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A less "no life" approach to MMO games: the 6 hours server.

by Kyrah Abattoir · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 02/23/2013 (12:38 pm) · 5 replies

So we all played MMOs and other persistent games, and in most of those that allow players to shape the world, everyday, once you connect after work, you realise that whatever you've done the past session is usually gone.

Planetside has a few great examples on the subject.

So here is an idea for the "lesser" no life mo players out there, what if there was, on top of the 24/7 servers, a handful of servers in various timezones that are only open for 6 hours a day, lets say from 7 pm to 1am.
The server would be restored every day at 7pm, in the exact state it was the past day at 1 am.

Would that change anything for players who have real world obligations?
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Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
#1
02/24/2013 (3:35 am)
The problem for me is that I can squeeze in an hour or two every now and then, and a server that tells me when I can play wouldn't rececive my attention as I can't plan my life after a game.

If the server only allowed, say, 3 hours a day of gameplay.. that would work for me. But that comes with a whole of other issues obviously.

Duion
#2
02/24/2013 (5:23 am)
This can be a good approach to make the game more fair to all, because in most MMO games the people who invest the most time will win and so the ones with the least real life will win. So if you run the server only at times where almost all people have time will make it very fair.

Associate Michael Hall
Distracted...
#3
02/24/2013 (11:42 am)
Just like in life those who can put in the most effort/time are the ones with the most apparent success.

If some game imposed constraints for the time(s) which I would be able to play, then that game would not be played by me.

Torque Owner Kyrah Abattoir
KDC
#4
02/24/2013 (11:49 am)
However in the real world, sometimes even your best is simply not enough.

It's just an idea, i know quite a few people strategise when they play games that are both open and competititve such as DayZ, if they can they try to play during the server's low population time because it means they have less players to worry about.

Duion
#5
02/24/2013 (12:06 pm)
I for example almost exclusively play such games when I know that a server opens, that I can be there, from the beginning to have euqal conditions and a limited time per day would make this even better. I don't like to join a game with my lvl 1 character, to compete against already lvl 99s playing 24/7.