There are some pretty silly statements in this thread about real world economics & quality of life matters. I have to resist the urge to put on my combat helmet here and run into the trenches and explain why many of these points are a bit silly.
But I'll put that all aside for now because I really just need to highlight that these matters are not relevant. The most charitable interpretation I can get out of this thread is that is a round about way of explaining that "some people have more free time than other people". I don't really see why we need to know everyone's life story to understand that. (But I extend my sympathies to anyone whose life has been a bit hard.)
Anyway.
I'll just add my perspective on the real issue of "difficulty" and/or "length". I don't like having my
time wasted and I'm not interested in
fake difficulty. The story of the game should be as long as it can possibly be -- but only as long as it's still interesting. I think that if the story is good from start to finish (with none of the above gameplay BS), but I don't have the time to play it from start to finish, then that's my problem, not the game's.
I imagine anyone who loves the game will take as much time as they need to to complete the game if they have to. One thing that really helps with this though is that if someone takes a break from the game for a few weeks it's important that they can quickly bring themselves back up to speed with the important plot elements they need to continue the story. I've had problems with this in some games (including Larian games) where you load up an old save game and you have no idea WTF is going on and then you check your journal and you're still confused.
Additionally, I think some people don't want the game to be hard and just want to enjoy the story. Let them have an easy mode. Why not? With a true RPG like this, I think the hardest part shouldn't really be combat. The hardest parts should be in the "role playing" -- it should really be about making interesting character/story choices.
