I didn't vote in this poll, but I strongly lean towards 'No'.
The concept of limiting playing time is some kind of mechanism to keep all players at the same basic level. It theoretically makes it difficult for anyone to basically out-level others. But this really only restricts the players who start on Day 1. A player who joins 2 months after the game launches will be a certain number of levels behind the bulk of the players, without any reasonable way to 'catch up'.
Why is keeping all players within a certain level range important to the game or the developers? Some players in a competitive environment (PvP of some nature) might not want to fall behind those who want to devote 40-70 hours a week to playing. But those same players won't mind having an advantage over the 'new' character, and I doubt they would 'give back' XP/money/items they gained to put the newbie on level ground with them.
A successful game will always have new characters. Restrictions on playing time can only benefit the 3-hour-after-work player who are in the game's first generation of characters. It artificially keeps these players 'close' to the bleeding-edge player. Characters of either type who start after the first generation will be behind the first generation always. Design that only favors a limited number of players is bad enough when developers produce content that 95% of the gaming population will never experience. When that design cuts across all content, it is disastrous.
The first Plane of Sky raid I went on in EQ1 was a 6 hour then 14 hour then 10 hour affair. It was grueling, and really made work a decidedly painful experience on Monday morning, but it was well worth it. But an 8 hour a day limit would have cut 8 hours out of this one example, and presumably 8 hours worth of XP/money/items. An 8 hour a week limit would have cancelled that entire weekend.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Well, this went pretty much like I expected it to. Even though the vast majority of gamers (even serious ones) don't typically play more than 10 hours per day (70 hours per week!), the notion of being told how much you can or cannot play is vastly unpopular, even if you're never likely to play over the cap in the first place. Even if you put aside the health benefits to the players, putting a playtime cap (even one as large as 70 hours per week) does provide a lot of design benefits to the developer.
It's unreasonable to design so much content that it preoccupies players with regular daily play times greater than 14 hours. If you do that, your average and even semi-hardcore players that play an average of 20-40 hours per week will never be able to keep up. So games aren't even designed to be played like that in the first place.
As for the argument that you should be able to stock up on monster energy drinks and grind to the finish within a couple of weeks is absurd too. We're talking about game design here. Let go of the notions of MMO's where the entire experience is a rush to the level cap. Hardly anybody is happy with that design. Let's get a grip of the fact that we're talking about really large playtime caps here; 70 hours per week is no joke! But what would a game gain from it?
Well since we know that content is already designed to preoccupy players within a certain playtime range, we can actually put a playtime cap around that level to ensure that they experience the content the way it was designed to be experienced. Why do we rush to the level cap? Cause we wanna be as strong as we can be of course. MMO's are competitive environments. But a lot of this competition is spawned from a trickle-down effect from the most hardcore gamers. Truth be told even they don't usually want to play more than 10 hours per day, but they do it anyway because they want to be the best. Well what if the game is designed so that you don't HAVE to play more than 10 hours per day to be the best? If no one else can play more than that, wheres the pressure for you to do so? Let's never forget either that 70 hours per week is no joke anyway, it's still plenty "hardcore". It just eliminates the potential for EXTREME powergaming which trickles down and puts alot of pressure on the rest of the community.
Why do you guys think the endgame in so many MMO's is so much more satisfying than the rest of the game? Well part of it DOES have to do with an artificial playtime cap that the endgame has. You can't level up anymore, your only means of advancement are raids and dungeons that have daily and weekly lockouts (ala WoW).....this means that you can only put so many hours into these progression activities every week before you can't progress any more that week. You feel less pressured and satisfied because you know if you beat the content within the lockout you don't have to do anymore until next week and no one can rush ahead of you because they have the same "cap" that you have. This is exactly the kind of feeling you'd get all game long in a game with a moderately high playtime cap. If you wanna be competitive you can put in a whole bunch of hours, but you never have to put in unreasonable hours because no one else can either.
I don't play 10 hours a day every day, but I do often play games for more than 10 hours and this sounds like too little time. RuneScape makes you restart the client every like 6 hours and there have been many times I've done this 2-3 times in a day, it's rather annoying. There are only certain days I can play and when I can I like to play hard. I've thought about a similar idea though, except it would have to be measured over like a 3 day period because some days you want to play harder and there isn't anything wrong with that. If they've played around 3 days straight then I think it's understandable to get them to take a break considering they're most likely either a bot, sharing their account, or making some pretty unhealthy choices. A lot of people probably don't agree with this and I've personally always used my ability to stay up for days at a time to my advantage in MMOs (specifically the more grindy ones), but I don't think caring about people's health is the worst thing ever.
As some of the forum posters have already pointed out, I don't think it's the game developer's place, and definitely not yours, to impose a cap on anybody's playtime. They bought a game for full access. If you want to implement this, then the only way I suppose players will agree to it is if you charge maybe $3-5 a month as a subscription. Oh yeah, it's fair. 24/7 access currently goes for about $15, so 8 hours means $5 tops.
Ok so the biggest "logical" argument I've heard against this kind of system is the argument that you should be able to play more hours per day if you haven't had time to do so all week. So what about a weekly cap then? MMO's already pretty much do this at endgame with weekly lockout timers so what are your thoughts on that?
The whole reason I'm bringing this up in the first place is to lessen the pressure on players to grind more than they would normally like to anyway. Every gamer suffers from fatigue and even those of us that HAVE grinded 24/7 for a few weeks only did so to be competitive (not out of any innate desire to just be playing for that long). MMO's are designed to be played within certain average playtimes and you see this especially at endgame. Why not design the whole game to be played at that pace with a playtime cap. Maybe a weekly one would work better.
Also, if anyone can think of a system that achieves the same thing but wouldn't look so unattractive at face value to the players I'd love to hear your ideas on that too.
Really? Thats the "biggest logical comment" you've seen.
The biggest one I've seen is you don't have enough knowledge about a person, their habits, their lifestyle, their accomplishments, their health or any real or perceived health issues, nor do you have the right, to restrict someone's entertainment. So putting in a system that would do that is completely arbitrary.
Thats it.
A restriction on xp, fine.
Devs making systems that repeat themselves so they don't have to design 24 hours a day of content fine.
Restricting someones ability to play. No.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Really? Thats the "biggest logical comment" you've seen.
The biggest one I've seen is you don't have enough knowledge about a person, their habits, their lifestyle, their accomplishments, their health or any real or perceived health issues, nor do you have the right, to restrict someone's entertainment. So putting in a system that would do that is completely arbitrary.
Thats it.
A restriction on xp, fine.
Devs making systems that repeat themselves so they don't have to desing 24 hours a day of content fine.
Restricting someones ability to play. No.
So even though you as a player probably would hardly ever use 24 hours a day to play. Even though making it possible for other players able to do so pressures you into playing more hours than you really want to. Even though giving that option most likely harms your experience. You still want to defend the freedom to do so purely for the sake of freedom?
I argue no, giving the players 100% freedom is not necessarily good game design. These are competitive games. And furthermore these are games that actually increase the strength of your character the longer you play them, not just increase your skill level. Fatigue rarely has an impact on your ability to improve your character in these games until you hit the most extreme levels of exhaustion. In competitive games with more twitch gameplay like Starcraft or DOTA you still feel compelled to play many hours but you hit a plateau once you start getting fatigued. In those games even the pros feel like there is very little use to keep practicing after they've been playing 10-12 hours per day. But in MMORPG's? There's hardly ever any reason to stop until you pass out, and the players that do choose to do that put pressure that trickles down to everybody else. This is bad game design and it has a simple solution: Put some kind of cap for everyone's sake. It may take away a little bit of your freedom, but you probably weren't going to play that much anyway unless you felt compelled to.
And as for the 24 hour content comment, this isn't a matter of laziness. It's simply bad game design to make a game that's designed to be played 24 hours a day. The people that do that and play in shifts or something will simply be so far ahead that most other gamers will never catch up or get to experience any substantial portion of the content. Thankfully games are not made like that, mostly due to budget constraints but also largely because doing so would be a terrible game.
Really? Thats the "biggest logical comment" you've seen.
The biggest one I've seen is you don't have enough knowledge about a person, their habits, their lifestyle, their accomplishments, their health or any real or perceived health issues, nor do you have the right, to restrict someone's entertainment. So putting in a system that would do that is completely arbitrary.
Thats it.
A restriction on xp, fine.
Devs making systems that repeat themselves so they don't have to desing 24 hours a day of content fine.
Restricting someones ability to play. No.
So even though you as a player probably would hardly ever use 24 hours a day to play. Even though making it possible for other players able to do so pressures you into playing more hours than you really want to. Even though giving that option most likely harms your experience. You still want to defend the freedom to do so purely for the sake of freedom?
I argue no, giving the players 100% freedom is not necessarily good game design. These are competitive games. And furthermore these are games that actually increase the strength of your character the longer you play them, not just increase your skill level. Fatigue rarely has an impact on your ability to improve your character in these games until you hit the most extreme levels of exhaustion. In competitive games with more twitch gameplay like Starcraft or DOTA you still feel compelled to play many hours but you hit a plateau once you start getting fatigued. In those games even the pros feel like there is very little use to keep practicing after they've been playing 10-12 hours per day. But in MMORPG's? There's hardly ever any reason to stop until you pass out, and the players that do choose to do that put pressure that trickles down to everybody else. This is bad game design and it has a simple solution: Put some kind of cap for everyone's sake. It may take away a little bit of your freedom, but you probably weren't going to play that much anyway unless you felt compelled to.
And as for the 24 hour content comment, this isn't a matter of laziness. It's simply bad game design to make a game that's designed to be played 24 hours a day. The people that do that and play in shifts or something will simply be so far ahead that most other gamers will never catch up or get to experience any substantial portion of the content. Thankfully games are not made like that, mostly due to budget constraints but also largely because doing so would be a terrible game.
What I choose to do or not do is my choice – if I choose to play 10 minutes or 12 hours. Letting others pressure me is also my choice. I can choose to let them pressure me or I can choose to ignore them. Harming my experience is also my choice. I can choose to do something that harms my experience or I can choose to do a different thing or I can choose to do that activity and look at it in a different light so I’m still having fun. So yes I do still want to defend freedom and choice purely for the sake of freedom and choice, rather than accept tyranny and oppression which is what you are presenting.
I’m not arguing for 100% freedom, that is a strawman argument. Games have rules. I’m saying this rule is bad. You don’t have the information or right to make this decision for someone else.
Bad game design would be to limit access to the game that someone is paying for simply because you made an arbitrary and uninformed decision that it's bad for them.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Having a sleep/fatigue mechanism could work. But the most likely outcome is that players will resort to twinking. If a character gets fatigued they might simply switch to another character. So you have imposed a restriction which effectively was a waste of dev time.
Even if you implement such a mechanism per account and not per character it would be no issue to circumvent this restriction by creating a 2nd or 3rd account. You could introduce IP tracking to make sure that someone doesn't circumvent this restriction (or other technical means). No matter what you do, there will always be a way to circumvent the restriction. The only thing you do is to raise the bars to do so. But then it takes only one person to find a way how to circumvent the restriction and publish it over the internet.
Another option would be to introduce a day/night cycle in the game world. Ideally NPCs would be at different locations depending on the current hour (e.g. at home sleeping, at work, etc.). NPC merchants/auctioneers would be available only through the day time. Quest givers might be at different locations at different times. If the game world would enforce an activity cycle in such a way it would be more likely that players would as well adhere to it. On a second thought you'd shut out a large part of your player base because they happen to live in the wrong time zone.
The really important question is: Why do you have to restrict a player's play time in the first place?
How many 24/7 players do you find per game? Do they really make up a significant part of the player base? An ordinary person has a lot of RL stuff to attend to (e.g. school, work, friends, family, sleeping, other hobbies, etc.). So their play time is already restricted by other factors. Even if they happen to dedicate some more time to playing (e.g. because of holidays, time in between changing jobs, transition from high school to college, etc.) it's only for a certain period of time.
Are people afraid that they might fall behind others (.e.g inferior equipment, not reaching level cap fast enough, etc.)? In particular themepark games are built around a static game world. Players do meta gaming to optimize their game play (e.g. maximise XP earned per minute). Players organize in guilds / raid groups to achieve certain goals faster (with the drawback that you have to attend to scheduled play times).
You do realise in this age of MMO's for maximum profit, the idea of limiting playing time will never float? Suggest that one at a SOE board meeting and you can expect to be looking for a new job real soon.
I really dont care if some people totally ruin their lifes by playing 10 hours or more on their computers for every fucking day.
Its the loosers that never again get a job, have no complainance and are only someone in their favorit cyberspace.
A sleepsystem to hinder daily playtime to 10 hours is just stupid.
There is no "serious" gaming, its all multimedia entertainment to make you recharge from your job and give you new powers, because you need some rest when your work is done.
What about a system, that let you only subscribe to a MMORPG, when you jave a job ?
-Power creep the reward for your effort. No, it is the act of making old content invalid because you have to vertically scale power as players progress. The faster they progress, the faster you encounter power creep.
-Power leveling some don't like certain level ranges. I didn't like Blade's Edge Mountains. At all. The main advantage power levellers gain over "normal" players is by playing alot more hours than them. If you lower the difference in hours played between regular players and power levellers, power levelling becomes less valuable.
-Gold farming shorter time means easier to minmax gold.Not true, its the same concept as powerlevelling, the more your gold farmers farming habits are similar to a regular player, the less difference in gold the gold farmer can accumulate vs a regular player.
-Botting see above. See above
-Players rushing through content too fast why would their playstyle be invalid but not yours ?Games are designed to be beaten at certain paces. If you need 2 months to make new engaging content for your players. Why would you want them to beat it in 2 weeks? They're not happy cause they ran out of stuff to do and you're not happy cause you're being forced to push out sloppy content. This is a matter of game design, not playstyle.
-Players doing physical harm to themselves by playing too much not your business. Ok, you have a point here. If players want to harm themselves they'll do so anyway. But what game developers SHOULD care about is not encouraging this kind of behavior. It's not good to make a game that attracts the player and then pushes them to hurt themselves where they wouldn't have normally done so if the game were designed better.
Is it really necessary to allow players to play 24 hours a day if they so chose? I don't think it is. I don't think it's necesary, but I also don't think it's your business to monitor my playtime. That's what NSA is for.
what about alts. multiple accounts ? I thought this would be obvious but if a game developer actually cared enough to impose a playtime cap they would also put into effect measures to discourage extra advancement through alts and multiple accounts. (especially if their goal was to hurt farmers/botters/powerlevellers)
Originally posted by Scot You do realise in this age of MMO's for maximum profit, the idea of limiting playing time will never float? Suggest that one at a SOE board meeting and you can expect to be looking for a new job real soon.
It works in a subscription game. In fact it's better for them cause it extends the life of the game. The real challenge is presenting it in such a way that players won't hate it.
There are many ways of extending the life of your game without this restriction or adding more content - see any game before WoW.
It would solve none of the issues
Gold farming would still occur - people would just become more efficient and specific spots/mobs would become even busier.
Botting would still occur a it's more efficient for leveling so would naturally be better to use in a time restricted game.
Power leveling would occur more because with less time available it would be the most efficient way to level.
etc etc...
All you've done by restricing time is place a premium on the time that is available.
This argument makes no sense. A bot that grinds for 10 hours gains less exp than a bot that grinds for 24 hours. The player that plays for 6-10 hours has almost identical exp to the botter, maybe a little less due to efficiency issues but has MUCH less exp than the bot that grinds for 24 hours.
Gold farming would become more efficient? Nonsense, gold farmers already seek maximum efficiency. They are not stupid. But their main advantage in accruing more gold than the player is by farming round the clock in shifts. The closer their work schedule is to the player, the less gold difference they can accrue.
Same for power levellers, they already know the fastest ways to level and also do so around the clock. The closer their available playtimes are to the players the less gap they can put between them and the players.
This about sums it up. I get pissed off enough from dealing with the nanny-staters IRL, and if they start screwing with my leisure time things are going to get ugly.
I think that telling everybody that you can only play so many hours per day is unconstitutional, but if they had it set so if that person wanted too they could set either a timer or by a certain time then maybe. Like setting a game to quit by a kids bedtime or allowing a child to only play for so many hours. I remember back when I played EQ2 right after it launched they might have something similar to this? I only mention that as an example because we had this married couple in my guild and the husband ended up setting something up so that the game would not launch or be able to play after so many hours because the wife was constantly on and he was worried about their kids. And all that lead to alot of drama, like she called SOE and had the timer removed the husband then called and cancel the sub and the wife put it on another CC and so forth. But if this "timer" could help or force others to log off and possible save a life then so what. At least have the option. You read the news enough you always find stories about stupid people dying because they refused to log off and eat or sleep, or the girl who lost her foot because she sat too long playing WoW. Give us the option...then again the world could always use less stupid people walking around.
There are many ways of extending the life of your game without this restriction or adding more content - see any game before WoW.
It would solve none of the issues
Gold farming would still occur - people would just become more efficient and specific spots/mobs would become even busier.
Botting would still occur a it's more efficient for leveling so would naturally be better to use in a time restricted game.
Power leveling would occur more because with less time available it would be the most efficient way to level.
etc etc...
All you've done by restricing time is place a premium on the time that is available.
This argument makes no sense. A bot that grinds for 10 hours gains less exp than a bot that grinds for 24 hours. The player that plays for 6-10 hours has almost identical exp to the botter, maybe a little less due to efficiency issues but has MUCH less exp than the bot that grinds for 24 hours.
Gold farming would become more efficient? Nonsense, gold farmers already seek maximum efficiency. They are not stupid. But their main advantage in accruing more gold than the player is by farming round the clock in shifts. The closer their work schedule is to the player, the less gold difference they can accrue.
Same for power levellers, they already know the fastest ways to level and also do so around the clock. The closer their available playtimes are to the players the less gap they can put between them and the players.
The bot that grinds for 10 hours gets more xp then the player that is just having fun for 10 hours. The botter is way more efficient than the person for the same time frame.
Gold farmers seek efficiency yes. most people just play the game. Your method restricts them from playing the game so they would naturally want a way to get their rewards faster... hence gold farming would be done on a greater level by more people.
Power levelers allready know but most people are not power levelers. Your system would encourage people to become/get power levelers. Hey only got 10 hours to play today better get as many levels/xp as you can.
You encouraged all of it.
You placed a premium on time available, you made the time more valuable, people will maximise their gold, levels and xp withing that time as much as possible. No more exploring, no more adventuring... you've only got 10 hours, make the most of it.
It's not about what I actually do. It's about choice. It's about what I am capable of doing should I decide to. You took away our choice and did not solve any problems by it. All the negative, not a single positive.... bad game design and fascist state.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
you know, OP, when my country was under a communist regime we only had 2 hours of TV per day. I have very strong feelings against you right now.
Lol don't be ridiculous. Unfortunately this always becomes an issue when freedom is challenged. 2 hours of TV per day is hardly the equivalent of 10 hours of gaming per day. The concept might be comparable but the magnitude is simply not. Most people are likely to watch TV more than 2 hours per day, they are NOT likely to play more than 10 hours per day every day unless they feel compelled to.
I'm not a communist, but as a person that comes from a country much FREER than the U.S. I have the opposite experience. Complete freedom is not the best way to go either. A balance must be struck.
you know, OP, when my country was under a communist regime we only had 2 hours of TV per day. I have very strong feelings against you right now.
Lol don't be ridiculous. Unfortunately this always becomes an issue when freedom is challenged. 2 hours of TV per day is hardly the equivalent of 10 hours of gaming per day. The concept might be comparable but the magnitude is simply not. Most people are likely to watch TV more than 2 hours per day, they are NOT likely to play more than 10 hours per day every day unless they feel compelled to.
I'm not a communist, but as a person that comes from a country much FREER than the U.S. I have the opposite experience. Complete freedom is not the best way to go either. A balance must be struck.
Where do you get this idea of people won't do it unless compelled to. What a load of crap.
Most people don't do it, but some do.... and of those that do I would most do it just because... wait for it... they are enjoying themselves. I've had a few 10+ hour saturdays and never once felt compelled, I was just enjoying myself.
Compelled - a small tiny percentage... maybe. Otherwise it's bs.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Anyway, this discussion went pretty much exactly like I expected it would. I'm still not convinced that you wouldn't gain the pros I mentioned from a cap but that's really irrelevant at this point because even if it did achieve everything I proposed it would, players would still hate it. Whether it be a daily cap or weekly cap, simply for the fact that it infringes on their "freedom" to play as much as they want, even if they most likely wouldn't. And if players hate it, then it wouldn't sell. And if it doesn't sell then it's a shitty MMO regardless of how well designed it may be.
So the only question I have now then, can any of you think of a system that can achieve the same goals WITHOUT making the players feel like you're taking something away from them? I highly suspect it would still be some kind of limit/cap of some sort but maybe it could have a coat of paint on it that doesn't look as distasteful.
Comments
I didn't vote in this poll, but I strongly lean towards 'No'.
The concept of limiting playing time is some kind of mechanism to keep all players at the same basic level. It theoretically makes it difficult for anyone to basically out-level others. But this really only restricts the players who start on Day 1. A player who joins 2 months after the game launches will be a certain number of levels behind the bulk of the players, without any reasonable way to 'catch up'.
Why is keeping all players within a certain level range important to the game or the developers? Some players in a competitive environment (PvP of some nature) might not want to fall behind those who want to devote 40-70 hours a week to playing. But those same players won't mind having an advantage over the 'new' character, and I doubt they would 'give back' XP/money/items they gained to put the newbie on level ground with them.
A successful game will always have new characters. Restrictions on playing time can only benefit the 3-hour-after-work player who are in the game's first generation of characters. It artificially keeps these players 'close' to the bleeding-edge player. Characters of either type who start after the first generation will be behind the first generation always. Design that only favors a limited number of players is bad enough when developers produce content that 95% of the gaming population will never experience. When that design cuts across all content, it is disastrous.
The first Plane of Sky raid I went on in EQ1 was a 6 hour then 14 hour then 10 hour affair. It was grueling, and really made work a decidedly painful experience on Monday morning, but it was well worth it. But an 8 hour a day limit would have cut 8 hours out of this one example, and presumably 8 hours worth of XP/money/items. An 8 hour a week limit would have cancelled that entire weekend.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Progression isn't a game.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Well, this went pretty much like I expected it to. Even though the vast majority of gamers (even serious ones) don't typically play more than 10 hours per day (70 hours per week!), the notion of being told how much you can or cannot play is vastly unpopular, even if you're never likely to play over the cap in the first place. Even if you put aside the health benefits to the players, putting a playtime cap (even one as large as 70 hours per week) does provide a lot of design benefits to the developer.
It's unreasonable to design so much content that it preoccupies players with regular daily play times greater than 14 hours. If you do that, your average and even semi-hardcore players that play an average of 20-40 hours per week will never be able to keep up. So games aren't even designed to be played like that in the first place.
As for the argument that you should be able to stock up on monster energy drinks and grind to the finish within a couple of weeks is absurd too. We're talking about game design here. Let go of the notions of MMO's where the entire experience is a rush to the level cap. Hardly anybody is happy with that design. Let's get a grip of the fact that we're talking about really large playtime caps here; 70 hours per week is no joke! But what would a game gain from it?
Well since we know that content is already designed to preoccupy players within a certain playtime range, we can actually put a playtime cap around that level to ensure that they experience the content the way it was designed to be experienced. Why do we rush to the level cap? Cause we wanna be as strong as we can be of course. MMO's are competitive environments. But a lot of this competition is spawned from a trickle-down effect from the most hardcore gamers. Truth be told even they don't usually want to play more than 10 hours per day, but they do it anyway because they want to be the best. Well what if the game is designed so that you don't HAVE to play more than 10 hours per day to be the best? If no one else can play more than that, wheres the pressure for you to do so? Let's never forget either that 70 hours per week is no joke anyway, it's still plenty "hardcore". It just eliminates the potential for EXTREME powergaming which trickles down and puts alot of pressure on the rest of the community.
Why do you guys think the endgame in so many MMO's is so much more satisfying than the rest of the game? Well part of it DOES have to do with an artificial playtime cap that the endgame has. You can't level up anymore, your only means of advancement are raids and dungeons that have daily and weekly lockouts (ala WoW).....this means that you can only put so many hours into these progression activities every week before you can't progress any more that week. You feel less pressured and satisfied because you know if you beat the content within the lockout you don't have to do anymore until next week and no one can rush ahead of you because they have the same "cap" that you have. This is exactly the kind of feeling you'd get all game long in a game with a moderately high playtime cap. If you wanna be competitive you can put in a whole bunch of hours, but you never have to put in unreasonable hours because no one else can either.
Who are you to decide what he should write or not? LOL hypocrite.
Ok so the biggest "logical" argument I've heard against this kind of system is the argument that you should be able to play more hours per day if you haven't had time to do so all week. So what about a weekly cap then? MMO's already pretty much do this at endgame with weekly lockout timers so what are your thoughts on that?
The whole reason I'm bringing this up in the first place is to lessen the pressure on players to grind more than they would normally like to anyway. Every gamer suffers from fatigue and even those of us that HAVE grinded 24/7 for a few weeks only did so to be competitive (not out of any innate desire to just be playing for that long). MMO's are designed to be played within certain average playtimes and you see this especially at endgame. Why not design the whole game to be played at that pace with a playtime cap. Maybe a weekly one would work better.
Also, if anyone can think of a system that achieves the same thing but wouldn't look so unattractive at face value to the players I'd love to hear your ideas on that too.
Really? Thats the "biggest logical comment" you've seen.
The biggest one I've seen is you don't have enough knowledge about a person, their habits, their lifestyle, their accomplishments, their health or any real or perceived health issues, nor do you have the right, to restrict someone's entertainment. So putting in a system that would do that is completely arbitrary.
Thats it.
A restriction on xp, fine.
Devs making systems that repeat themselves so they don't have to design 24 hours a day of content fine.
Restricting someones ability to play. No.
So even though you as a player probably would hardly ever use 24 hours a day to play. Even though making it possible for other players able to do so pressures you into playing more hours than you really want to. Even though giving that option most likely harms your experience. You still want to defend the freedom to do so purely for the sake of freedom?
I argue no, giving the players 100% freedom is not necessarily good game design. These are competitive games. And furthermore these are games that actually increase the strength of your character the longer you play them, not just increase your skill level. Fatigue rarely has an impact on your ability to improve your character in these games until you hit the most extreme levels of exhaustion. In competitive games with more twitch gameplay like Starcraft or DOTA you still feel compelled to play many hours but you hit a plateau once you start getting fatigued. In those games even the pros feel like there is very little use to keep practicing after they've been playing 10-12 hours per day. But in MMORPG's? There's hardly ever any reason to stop until you pass out, and the players that do choose to do that put pressure that trickles down to everybody else. This is bad game design and it has a simple solution: Put some kind of cap for everyone's sake. It may take away a little bit of your freedom, but you probably weren't going to play that much anyway unless you felt compelled to.
And as for the 24 hour content comment, this isn't a matter of laziness. It's simply bad game design to make a game that's designed to be played 24 hours a day. The people that do that and play in shifts or something will simply be so far ahead that most other gamers will never catch up or get to experience any substantial portion of the content. Thankfully games are not made like that, mostly due to budget constraints but also largely because doing so would be a terrible game.
What I choose to do or not do is my choice – if I choose to play 10 minutes or 12 hours. Letting others pressure me is also my choice. I can choose to let them pressure me or I can choose to ignore them. Harming my experience is also my choice. I can choose to do something that harms my experience or I can choose to do a different thing or I can choose to do that activity and look at it in a different light so I’m still having fun. So yes I do still want to defend freedom and choice purely for the sake of freedom and choice, rather than accept tyranny and oppression which is what you are presenting.
I’m not arguing for 100% freedom, that is a strawman argument. Games have rules. I’m saying this rule is bad. You don’t have the information or right to make this decision for someone else.
Bad game design would be to limit access to the game that someone is paying for simply because you made an arbitrary and uninformed decision that it's bad for them.
I vote option (3) - It's a futile attempt
Having a sleep/fatigue mechanism could work. But the most likely outcome is that players will resort to twinking. If a character gets fatigued they might simply switch to another character. So you have imposed a restriction which effectively was a waste of dev time.
Even if you implement such a mechanism per account and not per character it would be no issue to circumvent this restriction by creating a 2nd or 3rd account. You could introduce IP tracking to make sure that someone doesn't circumvent this restriction (or other technical means). No matter what you do, there will always be a way to circumvent the restriction. The only thing you do is to raise the bars to do so. But then it takes only one person to find a way how to circumvent the restriction and publish it over the internet.
Another option would be to introduce a day/night cycle in the game world. Ideally NPCs would be at different locations depending on the current hour (e.g. at home sleeping, at work, etc.). NPC merchants/auctioneers would be available only through the day time. Quest givers might be at different locations at different times. If the game world would enforce an activity cycle in such a way it would be more likely that players would as well adhere to it. On a second thought you'd shut out a large part of your player base because they happen to live in the wrong time zone.
The really important question is: Why do you have to restrict a player's play time in the first place?
How many 24/7 players do you find per game? Do they really make up a significant part of the player base? An ordinary person has a lot of RL stuff to attend to (e.g. school, work, friends, family, sleeping, other hobbies, etc.). So their play time is already restricted by other factors. Even if they happen to dedicate some more time to playing (e.g. because of holidays, time in between changing jobs, transition from high school to college, etc.) it's only for a certain period of time.
Are people afraid that they might fall behind others (.e.g inferior equipment, not reaching level cap fast enough, etc.)? In particular themepark games are built around a static game world. Players do meta gaming to optimize their game play (e.g. maximise XP earned per minute). Players organize in guilds / raid groups to achieve certain goals faster (with the drawback that you have to attend to scheduled play times).
Nobody cares for nolifers.
I really dont care if some people totally ruin their lifes by playing 10 hours or more on their computers for every fucking day.
Its the loosers that never again get a job, have no complainance and are only someone in their favorit cyberspace.
A sleepsystem to hinder daily playtime to 10 hours is just stupid.
There is no "serious" gaming, its all multimedia entertainment to make you recharge from your job and give you new powers, because you need some rest when your work is done.
What about a system, that let you only subscribe to a MMORPG, when you jave a job ?
The game designer is not your mother or your doctor.
I cannot believe your are actually arguing for yet more intrusion of your personal life and further restrictions on what you choose to do.
Holy monkey.
It works in a subscription game. In fact it's better for them cause it extends the life of the game. The real challenge is presenting it in such a way that players won't hate it.
This isn't only for the sake of health dude. It also alleviates alot of design issues for the player and developer alike.
There are many ways of extending the life of your game without this restriction or adding more content - see any game before WoW.
It would solve none of the issues
Gold farming would still occur - people would just become more efficient and specific spots/mobs would become even busier.
Botting would still occur a it's more efficient for leveling so would naturally be better to use in a time restricted game.
Power leveling would occur more because with less time available it would be the most efficient way to level.
etc etc...
All you've done by restricing time is place a premium on the time that is available.
This argument makes no sense. A bot that grinds for 10 hours gains less exp than a bot that grinds for 24 hours. The player that plays for 6-10 hours has almost identical exp to the botter, maybe a little less due to efficiency issues but has MUCH less exp than the bot that grinds for 24 hours.
Gold farming would become more efficient? Nonsense, gold farmers already seek maximum efficiency. They are not stupid. But their main advantage in accruing more gold than the player is by farming round the clock in shifts. The closer their work schedule is to the player, the less gold difference they can accrue.
Same for power levellers, they already know the fastest ways to level and also do so around the clock. The closer their available playtimes are to the players the less gap they can put between them and the players.
The bot that grinds for 10 hours gets more xp then the player that is just having fun for 10 hours. The botter is way more efficient than the person for the same time frame.
Gold farmers seek efficiency yes. most people just play the game. Your method restricts them from playing the game so they would naturally want a way to get their rewards faster... hence gold farming would be done on a greater level by more people.
Power levelers allready know but most people are not power levelers. Your system would encourage people to become/get power levelers. Hey only got 10 hours to play today better get as many levels/xp as you can.
You encouraged all of it.
You placed a premium on time available, you made the time more valuable, people will maximise their gold, levels and xp withing that time as much as possible. No more exploring, no more adventuring... you've only got 10 hours, make the most of it.
It's not about what I actually do. It's about choice. It's about what I am capable of doing should I decide to. You took away our choice and did not solve any problems by it. All the negative, not a single positive.... bad game design and fascist state.
Lol don't be ridiculous. Unfortunately this always becomes an issue when freedom is challenged. 2 hours of TV per day is hardly the equivalent of 10 hours of gaming per day. The concept might be comparable but the magnitude is simply not. Most people are likely to watch TV more than 2 hours per day, they are NOT likely to play more than 10 hours per day every day unless they feel compelled to.
I'm not a communist, but as a person that comes from a country much FREER than the U.S. I have the opposite experience. Complete freedom is not the best way to go either. A balance must be struck.
Where do you get this idea of people won't do it unless compelled to. What a load of crap.
Most people don't do it, but some do.... and of those that do I would most do it just because... wait for it... they are enjoying themselves. I've had a few 10+ hour saturdays and never once felt compelled, I was just enjoying myself.
Compelled - a small tiny percentage... maybe. Otherwise it's bs.
Anyway, this discussion went pretty much exactly like I expected it would. I'm still not convinced that you wouldn't gain the pros I mentioned from a cap but that's really irrelevant at this point because even if it did achieve everything I proposed it would, players would still hate it. Whether it be a daily cap or weekly cap, simply for the fact that it infringes on their "freedom" to play as much as they want, even if they most likely wouldn't. And if players hate it, then it wouldn't sell. And if it doesn't sell then it's a shitty MMO regardless of how well designed it may be.
So the only question I have now then, can any of you think of a system that can achieve the same goals WITHOUT making the players feel like you're taking something away from them? I highly suspect it would still be some kind of limit/cap of some sort but maybe it could have a coat of paint on it that doesn't look as distasteful.