The Dink Network

There's quite a discussion going on here, but as that is supposed to be about the upcomming DMOD's list and the discussion doesn't really seem to stop yet I thought a seperate topic might be a good idea.

So the question essentially is where the borders between romp, quest and epic lay. Now I'm not going to repeat everything what's been said over there except this bit by cocomonkey:

Anyway, I don't think "epic" should be a quality judgment. The description on the Files page is plainly about length. That's what really bothers me - it's treated like an exclusive club with no firm criteria for entry. There should be a clear standard for what is an epic and what isn't so that it doesn't become a dumb political thing like it is.

Which is something I absolutely agree with. However, what would this firm criteria be? Officially it's pretty simple: A DMOD that takes about 4 hours or more to finish. But does that simply mean that a DMOD's length can be determined by simply the number of screenlocks being used? I feel that the DMOD should simply have 4 hours worth of content. There are many other things I find important (which I posted about in the other thread) but ultimately that should be the criterium. What is content is a bit debatable but I think if the DMOD isn't somehow artificially inflated this should simply be the playing time. I'm going to play through Malachi the Jerk again and if I find that it takes me close to 4 hours or so I'm going to say that it should be an epic.

I feel like an "Epic" should be based on more factors than the time it takes to finish it.
Perhaps on factors such as:

-Amount of story content

-number of screens
(sidenote: screens that are USED, as a game full of empty screens that have little or no function hardly constitutes an epic)

Of course factors such as time, and quality should be taken into consideration, perhaps however not to the same extent as the above two factors listed.

of course we have the examples of the epics we already have here. And i think they meet the criteria.

Sorry for cluttering up the upcoming DMODs thread. I'd say I didn't mean to start a debate, but since I said something I knew would be contentious, that's kinda BS.

Hey don't worry about it. I don't mind anything you said, this is just me trying to think practically.

You used the word "simply" a lot.

I'm not really sure the best way to describe an epic. The quest size covers a pretty big margin. It encompasses the majority of dmods, and they all vary in size and length. An epic is something larger than a quest, but a quest can be anything from a four hour adventure to a ten minute shebang. So it's hard to really nail down what defines being larger than a quest.

The difference to me I guess is whether or not I can beat the game as it was intended in one sitting. A quest I can, most epics I can not.

i got an epic length for ya

wink wink

wank wank

i got an epic length for ya

I don't get it.

(On a more serious note... I think the description the site gives for epics is just fine: That is, "A large adventure that is about the size of the original game, or larger." I don't really see any reason to change that definition. If we want to go into exceptions than maybe you can include the expansiveness of the atmosphere a bit. However, I see no reason to doubt a game like PoTA's epic status, nor do I think any game its size if made now should be called a quest instead. Just because it's easier make epics now isn't really a good excuse, especially considering they are hardly ever released. As for why other types of DMODs such as Romps and Quests aren't all over the place anymore I think the answer is a bit obvious. We're all more veteran Dinker's with a higher level of quality desire than the average Joe. On top of that, we don't have a lot of time to spend making DMODs anymore so when we do spend it we tend to spend that time on making things we think will be great enough to be worth downloading even today. That's the way I see it anyways, feel free to disagree. Basically, I don't see a lot of reason to change the rules of what constitutes an epic just because the average DMOD quality has risen throughout the past many years.)

A D-mod being listed as a Romp/Quest/Epic is really at the discretion of the author, and the person who approves the submission of the D-mod. When I first submitted Dink and the Bonca, I had it as a romp, but the admin who was looking it over to approve it back then (Christiaan) suggested it should be a quest, and I was slightly humbled by that. DatB was not much more than an hour of content, but I think he felt that it had the feel of a short quest, and I didn't disagree. So it became a short Quest. If the author of the D-mod feels their D-mod fits the criteria of an Epic, it's really up to them, since there are no set in stone standards that defines exactly what is required to make it Epic.

My opinion, however, is that there are rough guidelines that should be followed to some extent to qualify it as an Epic. "A large adventure that is about the size of the original game, or larger" is a great place to start. This can either be in play time (Over 3 hours), map size (at least 50-60% of the 768 map screens), a substantial amount of quests that can be completed, or all of the above. But again, these are my opinion of rough guidelines, and again are really at the authors discretion.

As for Malachi the Jerk, to me it fit plenty of criteria to be listed as an Epic. It had the play time, and even with the smaller map, it used it well. What's more important, is that it felt epic while playing it. Maybe that's a guideline that should be followed. If it feels epic, it can be called an epic.

As people will find out if they watch the future parts of my LP of Malachi the Jerk, I have mentioned several times that I actually wondered why it wasn't listed under epic, rather than quest. It just seemed to long to be a quest for me, but I guess that's just my opinion.

I mean so far there is 21 parts of Malachi the Jerk recorded, each of them anywhere between 9 - 15 minutes long. That's with Tim pointing me in the right direction when I can't figure out where to go too. We're almost finished the LP so I think there will be one more part. Obviously these aren't all uploaded yet, but I like to upload my LP parts weekly.

but a quest can be anything from a four hour adventure to a ten minute shebang

Actually a ten minute shebang would be a romp. A quest is an adventure typically lasting longer than an hour or so.

I mean so far there is 21 parts of Malachi the Jerk recorded, each of them anywhere between 9 - 15 minutes long.

That'd be a bit over 4 hours of gameplay time. I guess that could make it an epic. I'll go over it before I give my judgement.

"Epic", I find, is one of those things that's easy to see, but difficult to define. When I play a dmod, I KNOW whether it is an epic adventure that I'm playing. When you start crunching numbers (screen count, script count, whatever etc), that just muddles the topic and makes everything more difficult.

In general, playing time is without a doubt the best indicator. Normal play time, like when you play a dmod for the first time. There is obviously some variance in this number between players, but no one's counting minutes. When it comes to epics, I feel that it should be big enough that you're not really counting hours, either.

4 hours sounds short for anything that's supposed to be even roughly the same size as the original game. On my first playthrough, I spent 14 hours going through that game. On another playthrough, I still spent closer to 10 hours than 4. If something takes 4 hours on your first playthrough, that's clearly in a smaller scale; a large(ish) quest. Of course, when you know what you're supposed to be doing, it's easy to blaze through a game.

With that said, who gives a shoot? It feels to me like creating an epic dmod has become much more of a badge of honour than it should be. I don't care whether Quest for Dorinthia 2 is an epic dmod or not, that's still one of my favourite dmods. Likewise, I don't care if Quest for Parizaya is an epic. It's still crap. (Sorry, Christiaan. I'm still very much looking forward to Scenia: Shadows of the New Order...)

The way I see it, the "Romp/Queest/Epic" status of Dmods listed on this site only refers to length because we have the reviews and 0.1-9.9 score rating system to describe the quality separately.
What we seem to be discussing here is a combined mixture of the two category types. I mean, a Dmod could reuse the same screens repeatedly with visions and a ridiculous number of sprites and scripts while having a great story with plenty of puzzles, dialogue and combat, while still being epic length by the sheer fact that scripts spawn in almost everything from walls to NPCs to enemies (though we haven't seen a Dmod quite so script-driven yet, it's a possibility).
Dmod "length" types shouldn't be changed too heavilly, and more lengthier Dmods are only to be expected as time passes and Dmodding skills improve to such lengths.

EDIT: If we're going to have more specific criteria that determines a Dmod status (screen/script counts) these should have their own category. We've got score and length already, so why not a content category to base the mapsize/scriptsize, while leaving quality to the review scores?

Separately, I agree that Malachi is an epic length Dmod and also of high quality.

I don't really get why recently this has been such a big problem for people all of a sudden. We've gone 17 years without any problem in determining what is an Epic and what is not. I think some people here recently are starting to think a bit too highly of their work. And I'm not saying Epics are better than the rest (hell, HH1 & HH2 are nowhere near the quality of Malachi), but I think it's become an obsession to some people who'd like their work to be included among the "big D-Mods". Malachi the Jerk is not an Epic, and that's that. It's a great D-Mod, but it doesn't come anywhere close to what have been the standard sizes for Epic after Pilgrim's Quest (or even before, really). I've seen some other D-Mods that are currently in the makings too, that are much bigger than Malachi but still don't really seem like Epics to me (even though they're being promised as that). If we get to the very bottom of things, what do I think are the things that determine an Epic?

1) The length of the main storyline: I think this might be the most important thing. The time you spend from starting the game, to getting to the end credits during your first playthrough. If it takes more than 4 hours, yes, I think it can be counted as an Epic. But this goes for just the main storyline and scenes that move the story forward. NPC conversations, over-lengthy dialogue and side-quests are just a nice plus, that should contribute to the already big adventure. I think this is the biggest reason why Malachi, for example, can't be counted as an Epic. It's longer than some Epics, but only if you count EVERYTHING. But if you leave out the parts that don't actually anyhow progress the main story, it's probably only around 2 hours long.

2) The size of the map: Epics need to have a big world to explore, around the size of the original game's map or larger. Something like Initiation, for example, has a map barely bigger than some Romps I've seen. This is one of the biggest reasons why I wouldn't count it as an Epic.

3) The feel: This is what Metatarasal spoke about earlier. There's just a certain different "feel" to Epics, than there is to other D-Mods. I don't really know how to describe that feel. Just that it's something bigger than most D-Mods. I guess the best way to describe it would be that you're feeling like you're playing a game the size of which could've officially been sold in a store, instead of a community made add-on (remember, not talking about the quality. But the size).

4) The time it was released: Yes, I think the time period the D-Mod was released in does matter. I'm saying this because some D-Mods from back then wouldn't probably be accepted as Epics within the modern community. But making D-Mods was much harder back then, and it was rarer to see big D-Mods. Do you really wanna go back and change what category those D-Mods belong to, after 12 to 15 years? Times were different back then, and I don't think it's fair to go back now and change their category, just cause modern Epics might be bigger than some of the older ones. That's simply to be expected. Just like the improvement in quality is to be expected. Quest for Cheese has horrible quality by today's standards, but do you still wanna go back and give it a crap score, just because a D-Mod from back then can not compete with a D-Mod from today? I doubt it.

So that's my 2 cents, and last thing I have to say about this thing. I think those are the most important things that matter when it comes to determining what is an Epic D-Mod and what is not. You can't just look at one of those things. You have to look at all of them together. And no, this isn't about my ego and trying to appear super-amazing or something just cause I made two Epics. I don't think they're even that good D-Mods honestly, but they do belong in the Epic category, which is why it kinda stings that suddenly much smaller D-Mods that have never gotten into that category before, are being said to belong amongst them.

Speaking of Epics, I'm wondering why Bored of the Rings wasn't considered one.

I disagree with most of what you say. Now I might be repeating myself, so feel free to skip on reading this. Let me just respond to a couple of statements:

We've gone 17 years without any problem in determining what is an Epic and what is not. I think some people here recently are starting to think a bit too highly of their work.

Nope, we actually have had this debate numerous times. And DMODs have been recategorized in the past. I think the absence of larger quests made categorizing something as an epic quite quickly popular.

1) The length of the main storyline: I think this might be the most important thing. The time you spend from starting the game, to getting to the end credits during your first playthrough. If it takes more than 4 hours, yes, I think it can be counted as an Epic. But this goes for just the main storyline and scenes that move the story forward. NPC conversations, over-lengthy dialogue and side-quests are just a nice plus, that should contribute to the already big adventure. I think this is the biggest reason why Malachi, for example, can't be counted as an Epic. It's longer than some Epics, but only if you count EVERYTHING. But if you leave out the parts that don't actually anyhow progress the main story, it's probably only around 2 hours long.

I really don't see why NPC conversations wouldn't be part of the main storyline. Conversations, like explorable area and fighting are all content that is part of what the DMOD has to offer. After all exploration of wilderness is part of the DMOD, in the same way that talking to NPCs is exploration of the towns. I did mention in the other thread that I dislike artificially inflated gameplay time, that shouldn't count for length. I'm for example thinking about Bill and Kill 1, which may be a quest in terms of gameplay time, but everybody instinctively knows it should be a romp.

Looking back at my own DMODs I also am guilty of artificially stretching gameplay times, especially with the Scourger...

2) The size of the map: Epics need to have a big world to explore, around the size of the original game's map or larger. Something like Initiation, for example, has a map barely bigger than some Romps I've seen. This is one of the biggest reasons why I wouldn't count it as an Epic.

Somehow you have decided that a large map is more important for an epic than a lot of dialogue, why? I see both forms of content as equally valid content. I agree that a large map helps a lot with a feeling of expansiveness, something I talked about earlier. But I feel a lot of in-depth dialogue can also provide an expansive immersion. I do feel a sizable map is important for the feel, but an absolute requirement... No.

3) The feel: This is what Metatarasal spoke about earlier. There's just a certain different "feel" to Epics, than there is to other D-Mods. I don't really know how to describe that feel. Just that it's something bigger than most D-Mods. I guess the best way to describe it would be that you're feeling like you're playing a game the size of which could've officially been sold in a store, instead of a community made add-on (remember, not talking about the quality. But the size).

Agreed on that. Somehow I don't think a frogger clone with 100 levels taking many hours to beat is an epic. Not even because of a lack of content, just a different feel.

4) The time it was released: Yes, I think the time period the D-Mod was released in does matter. I'm saying this because some D-Mods from back then wouldn't probably be accepted as Epics within the modern community. But making D-Mods was much harder back then, and it was rarer to see big D-Mods. Do you really wanna go back and change what category those D-Mods belong to, after 12 to 15 years? Times were different back then, and I don't think it's fair to go back now and change their category, just cause modern Epics might be bigger than some of the older ones. That's simply to be expected. Just like the improvement in quality is to be expected. Quest for Cheese has horrible quality by today's standards, but do you still wanna go back and give it a crap score, just because a D-Mod from back then can not compete with a D-Mod from today? I doubt it.

The system is there to provide help for players. So if a player is looking for a DMOD that is substantial but not too long he might play Malachi and skip on QfD 2. On the other hand the player enjoying large epics might play QfD 2 even though Malachi is longer. It's about helping people decide which DMODs to play, not as a sort of ranking among DMOD creators. That should be the guide. For my part we find a different set of categories for the future if that helps players better.

Edit: Putting this into two posts as they are really two seperate things.

Perhaps I should talk a little bit about my own DMODs and their size, it might provide an interesting perspective.

The first DMOD I uploaded was Quest for the Gems, back in 2005. I actually uploaded it as a quest, but whoever approved it on TDN (I think it was Tal) put it into the romp category, probably because the map was fairly small. I told myself that I was to blame and that I had overestimated the DMOD's size. (Which I still believe I did by the way.) Still, looking back at it I doubt that it actually isn't a quest, gameplay time certainly isn't too far away from the hour mark. I noticed that Skull's playthrough on youtube has a total running time of 1 hour 16 minutes which obviously includes some intro stuff. Everybody playing it seemed to accept it as being just a romp though, something that I can still see why. But perhaps this experience made me rank DMOD's more conservatively myself.

Because of this I also decided I should be a bit conservatively on ranking the Scourger. I thought it was probably a small epic but decided to upload it as a quest anyway because it has less scripts and less screens than the original. Surprisingly people did comment this time that it probably should have been an epic. I don't really know myself what it should have been. It did feature quite a bit of playtime stretching by hiding multiple storyline-essential items in a maze that had to be collected in a certain order. This really artificially increased playing time, so I think in retrospective the decision to call it a quest was the correct call. This being simply because of a lack of content rather than playing time.

I've also thought about quel, my most recent addition. I uploaded it as a romp as I never thought any other way about it. Now doing the co-commentary with Robj I realized that it probably should be a quest. I can't remember how many parts we did but I think the total time was over an hour. Before that I never even considered the idea. I never bothered to find out how long it took to complete because I set out to make a relatively small DMOD. I set out to make a romp, so a romp it was. And I'm not alone in this, if Quel was a quest than I think it's main competitors in the throwback competition probably were quests as well. Both Paul's and Scratcher's entries were larger than mine, even though they too are only marked as romps. Actually Scratcher's lost forest romp nearly has as many scripts as quest for Dorintia 2 and that is labelled as an epic! Only Dink and the 4 towers was marked as a quest, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually the smallest of the four... In a way Quel taught me how much you think of a DMOD in the spirit in which it was started.

It also probably means that our ideas of what is required for a quest or an epic might have inflated over time, probably because of a lack of small romps. We don't even know what a small romp is anymore! Looking through cocomonkey's playthroughs reminds me of how small the average romp is. I had forgotten because so few tiny things have been released in recent years.

Take these as examples as to how hard it is for me to properly say in what category a DMOD belongs. I can't even tell you for my own DMODs. Only Dink learns music, that is 100% surely a romp. It also shows that debates about length have been around for at least as long as I am around, which is close to a decade already. (Man, time flies!)

Nope, we actually have had this debate numerous times. And DMODs have been recategorized in the past. I think the absence of larger quests made categorizing something as an epic quite quickly popular.


It's been talked about before. But never as much as recently. And the debates in the past have usually been more about Epics that should be Quests, and not the otherway around like it seems to be recently.

I really don't see why NPC conversations wouldn't be part of the main storyline. Conversations, like explorable area and fighting are all content that is part of what the DMOD has to offer. After all exploration of wilderness is part of the DMOD, in the same way that talking to NPCs is exploration of the towns. I did mention in the other thread that I dislike artificially inflated gameplay time, that shouldn't count for length. I'm for example thinking about Bill and Kill 1, which may be a quest in terms of gameplay time, but everybody instinctively knows it should be a romp.

Simply because you could spend eight hours just talking to NPCs and fighting monsters and call it an Epic. But unless the game requires you to do that to actually complete the main storyline, it shouldn't count. If it did, you could make an Epic with four screens and no storyline. Just have one screen where NPCs have three hours worth of dialogue, a screen filled with another two hours worth of fighting monsters, then a screen with lots of hidden goodies for an explorable area, and then a final screen with ending credits. This is why only things that move along the main adventure should count, because otherwise you could make anything into an Epic.

Somehow you have decided that a large map is more important for an epic than a lot of dialogue, why? I see both forms of content as equally valid content. I agree that a large map helps a lot with a feeling of expansiveness, something I talked about earlier. But I feel a lot of in-depth dialogue can also provide an expansive immersion. I do feel a sizable map is important for the feel, but an absolute requirement... No.

Because the Epic rules state "a D-Mod the size of the original game, or larger". If there's anything you can actually compare in size to the original game, it's the map. I'm not gonna nitpick about the exact amount of screens, but most Epics do use at least 75% of the available screens, which is why it's kinda wrong if a D-Mod that doesn't even use half the total screens, would get in the same category. I do see where you're coming from, with it not being a requirement, but then again, do any of the Epics really *require* a big map? No. You could fit everything in SoB in a hundred screens. But that's not what it's about. Nobody would call SoB an Epic if it did that. A lot of the epicness comes from the unusually large map, and having a big, explorable world.

The system is there to provide help for players. So if a player is looking for a DMOD that is substantial but not too long he might play Malachi and skip on QfD 2. On the other hand the player enjoying large epics might play QfD 2 even though Malachi is longer. It's about helping people decide which DMODs to play, not as a sort of ranking among DMOD creators. That should be the guide. For my part we find a different set of categories for the future if that helps players better.

Again, I see where you're coming from. And I sort of actually agree. But I'm more leaning towards the fact that going back and changing the D-Mod categories after years is kind of unfair and a slap in the face of their authors. I agree that it should be a guide, but it should also fairly represent the D-Mod based on the time period it was released. For example, I don't really like AGAE much at all, but I can still see that it was a rather large and unique D-Mod for its time. Just because it isn't anymore doesn't mean it once wasn't. What if in ten years there was a 8-hour long D-Mod released every month and the "big, rare D-Mods" would be 30-hour long games with three maps? Scourger would still be an Epic for its time, even if it was a small D-Mod by that day's standards. I doubt it'd make you very happy that Scourger would be categorized as a Romp, simply because future D-Mods would be bigger. As time moves on, bigger and better is just simply to be expected. Doesn't make the past achievements any less valid.

And the debates in the past have usually been more about Epics that should be Quests, and not the otherway around like it seems to be recently.

Uh... That's the same thing right? It just depends on how the DMOD was first uploaded, the debate is the same. And actually the only debates I can think off right now are initiation and cloud castle 2, which where quests that were recategorized as epics. I actually can't think of an epic that was recategorized as a quest.

Just realize that walking around and exploring the environement is also necessary for finishing a DMOD. Talking to NPCs who may not actually advance the main story is part of that. You probably won't talk to all of the NPCs, but at least partly they do contribute to the overall length. The time it takes to finish a DMOD with the walkthrough (only going through the necessary stuff) is a worse indicator than a first time playthrough where you don't exactly know yet wether or not talking to a certain NPC is going to be important. The playing time using the walkthrough depends more on wether or not you give the player herbboots and less about the amount of content.

Optional stuff also contributes to length. Unless the DMOD makes it very clear that that stuff is optional the player simply doesn't know what he does or does not need to do. It is necessary to talk to optional NPCs because you do not know that those NPCs are optional. It's the same way with mapping, a maze takes longer to navigate through than a straight path that equals the length of the shortest route through the maze. Even though only the shortest route through the maze is what propels the story, all of the dead ends are optional.

And I don't think the size indicators should be awarded as an achievement. If in the future 30 hour stories become the standard I think they deserve their own category. But if they don't, I won't mind recategorizing my own DMODs. Those 30 hour adventures deserve that then.

Doesn't make the past achievements any less valid.

If the scourger would be categorized as a romp it wouldn't make the achievement any less valid as when it was categorized as an epic.

As far as your D-Mods go, I'd say Quest for the Gems is a Romp. It has a fairly small map, and it's not that long. You shouldn't take an LP's time for the D-Mod's time. In an LP, you're talking and not always paying attention to what you're doing, the playing is often interrupted by you explaining things, there's all the intros and that stuff. For example, the last castle in HH1 took almost an hour in the LP, when it should be a maximum of 30 minutes. You could casually play QftG through in under an hour. And even if it takes a couple of minutes longer, I'd say an hour and a five minute D-Mod is still closer to a Romp than a Quest.

Scourger I used to think of as a long Quest, but after you made the update and added stuff, it's most definitely an Epic now. I can't say anything about Quel, as I haven't found the time to play that one, unfortunately.

You could casually play QftG through in under an hour.
Okay, I actually value your experience higher than my own memories. It has been many years ago when I last played it.

Perhaps cocomonkey could indicate what category he believes a DMOD should be based on his experience in his playthrough thread? I'm kind of curious which DMODs should really be in a different category. I actually think it would be a good idea if staff recategorize DMODs based on Tim's feedback. I actually quite trust his objectivity in this matter based on his playthroughs... Judging your own DMODs remains hard though, I know I don't really know what I'm doing.

But when I talk to an NPC that locks me into a ten minute dialogue and nohow progresses the storyline every three minutes, then go back to the same NPCs multiple times, thinking they have something new to say, and end up locking myself to the same dialogues for another ten minutes, it shouldn't be counted. As great as the dialogue may be, I've not made any progress in the adventure during those dialogues, and yet the D-Mod will seem way longer. Take CC2, for example. I know that D-Mod like the back of my hand, and could finish it in probably 4-5 hours. But if I want to see all the small, unnecessary things that D-Mod has to offer, and all the dialogue, it could easily turn into a 15 hour long adventure.

And as far as your maze argument goes, you could make two screens. One is the ending screen, and one is a screen with 1000 teleporters, out of which only one takes you to the ending screen (I know it's unrealistic to do that with Dink, but it's just an example). Now, if you guess right on your first try, you could end up with a minute-long D-Mod. But if you get it right on your last try, you could end up having an Epic-length D-Mod. So yes, the length of the D-Mod could very easily end up fitting in the Epic category, but does the D-Mod fill the other aspects of providing an "epic adventure"? No.

And I don't think the size indicators should be awarded as an achievement. If in the future 30 hour stories become the standard I think they deserve their own category. But if they don't, I won't mind recategorizing my own DMODs. Those 30 hour adventures deserve that then.

Well, I personally think it'd be wrong if your D-Mod got labeled as a Romp just because future D-Mods were longer. We're making D-Mods for today, not for the future, and that's why our D-Mods should be categorized and rated according to their time of release. The requirement of an Epic is "anything around the size of the original game, or larger". Even if in ten years we did have 30-hour long D-Mods, that doesn't change the fact that Scourger fills that requirement, and should remain an Epic, even if it was small compared to the 30-hour long D-Mods.

Even if in ten years we did have 30-hour long D-Mods, that doesn't change the fact that Scourger fills that requirement, and should remain an Epic, even if it was small compared to the 30-hour long D-Mods.

While I don't agree with everything you've said Skull, This statement above pretty much hits the mark on my beliefs exactly. Rather, I think that 30 hour DMOD and any like it should get it's own category (super-epic? I don't know). At any rate, it's a lot cleaner and it's a lot more fair than changing the guidelines for each category all the time, especially since they could hardly be called broken (a bit mysterious maybe, but certainly not broken).

One is the ending screen, and one is a screen with 1000 teleporters, out of which only one takes you to the ending screen (I know it's unrealistic to do that with Dink, but it's just an example). Now, if you guess right on your first try, you could end up with a minute-long D-Mod. But if you get it right on your last try, you could end up having an Epic-length D-Mod. So yes, the length of the D-Mod could very easily end up fitting in the Epic category, but does the D-Mod fill the other aspects of providing an "epic adventure"? No.

For the length of such a DMOD you'd simply calculate an expected value. This is simply the average time it takes, it's the same for more complicated DMODs. You don't take the time that you get when somebody does everything right nor do you take the time that you get when somebody does everything wrong. You let a thousand real people play through the DMOD for the first time and take the average time it takes them. Of course this hypothetical DMOD would meet my criteria for artificially increasing playing time. A thing that doesn't turn a DMOD into an epic. Infinidink takes an infinity to complete and is still only a romp.

EDIT: Actually, let's make the counter example: If 500 of those teleporters need to be done in sequence, is the DMOD an epic then? On average it would take just as long as 1000 optional ones. It is my statement that both hypothetical DMODs would be equally long.

And the category is for players in the present, not players of the past.

As I said, you can't just look at one thing and determine by that. You also have to look at the map size, the length of the main storyline and the overall feel of the D-Mod.

It doesn't matter if you have to enter the teleporters in a sequence, it's still only a 2 screen D-Mod that can be ended within a very short time.

It doesn't matter if it has 3, 4, 5 or even if it uses all the screens available and fills them all with teleports. It still doesn't have a proper epic main storyline that can be finished.

And it doesn't matter if you somehow manage to include a storyline. It's still an extremely dumb idea for a D-Mod, that nohow fills the requirement of making you feel like you're playing an epic adventure.

And as far as D-Mod that last on forever go, since we no longer have the "Weird" category, they should be released as Romps, because you can quit them within a minute and still be as "done" with them as you would be after playing for hours.

And the category is for players in the present, not players of the past.

Yeah, the players. But what about the authors? The rating and category system is there for the players, but it's just as much there for the authors. If someone has created a D-Mod that was accepted as an Epic in 1998, we have no right to go and change it to something else now. Just like we don't have any right to go and remove reviews for an old D-Mod, because it's no longer as awesome as it used to be looked as. It'd just be dumb, and like TheNewGuy said, very problematic since D-Mods keep getting bigger and of higher quality all the time. It doesn't matter anyway. We don't need to go back and change old Epics, and we don't need to add some new Super-Epic category. Anything the size of the original game or larger is an Epic, no matter whether it's a 4-hour adventure, or a 40-hour adventure.

And it doesn't matter if you somehow manage to include a storyline. It's still an extremely dumb idea for a D-Mod, that nohow fills the requirement of making you feel like you're playing an epic adventure.

Not even if Morgan Freeman was narrating the whole adventure in vivid and loving detail as you played!?!?

I'm afraid even Morgan Freeman can't help in this case. Now if you manage to include James Earl Jones alongside him, then it might be a different story.

I agree with meta: the categories are there for the players. Their purpose is not to be a badge of honor for authors. That's petty nonsense. Anyway, "Lyna's Story" is regarded as one of the best DMODs, and no one ever called it an epic.

You're not going to believe me, but I'm not here to argue Malachi the Jerk is an epic in order to bolster my wounded pride. I'm just frustrated because I don't think this standard is being applied evenly, and I think it ought to be. If DMOD X is an epic and DMOD Y is longer than X, either Y should be an epic or X shouldn't be. Otherwise, what you've got is a prestige category and I don't see the point of that.

Skull, I still don't understand why you're trying to discount NPC conversations. That's solid content for a DMOD. It's hardly comparable to having 1000 teleporters or screenlocking every room in the game to inflate length. It feels like you're singling out Malachi the Jerk, since some existing epics would also be a hell of a lot shorter if you applied the exact same standard.

Map size might be a better argument. Malachi does have fewer screens than any epic I've come across. If pretty much everybody agrees that epics have to have a certain amount of screens, that is at least a standard that makes sense.

Those teleporters probably have their reasons, man. Maybe one is like, "You know I love you, but… I just, I just want to be alone right now." and it sends you off on your merry way.

Or maybe another is like, "You little shoot, get the duck out of here before I rip your bloody ducking throat out from your petite red donkey !" You know, the usual filtered stuff.

Or maybe one is just really shy.

Or maybe one has this fetch quest where you have to find a specific warp, warp through that, and then find your way back to the original warp.

You never know with warps. They're a bunch of weirdos.

Look, I have no problem saying Malachi is a great D-Mod, better than any of mine. I'd also have no problem saying you made an Epic... if you had made one. But you haven't, which I don't have a problem saying out loud either. Malachi just doesn't come anywhere near the requirements of one. It looks like you, along with a lot of other people, see their own D-Mods triple the size that they actually are. I've seen some D-Mods currently in development that claim to be Epics, yet from what I've seen clearly aren't.

I never said the categories are a badge of honour. However, they are there for the authors in the sense that they can tell how big of a D-Mod they've created compared to other D-Mods currently out. If Malachi was categorized as an Epic, that'd mean so could D-Mods like CC1, Dinky Dimensions 2 and Fall of Tahmar, because they offer as much of an adventure as Malachi. That'd just throw things off-balance. Soon we'd have the site filled with Epics that don't truly qualify as ones.

I never compared NPC conversations with teleporters. I used that to compare to Meta's maze argument. I'm not discounting dialogue in a D-Mod. It certainly adds to a D-Mod. But when you're using the length of the D-Mod as an excuse to categorize the D-Mod as Epic, when in reality half of that time is built from NPC dialogue that nohow progresses things, it shouldn't be counted. As I said, that'd be like putting two screens in a D-Mod and adding one NPC with eight hours worth of dialogue, and then the other screen would end the game. Once it ends, sure you can say the D-Mod took eight hours to complete, but was it really an eight hour long adventure? No.

I'm not singling out Malachi. I've used lots of other D-Mods as example, too. But quite frankly, you're the one who brought the topic up, saying that Malachi should be an Epic. Furthermore, Malachi is a good example to use. Also, most of my favourite D-Mods aren't Epics (except for CC2), so I completely agree with your statement about Lyna's Story. A D-Mod doesn't have to be Epic to be great (and quite frankly, many of them are not that great), but they do have to fill certain requirements, which in my opionion, Malachi, for example, doesn't.

And no. This isn't some "wounded pride" or a vendetta against Malachi itself, as you put it. I'm just saying what I think about this whole thing. I'm not even pissed off, which is rare for me when it comes to passionate debates like this.

Of course NPC dialogue should count if it's presented realistically; It's actually a huge part of what makes epics... well, epic. I understand some conversations in Malachi the Jerk are actually quite long and more spread of NPC dialogue could be a good thing, but it's not anywhere near your example of eight hours of NPC dialogue on a single sprite. Using your same argument I could discount length from mattering at all simply by using the teleporter example mentioned earlier. Since obviously that doesn't make sense, I hope you realize that dialogue does truly matter when it comes to what should and shouldn't be called an epic. Dialogue = gameplay. Sure it's linear and all you are doing is reading or occasionally choosing an option, but you are still actively invested in a game when it's doing dialogue properly.

That said, Malachi is a border case. I don't see anything wrong with calling it either an epic or a quest. Both terms are close enough to fit it accurately in my eyes.

Edit: Checking my data where I did everything I could find, it is very close to the 6 hour mark. I think to simply beat the game it could be done quickly, but then again so can the Dink Smallwood original game. In fact I have a data for the original Dink Smallwood clocking in at only 4 hours with basically everything done that I can minus the firebow. Not a fair comparison though, since I've only played through Malachi one time.

Just have one screen where NPCs have three hours worth of dialogue, a screen filled with another two hours worth of fighting monsters, then a screen with lots of hidden goodies for an explorable area, and then a final screen with ending credits.

I am so tempted to make a DMOD of this description.

The whole romp/quest/epic thing is just ridiculous and doesn't provide much clarification. What we really should have is an approximate completion time in 30 minute intervals up till a certain point. At that point it becomes anything greater than that.

romp/quest/epic can either be used to describe length or genre. It can't be both.

If an epic is determined by length i.e. "as long as the original game or longer" Malachi can be qualified.

However if an epic is determined by genre, Malachi doesn't really feel like an epic.

As magicman said in chat 25 minutes ago as of this post, "what is the classification supposed to mean, and how do we classify?"

Why can't anybody understand that NPCs that don't contribute to the main story's progress shouldn't count for the time? If there's a scene with dialogue that progresses the storyline, that's fine, and it should count. However, if you're locked in a ten minute conversation with an NPC about what kind of weather there is, it nohow progresses the storyline and therefore that ten minutes shouldn't count. Furthermore, even Malachi's storyline dialogue could easily be cut in half. It's like if I told you to go examine every scripted object in HH2. Nearly everything has a script, so you could easily add another hour into the length of the game. Sure, the object interaction acts as "content" for the D-Mod, but it doesn't add anything to the progress the player is making, which is why it shouldn't be counted for the time. Also, if you want to do everything there is to do in HH2, it'll take around 7-8 hours. If you want to leave the optional stuff out, it'll be around 5-6 hours, still making it an Epic. And imo, the main storyline is what should count for the length. Everything else is just a nice plus.

If I were to now play through Fall of Tahmar and Malachi casually, FoT would take around 2 hours 45 minutes, and Malachi probably around 3 hours and 30 minutes. If I removed all the dialogue from both D-Mods, they both would end up being about 2 hours and 15 minutes. So yeah, Malachi takes longer, but when you remove the dialogue, FoT has just the same amount of quest solving, world exploration, story progressing and time where you can actually play.

Why can't anybody understand that NPCs that don't contribute to the main story's progress shouldn't count for the time?

The only thing I have to add to that is lore; extensive backgrounds and plot information introduced as optional dialogue separate from the main story quest line(s) as an example of how they DO contribute.

I never compared NPC conversations with teleporters. I used that to compare to Meta's maze argument. I'm not discounting dialogue in a D-Mod. It certainly adds to a D-Mod. But when you're using the length of the D-Mod as an excuse to categorize the D-Mod as Epic, when in reality half of that time is built from NPC dialogue that nohow progresses things, it shouldn't be counted. As I said, that'd be like putting two screens in a D-Mod and adding one NPC with eight hours worth of dialogue, and then the other screen would end the game. Once it ends, sure you can say the D-Mod took eight hours to complete, but was it really an eight hour long adventure? No.

Using reductio ad absurdum you can pretty much discredit any type of game content you want. We're talking real DMODs here, not hypothetical constructs. I think the consensus has always been that the playing time is the playing time for somebody playing the DMOD for the first time. Playing a DMOD for the first time includes exploring screens that don't contain anything needed for the story, it includes talking to NPC's which don't say anything needed for the story, it includes killing creatures that don't need to be killed for the story. If you play a DMOD without visiting unnecessary screens, talking to as few NPCs as possible and only killing the endbosses you basically have the bare minimum length. The consensus has long been that first time playing time should count. Changing that would basically mean reconsidering the entire classification, which would require reclassifying every DMOD according to this 'bare minimum standard'.

Not all optional dialogue counts for length, only what the average player encounters trying to beat the DMOD. Actually I agree with thenewguy here:

Of course NPC dialogue should count if it's presented realistically; It's actually a huge part of what makes epics... well, epic.

That fluff helps so much with a feeling of expansiveness. I would go even further: Any DMOD without optional dialogue is probably not a true epic. It doesn't have a world to be explored. Skull seems to only relate this to the size of the map, but dialogue is an equally valid way of exploring the world. Should any map screen that doesn't progress the story not count? In that case not a single DMOD uses 75% of the map...

How can the player tell that the dialogue isn't progressing the story? He doesn't. He has to try to talk to the NPC to find out. Not knowing up front which NPC to talk to is part of the experience.

EDIT: One thing to add here. Everybody expects an epic to have the content of an epic apart from just the length. That it has the result of hard effort in there, not the result of procedural generation or generic repetition. I already touched upon this when I talked about artificially increasing playing time. I don't think that how a DMOD feels should really be included in the ranking system as it simply isn't objective enough. I certainly don't believe that Malachi's playing time is due to such low-effort bloating (dialogue is definitely not low-effort bloating, it's a lot of work) so if it has the length, it should get the badge.

I've thought some more about it, and I think I'll agree with meta for the moment. If we're to have a classification at all such that it can be used to compare D-Mods, and it's not about quality, playtime makes the most sense to me.

I'm even willing to consider all the examples of artificially bloated D-Mods epics, if the playtime is long enough. They'd just get reviews such as

"I can't believe this ever got released. It's just a single screen of teleporters, wired up in some incomprehensible way. Played for an hour, but then I gave up. 0.1, don't play this."

or

"This is not a game, it's more a movie. There are two screens, and on one of them, two NPCs start having a discussion about the shape of clouds. For *three* hours. And I was even pressing space to skip dialogue. 0.5, not worth your time."

or

"This game is just a huge linear path, with no decorations apart from fences keeping you in, NPCs, monsters, whatsoever. I finished it just to see if there was anything good at the end. There wasn't. 0.3 for at least using every map screen, but that's being generous."

As a distraction:

There's also the literary genre of "epic", such as Homer's works, Gilgamesh, the Kalevala, or Beowulf. A common theme in there seems to be that they span a large amount of time (not to read, but rather that the events of the story span years), somehow involve the entire world (through a long journey across many places, or because it's somehow threatened), and has a huge backstory (either implicitly, by referencing other works, or explicitly, by devoting large amounts of text to exposition). This type of classification is hard to do, especially for the author. I'm also not sure what value it has to the prospective player.

As an aside observation, the literary interpretation seems to be completely separate from reading time. I finished Beowulf in two days, while both the Iliad and the Odyssey each took a week or more to get through. Feel free to either use this as an argument against counting playtime ("it's not counted in literature"), or disregard it entirely ("if we're going to use 'epic' as a genre, we should also have a 'young adult' label").

omg

Those hypothetical reviews

Don't take this the wrong way magicman, but I love you.

Using reductio ad absurdum you can pretty much discredit any type of game content you want. We're talking real DMODs here, not hypothetical constructs. I think the consensus has always been that the playing time is the playing time for somebody playing the DMOD for the first time. Playing a DMOD for the first time includes exploring screens that don't contain anything needed for the story, it includes talking to NPC's which don't say anything needed for the story, it includes killing creatures that don't need to be killed for the story. If you play a DMOD without visiting unnecessary screens, talking to as few NPCs as possible and only killing the endbosses you basically have the bare minimum length. The consensus has long been that first time playing time should count. Changing that would basically mean reconsidering the entire classification, which would require reclassifying every DMOD according to this 'bare minimum standard'.

Not the minimum length. I'm not talking about speedrunning through the game here. I'm talking about the main story length, which is essentially all the dialogue/scenes as well as map exploration that moves the main storyline of the game forward. This is what "the length of the D-Mod" has always been ranked by, and what it should be ranked by still. Surely you're not expecting every little detail in the game to count for length, are you? I sure as hell am not expecting people to talk to every NPC and examine every object and complete every side-quest in HH2 and add it to the length of the D-Mod. The length of the main storyline itself is where the Epic length comes from. As I said, rest is just a nice plus. Malachi can barely reach the Epic length if you include EVERY little prolonging detail there is.

That fluff helps so much with a feeling of expansiveness. I would go even further: Any DMOD without optional dialogue is probably not a true epic. It doesn't have a world to be explored. Skull seems to only relate this to the size of the map, but dialogue is an equally valid way of exploring the world. Should any map screen that doesn't progress the story not count? In that case not a single DMOD uses 75% of the map...

If you're gonna use walking around in empty screens that the D-Mod doesn't require you to as an excuse for the D-Mod's length, then no, it shouldn't count. My map argument is more about the size of the D-Mod, which is a completely different thing from the length. If on your first playthrough you go around unnecessary screens beheading ducks for two hours, is that a valid argument that the D-Mod is now two hours longer? Of course not.

How can the player tell that the dialogue isn't progressing the story? He doesn't. He has to try to talk to the NPC to find out. Not knowing up front which NPC to talk to is part of the experience.

Of course a first time player doesn't know. Which is why you should cut out all the mistakes he makes from the length of the D-Mod. The author knows though. And the length should be taken from how long it takes the author to complete the main storyline, while casually playing through (after all, he's the one who's gonna categorize it). I'm sure it takes you more than 4 hours to complete Scourger, Meta (if not speedrunning). I bet Tim could beat Malachi's storyline in about 3 hours max, with the super-long storyline dialogue included. The Rise of the Goblins would take a first time player probably around hour and a half. However, I could beat it in 45 minutes, which is why when looking back, RoG should definitely be a Romp. As an example, my first time playing through Quest for the Gems, it took me more than 4 hours, because I spent an eternity wandering around, talking to NPCs thinking I had missed something and that they'd move things along. All this just because I couldn't spot two caves. By your argument, this would make QftG the length of an Epic D-Mod, then.

One thing to add here. Everybody expects an epic to have the content of an epic apart from just the length. That it has the result of hard effort in there, not the result of procedural generation or generic repetition. I already touched upon this when I talked about artificially increasing playing time. I don't think that how a DMOD feels should really be included in the ranking system as it simply isn't objective enough. I certainly don't believe that Malachi's playing time is due to such low-effort bloating (dialogue is definitely not low-effort bloating, it's a lot of work) so if it has the length, it should get the badge.

Low-effort bloating? I never claimed it was. And as I said, I think the dialogue is cool. But you know what? Having nearly if not over a hundred NPCs in your D-Mod, some with changing dialogue, as well as scripting 95% of all the objects isn't low-effort bloating either, but I still don't expect those to be counted as contributors to the length of HH2.

If you include Malachi as an Epic, then you're also going to have to include a lot of other Quests, as Malachi isn't even the longest Quest-sized D-Mod out there. So if you decide that suddenly 20 other D-Mods deserve the Epic badge too, then be my guest.

Look, as I've said millions of times by now, Malachi is a great D-Mod. But it nohow fills the requirements of an Epic (Epic meaning the size, not. the. quality). It doesn't have a map nearly as big as other Epics, it doesn't have the overall feel. Only thing it has is the length, and even most of that comes from prolonging things such as dialogue, side-quests, screenlocked areas and boss fights that aren't hard but last forever. If you were to include Malachi as an Epic, it'd be wrong towards a lot of other Quests out there, and it'd also be wrong towards the Epics. I certainly didn't create two D-Mods the size of the QfDs, POTA and Scourger, just to suddenly have D-Mods half the size of them to be claimed as big. And I'm not being egotistical, but I do take some pride in my work, as well as I respect the other Epic creators.

I remember someone questioning whether CC2 should have been an Epic or a Quest. I think one of the major arguments was that it takes place in and around a single village (for the most part).

Um, carry on.

Skull, what pisses me off most about your flawed argument is that you discredit the idea of side quests and collectibles and other side goodies entirely. What makes side quests any less valid than main story quests? Nothing. This is what makes epic D-mods truly epics. They're packed with content and story that is fun to discover and explore, even if it might not contribute to the main story. If D-mods only had a main story to go through, it couldn't be called an epic, even if it was 10 hours long. The best part of every RPG is the fact that you can go do whatever the duck you want to, and take as long as you want to beat the game. This is what makes it fun. Watering down a game to minimalist dialogue and nothing on the side to do from the main story makes a game boring and not fun. This is what all your hypotheticals are, not fun. No one would play games like that. People want all the side missions, collectibles, and lore. This is what defines the RPG genre, and if you take that away, it's nothing

Epics are defined by their entire content. Every little thing you do that contributes to your play time is just as valid as the play time from the main story, dialogue included. A game just can't be called epic if there is nothing fun on the side to do. In that scenario, it's just a quest, regardless of length, because it's literally only one quest the entire game. It loses any feel of what could have been an epic.

Side-quests and additional content have nothing to do with the D-Mod being Epic. You guys seem to think that those two walk hand-in-hand. They don't. As I've said tons of times, side-quests, NPC dialogue and all that jazz are just a nice plus. Only things that the game requires you to do in order to win it, should be counted into its length. The "Epic" stands for an adventure that's Epic. The rest is there just to add into the world based around that adventure. Sure, you can make anything into the length or size of an Epic, if you just keep adding more and more stuff that nohow contributes into you winning the D-Mod. Go play some of the older Epics and see how much side-quests/additional things they have to offer. Something like POTA barely has anything except the main adventure, but that adventure in itself is enough to make it the length of an Epic.

Side quests are part of the adventure whether you acknowledge them or not. The fact that you have the choice to screw around if you want to is what makes epics great. It's what makes RPGs great. Please tell me what makes the 7 hour playthrough of someone finding every small detail any less valid than the 2 hour speed run? Skull, seriously your hypothetical game is boring. Even the original game had multiple side quests and hidden goodies.

Just as an example, my Shadows of Death D-mod was going to be just over 3 hours for the main story. On its own, that'd be stretching for the title of epic. Which is why I was planning on 1-2 hours of side quests. While most of them would be unrelated to the main story, most would be fun little diversions, and some also would give items, spells, or other stuff that could help with the main story. While you would think it's artificial inflation to reach the title of epic, most RPG fanatics wouldn't care, because my D-mod is an entire experience, not just a boring singular questline. You can choose to immerse yourself into my world as much as you want.

What I see you as, Skull, is someone who can't appreciate the RPG genre for what its supposed to be. Being able to do whatever you want. If you don't like that, why are you on an RPG forum to begin with?

Ok, I'll play a D-Mod and stand still in a screen for two years. This, according to you, means that now the game's length can be counted as two years. I mean, standing still doesn't do anything, but hey, it's an RPG so I can "screw around" as much as I want and it'll still count for the game's official time. Gimme a break!

If your Shadows of Death D-Mod's main story was going to be 3 hours long, that means it wouldn't have been an Epic. Simple as that. You can add as much optional stuff as you want, the fact is, your D-Mod still wouldn't have been an Epic. It'd have been a Quest with a ton of additional crap thrown in. Sure, it'd have been an "entire experience", as you put it, and probably a great D-Mod. But still not an Epic.

An Epic D-Mod doesn't mean that it's a good D-Mod, or that it's super polished or has a ton of content. It just means that it has to fill certain requirements in the overall size and feel of the game. Or, at least, this is how it always has been thus far. I don't see why we should start changing or challenging these requirements now, all of a sudden. If some of you are so dang obsessed with making an Epic, then stop whining how this and that D-Mod of yours should've been an Epic, and actually go make one instead. That's what Robj, for example, is doing, and I have no problem admitting The Dark Avilan will be an Epic, because it fills all the requirements of one.

It sounds like there is a lot of misunderstanding going on. I doubt Skull thinks that the side content of RPG's is not worth playing or that it shouldn't it exist, he just doesn't think it should be included when thinking of the length of the game for categorization purposes. Skull also seems to be thinking that we want every little optional thing to be included in length, which is also not the point (at least the point I) was trying to get across.

Let me just use an example, with the game Super Metroid. The game can be speed run in about 43 realtime minutes from start to finish. Technically, that makes everything else "optional" because by playing clever you can reduce the required "main story" to a smaller set of actions. In this way using Skull's definition, Super Metroid could be classified as the equivalent of Dink Smallwood romp... Which doesn't sound right to me. Especially since the average person playing the game for the first time is going to take a healthy 3-6+ hours to beat the game and that's not even doing everything. Same thing for Dink Smallwood main game since it can literally be speed ran in about 35 minutes or less even though the real gameplay is about 4 hours long or more for most first-time players. Keeping this in mind, should the original Dink Smallwood be called a Romp then?

My point is; WHAT is the "length of the main story" when it comes to a game or a DMOD? I think it should be defined as the length of time the average person would take to play through the game casually for the first time. Not trying to speed run, not trying to skip things just because they are optional (nor trying to do every single optional thing), but instead just to enjoy the game. Otherwise, most games are seriously shorter than their "average play length". I mean seriously, Final Fantasy 9 can be beat in 12 (actually the record is less than 9) hours and the game even encourages it with a reward, despite the real time to beat usually being classified somewhere between 40-60 hours (or even higher for completionists). This is why we can't just define length of the game by the amount of time it takes to get from the beginning to the end. And why things such as NPC's, hidden powerups, secrets and dialogue can not be completely left out from the categorized length of a game.

This is how it has been done for other games. Why should we change it for the way we classify DMODs? Just take the average play time for a normal player who is playing for enjoyment and not for anything specific, and use that to determine whether A DMOD is an epic or not. This kind of length can't be perfectly estimated, but it can be roughly estimated with some critical thinking. So I see no reason why we shouldn't use the tried and true method for rating a game's length.

That does leave one question though. What is the average length of Dink Smallwood's main game for a first time player? It's been so long, I can't tell you how long it would have taken me. I imagine at least around 8 hours though, since I was young. But some better guesses would be helpful.

i gotta tell ya
the length of what you're typing is epic

like you guys are REALLY good at thinking

i just make graphics

and midis

Let me just use an example, with the game Super Metroid. The game can be speed run in about 43 realtime minutes from start to finish. Technically, that makes everything else "optional" because by playing clever you can reduce the required "main story" to a smaller set of actions. In this way using Skull's definition, Super Metroid could be classified as the equivalent of Dink Smallwood romp... Which doesn't sound right to me. Especially since the average person playing the game for the first time is going to take a healthy 3-6+ hours to beat the game and that's not even doing everything. Same thing for Dink Smallwood main game since it can literally be speed ran in about 35 minutes or less even though the real gameplay is about 4 hours long or more for most first-time players. Keeping this in mind, should the original Dink Smallwood be called a Romp then?

I think the original game makes this whole thing rather problematic. If someone who's experienced with the game played it through casually, it'd probably take around 2½-3 hours. However, the original game barely contains any dialogue/side stuff, whereas in most Epics you're often stuck in a rather lengthy conversation. If you added the usual "Epic amount" of storyline dialogue into the original game, it'd easily gain another hour, making it 4 hours and the required length of an Epic about 4 hours as well. Which I think pretty much everybody here has agreed on, that the length should be about 4 hours. Well, except for Scratcher who said it seemed a little short to him.

My point is; WHAT is the "length of the main story" when it comes to a game or a DMOD? I think it should be defined as the length of time the average person would take to play through the game casually for the first time. Not trying to speed run, not trying to skip things just because they are optional (nor trying to do every single optional thing), but instead just to enjoy the game. Otherwise, most games are seriously shorter than their "average play length". I mean seriously, Final Fantasy 9 can be beat in 12 (actually the record is less than 9) hours and the game even encourages it with a reward, despite the real time to beat usually being classified somewhere between 40-60 hours (or even higher for completionists). This is why we can't just define length of the game by the amount of time it takes to get from the beginning to the end. And why things such as NPC's, hidden powerups, secrets and dialogue can not be completely left out from the categorized length of a game.

I think the length should be defined by the playtime of someone who knows the game, but isn't trying to rush through it. Such as the author. The reason I don't think random NPC dialogues and random exploration should count, is cause depending on how much you enjoy doing those things (as well as how lucky you are finding the right place to go) the game's length could gain hours, which is a bit unfair. Sure, a bookshelf in an RPG might provide clues, but if you spend an hour searching bookshelves, should that time really count to the overall length of the game? Personally, I think it shouldn't. That's exactly what I'd call artificial length, which Metatarasal spoke about. It may not have been meant as such, but that's what it is, because that hour has nohow moved you towards winning the game. It has only contributed to that one player's experience, not the length of the actual game.

And remember that this is just the length. Even if you do manage to make a storyline long enough to suffice for an Epic, there's still the question if other aspects of the D-Mod fill the requirements of one. Initiation is a perfect example of a D-Mod that fits as an Epic length-wise, but falls kinda short in other aspects.

A D-mod being rated on just the length of the main story is like rating the game on just half of its total content. That is bullshoot. The main story is NOT the entire experience of the game, and it cannot be classified just based on half of the game, or even 80% of it. No games are ever rated just on their main story. Side missions, collectibles, whatever, are always taken into consideration with all those people who rate games professionally. When a D-mod has 6 hours of content, but only 3 of it is main story and "matters", it is still an epic, because it has 6 hours of content. Trying to justify rating a game as a quest because it's main story is 3 hours in this scenario doesn't do justice to the D-mod as a whole. The entire D-mod worth of content needs to be taken into consideration when classifying it as an epic, otherwise you're just disrespecting the D-mod and the author.

Not intending to brag, just making a point: My Shadows of Death D-mod would easily fit into most criteria for an epic (when finished). 5 hours of content, 80% of the map screens used, and probably nearly 400 scripts (not filler). Even you would say that's an epic.

On a side note: @thenewguy, I think I remember my first times through the main game being between 6-8 hours

I think it's a given that a player will do some optional content or go out of the way of the main path at times (even if they aren't trying to). Therefore, it doesn't make sense to discredit those things entirely. Instead they should be worth some kind of "partial credit" towards the length of the DMOD. Otherwise, DMODS that rely on talking to NPCS, puzzles, and exploration automatically start to become much shorter (since by knowing what to do you can effectively skip a good portion of that kind of stuff).

Your mention that it should be a player who knows the game playing it through casually to determine the length of the game, which is a fair point. I think either a new player or a veteran can be effectively used for the determination as long as the games are compared fairly and side content is not completely negated from the equation.

And I agree that there are other things that are important to the categorization, but many of those things are relatively easy to discern such as repetition and scope.

A D-mod being rated on just the length of the main story is like rating the game on just half of its total content. That is bullshoot. The main story is NOT the entire experience of the game, and it cannot be classified just based on half of the game, or even 80% of it. No games are ever rated just on their main story. Side missions, collectibles, whatever, are always taken into consideration with all those people who rate games professionally. When a D-mod has 6 hours of content, but only 3 of it is main story and "matters", it is still an epic, because it has 6 hours of content. Trying to justify rating a game as a quest because it's main story is 3 hours in this scenario doesn't do justice to the D-mod as a whole. The entire D-mod worth of content needs to be taken into consideration when classifying it as an epic, otherwise you're just disrespecting the D-mod and the author.

Um... that's exactly what I've been saying. You need to look at the D-Mod as a whole. To be an Epic it needs to fill all the requirements of one. Having just a long storyline won't suffice, nor having a big map, nor having the Epic feel. You need to have them all. The only thing I'm saying shouldn't be counted is the time that the player spends doing stuff that isn't required to win the game. If you play HH2, the main storyline won't cover even half of the things there are to do. Yet, the main story is what the length should be determined by, since not everyone will do all the side stuff. But that doesn't mean they haven't won the game.

Not intending to brag, just making a point: My Shadows of Death D-mod would easily fit into most criteria for an epic (when finished). 5 hours of content, 80% of the map screens used, and probably nearly 400 scripts (not filler). Even you would say that's an epic.

Actually, I wouldn't. The map is big, sure, and you have a lot of scripts (which doesn't really matter all that much). But previously you said the main story would be around 3 hours, which I don't count as an Epic. This means the remaining two hours is just additional filler that essentially doesn't matter. The player doesn't need to do it, it's just there if he wants to do it.

Um... that's exactly what I've been saying. You need to look at the D-Mod as a whole.

You just contradicted yourself in like three different ways in one statement. I'm impressed.

First off, no, that is not what you have been saying. What you have been saying is that counting the time to complete a D-mod from start to finish should only count the main story. No one plays RPGs just to play the main story. Because that's what RPGs have always been: side paths, optional quests, collectibles, hidden dungeons, etc. You're trying to remove the average player from the equation, the one who is plays the game casually, from start to finish, going off to do their own thing and eventually wander into the ending. This is what determines game time in every other RPG made ever, played professionally or casually. I don't understand what your problem is with the concept of a ROLE PLAYING GAME, because everything you say is the exact opposite of the core of all RPGs.

Skull, I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree.

More back to the original topic, I made a point earlier that I think everyone glanced past, and I'd just like to restate it, because I feel it's important, and really the heart of this entire discussion:
A D-mod being listed as a Romp/Quest/Epic is really at the discretion of the author, and the person who approves the submission of the D-mod. When I first submitted Dink and the Bonca, I had it as a romp, but the admin who was looking it over to approve it back then (Christiaan) suggested it should be a quest, and I was slightly humbled by that. DatB was not much more than an hour of content, but I think he felt that it had the feel of a short quest, and I didn't disagree. So it became a short Quest. If the author of the D-mod feels their D-mod fits the criteria of an Epic, it's really up to them, since there are no set in stone standards that defines exactly what is required to make it Epic.

So, if the author of the D-mod feels their D-mod has enough content to qualify their D-mod as epic, they can list it as an epic. No one else's opinion really matters.

I didn't conradict myself once. Stop putting words in my mouth. Throughout this conversation I've said you need to look at the D-Mod as a whole to categorize it. This has nothing to do with the fact that I think additional content shouldn't be included in the counted length of the D-Mod.

First of all, the statement "no one plays RPGs just to play the main story" isn't true. And even if it was, this still doesn't change the fact that the additional content should be just that: additional. Which means that in an Epic D-Mod, it should only work as an addition to an already Epic game.

You do realize that there can be a Romp with extra content, a Quest with extra content, and an Epic with extra content? You can add as much side-stuff to a Romp as you wish, but that won't change the fact that it's still a Romp. This is what separates an Epic from other D-Mods. It's already a long D-Mod on its own, without the need to add a ton of content to prolong the gaming experience.

"I remember someone questioning whether CC2 should have been an Epic or a Quest. I think one of the major arguments was that it takes place in and around a single village (for the most part)."

TDA is sorta based around a single village too, but if that isn't an epic than I'll set my hair on fire and watch it burn in the mirror, and then put it out with gas.

TDA is sorta based around a single village too, but if that isn't an epic than I'll set my hair on fire and watch it burn in the mirror, and then put it out with gas.

Well, at least you are civil enough to put out the fire.

I think the best way to decide if a Dmod is an epic, is whether screen 143 has a tree on it or not.

Oh, what is this?

Look, it's a tree in the desert! On screen 143!

I also have the tree scripted with dialogue already, I just haven't made enough of my game to actually be able to access that screen yet. (I made that screen when that topic originally came up.)

Edit: This is also me showing the first map to feature what I've done so far with the desert area...which will be accessible (but with no finished content) when I release my unfinished.

TDA is sorta based around a single village too, but if that isn't an epic than I'll set my hair on fire and watch it burn in the mirror, and then put it out with gas.

TDA is based around a single village, but it has a pretty large map overall, doesn't it? Just like CC2.

"TDA is based around a single village, but it has a pretty large map overall, doesn't it? Just like CC2."

Indeed.

It's tough to define "epic". See the DMOD as a whole, is it similar to the original game without speedrunning it?

I think I'm more towards the "how-long-it-takes-to-complete-the-main-story" side. Maybe some more clarifications on romp, quest, epic, weird is needed.

Haha weird.

I still feel the D-mod should be judged as a whole. My Shadows of Death has always been an epic in my head, and epic is what it will be if it ever was to be finished.

Then how about adding an hour or two into the main quest, so you can actually call it an Epic? The original version of Scourger had everything your D-Mod has, but it was still a Quest. It's not like I can rank Hotel of the Middle Night as an Epic or a Quest, just cause I happen to feel like it.

One does not simply add an hour or two of content into the main quest.

In all seriousness, my biggest problem with doing so is that my map is pretty much "open world" with travelling, and lots of exploring. So this limits exactly where and how many major plot points I can fit into the game, because there's a lot of places to go. Plus, the fact that I make up everything as I go means I don't have many plot points to begin with, I just know where I want my story to end up, so stretching out the story is difficult at best.

Second, I am trying my best to avoid filler content to artificially extend the play time. Fetch quests? Nope. Tedious back and forth? Unacceptable. No one likes these kind of things that just drag out the game. However, and I'm sorry to say this, but I had the idea of having the player (Dink) have to do a little bit of back and forth with helping villagers in the main city of area 3, so that you can access the castle and final dungeon area. This is not something I have planned out yet since I was last working on Area 2, but I'll want to figure out a way to make it interesting, and not like every other boring fetch quest you find in many other RPGs.

The other day, I thought of a really cool idea I'd want to implement into the game if completion becomes possible. Basically, it would be me making a few combat areas where there would be some lengthy battles. I would do my best to make this fun, rather than tedious, so I wouldn't use it much. Though, it'd also make a good mini game.

And if I want to, I can call my game an Epic because I believe it to be so. I am packing the game with content, and that's what matters.

Want to hear about my epic length? ... it's completely unrelated to Dmods, and quite an epic length indeed.

I like fetch quests.

They build character.

You're going to love my DMODs.

Also, I can see the reasoning Dinkkiller has here. How you see your DMOD depends on what you started out to do. As I said I think of quel as a romp as it started out as a romp. I never even considered in what category I should put it as I never thought about it in any other way. I think this is true for more DMODs released as romps these days, many of them are actually quests.

This is actually a bit worrisome as this attitude of scaling DMODs too low also makes the attitude towards others putting their DMODs into a higher category hostile. I've said it before: We shouldn't inflate the demands for categories, that doesn't help the people who are considering downloading one DMOD or another.

So I feel that whatever you feel about your own DMOD you should simply upload it in whatever category it belongs. So if you set out to make an epic, but it is unfinished and only has the total content of a quest... Then you should still upload it as a quest, even though the entire style is that of an epic.

EDIT: I'm seeing many preview threads being updated. Perhaps only talking about DMODs already has a large effect!

I'm seeing many preview threads being updated. Perhaps only talking about DMODs already has a large effect!

Yeah. This whole discussion on epics started rekindling the fire inside me to work on my D-mod. While I haven't yet (because of PS4 and Runescape goals), I do believe I'll be working on it again soon. But we'll see what happens, I'm quite busy with a job and other stuff.

This is actually a bit worrisome as this attitude of scaling DMODs too low also makes the attitude towards others putting their DMODs into a higher category hostile.

I find it more worrisome that people can apparently now just decide what size their D-Mod is, and then it will be so.

I don't see a single D-Mod on the Romp page, that should be a Quest, but I do see a lot of Quests (especially from the last 7 years), that should be Romps. This includes one of my own D-Mods which I really hope would be changed.

Epic length >10".

Now I'll go back and actually read all the comments

I put the word "Epic" into a random paragraph generator and the first sentence it came up with was "The interfering pedantry enables Epic."

There's no way I'm reading through all this.

Epic length, dude

I'm actually surprised I was the first to do it. I think the DN has changed since I left...

The same basic joke had been made a couple of times.

2 cents extra here...

"Feel" and gameplay time are probably the main factors. Feel is hard to define though, it's made from the story, map*, and more... If a one screen D-Mod had an amazing 5 hour story and kept changing the background tiles, sprite etc to make it seem different, why can't that be an epic?
Similarly, if Dink X Trivia were 5 hours long that would still be a romp.

There are no hard and fast rules here anyway. Most D-Mods will fit easily into a category but there will always be borderline cases.

.

.

*Yes, including size. Or at least perceived size

"Feel" I define as how much of an adventure there is. An Epic makes me feel like I'm playing a big adventure, not an artificially long D-Mod where you're stuck in one screen and doing the same crap time after another, even if doing that same crap is awesome.

The files page clearly states that definition of a Quest, for example, is "A medium-sized adventure that lasts a few hours". Not "A medium-sized D-Mod where you repeat the same BS over and over again, therefore not being an adventure at all".

This is exactly why we need the Weird -category back. It was meant for exactly the type of D-Mods Tim's talking about. Similar case with your own D-Mod, Bug Mania, Sparrowhawk (love that D-Mod, btw). Because no matter how long and big you make it, it still really doesn't have the feel of an Epic adventure. It's just "smash bugs, smash bugs, smash bugs".

You do have a point, Bug Mania for example could be a week long and still be a romp.

Tim's new D-Mod on the other hand may not be so clear cut and could well seem more like a quest. This kind of thing is hard to define.

Well, as I've said countless times now: There are really three things that matter in an Epic. The length, the map and the feel.

Tim's D-Mod would only really fill the length category, and even that would be just from doing the same stuff again and again, without really any variety.

What if I made a D-Mod that's just one, big cutscene, with occasional choices? Like a Dink Movie with every now and then the player having a choice menu on what to do? Yeah, sure it could be long as Ethel's beard, but does it really provide the player an Epic gaming adventure? No. It's just the player doing the same stuff again and again, without any sort of real adventure.

But if those choice menus led to extreme variances in the story and possibly also present a challenge to the player... then it becomes a little more tricky. Technically there is "adventure" in exploring all the possibilities.

I also think Bug-mania could become a quest or even an epic if it was both longer and designed more like a quest/epic. Just increasing the size of the map wouldn't be enough though, it would also have to stay interesting, present you with meaningful choices, items/equipment etc. But I see no reason to make a DMOD considered always a romp just because it has different core gameplay than the main quest, if it still really feels like a full adventure one way or the other.

But if those choice menus led to extreme variances in the story and possibly also present a challenge to the player... then it becomes a little more tricky. Technically there is "adventure" in exploring all the possibilities.

No, it would still just be prolonged crap. Not a big gaming adventure. Clicking choice menus every now and then does not count as an adventure. Just like lengthy, unnecessary NPC dialogue doesn't count as an adventure.

Seriously, this is getting tiresome. What the hell is with people suddenly being so obsessed with D-Mods being Epics? There are certain requirements for an Epic, and if your D-Mod doesn't fill them, then. it's. not. an. Epic. FFS, the next thing you lot will be claiming is that anything bigger than ABC will be an Epic. Instead of arguing against the requirements and coming up with the stupidest D-Mod ideas ever, how about just go make an actual Epic? Or are you people too lazy to actually make one, and that's the reason you have to constantly keep coming up with excuses so your D-Mods could be counted as such? There are people currently making Epic D-Mods, and instead of arguing on this forum about rules that have been around since pretty much the start, they're using that time to go through what is necessary to make an Epic D-Mod. They're not coming up with excuses. They want to make an Epic D-Mod, so they go through what is required to make one. And I'm not saying Epics are better D-Mods. But creating them takes certain type of effort, and it'd be total garbage for someone to not put that effort in and still get their D-Mod in the same category.

You know what? I'm done. Screw this site. Nothing but a bunch of trolls, ass kissers and crybabies who want (and sadly, most often seem to get) everything for nothing. And I've grown too tired of busting my butt off for the past 5-6 years for the good of this site, and having only 1 or 2 people listen to my opinions and respect me as an equal human being. It's at a point where people are disagreeing with me simply because it's me saying it. If it was someone like Tim saying these exact same things, people'd be nothing but all happy-zappy friends and immediately agree. There was a point where I pretty much held this community on my shoulders alone, and what do I get in return? I'm basically being treated on the same level as ThePunisher. Meanwhile, someone like Tim can come along, make a D-Mod, say it's an Epic and everybody will agree. So what's the point. I can't bother anymore.

And if you're gonna call me jealous, I 100% agree. I'm damn jealous. Because I just don't get it. Yes, I've made mistakes, but I've also tried to do everything I can for this site and yet people constantly treat me as a nobody and still occasionally say stuff like "you're worse than Skorn ever was", while people who've done nothing get much more respect. As a long-time member, creator of multiple D-Mods and two Epics, I was expecting people to at least somewhat respect my opinion in this thread, yet the first response I got was "That's rubbish" and people doing exactly what I said was a bad idea.

^
Now THAT'S venting. As far as my opinion goes (not that you'd care), you guys can do whatever you want from this point on, even if it means destroying the legacy of all the D-Mods and their authors. It no longer concerns me.

Now THAT'S venting. As far as my opinion goes (not that you'd care), you guys can do whatever you want from this point on, even if it means destroying the legacy of all the D-Mods and their authors. It no longer concerns me.

There are only two people I can think of that have actually been able to pull a ragequit to date; Dethlord and Desertgrl. Good luck, I guess. (Hope you fail)

This is exactly why we need the Weird -category back. It was meant for exactly the type of D-Mods Tim's talking about. Similar case with your own D-Mod, Bug Mania, Sparrowhawk (love that D-Mod, btw). Because no matter how long and big you make it, it still really doesn't have the feel of an Epic adventure. It's just "smash bugs, smash bugs, smash bugs".

This I can agree with. Some dmods just don't fit the romp/quest/epic description system; hence 'weird'. Whether Tim's new dmod fits it is an unanswerable question as far as I'm concerned, since the dmod barely exists at this point.

I've defended Tim, not because he is Tim but because he's thinking of making something which I personally think really has some potential. Just because he's making a DMOD you wouldn't like doesn't mean others won't, nor does it mean he's making it just to spite you. I think you've put those words in his mouth... That said, I think you and Tim both have been overreacting to what was basically just a discussion...

I do respect the work you've done here and Historical Hero 2 was a very great DMOD, one which is also certainly not forgotten. I'm not trying to downplay the fact you've done a lot for this network...

If it was someone like Tim saying these exact same things, people'd be nothing but all happy-zappy friends and immediately agree.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I don't get on a forum just to agree with people. I get on so I can voice my own opinion. Otherwise, it would just be a waste of time. I seriously doubt I'm alone on that. Secondly, I already mentioned that I don't agree with the way Cocomonkey has reacted to your comment on his development thread either, so I'm not just picking sides.

You probably do need a break from here... but like Scratcher I hope that in the end your rage-quit fails, because in those posts where you are just being yourself and not trying so hard to defend yourself from people who aren't even really attacking you, you are an awesome guy to talk to and I always like hearing your opinions even when I may not completely agree with them.

Okay. We all know I won't be going anywhere, because I just care too damn much for this site. Which is like a curse, to be honest. No matter how much this place pisses me off, I still can't bring myself to just quit. So I'll just make it easy and say that out loud right now, rather than give the site some childish silent treatment, and let this whole thing annoy me for the rest of my month.

But that doesn't change the fact that everything I said above is exactly how I feel about this place and its people. I don't have a problem with any specific person here, just that people in general here don't seem to respect me at all, and treat me as if I was still the same idiot from 7 years ago. And just to clarify, I feel there are other people here, who don't get enough respect, too. It's not just about me alone.

This whole thing had nothing to do with Epics, Tim or any of that. Just that it's yet another case where me and my opinions were being treated like gargbage and as if they didn't matter at all. It seems to happen time after another and I'm just too freaking tired of it. And I know it'll happen in the future again, despite how much you people are trying to claim otherwise.

Well, I hope the curse gives you more than it takes at least.

It's just another forum where people talk garbage all the time. Let it go! Don't chase that "veteran-that-knows-best" status!

I'm not. I'm chasing the "treated-as-an-equal-community-member" status, which I don't seem to have even after all these years.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard someone here wanted epic length...

Only 15 people have made that joke before...

But you do it best

It's just another forum, the quality standard isn't defined anywhere! If people are jerks, screw them! You are better than them anyway!

The internet, ladies and gentlemen.

It's a symbol of unity. And fairy-floss statues .