Reg. That is an issue I have with the grind intensive MMO's. Especially if you play with friends and try and stay in the same group. It almost turns into a semi gaming frenzy as everyone tries to keep up with each other. Worst still if someone has a day off then they are well out of range when you log on again. Games should encourage AFK options such as travelling, mining, crafting, resting etc. An in-game option could be eating food. Takes 10 minutes and when you come back you get 10 minutes of double XP.
One post mentioned parents having control over game time. This is definitely a good option and they should be able to purchase 'hour' time on the credit card. E.g. a reduced fee for just 10 hours a week. If their kid wants to do it all in one hit then fine but they know its limited.
In fact now I think of it having part subs would be a good idea for gamers like me who want to play LOTR's on a very casual basis. e.g. 2-3 hours on a weekend. I wont sign up because I wont use the sub enough but I would if it was say $5 a month for 15 hours.
The pay for the more you play wouldn't take off because mmorpg companies know that if the minimum most people are fine with paying is $15 or £15 then they're going to charge that. They won't want to charge a fee which is £5 or $5 that people maybe tempted to pay instead of a fuller amount of 15.
i dont think there should be a rule but like what others have said (didnt read all of them but a good chunk) add bonuses to ppl who do take breask, i know u get double xp for being off EQ2 for so long, and its kinda nice. more games should fallow that. i used to play for very long time periods once. (FFXI, a game that u really needed to spend many hrs just to do somthing small) and i noticed i started getting light headed alot, luckly i finnaly quit the game after 2+ yrs and i havent really ever had one sience. i have a wii also and the warning thing is a good reminder that u need to get some fresh air. i thought it was funny that someone mad ea joke off the pushup comment and earning the gametime, i think i should adopt that idea, it helps for ppl who are getting in shape and keeps that bulge ppl your geting from staying on yah. its stuff like that, that would be great ideas in game "Biotch u owe me 20 pushups for sittin yo fat @$$ in front of the damn screen so long..now MOVE!" (sorry was watching boondocks lmao) we could have a good time playing and get quick workouts...its a win win in my eyes
You shouldnt answer a question without weighing the question and everything attached to it.
How many times have you had dreams about a game?
How many days have you played a game for more hours than you were outside of your house?
When was the last time you let your legs naturally increase your cardio and raise your heartbeat?
The fact is, although it shouldn't be enforced, it should be encouraged. The reference to the Wii is a good one. Nintendo takes your money and in return they don't force you to stop playing a game, instead they give you the option to stand up and move your arms and legs if you choose, aswell as suggest game breaks periodically during extended gameplay.
"Sometimes, things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. People are basically good. Honor, courage, virtue mean everything. Power and money, money and power mean nothing. Good always triumphs over evil. Love, True Love Never Dies." Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
After three grueling hours of crawling through the high end dungeon of doom, the beleaguered party finally approaches the gigantic 20,000,000 hitpoint mob of uber ugliness and leet loot droppingness. As the tank wades into the frey and the healers begin to spam their macro's of uber healing, the casters cue up their most fearsome aoe spells of utter destruction in the hopes that if they all time their strikes and smite the evil pixels of doom as one that they will break the to hit code and drop this fiend like last years version of their favorite fps...the six armed creature of pixelated doom holds up one of his many arms and says "mighty foes, I will love to dine on your corpses and use your splintered bones for toothpicks, but first the union says I must take my mandated 15 minute break as pre ordained by the gods of coding, so as not to over tax your addicted synapses to the game. We shall resume this battle of end game glory on the hour, after you have had your snack and mandatory leg stretch...
Gamers feel like they are being punished if they have to take a break during a long grind/playtime. It just feels like you think you're going to waste time, and if you spend time going to the kitchen to cook some soup or something you could have gained xx percent or xx gold. However, these breaks are nessecary. Long periods of gaming can result in minor delerium and hallucinations as well as many physical effects such as loss of breath and lightheadedness. So if you get off for about 20 minutes and you gain 5% in 20 minutes; if you get off at level 52 with 65% you could come back after the break and be like "man I could be 70% already I shouldn't have taken the break!"
I.E.: guilt for not having constructional thinking. You think you are just wasting time but you are maintaining your status of health I think a reward system for the number of hours played would be a good idea. For example: You grind for 2 hours, gaining a level and then you get an achivement award which lets you go AFK whilsnt gaining EXP. Although this might cause complications, alot of them; all for the users convinence.
It's just hard to think of it as a positive action when you think you gained nothing(but you actually did)
This is a good example of "personal' or personality problems. If a person feels guilty for missing out on play time to pause for food then they have some deeper issues or at least the person need a reality check. Anyone in game that encourages such mentality is NOT your friend, your friend is the one who says wow its been two hours I'm going to take a break and stretch and get some dinner.
Honestly any game that impliments some sort of acheivement for leveling to try and encourage you to log off line for x amount of time and still gain xp is a game i wouldn't want to play. XP is earned not given thats just the nature of the beast and it always has been in MMOs and RPGs. If games were designed to enjoy all through out instead of just at the end, plus having an xp bonus bar (like eq2 and wow have) that you get for being logged out while say in an inn it could help SOME people but it really all comes down too the person in question. I personally can't help but need a break after an hour maybe less. But my break usually entails getting a bite to eat, a soda, or the restroom; maybe a stretch. Longer breaks mean I log off for a couple of hours or the rest of the night. I definitly when I first got into MMO's (good ol EQ1 addiction) had the loss of self control. I'd ignore my own friends calls to go out in order to just sit and play. Since then I've changed alot...I eat healthier, I exercise, my self esteem is in check and when I look back at it now my addiction was never truely to the game it was to the fact I could play and talk and make friends without them ever seeing me or knowing who I was. It was a crutch to the problems I had when I was younger.
There is no all for one answer unfortantely. You could offer free xp all day long for just logging out and there would still be people logged in for 8+ hours a day. Some people simply have nothing else to do, to live for (god thats scary to say but its been proven true by wackos with mental problems), or funnily enough they make money off playing.
Encouraging game breaks by giving optional user tools like timers, xp bonus times, or even normal ingame timers are easy to impliment, control, and not something other players can say are a form of punishment. Giving away FREE xp for gaining a level encourages people to actually play more so they gain levels faster and frequently (which also means it'd be a game designed like WoW where all the good 'new' stuff is at the end not to mention a total grindfiesta with only concentration on battle, it'd only benefit those that aren't into tradeskills). Not to mention other players who work hard the one or two hours a week get punished, players that play a lot and like to play a lot feel punished. Its not a win win situation.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
When I play action intense games like Battlefield 2142, I want to take a break after a few hours to chill out from the intensity
But if the game is really boring (Like WoW) I never get that. “I just finished something great” feeling the leads to breaks.
Green I have to agree with this. I found that when I played Jumpgate I had to take a break because it was pretty adrenalin packed. Also FPS like Counterstrike I tend to play for 1-1.5 hours or even less before taking a decent break. EVE works well since you can set an afk travel and go off for 20 minutes or so. With other games like Vanguard I would complete a grind mission and then do it again and again and again. Because there really wasn't any other option....
I dont see your point honestly, guild wars tells you once you been playing after an hour it doesnt interupt you and most here are not suggesting what your talking about, and by the way it isnt much of a responsibility, and no one is saying we should depend on others there is nothing wrong with encouragement and everyone gets encouraged by other people anyway.
I don't think they should tell us how long to play. Lots of us aren't children. They can make an E-chip like they did the V-chip if they wanna monitor children. It would annoy me for a game to tell me what to do or something to the effect of "You haven't urinated in 3603 minutes, please pause and complete this task". It's a game not a nanny and if they make it annoying, time to put my money elsewhere.
Comments
Reg. That is an issue I have with the grind intensive MMO's. Especially if you play with friends and try and stay in the same group. It almost turns into a semi gaming frenzy as everyone tries to keep up with each other. Worst still if someone has a day off then they are well out of range when you log on again. Games should encourage AFK options such as travelling, mining, crafting, resting etc. An in-game option could be eating food. Takes 10 minutes and when you come back you get 10 minutes of double XP.
One post mentioned parents having control over game time. This is definitely a good option and they should be able to purchase 'hour' time on the credit card. E.g. a reduced fee for just 10 hours a week. If their kid wants to do it all in one hit then fine but they know its limited.
In fact now I think of it having part subs would be a good idea for gamers like me who want to play LOTR's on a very casual basis. e.g. 2-3 hours on a weekend. I wont sign up because I wont use the sub enough but I would if it was say $5 a month for 15 hours.
The pay for the more you play wouldn't take off because mmorpg companies know that if the minimum most people are fine with paying is $15 or £15 then they're going to charge that. They won't want to charge a fee which is £5 or $5 that people maybe tempted to pay instead of a fuller amount of 15.
i dont think there should be a rule but like what others have said (didnt read all of them but a good chunk) add bonuses to ppl who do take breask, i know u get double xp for being off EQ2 for so long, and its kinda nice. more games should fallow that. i used to play for very long time periods once. (FFXI, a game that u really needed to spend many hrs just to do somthing small) and i noticed i started getting light headed alot, luckly i finnaly quit the game after 2+ yrs and i havent really ever had one sience. i have a wii also and the warning thing is a good reminder that u need to get some fresh air. i thought it was funny that someone mad ea joke off the pushup comment and earning the gametime, i think i should adopt that idea, it helps for ppl who are getting in shape and keeps that bulge ppl your geting from staying on yah. its stuff like that, that would be great ideas in game "Biotch u owe me 20 pushups for sittin yo fat @$$ in front of the damn screen so long..now MOVE!" (sorry was watching boondocks lmao) we could have a good time playing and get quick workouts...its a win win in my eyes
You shouldnt answer a question without weighing the question and everything attached to it.
How many times have you had dreams about a game?
How many days have you played a game for more hours than you were outside of your house?
When was the last time you let your legs naturally increase your cardio and raise your heartbeat?
The fact is, although it shouldn't be enforced, it should be encouraged. The reference to the Wii is a good one. Nintendo takes your money and in return they don't force you to stop playing a game, instead they give you the option to stand up and move your arms and legs if you choose, aswell as suggest game breaks periodically during extended gameplay.
"Sometimes, things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. People are basically good. Honor, courage, virtue mean everything. Power and money, money and power mean nothing. Good always triumphs over evil. Love, True Love Never Dies."
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
I can see it now...
After three grueling hours of crawling through the high end dungeon of doom, the beleaguered party finally approaches the gigantic 20,000,000 hitpoint mob of uber ugliness and leet loot droppingness. As the tank wades into the frey and the healers begin to spam their macro's of uber healing, the casters cue up their most fearsome aoe spells of utter destruction in the hopes that if they all time their strikes and smite the evil pixels of doom as one that they will break the to hit code and drop this fiend like last years version of their favorite fps...the six armed creature of pixelated doom holds up one of his many arms and says "mighty foes, I will love to dine on your corpses and use your splintered bones for toothpicks, but first the union says I must take my mandated 15 minute break as pre ordained by the gods of coding, so as not to over tax your addicted synapses to the game. We shall resume this battle of end game glory on the hour, after you have had your snack and mandatory leg stretch...
and stuff.
D.
Honestly any game that impliments some sort of acheivement for leveling to try and encourage you to log off line for x amount of time and still gain xp is a game i wouldn't want to play. XP is earned not given thats just the nature of the beast and it always has been in MMOs and RPGs. If games were designed to enjoy all through out instead of just at the end, plus having an xp bonus bar (like eq2 and wow have) that you get for being logged out while say in an inn it could help SOME people but it really all comes down too the person in question. I personally can't help but need a break after an hour maybe less. But my break usually entails getting a bite to eat, a soda, or the restroom; maybe a stretch. Longer breaks mean I log off for a couple of hours or the rest of the night. I definitly when I first got into MMO's (good ol EQ1 addiction) had the loss of self control. I'd ignore my own friends calls to go out in order to just sit and play. Since then I've changed alot...I eat healthier, I exercise, my self esteem is in check and when I look back at it now my addiction was never truely to the game it was to the fact I could play and talk and make friends without them ever seeing me or knowing who I was. It was a crutch to the problems I had when I was younger.
There is no all for one answer unfortantely. You could offer free xp all day long for just logging out and there would still be people logged in for 8+ hours a day. Some people simply have nothing else to do, to live for (god thats scary to say but its been proven true by wackos with mental problems), or funnily enough they make money off playing.
Encouraging game breaks by giving optional user tools like timers, xp bonus times, or even normal ingame timers are easy to impliment, control, and not something other players can say are a form of punishment. Giving away FREE xp for gaining a level encourages people to actually play more so they gain levels faster and frequently (which also means it'd be a game designed like WoW where all the good 'new' stuff is at the end not to mention a total grindfiesta with only concentration on battle, it'd only benefit those that aren't into tradeskills). Not to mention other players who work hard the one or two hours a week get punished, players that play a lot and like to play a lot feel punished. Its not a win win situation.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Or they could make a good game.
When I play action intense games like Battlefield 2142, I want to take a break after a few hours to chill out from the intensity
But if the game is really boring (Like WoW) I never get that. “I just finished something great” feeling the leads to breaks.
Green I have to agree with this. I found that when I played Jumpgate I had to take a break because it was pretty adrenalin packed. Also FPS like Counterstrike I tend to play for 1-1.5 hours or even less before taking a decent break. EVE works well since you can set an afk travel and go off for 20 minutes or so. With other games like Vanguard I would complete a grind mission and then do it again and again and again. Because there really wasn't any other option....
I dont see your point honestly, guild wars tells you once you been playing after an hour it doesnt interupt you and most here are not suggesting what your talking about, and by the way it isnt much of a responsibility, and no one is saying we should depend on others there is nothing wrong with encouragement and everyone gets encouraged by other people anyway.
I don't think they should tell us how long to play. Lots of us aren't children. They can make an E-chip like they did the V-chip if they wanna monitor children. It would annoy me for a game to tell me what to do or something to the effect of "You haven't urinated in 3603 minutes, please pause and complete this task". It's a game not a nanny and if they make it annoying, time to put my money elsewhere.
no breaks plz, my bots are able to go a long time before they get tired
a lot of games do it now to be honest.
Playing: Everthing
Played: DAoC,AC2,EvE,SWG,WAR,MXO,CoX,EQ2,L2,LOTRO,SB,UO,WoW.
I have played every MMO that has ever come out.