Has anyone overcome their initial boredom of an RPG?

[Verylittlefishes]

If I'm not hooked from the start I don't bother playing further. Good game should lure you in with promising more excitement, not bore you to death with dull beginning

A lot of classics start from the pretty dull trope (BOOM, BADA BOOM, woke up, muh where am I, who am I, what a shit place this is): Planescape, Arcanum. New Vegas...Disco Elysium also.

 

[Ol' Willy]

A lot of classics start from the pretty dull trope (BOOM, BADA BOOM, woke up, muh where am I, who am I, what a shit place this is): Planescape, Arcanum. New Vegas...Disco Elysium also.

PST is good because it starts you up in a fucking morgue surrounded by non-hostile zombies. It also has some cute mini-quests right there. And setting hits in right there.
Arcanum starts you up in a crash site giving you opportunities for easy combat and some exploration and one good side quest.
New Vegas is kinda dull early on, true, but it gets better soon.

 

[Black Angel]

Maybe don't play *any* games at all for, like, a month? I've been struck with an illness for a good 2 months now, most likely typhoid fever considering consecutive lab tests for the 'rona keep getting negative results, and for those good 2 months I haven't touched any video games at all with the exception of playing mobile MOBA with my friends every time I get a little bit better, but even that I haven't touched for a good month now.
I've been getting better atm (and boy I sure hope I get better this time for real, I got better a few times but suddenly had relapses every time I planned to go back to work), and now I'm ABSOLUTELY starving to go back playing video games, including the ones I've been burnt out on like Tales of Maj'Eyal.

UnderRail (2015)

You spend the first 20 hours of the game doing literal chores with no plot hooks in sight while sloooooowly walking around with no fast travel options. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but getting invested into it is a struggle.

The game has the non cheat engine out-of-combat speedup feature and fast travel mechanic for a long while now. Also I'd say after a finished playthrough or two you'll get real familiar with pre-drill areas that you can breeze to it in less than 10 hours.

 

[JarlFrank]

Pillars of Eternity

I knew this game would appear in the first post even before I clicked on this thread.

 

[cr0mag]

Some games just have a good hook, at the start and it cannot be overstated how important this is. The BG series have major events happen straight out of the gate and they are far better for it. Having to do chores/banal tutorials at the start of a game is just so bad for a first impression.

I remember a John Romero interview saying how the doom maps were consistently improving as he got the hang of it and then put them in the game in reverse chronological order so he could put his best work forward first.

 

[prengle]

sometimes it just takes a while before you become completely enraptured with something, i vividly remember trying thief again and again years ago until it suddenly sunk its tendrils into my brain. a compelling intro helps with this but it isn't always required

 

[JarlFrank]

If I'm not hooked from the start I don't bother playing further. Good game should lure you in with promising more excitement, not bore you to death with dull beginning

A lot of classics start from the pretty dull trope (BOOM, BADA BOOM, woke up, muh where am I, who am I, what a shit place this is): Planescape, Arcanum. New Vegas...Disco Elysium also.

That's not dull though, they give you an immediate mystery to solve and make you wanna find out what's going on.

If you want dull, try Pillars of Eternity (you are on a trip and got the shits, so you have to find some herbs to cure it, lmao), Temple of Elemental Evil (do a lot of fetch quests for people in a generic fantasy village), Neverwinter Nights 2 (some peaceful village life before your village gets attacked)...

That is dull.
Planescape has you wake up in a morgue with a floating skull calling you chief, and you have no idea what's going on. That's a hook.
Arcanum has you crash land in a zeppelin and then some robed guy tells you some mysitcal mumbo-jumbo, also some gnome told you to "find the boy" and gave you a ring. That's a hook.
Disco Elysium has you wake up as a blackout drunk guy in a trashed hotel room and in your first conversation you can tell a woman you "Want to have fuck" with her. That's funny.
New Vegas allows you to either help out the village you start in, or go to the escaped convicts and join them, or just ignore all that shit and head straight for Vegas. That's cool.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

If you want dull, try Pillars of Eternity

Thank you very much, I've completed both games with both DLCs and almost lost my will to live in the process.

 

[Thonius]

It sounds more like burnout than an actual issue with the game

I haven't played an RPG for years.

In Fallout 1, I was hooked in the first 5 minutes. In other games, the first 5 minutes is an eternity that doesn't seem to have an end.

Ban he!
Well actually play something else or stop playing at all.
Try shoot heroin or something I don't know. Looks like you have grown out of it. It can happen to any of you folks. Try Dwarf Fortress. Or better yet learn a new skill or try meth.

 

[Pink Eye]

Happens to me too, time from time. The best way I deal with it. Is by avoiding video games completely then watching anime. Usually for a week. I think the longest I went once, after burning myself out from playing video games, was a year. A whole year of watching anime - I was also busy with school at the time. Though I don't really watch new animes. I just rewatch the same shows over and over. I've watched Code Geass at least a million times now. Speaking of which, I'm probably going to watch it again later this month.

 

[Black Angel]

You spend the first 20 hours of the game doing literal chores with no plot hooks in sight while sloooooowly walking around with no fast travel options. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but getting invested into it is a struggle.

Re-reading this, I realize that once again I've failed a [Reading Comprehension] check

Anyway, I just realized that by 'first 20 hours of the game doing literal chores' you meant pre-drill/Junkyard-Depot A garbage diving, I think, unless you also include some parts of post-drill like Rail Crossing, in which case I'd say you're wrong to think there's no plot hooks in sight in both cases. Pre-drill you're obviously doing those chores to gain the trust of the South Gate Stations, while post-drill the hook is slowly but surely unraveling the mystery behind the missing SGS people, leading all the way to a super mysterious MacGuffin and the struggle between factions surrounding it. Not exactly mind-blowing, but not all that bad either. Still, this is pretty subjective. It might not have been your cup of tea, but 'no plot hooks' is just wrong.
As for the more recently patched in fast travel mechanic, it wasn't available until Rail Crossing and the content around it kinda for midgame so yeah. But still, pre-drill there's the boat to get between SGS-Junkyard, while post-drill you have the train. Hoping for a fast travel a la Bethesda's is just dumb.

 

[The Jester]

Take a break, turn off the pc, go outdoors.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Take a break, turn off the pc, go outdoors.

are you trying to get him sent to prison?

 

[The Jester]

Take a break, turn off the pc, go outdoors.

are you trying to get him sent to prison?

I'm trying to make him remember why he prefers the in-game world to reality.

 

[V_K]

Anyway, I just realized that by 'first 20 hours of the game doing literal chores' you meant pre-drill/Junkyard-Depot A garbage diving, I think, unless you also include some parts of post-drill like Rail Crossing, in which case I'd say you're wrong to think there's no plot hooks in sight in both cases. Pre-drill you're obviously doing those chores to gain the trust of the South Gate Stations, while post-drill the hook is slowly but surely unraveling the mystery behind the missing SGS people, leading all the way to a super mysterious MacGuffin and the struggle between factions surrounding it. Not exactly mind-blowing, but not all that bad either. Still, this is pretty subjective. It might not have been your cup of tea, but 'no plot hooks' is just wrong.

We've already had that discussion in a different thread. "Gaining trust of SGS" is not a plot hook, or at least not a good one, because the fuck do I care about SGS and whether they trust me. I don't even know anything about them at this point.

 

[Daemongar]

I've noticed a certain malaise when circling back on quite a few games I like.

• I know it's good or gets better, but I've just played quite a few games that give immediate satisfaction, that it's hard to return to slow but steady type games. FO2 has that temple and Whiskey Bobs wood stove and that underground thing with the golden geckos. All of these bore me. But once you get to the slavers, things open up enough to start enjoying the game more.
• It's hard to return from a world of mods, updates, and patched games where if you don't like the start, someone has already fixed that. Current games people can mod out the boring parts, or change some of the dynamics. Older games - no such luck. Just need to tough it out.
• Every game has it's sags. It's just more difficult when it is up front. Games with skippable intros are a more recent endeavor. You know, you fire up Serpent Isle - hey, I know that grabbing lockpicks is good for picking locks, leave me the hell alone Shamino! VTM:B you can just tell Jack to take a hike.

Maybe you could just solicit savegames from folks with a game that starts after the initial horror is over. Or you could accept that you don't play games for non-stop excitement, but as a ritual or release valve. It could also just be part of immediate gratification type thinking. I'd ask if you are having trouble reading books, or have been reading the same books over and over lately, or if you've just cut them out completely. Probably related.

 

[Butter]

The "deluxe all DLC included" version of Oblivion actually comes packaged with a save file right at the end of the tutorial dungeon because everyone hated it. Skyrim for whatever reason did not, even though that game's intro is 10x worse.

 

[AdolfSatan]

How about... playing RPGs that don't drag the intro? On kotc1 you can get your ass beaten as soon as you're done creating the party. You're ready to die horribly as soon as you step outside on NeoScav. Most Ultimas and Ultima-clones throw you to the world right away.

 

[Darth Canoli]

PST is good because it starts you up in a fucking morgue surrounded by non-hostile zombies. It also has some cute mini-quests right there. And setting hits in right there.

I think i've read recently someone mentioning how dull PST opening was, i didn't react not to start another PST war but i also found PST opening quite good, it had never been done before to my knowledge.
The morgue ambient is really great with all the little secrets you can find there.
It's also in total contrast with the agitation of Sigil.

Some games just have a good hook, at the start and it cannot be overstated how important this is. The BG series have major events happen straight out of the gate and they are far better for it. Having to do chores/banal tutorials at the start of a game is just so bad for a first impression.

I remember a John Romero interview saying how the doom maps were consistently improving as he got the hang of it and then put them in the game in reverse chronological order so he could put his best work forward first.

You're so right, a game could be amazing but if the first 1 hour is dull, they're going to lose at least 30% of their sales due to refunds.

Few games did it just right like Dark Sun, fighting for your life in an arena or Wizardry 8, crashing a spaceship piloted by Mook in a deserted planet, leaving you with few leads but an atmospheric dungeon to explore, and one of my favorite dungeon at that.

 

[JarlFrank]

Few games did it just right like Dark Sun, fighting for your life in an arena or Wizardry 8, crashing a spaceship piloted by Mook in a deserted planet, leaving you with few leads but an atmospheric dungeon to explore, and one of my favorite dungeon at that.

Yeah exactly. Starting the player in a generic village performing generic chores is not a good hook.
Just start out in a cool dungeon. Wizardry 8's starter dungeon is one of the best dungeons in the game and I love to re-start the game just to replay the beginning.

Meanwhile in ToEE I use the Co8 mod's alternative starting dungeon and skip the fetch quests in Hommlett because of how dull they are.

 

[Ismaul]

Starting the player in a generic village performing generic chores is not a good hook.

The pitfall of the humble origins trope.

 

[Alter Sack]

When I was a kid games were very expensive (for me), and procuring them was difficult and time consuming.

You had to beg your mom to drive you to the mall, and if you were successful, you then might spend an hour browsing titles at the store. You had to carefully scrutinize the screenshots and description on the back of the box to know what you were getting, because the cover was often misleading. You did your best guesswork based on what you heard at school and what your friends were playing, but ultimately it was a gamble. More than once, you might do all of this to end up buying a stinker. So the stakes were very high as a kid.

On the trip back home from the mall, you would pour over the manual and LARP in your imagination. Getting home was like Christmas morning, a mad rush to the PC to turn it on and wait for it to boot up. The installation process was some kind of black magic; putting the disk in the drive and typing out a strange combination of letters, characters, and spaces. More often than not screwing it up. If you didn't screw it up, the disk drive would make angry noises, and you would sit there with a worried expression on your face, hoping the computer wouldn't explode. Then, it would prompt you to add another disk, and another, and another. The process was tedious and tense and it took forever. You never knew if you might have a faulty disk. Or what if you accidentally entered the wrong command and erased one?

Then, miraculously, you would be greeted by an introduction screen and glorious music!

After having committed to all of the above, quitting was out of the question. You would devote days of your life to somehow make that game worth playing even if it killed you. If you were lucky you might end up with a good game 2/3 times. If you didn't, there was no returning an unsealed product. You were married to it.

The stakes were high, and initial boredom was never an option.

And not to forget the "out of memory error" trying to start dos-games. I can't remember how many start discs I created to no avail to get some games runing.

 

[DeepOcean]

Step 1:Go on a random codex thread.
Step 2: Scroll down with half of your brain on a comatose state and the other half semi awake, if you see something interesting or retarded, pay attention
Step 3: If it is interesting, it might get you to play Deus Ex again.
Step 4: If it is retarded, say the user is retarded.
Step 5: Start a butthurt war with endless quote posts being an even worse retard.
Step 6: Use the butthurt energy to motivate yourself to play a game.
Step 7: If in 10 mins you are too bored, go to another random thread and repeat the process.

 

[KateMicucci]

I got filtered by the first couple hours of enderal. It starts off with a spooky but long and pointless dream sequence, and then you're on a boat, then you get a long unskippable cutscene where you're thrown off the boat. The game then mercifully lets you explore a dungeon and the outdoors for a few minutes before you're forced into a long dialog with a pair of npcs who tell you everything you never wanted to know about enderal's religion, culture and politics. Then there's another dream sequence. Then you meet another NPC who tells you all about how he's investigating a murder in a city that's miles and miles away and he needs your help, along with all the detail about who he is and the political considerations that went into selecting him for the job. While all this is happening you're also getting tutorials for new skills, perks, leveling and arcane fever systems.

Its only after you get past all of that that the game starts getting really fun.

I just can't take games that want me to spend the first multiple hours of the game not playing the game.

 

[luj1]

Push through boredom by playing more of Pillars/Tyranny