I'm looking to get some feedback on how people feel about time based games. To elaborate, this is where your character will do certain tasks that take N-minutes to complete in realtime. Example: You go to the Shadow Forest to hunt for food and skins, this task takes 15 minutes realtime to complete.
I've given some thought to applying it to a BYOND game, and here is a couple of things on my mind about the features such a game could entail.
How much time is too much?
Of course people wouldn't want to log into a game and immediately have to go on a task that takes 10 minutes to complete. I figure I can balance things out by splitting the world into Regions. As you increase your level for example, you gain access to the higher ranked Regions. Tasks here take longer to complete, but give better rewards. This way new players can perform tasks without having to wait too long.
What can I do while my character is busy?
Well it would be silly to have the player just sit there for 15 minutes while his character is off hunting, he needs something else to do. A solution I came up with is to give each character a some land that they can improve. Give them workers that they can send to do things such as improving your defences, preparing land for construction, building shops and such.
I've been hunting and mining for 12 hours now what?
Put the materials you've gained to good use, sell them on the marketplace, craft them into equipment. More gold means your land will prosper. An extensive Crafting, Smithing, Alchemy and Enchanting system will surely keep you busy.
Is that all I do is work to make money?
That's real life talk, don't be silly. Build up an army, attack the fortress of the guy who starts every sentence with "One does no simply". Burn his crops, slaughter his cattle, defile his... well, lets not take it too far now.
What if I want to befriend other players?
Sign a treaty, start up an alliance. Defend each other during attacks, combine forces to take down other alliances, share the spoils of war.
Now some things I'm still a little unsure of.
What if I log out during taks?
Personally, I feel that tasks should continue regardless of wether or not you are online.
What about PvE battles?
Well you could be hunting in the woods when you are set upon by a rogue bandit, how should this battle play out? I could automate it so you may end up dying during your hunt. I could open up a turn-based battle between you both. What if you are offline though when you are attacked?
How would this game look?
I've been leaning towards handling all of this with HUD elements, and having most of the game be text-based. Though this is something I'd really like opinions on.
ID:1338376
 Jul 29 2013, 7:29 am
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Jul 29 2013, 7:42 am
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Rushnut
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BYOND is now iOS.
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Rushnut wrote:
BYOND is now iOS. Yes! Bring on the CafeWorld clones! (I forgot the name of that game; had to look it up) | |
Reminds me of those browser based text games - or EVE. Which is really boring in my opinion, your game sounds like a fun RTS - I think you'd be better off looking into that field.
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Jittai wrote:
Reminds me of those browser based text games - or EVE. Which is really boring in my opinion, your game sounds like a fun RTS - I think you'd be better off looking into that field. I was thinking that, too, actually. If it were a game where actions took idle time to complete, I'd rather just have a ton of them to juggle, so I could always be "working" on something. And that's getting pretty darn close to RTS territory. | |
Sounds like more of a time sink instead of entertainment.
Wurm Online does that already and my game, although it won't be limited by time, will have time and many of the things you mentioned so. Idea has already been made. | |
You should still go for it. I just don't see how "15 minute" delays will ever be fun unless you're also doing other stuff in that time. But the choice is yours.
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The point of games like FarmVille is to make you want to come back after 15 minutes or some hours. You're not expected to play continuously. In fact, you're forced to take breaks when you run out of in-game energy, or action points.
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If that's what he wants to make. /shrug
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The game would only work if there was other things for the player to do whilst their character was off doing "x task". The point of it is to automate those tasks (hunting, mining, foraging, building etc.) that allow the player to gain the necessary supplies to upgrade their various aspects (land, town, castle, workers, villagers, army). An effective crafting system will allow players to create a wide variety of equipment that they could use to upgrade in various different ways to give unique combinations. Then you would have the aspect of pvp and possibly pve combat so that your not just constantly upgrading.
I was curious as to what some other people thought about this, but had no intentions of deciding wether or not to go ahead with this project based on the very, very few responses in this thread. EDIT: Kaiochao wrote: The point of games like FarmVille is to make you want to come back after 15 minutes or some hours. You're not expected to play continuously. In fact, you're forced to take breaks when you run out of in-game energy, or action points.Indeed, this was one of the driving ideas behind the concept. Need to go to work for 8 hours? Stack up some tasks for your character to do whilst you're offline and return to some loot. | |
Time based games like that are just hardball ways of extorting money from them. At least, the ones that are focused SOLELY around it. Look at the free game "Stronghold" on steam for instance. There's also the billion facebook games like that.
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I wouldn't even bother making a game like this if a player was constantly sitting around waiting for their task to complete. If there wasn't plenty to do whilst that was going on, I'd scrap the project. I'd also never introduce the "Energy" thing you see in so many facebook games where you can't do anything until it regenerates. Whenever I see a game like that, all I can think is "How many people spend money to refill their energy?". The only time I would want to make money from a BYOND game would be if it was very time consuming to make, even then it would be Free2Play but with an optional subscription.
It seems like all people got from my original post was "Do something, wait 15 minutes, do something else, wait 15 minutes". | |
The Facebook games are designed for people who have things to do other than play games constantly. So they're not "sitting around waiting for their task to complete" but instead they're ordering tasks and going off to do other things, like telling their friends about their virtual strawberries.
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I'd play the **** out of it.
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Hey Danny, if you're interested in time based games check out my source code for my idle game:
http://www.byond.com/developer/Zecronious/IdleLandSourceCode Even if you don't use any of it maybe it could help you in your endeavors. | |