The loot in CoH wasn't useless it was very very usefull, but it was aslo very common. Every one wanted and needed them all the time, and they were always getting them.
It did not harm the fun, in fact many say it accentuated the fun.
CoH was just a bit too repetitive in the other areas.
I don't see a way where you could have loot/coin be valuable and wanted and somewhat restricted as well without having farming. The two seem contradictory.
I like your suggestion. But for me personally , this only works if the rest of the content makes up for it in other ways. A good story, or gameplay with a lot of replayability (being able to adapt builds to combat etc, sandbox features).
But unfortunately there seem to be a lot of players who really want loot to be rare, so it becomes an 'achievement' to obtain something. Which I personally never understood, because I prefer to look for challenges in combat or creation. Farming like crazy for a random chance drop, might be a challenge for my patience, but I don't play games for that reason and certainly wouldn't see it as an achievement.
Anyway, so many MMO players are fixed on the carrot on a stick progression now. They want slow long levelling and rare random chance drops. Story or other activities are not that important, only slow character progression is.
I also agree with your last sentence. Any time restriction in a game where loot/coin is valuable causes efficient farming methods and bots to pop up.
I would say the opposite. MMO's are designed to be played 24 hours a day. Some content in them may run out but there is many other content that can be repeated ad nauseum e.g. grinding camps in every game, years long skill/class systems (Eve, UO, Istaria).
I'd say that is the major draw of an MMO, a world that is open 24 hours a day, that still exists waiting to be played even when your not there.
This is just not true. They may be designed to be played 24 hours a day till you run out of stuff to do but if you constantly play it like that you most definitely WILL. The fact that they put caps on stuff and regulate exp gains, put boss timers or lockouts etc. specifically indicates that they are built to be played within a certain range of paces. Giving each individual player a limit does not mean the world stops existing, it just means individual players HAVE to rest at some point. Just like they do in real life. That's way more realistic. The mere fact that a character can be played by more than one person makes no fatigue system less realistic. And places pressures on both the players playstyle (feel like they have to grind to the point where there IS a cap) and the economy.
I would say the opposite. MMO's are designed to be played 24 hours a day. Some content in them may run out but there is many other content that can be repeated ad nauseum e.g. grinding camps in every game, years long skill/class systems (Eve, UO, Istaria).
I'd say that is the major draw of an MMO, a world that is open 24 hours a day, that still exists waiting to be played even when your not there.
This is just not true. They may be designed to be played 24 hours a day till you run out of still to do but if you constantly play it like that you most definitely WILL. The fact that they put caps on stuff and regulate exp gains, put boss timers or lockouts etc. specifically indicates that they are built to be played within a certain range of paces. Giving each individual player a limit does not mean the world stops existing, it just means individual players HAVE to rest at some point. Just like they do in real life. That's way more realistic. The mere fact that a character can be played by more than one person makes no fatigue system less realistic. And places pressures on both the players playstyle (feel like they have to grind to the point where there IS a cap) and the economy.
The human body isn't designed to do anything that long but games definately are.
All those things you mentioned are true and do stop people from advancing however there are other things that are done basically forever, again years long training in Eve, UO and Istaria, mob grinding for years on end.
Face it, content as in themeparks does need to have limits, sandbox or very long slow content in the past could be done forever. They were, and are still running so still are, designed so they can be played 24 hours a day.
Pressure is only of the players choosing and completely within their control
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
The loot in CoH wasn't useless it was very very usefull, but it was aslo very common. Every one wanted and needed them all the time, and they were always getting them.
It did not harm the fun, in fact many say it accentuated the fun.
CoH was just a bit too repetitive in the other areas.
I don't see a way where you could have loot/coin be valuable and wanted and somewhat restricted as well without having farming. The two seem contradictory.
I also agree with your last sentence. Any time restriction in a game where loot/coin is valuable causes efficient farming methods and bots to pop up.
I wanna focus on this statement. More efficient farming methods and bots would not pop up. They already seek the most efficient farming methods possible. The difference is they can farm around the clock while players cant. The more you make the farming habits similar between the two the less difference in wealth the two can acquire. Sure bot/farmer can farm more efficiently than a player that hasn't learned to farm efficiently. But they can't farm much better than a player that HAS learned to farm efficiently.
I would say the opposite. MMO's are designed to be played 24 hours a day. Some content in them may run out but there is many other content that can be repeated ad nauseum e.g. grinding camps in every game, years long skill/class systems (Eve, UO, Istaria).
I'd say that is the major draw of an MMO, a world that is open 24 hours a day, that still exists waiting to be played even when your not there.
This is just not true. They may be designed to be played 24 hours a day till you run out of stuff to do but if you constantly play it like that you most definitely WILL. The fact that they put caps on stuff and regulate exp gains, put boss timers or lockouts etc. specifically indicates that they are built to be played within a certain range of paces. Giving each individual player a limit does not mean the world stops existing, it just means individual players HAVE to rest at some point. Just like they do in real life. That's way more realistic. The mere fact that a character can be played by more than one person makes no fatigue system less realistic. And places pressures on both the players playstyle (feel like they have to grind to the point where there IS a cap) and the economy.
Man, in my opinion you have posted an awful lot in your short time here- Plus long posts at that...
I am worried about your eye sight and health- Plus I feel pressured to post just as much so my opinion holds weight.
In the spirit of your argument , how about we limit ourselves to 1 post per day in this thread.
The loot in CoH wasn't useless it was very very usefull, but it was aslo very common. Every one wanted and needed them all the time, and they were always getting them.
It did not harm the fun, in fact many say it accentuated the fun.
CoH was just a bit too repetitive in the other areas.
I don't see a way where you could have loot/coin be valuable and wanted and somewhat restricted as well without having farming. The two seem contradictory.
I also agree with your last sentence. Any time restriction in a game where loot/coin is valuable causes efficient farming methods and bots to pop up.
I wanna focus on this statement. More efficient farming methods and bots would not pop up. They already seek the most efficient farming methods possible. The difference is they can farm around the clock while players cant. The more you make the farming habits similar between the two the less difference in wealth the two can acquire. Sure bot/farmer can farm more efficiently than a player that has learned to farm efficiently. But they can't farm much better than a player that HAS learned to farm efficiently.
But most people don't farm. IF you try and limit how long they can play, they WILL feel more pressure and thus there WILL be more farming.
You increased the pressure, totally the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. Limiting the time does not limit the desire. The only way to limit it is to limit the desire for it.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I am a fan of restrictions that limit how fast players can level.
You may have gotten more "yes" votes if you worded it differently, rather than specifying 8-10 hours a day as the max. A player may not have been able to logon all week; and wants to pull an all nighter on the weekend.
Diminishing returns is another option; or an xp curve:
xp boost during the first 5 hours of the week. normal xp for 5 to 40 hours. diminished xp after 40 hours.
Fixed xp per mob and having a max of 24hrs in a day already places a restriction how fast you can lvl in every MMO
That statement would make sense if not for that fact that MMO's are not designed to be played 24 hours a day. They design it so people can play moderate hours (6-10) and keep up with the content. Even the most hardcore and grindy ones are designed this way. If you designed the content to be so lengthy and time consuming that you had to play at the max exp gain (24/7 mob grinding) constantly to be competitive then it would be impossibly costly, no one would keep up and people would not just hurt their health they'd literally die.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Being able to keep up with the content? What do you mean with that? It vanishes if you are not fast enough? And PVE competitive?
I guess if you play a MMO with that kind of mindset and are not able to restrain yourself from playing an unhealthy amount of hours per day, that the last thing you should expect, is for the MMO company to take care of you. I think it would be better if someone like that just stops playing MMO's untill he/she learns to be less addicted to it. You are describing a real problem there, something that only the player and people around the player can deal with. The MMO company will never be able to check if some player is taking care of himself in a good way.
Man, in my opinion you have posted an awful lot in your short time here- Plus long posts at that...
I am worried about your eye sight and health- Plus I feel pressured to post just as much so my opinion holds weight.
In the spirit of your argument , how about we limit ourselves to 1 post per day in this thread.
EDIT And limit the words also.
Lol, I'm posting while I watch the football game. I don't post all day long. As for the length what can I say....I type fast?
LOL- You dont see the irony?
I play MMOs while listening to audiobooks or the news or chatting on vent ir skype =P
I don't see any irony at all. The psychology associated with playing MMORPG's is very different than any other form of entertainment. This football game has an end time. As does this discussion (the point where people stop making any sense).
Yesterday my character was logged into Istaria for prolly 14 hours but only played for maybe 5 between movies, family, going out... just didn't bother to log out.
edit - you didn't get the irony.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Man, in my opinion you have posted an awful lot in your short time here- Plus long posts at that...
I am worried about your eye sight and health- Plus I feel pressured to post just as much so my opinion holds weight.
In the spirit of your argument , how about we limit ourselves to 1 post per day in this thread.
EDIT And limit the words also.
Lol, I'm posting while I watch the football game. I don't post all day long. As for the length what can I say....I type fast?
LOL- You dont see the irony?
I play MMOs while listening to audiobooks or the news or chatting on vent ir skype =P
I don't see any irony at all. The psychology associated with playing MMORPG's is very different than any other form of entertainment. This football game has an end time. As does this discussion (the point where people stop making any sense).
Thats someones own choice.
Its people like you who fight to keep Cannbis illegal lol... I am all about freedom. Not everyone is the same. Just because SOME people have issues with something doesnt mean we should all have to pay the price.
-Thats the crux.
If someone has problems- They are not mine. Dont play MMOs then.
EDIT Also Football- Lots of lives ruined gambling on it- Lots of peolpe playing fantasy Football at my work (hurts production) lots of problems associated for some people around that sport. I say BAN IT because some people Gamble on it and its a huge moneymaker for organized crime- Hurts fare more lives than MMOs (in scope) so....
I don't think the OP fully understands how unwelcoming it makes a paying customer feels when you deny them service with baseless justification like a company feeling like you are playing their product a little too much. Then it becomes a question of what exactly is too much and that's just an endless discussion in itself.
I hate to pull this but controlling and rationing time played for someone else is un-American. I would rather not allow an institution control what I can or cannot do. Plus if you took a survey of everyone's average play time per day, it would probably be much lower than you think.
As I stated before, not everyone is playing to extreme amounts so there aren't any real justifications to restrict play time for anyone anyway. You would just outcast a small group of players that actually love playing these types of games and I don't feel its right to scapegoat anyone because if a game actually did implement time restrictions, it would ONLY affect the hardcore gamers and most people wouldn't even feel its impact. Picking on a particular group to me sounds unfair as much as I dislike the hardcore elite. This thread appears to be targetting them specifically.
All i can see happening from a system like this is dev's saying its all bout our health we dont want ppl playing more then 10hrs per day its bad bla bla bla, then 6 months later boom cash shop with a consumable that lets u play longer
But most people don't farm. IF you try and limit how long they can play, they WILL feel more pressure and thus there WILL be more farming.
You increased the pressure, totally the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. Limiting the time does not limit the desire. The only way to limit it is to limit the desire for it.
Exactly. We saw this with Power Hour in UO and other attempts to create achievement windows or limits. When one is imposed, even if it is beyond that which one would need or reach, it creates an inflated or even artificial sense of need or immediacy.
Arclan mentioned a bit back the concept of tiered time - bonus, normal, reduced gain. Several MMOs do that. Some even regulate gains by server time rather than individual player time, as the goal in those is to provided bonuses during normal play hours and reduced gain during botting.
Three Rings and NCSoft both put a notice in their games that will pop up after a few hours to let you know you've been playing a while and suggest taking a break. That's a far more courteous approach when dealing with adults than trying to tell them you know what's better for them and turning the game off on them.
The OP confuses arrogance with nobility.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This idea would solve zero of those problems mentioned by the OP. For example, anyone so addicted to games as to injure themselves would just log into another game anyway.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
I can understand the mentality for thinking up an idea of a restrictive game style. However, I would not play a game like that at all. In honest restrictions would not create a better game and people power leveling and so forth has no direct impact to myself other than that they get to see and clear content before me. Good for them I say, I'll still get there, but at a pace I am looking to go at.
A bot that's restricted to a third of a day is still going to be a lot more efficient than I am - and I can be pretty lifeless when I focus my attention on an activity.
I tend to prefer soulbound keys as a way to limit access to high-value content - the devs then have a lot of ways to quietly add counters and diminishing returns to rate at which keys drop. I suspect that the more uncertainty a bot-builder faces about what the devs are doing to limit them, the more it disrupts their calculations.
Hey guys, here's a concept I've been thinking about for awhile now when I think about "better MMO design" :
Putting a cap on daily playtime
Now before you dismiss this concept at face-value, please consider some of my thoughts on the issue.
I can see how such a system can look wildly unpopular. The mere notion of telling the player how much they can or cannot play seems absurd. But is it really in the players' best interests that we let them have the option to play day in and day out until they collapse from exhaustion? What are the benefits of this? Is the concept of total freedom so valuable to us that we ignore the potential game design as well as health benefits that we can extract from a capped experience?
A game is seen as the players' "property" and as such we have been conditioned to design games with the notion that the player should be free to play it as much as they want/can. With most genres this works just fine because they have an "end" and/or are not designed to be played for extended amounts of time. But MMORPG's are a whole different beast. The MMO genre prides itself on how much of the players' time is can suck up. An MMO is designed to be played to the exclusion of almost everything else. Where most other types of games have an invisible"playtime cap" built into the game designs themselves, a great MMO is built by design to suck you in and keep you playing till you truly can't do so anymore due to real-life restraints. But allowing players to play unlimited hours in these kinds of games poses a number of design problems for the developer to deal with:
-Power creep
-Power leveling
-Gold farming
-Botting
-Players rushing through content too fast
-Players doing physical harm to themselves by playing too much
Is it really necessary to allow players to play 24 hours a day if they so chose? I don't think it is. If we examine the typical playtime of most "serious" gamers in MMO's, they typically play anywhere between 6-10 hours per day. This is even at most less than half of the full 24 hours per day that we allow players to play and yet by doing so we introduce so many problems for the developers to deal with. If we DID limit the amount of time players can play to 8-10 hours per day, most serious gamers would still get their fill of the game while we limit the potential for powergaming, gold farming, work-shift play and physical exhaustion that comes with games without a play-time cap. Not only would we substantially reduce these problems, but we'd also significantly lower the power gap between players with "skill" that play 3-4 hours per day and players that just grind it out.
I think our next gen of MMO's should seriously consider implementing "sleep" type systems where your character can be logged in for 8-10 hours per day and then get fatigued/tired and be unable to participate in most character/progression related activities until they rest. The benefit of this system would be allowing hardcore players to still play hefty amounts of time per day while eliminating the encouragement of powergaming and limiting the powergaps between players that play moderate amounts of time and those few that choose to play all day. Additionally it will make gold farming and botting more complicated and provide more stability to the player economy. The reason I propose this kind of system rather than straight up forcing you to log off is the allow players the option to continue to engage in the social aspects of the game once they've played over the capped amount if they so choose to do so. Players may still opt to stay online to chat and interact with their guildies for unhealthy amounts of time but it is my opinion that they would feel much less incentivized to do so if that's all they can do and they wouldn't be potentially ruining game balance or burning through the content too fast if they chose to do so either.
FF14 1.0 tried capping progress to X hours, and even tried to market it as a service to benefit players. 1.0 got its ass kicked to hell.
In a sub model, I wouldn't give you my money because I won't pay by the hour. I also won't pay monthly fees to be limited to 1/3 of the month (ie. 8 hour/day). Capping makes your game feel like a job cause you're not maxing progress and getting your sub's worth if you don't or can't play all 8 hours and feel cheated. This feeling is also present if you don't constantly grind for something so you can't enjoy other aspects of the game.
In p2p models, you still can't have my cash 'cause I wouldn't invest in casual part time games. I wouldn't get too attached to those games either.
Parents can limit they're children's play as they wish but I don't need you to be mine. Anyone who needs to be policed like so needs professional help that game companies can't provide.I see this as a ploy to sell multiple accounts to a single player. Sure, they can only play your game for 8 hours a day but they'll play others for the other 16. Will the 11th hour cause harm to my health? Will the 12th? Are weekends treated the same?
What does limiting access really accomplish? Are you or game companies professionally qualified to diagnose me? What is my best interest? Do you know me so well you can fix me? Is your fix welcomed?
Edit: Gold farming and botting would be no more tedious as it can be automated or accomplished through hacking. Limit each toon to 8 hours? I'll use 3 to farm.
A better solution is to make a game so bad that I won't play for more than 5 minutes!
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?
I don't play to benefit a game.
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.
Suppose it takes 50h to reach level cap, it will take 2.78 days at 18h/day to max levels, not 5 days at 10h/day. If it takes 11h to cap, it is a game designed to be played more than 10h/day to be the best.
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.
End game is when all skills are available, allowing the freedom to play all content and customize your toon. You no longer have to be a partial healer who is limited to small heals. Possibilities such as solo farming old content open up to you.
I am very surprised at all the no's here because my clear answer is yes to this notion. But again as humans we hate being told what to do. I see alot of people saying they dont play much and are extremely opposed to the idea. So we have people bashing the idea just because they dont want to be told what to do when in reality they will never get close to the cap. 8-10 hours is hardly limiting. Thats 56-70 hours a week on one game. I play games more than most and I think this would be a healthy idea. Even on my longest gaming week which happened in my younger days which included a 24 hr straight gaming session i didnt reach 70 hours playing for that week. Its like restricting a buffet to no more than 7 lbs of food can be consumed in one dining session. No one will ever eat that much but you will have plenty of skinny people complaining about baing limited. same issue here.
Originally posted by c0exist I am very surprised at all the no's here because my clear answer is yes to this notion. But again as humans we hate being told what to do. I see alot of people saying they dont play much and are extremely opposed to the idea. So we have people bashing the idea just because they dont want to be told what to do when in reality they will never get close to the cap. 8-10 hours is hardly limiting. Thats 56-70 hours a week on one game. I play games more than most and I think this would be a healthy idea. Even on my longest gaming week which happened in my younger days which included a 24 hr straight gaming session i didnt reach 70 hours playing for that week. Its like restricting a buffet to no more than 7 lbs of food can be consumed in one dining session. No one will ever eat that much but you will have plenty of skinny people complaining about baing limited. same issue here.
But who are you to say 56-70 hours a week is the maximum amount of time allowed to play to "stay healthy". I agree that most people wouldn't be affected by something like that but what about the people that are. What do you think they are going to do after being limited or discovering limitations in the amount of game they are "allowed" to play? Why unfairly ostracize those players? Taking people's freedom away and making a decision for them would be rather arrogant of a company to even make that determination for others without even fully knowing their health conditions etc.
As a customer that would be paying for a service, why should the company even be allowed to restrict my access based on what they deem as "not healthy". It's not their role to make that determination for society. As much as YOU believe its healthy for everyone, it isn't necessarily a fact or reality either without any proven evidence of an unhealthy habit epidemic spreading across a large population. I don't think targeting hardcore gamers would be in the best interest of companies as well since they are usually the most staunch fans of MMO's. Why try to outcast your most loyal fans?
Btw, your buffet analogy was great because I don't know a single buffet that actually limits the amount of food you are allowed to eat in weight if a buffet actually limited you in eating at all otherwise the concept of a buffet would practically be pointless, you might as well just have placed an order and have had the food delivered to you like regular restaurant service. The same can be applied to limiting players time to MMO's, it would be pointless to try and restrict them to the buffet, you are just going to drive people away solely based on the fact that a freedom is being taken away. No ones going to pay for that.
Originally posted by c0exist I am very surprised at all the no's here because my clear answer is yes to this notion. But again as humans we hate being told what to do. I see alot of people saying they dont play much and are extremely opposed to the idea. So we have people bashing the idea just because they dont want to be told what to do when in reality they will never get close to the cap. 8-10 hours is hardly limiting. Thats 56-70 hours a week on one game. I play games more than most and I think this would be a healthy idea. Even on my longest gaming week which happened in my younger days which included a 24 hr straight gaming session i didnt reach 70 hours playing for that week. Its like restricting a buffet to no more than 7 lbs of food can be consumed in one dining session. No one will ever eat that much but you will have plenty of skinny people complaining about baing limited. same issue here.
Your "just because" is IMO the major issue.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
No. There's no good reason to limit how much time a player can spend playing the game.
If you're trying to "protect" the player from addiction, then it would make more sense to argue that MMOs should be banned, or they should require some sort of screening. The idea is ludicrous to me, but everyone is entitled to an opinion.
If you're trying to balance between "casuals" and "hardcores" you won't be able to, but attempts to do so would be better aimed at creating opportunities for the casuals to advance without increasing the rate the hardcores advance.
For example, allowing daily quests to "stack" for up to a week. So if a player only logs in once per week they could complete their daily, with a larger completion requirement and larger reward which would be at least nearly the same as if they had done it each day.
This is not a good idea but an interesting idea would be for servers (or only certain servers) to only be active for a few certain hours each day. Or, perhaps only certain content is active on certain parts of the day. This would be a much fair method to provide contested content than currently when certain players have the availability to farm contested content while most of the world is asleep or at work.
Comments
I like your suggestion. But for me personally , this only works if the rest of the content makes up for it in other ways. A good story, or gameplay with a lot of replayability (being able to adapt builds to combat etc, sandbox features).
But unfortunately there seem to be a lot of players who really want loot to be rare, so it becomes an 'achievement' to obtain something. Which I personally never understood, because I prefer to look for challenges in combat or creation. Farming like crazy for a random chance drop, might be a challenge for my patience, but I don't play games for that reason and certainly wouldn't see it as an achievement.
Anyway, so many MMO players are fixed on the carrot on a stick progression now. They want slow long levelling and rare random chance drops. Story or other activities are not that important, only slow character progression is.
I also agree with your last sentence. Any time restriction in a game where loot/coin is valuable causes efficient farming methods and bots to pop up.
This is just not true. They may be designed to be played 24 hours a day till you run out of stuff to do but if you constantly play it like that you most definitely WILL. The fact that they put caps on stuff and regulate exp gains, put boss timers or lockouts etc. specifically indicates that they are built to be played within a certain range of paces. Giving each individual player a limit does not mean the world stops existing, it just means individual players HAVE to rest at some point. Just like they do in real life. That's way more realistic. The mere fact that a character can be played by more than one person makes no fatigue system less realistic. And places pressures on both the players playstyle (feel like they have to grind to the point where there IS a cap) and the economy.
The human body isn't designed to do anything that long but games definately are.
All those things you mentioned are true and do stop people from advancing however there are other things that are done basically forever, again years long training in Eve, UO and Istaria, mob grinding for years on end.
Face it, content as in themeparks does need to have limits, sandbox or very long slow content in the past could be done forever. They were, and are still running so still are, designed so they can be played 24 hours a day.
Pressure is only of the players choosing and completely within their control
I wanna focus on this statement. More efficient farming methods and bots would not pop up. They already seek the most efficient farming methods possible. The difference is they can farm around the clock while players cant. The more you make the farming habits similar between the two the less difference in wealth the two can acquire. Sure bot/farmer can farm more efficiently than a player that hasn't learned to farm efficiently. But they can't farm much better than a player that HAS learned to farm efficiently.
Man, in my opinion you have posted an awful lot in your short time here- Plus long posts at that...
I am worried about your eye sight and health- Plus I feel pressured to post just as much so my opinion holds weight.
In the spirit of your argument , how about we limit ourselves to 1 post per day in this thread.
EDIT And limit the words also.
But most people don't farm. IF you try and limit how long they can play, they WILL feel more pressure and thus there WILL be more farming.
You increased the pressure, totally the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. Limiting the time does not limit the desire. The only way to limit it is to limit the desire for it.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Being able to keep up with the content? What do you mean with that? It vanishes if you are not fast enough? And PVE competitive?
I guess if you play a MMO with that kind of mindset and are not able to restrain yourself from playing an unhealthy amount of hours per day, that the last thing you should expect, is for the MMO company to take care of you. I think it would be better if someone like that just stops playing MMO's untill he/she learns to be less addicted to it. You are describing a real problem there, something that only the player and people around the player can deal with. The MMO company will never be able to check if some player is taking care of himself in a good way.
Lol, I'm posting while I watch the football game. I don't post all day long. As for the length what can I say....I type fast?
LOL- You dont see the irony?
I play MMOs while listening to audiobooks or the news or chatting on vent ir skype =P
I don't see any irony at all. The psychology associated with playing MMORPG's is very different than any other form of entertainment. This football game has an end time. As does this discussion (the point where people stop making any sense).
Yesterday my character was logged into Istaria for prolly 14 hours but only played for maybe 5 between movies, family, going out... just didn't bother to log out.
edit - you didn't get the irony.
Thats someones own choice.
Its people like you who fight to keep Cannbis illegal lol... I am all about freedom. Not everyone is the same. Just because SOME people have issues with something doesnt mean we should all have to pay the price.
-Thats the crux.
If someone has problems- They are not mine. Dont play MMOs then.
EDIT Also Football- Lots of lives ruined gambling on it- Lots of peolpe playing fantasy Football at my work (hurts production) lots of problems associated for some people around that sport. I say BAN IT because some people Gamble on it and its a huge moneymaker for organized crime- Hurts fare more lives than MMOs (in scope) so....
I don't think the OP fully understands how unwelcoming it makes a paying customer feels when you deny them service with baseless justification like a company feeling like you are playing their product a little too much. Then it becomes a question of what exactly is too much and that's just an endless discussion in itself.
I hate to pull this but controlling and rationing time played for someone else is un-American. I would rather not allow an institution control what I can or cannot do. Plus if you took a survey of everyone's average play time per day, it would probably be much lower than you think.
As I stated before, not everyone is playing to extreme amounts so there aren't any real justifications to restrict play time for anyone anyway. You would just outcast a small group of players that actually love playing these types of games and I don't feel its right to scapegoat anyone because if a game actually did implement time restrictions, it would ONLY affect the hardcore gamers and most people wouldn't even feel its impact. Picking on a particular group to me sounds unfair as much as I dislike the hardcore elite. This thread appears to be targetting them specifically.
Exactly. We saw this with Power Hour in UO and other attempts to create achievement windows or limits. When one is imposed, even if it is beyond that which one would need or reach, it creates an inflated or even artificial sense of need or immediacy.
Arclan mentioned a bit back the concept of tiered time - bonus, normal, reduced gain. Several MMOs do that. Some even regulate gains by server time rather than individual player time, as the goal in those is to provided bonuses during normal play hours and reduced gain during botting.
Three Rings and NCSoft both put a notice in their games that will pop up after a few hours to let you know you've been playing a while and suggest taking a break. That's a far more courteous approach when dealing with adults than trying to tell them you know what's better for them and turning the game off on them.
The OP confuses arrogance with nobility.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
A bot that's restricted to a third of a day is still going to be a lot more efficient than I am - and I can be pretty lifeless when I focus my attention on an activity.
I tend to prefer soulbound keys as a way to limit access to high-value content - the devs then have a lot of ways to quietly add counters and diminishing returns to rate at which keys drop. I suspect that the more uncertainty a bot-builder faces about what the devs are doing to limit them, the more it disrupts their calculations.
FF14 1.0 tried capping progress to X hours, and even tried to market it as a service to benefit players. 1.0 got its ass kicked to hell.
In a sub model, I wouldn't give you my money because I won't pay by the hour. I also won't pay monthly fees to be limited to 1/3 of the month (ie. 8 hour/day). Capping makes your game feel like a job cause you're not maxing progress and getting your sub's worth if you don't or can't play all 8 hours and feel cheated. This feeling is also present if you don't constantly grind for something so you can't enjoy other aspects of the game.
In p2p models, you still can't have my cash 'cause I wouldn't invest in casual part time games. I wouldn't get too attached to those games either.
Parents can limit they're children's play as they wish but I don't need you to be mine. Anyone who needs to be policed like so needs professional help that game companies can't provide.I see this as a ploy to sell multiple accounts to a single player. Sure, they can only play your game for 8 hours a day but they'll play others for the other 16. Will the 11th hour cause harm to my health? Will the 12th? Are weekends treated the same?
What does limiting access really accomplish? Are you or game companies professionally qualified to diagnose me? What is my best interest? Do you know me so well you can fix me? Is your fix welcomed?
Edit: Gold farming and botting would be no more tedious as it can be automated or accomplished through hacking. Limit each toon to 8 hours? I'll use 3 to farm.
A better solution is to make a game so bad that I won't play for more than 5 minutes!
But who are you to say 56-70 hours a week is the maximum amount of time allowed to play to "stay healthy". I agree that most people wouldn't be affected by something like that but what about the people that are. What do you think they are going to do after being limited or discovering limitations in the amount of game they are "allowed" to play? Why unfairly ostracize those players? Taking people's freedom away and making a decision for them would be rather arrogant of a company to even make that determination for others without even fully knowing their health conditions etc.
As a customer that would be paying for a service, why should the company even be allowed to restrict my access based on what they deem as "not healthy". It's not their role to make that determination for society. As much as YOU believe its healthy for everyone, it isn't necessarily a fact or reality either without any proven evidence of an unhealthy habit epidemic spreading across a large population. I don't think targeting hardcore gamers would be in the best interest of companies as well since they are usually the most staunch fans of MMO's. Why try to outcast your most loyal fans?
Btw, your buffet analogy was great because I don't know a single buffet that actually limits the amount of food you are allowed to eat in weight if a buffet actually limited you in eating at all otherwise the concept of a buffet would practically be pointless, you might as well just have placed an order and have had the food delivered to you like regular restaurant service. The same can be applied to limiting players time to MMO's, it would be pointless to try and restrict them to the buffet, you are just going to drive people away solely based on the fact that a freedom is being taken away. No ones going to pay for that.
Your "just because" is IMO the major issue.
No. There's no good reason to limit how much time a player can spend playing the game.
If you're trying to "protect" the player from addiction, then it would make more sense to argue that MMOs should be banned, or they should require some sort of screening. The idea is ludicrous to me, but everyone is entitled to an opinion.
If you're trying to balance between "casuals" and "hardcores" you won't be able to, but attempts to do so would be better aimed at creating opportunities for the casuals to advance without increasing the rate the hardcores advance.
For example, allowing daily quests to "stack" for up to a week. So if a player only logs in once per week they could complete their daily, with a larger completion requirement and larger reward which would be at least nearly the same as if they had done it each day.