Spy Game Design – Idle Time
What do MMO characters do when you log off? Are they just frozen where they are, incapable of doing anything? Do they disappear into another dimension? Am I really thinking coherently?
One thing that most MMOs don’t do is persist your character when you’re not playing. Why can’t your character be productive even when you’re not? “What kind of activities could a character do without your direct input?”, is the most important question to ask when considering this.
I mentioned training to raise stats in the last post – this is one possibility. What about research for preparing for a mission? If the mission system requires a number of hours or data gathering and preparation before a mission this could be a possibility. If the player is actively playing this preparation could be lessened so the player isn’t just sitting around twiddling his thumbs, similar to crafting systems in most MMOs (which I really don’t like but I understand). If the player doesn’t have time to complete this before logging off, this is something that could be handled by the game, especially since most crafting is simple button mashing anyway. As missions get more complex this could be handy.
Another mini-game/crafting system might be establishing contacts. Possibly related to or a pre-requisite to mission research, players may have to find and maintain contacts in order to complete missions. Again, this might be simple a button-mashing type of activity if the player is online, but something else that might be handled even when the player isn’t playing.
What do you think? Can MMOs provide a way for the character to be productive even when the player isn’t playing? Is it worthwhile to examine the possibility?
Why would you want your players to be productive off-line?
The reason why MMOs have grind or crafting is to extend the time the player is engaged with your product. Moving this activity to time the player isn’t playing & you’re just giving them a reason NOT to play and more opportunity to find other things to do that is not your game. Some MMOs even serve up penalties if you’re away too long so that you come back regularly.
The other reason for grind is to cover up a shallow game
I’m more concerned with keeping things fun and interesting for players rather than forcing players to grind away. It’s a complete re-thinking of the MMO genre that I feel is long overdue. No other type of game forces the player to grind away in order to play the game.
As long as the game content is fresh and interesting I think people will continue to play. Forcing extended playing through grinding is just poor design and not fair to players IMO. I developers can’t think of other ways to keep cash flowing in, they don’t deserve those players.
It’s an interesting question, one I’m tackling in the mobile game space.
Smart phone MMOs tend to reward the player for their return to the game with an xp bonus.
This is the equivalent of them having been training while offline, it’s generally a lot less than they would have achieved in game during that time and has a distinct shelf life. If you’re offline for too long the bonuses stop accruing.
We’re planning on experimenting with a sleep concept where you’ll set up the activity to do in your absence. Thus rewarding the player based on that.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one thinking this could be a good idea. Obviously the correct implementation will be important, but I think it has a lot going for it in making the player interested in the game. It may be looked at as partially replacing the in-game grind with something else, but that’s not a bad thing IMO. The in-game grind is what’s turned me off to MMOs, thus the whole reason for these blog posts (that and I’d love to see a good spy genre MMO).
I like your thought process. I have always thought of changing landscape within the game or possibly having whatever resources you have accumulated being raided by other players because while your away, so is your character. Sorry to comment on an older post and I know it doesn’t quite fit into what you were speaking of but again, I like the thought process behind your post.
An excellent idea if you ask me! I’ve been thinking of implementing the same thing but in a singleplayer RPG where time in the gameworld and time in the real world are somehow interlinked and life goes on even when you’re not there (in my case this would of course be handled at startup but in an mmo this could actually be true). A lot could be done with this idea, “i gotta log on and direct my players craftingprocess real quick”, sort of farmville style
Also you could make the gamedesign such that If I spend one hour a day for five days then I will have progressed more than if I played five hours in one stretch, due to the ingame character working on crafting or whatever when I’m not there. I think the farmville part of needing to log on to check on and direct crafting process might be a very strong incentive to keep playing as well.
If you would make your game design such that there is strong incentive to play two hours a day but not more then you’d also get the parents’ vote