No, I didn’t mean about the programming logic, but more of about why did game developer(for this case, mostly mobile and web) choose to use real world time instead in game time for anything related about ‘waiting’.
Example is when you build something in let’s say CoC, you will have to wait 1 hour of real world instead of in game time, that mean you can just build it, close and do anything else, and come back to the game the next hour and have your building built, won’t it better to have player actually wait the 1 hour ingame, and offer him/her an instant build using IAP/rewarded video?
Now I know about this ‘energy’ system where it actually make sense using real world time to have it filled since it would be **** to have to look at your ingame screen waiting it filled with out doing anything…
Other than what @Kiwasi said, game time also doesn’t make sense.
They put a fence that you want to get tired of so much to be willing to pay. Practically all f2p games are almost all meta and little gameplay, like 99% meta and 1% real gameplay, so given this fact what is a player going to do if the gameplay is so little? It would mean you would have to adjust the percentage and introduce a lot more gameplay.
Another aspect is by doing like you say you are slowing down progression so much that players will feel like they aren’t going anywhere.
Your idea is suited only for a premium game and maybe some occasional item in f2p but not as core mechanic.
The idea, in general, is to put an artificial barrier to prevent you from playing till you pay.
For example, you like a game, want to continue, but can’t, because of the obligatory waiting time. How do you get rid of the waiting time? YOu pay up with real world cash.
That’s how f2p work to general.
It is not about game logic making sense. It is about milking customers for their money. Make interesting or preferably addictive content, then put a paywall in it.
Most of these types of games have very little to actually do. You login for 5 mins, set up your queues and then come back in 4 hrs or whatever. If they forced you to play, then they would have to add actual content for players to do.
Oh by the way, you exactly nailed the major gameplay feature of the game we are working on now.
Ah so that’s the key, “f2p habit forming”… Googling those world yield almost exactly what I’m looking for, thanks …
I see… So this ‘real-world’ timer indeed is perfect for these kind of games. I also think that the technical aspect plays the role here too… It’s easier for the server(most of these games are online game right?) to track every player’s progress using the real world time since everything can be calculated by the server, using ingame timer to track progress will be a big problem I guess…
But for offline single player game, using real world time for price or waiting-time would be a problem, especially in preventing time change cheater, I know some plugins that help prevent that but they have their own ‘holes’… So maybe I’ll try using ingame time for the waiting-timer…
I get the idea, I just wonder about why using real-world time instead of ingame time…
Because the idea isn’t to “make you wait”, it’s to have an excuse to “bug you later”. They don’t want you playing the game once until you get bored and move on, they want you to run out of stuff to do before you get bored and make you come back some other time to do more.
Basically, you can’t “come back” if you never “leave”.
Extra Credts did an excellent episode on this. One of the things they pointed out that as our world has gotten ´busier´… one of the things we find satisfaction in is being able to multi-task. It gives players satisfaction to know that while they are doing one thing, in the background their game is working and progressing. Our ability to multi-task gives us a sense of reward. So in that way, even when you are not actively playing the game, the fact that the game is progressing gives you pleasure and a sense of fulfillment.
The other part of it is suspense. One game I enjoyed a lot was Stronghold Kingdoms ( until it went full blow pay-2-win). As a developer I spent a lot of time thinking about why I enjoyed it, what aspects… and I figured out a big part of it was the delayed combat. You would send armies against opponents, but then it would take hours, sometimes almost a day for that army to arrive so you could see the outcome. That delay caused a lot of suspense/fun. You could send and army, go to sleep, and it was like Christmas eve where you knew when you woke up you could see your enemy getting crushed. There is a lot of entertainment value in giving that suspense to players especially if the outcome of the combat is in question.
I’ve seen this done properly - in Tales of Berseria. In the game you can order certain tasks that do not need your attention and run for 30 mintues each using real-world clock. This adds an extra fun element to the game.
On other hand, I’ve seen this done horribly in State of Decay, where your bases would deteriorate based on real world time, meaning the game needed constant attention till you finally finished it.
MGS had similar problem, only this time game was running on the server meaning while you’re not playing, people can attack your bases and kidnap your personnel (which is why a lot of players just opted out of the online component by blocking MGS from accessing the internet via firewall).
And then there’s the fact that a large portion of it was online only (all but 1 FOB, though I’ve heard there’s a way around this), and had absurd time lengths (like, three days for a platform to be completed).
The main issue for at least some player was online functionality resulting in loss of staff.
I recall one dude was quite upset over loss of several S-ranked female soldiers. Some people were simply backing up save file, and restoring old version of it if anything important went poof.
Basically, the online functionality was bolted on in a hurry and quite a few people didn’t like it that much. It was also obligatory, which annoyed some players.
Oh, I just remembered a big one for me. Getting S+ or S++ soldiers was basically relegated to the online missions, and there was kind of a cap where the offline missions had to be done by S+ or S++ soldiers to be successful.
Just to get back to the original topic in a way. Something else to be aware of if you use real-time in your game, Do not use a realistic day/night cycle. When WOW launched, it had a day night cycle that was based on where the servers were located. The problem is that a lot of people play games after work, after the kids are asleep… so maybe like 9pm to 11pm… which means that they ALWAYS were playing the game at night… and the quick reaction that WOW did to solve the problem was to make night almost as bright as day to the point where you couldn´t tell the difference really… which of course let to a different backlash of " we want dark nights".
in the game I am working on, we went with a 4hr day/night cycle where 1 hour is night and another 30mins is dusk-dawn. Our night is more dangerous plus we have a lot of creatures that can only be seen at night, so when we tried a 30 minute night ( 2 hr cycle) there just wasn´t enough time to feel the danger of being out adventuring at night… which is something we wanted. We want players to sit up in their chairs if they are out of the village at night.
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