Drakensang: The River of Time - Interview @ DSA-Drakensang

This one is already a month old, but nevertheless still very interesting. The fan site DSA-Drakensang.de sat down for a long interview session with Radon Labs' creative director Bernd Beyreuther at the GamesCom in Cologne. The resulting article was split into 3 parts (one, two, three). Here's a quick and dirty translation of two of Bernd's answers regarding Drakensang: The River of Time:

DSA-Drakensang.de: How long will the game be?

Bernd Beyreuther: Well, in the first game we had 80 hours. We were quite surprised about this because it only became clear when we had merged all components together and focus tests were made. Then we thought. "Oh my god, the game's 80 hours long!". We'll try to have the content - which is ca. 150% of that in the first game - told in roughly 40 hours. We want to make everything more compact, we want to reduce walking distances. There are for example jump points within the levels. If you've unlocked a merchant for example, you can don't have to run all the way back. You can easily jump to his location. Of course you can, you don't have to.

DSA-Drakensang.de: How do you want to make this work?

Bernd Beyreuther: [Detailed explanation cut.]
Of course course this reduction to 40 hours is no reduction in content. We want to take out the artificially stretched parts and the uninteresting parts. [Bernd used the German words "Längen" and "Durchhänger". Unfortunately my dictionary doesn't know an exact translation.] The story however shall be told in a tighter and more gripping way.
These 150% content also lead to more replay value. For example different training quests and different branches. Much more than in the first part. We simply want to  create a different flow of events depending on how you play and which decisions you make.