (depends on how fast you read I suppose, and how many books there are to read). And it also depends on how fast you decide stuff in dialogue too I suppose.

[apolloooo]

hmm, that is true, that "completionist" playtrough will take multiple plays, it is an obsidian games after all. one of the few developers that actually has meaningful choices / consequences.

 

so i supposed it is "everything you can do that's not conflicting others storyline" playtrough

 

and some path might be shorter / longer than other like legion from new vegas as opposed to picking NCR

[Valmy]

^Josh played and "finished" 1 level of the mega dungeon in about 20-30 minutes (Of course, it was only level 3, I think, and the levels will probably get tougher and tougher as you go further down). You're going to have to walk really slowly to get 25-30 hours out of that dungeon  I would guess the dungeon itself is 10-15 hours, tops.

 

ruzen has an excellent point though. Setting the bar/expectation at 100+ hours sounds like setting yourself up for disappointment.

 

Maybe, but you have to admit doing everything you can do in one playthrough and ending up with 25 hours would be very disappointing.

[Abel]

 And it also depends on how fast you decide stuff in dialogue too I suppose.

 

Yes, all the reading and thinking stuff is time consuming (and it's great). And i may be VERY hesitant sometimes with dialogue choices, depending of my Roleplay (well, sometimes, i even close the game because i can't decide within 10 minutes)

 

I'm kind of a weirdo

[Osvir]

^Not at all, just extremely infuriating in Co-Op games (I usually have a clear idea of my characters and will pick the choice most fitting for them pretty quickly, and I read fast too, but I played with a friend in Baldur's Gate and it took forever whenever he was choosing xD)

[cresentdark]

1) How to have the fastest game time let a baby wolf kill you at the camp at the start of the game so like 5 minutes of play time

2) Complete everything and read everything 100 hours give or take

3) Do main quest with minor side quests 30 hours

4) Goofing around it's over 9000!!!!!

5) Trolling it's 10 hours

6) Skipping dialogue acting like you did anything it's 15 hours for main quest only not counting 50 re loads due to deaths lol

7) My estimated guess for me 100 hours

Using money cheat 80 hours

[barakav]

There are around 150 different areas in this game right? so I guess that on average you can spend around 30 minutes on each...

 

My guess is around 70-80 hours if you are fast and maybe around 100 if you are taking your time.

Edited March 10, 2015 by barakav

[Abel]

^Not at all, just extremely infuriating in Co-Op games (I usually have a clear idea of my characters and will pick the choice most fitting for them pretty quickly, and I read fast too, but I played with a friend in Baldur's Gate and it took forever whenever he was choosing xD)

 

lol, right

 

Actually, i am sometimes really infuriating when playing hot seat Civ 5 with a friend (you know, picking my religion according with my sheme to victory ). In another hand, it's not a problem playing co-op Divinity Original Sin (well at least, i think ).

[Stun]

dont be so suprised It could end in 25-30 hours for first playthough.

That would surprise me. In fact, it would shock me.

 

The beta itself took me about 10 hours to do on my first playthru of it, and it's what... 1/10th of the game? (Literally. it's 15 areas out of 150), and even that doesn't take into account the potential time sinks that were intentionally omitted from it (like engaging in conversations with party members; stronghold management, etc)

 

In any case, the devs have already given us a ballpark estimate on just how big the game is. They said it's bigger than BG1 but smaller than BG2. Well? That's a pretty darn big game. BG1 can take 70-80 hours or more for a 1st time completionist run. And again, PoE will be bigger than that.

[cresentdark]

When I start playing the game I will count the areas in POE myself to see how many areas there are. Going by what they have shown us we have already seen a little more than or less than the areas in the game if you count every space you enter as a area. The beta has 15 areas if you count all the building spaces in town ect

[Stun]

 

When I start playing the game I will count the areas in POE myself to see how many areas there are. Going by what they have shown us we have already seen a little more than or less than the areas in the game if you count every space you enter as a area. The beta has 15 areas if you count all the building spaces in town ect

 

As silly as you're making it sound, it still balances out. Just as the little blacksmith shop interior is 1 area, so is the entire Skaen dungeon.

 

And this is how the devs measured the IE games.