Looking for MMO - limited actions allowed per day

Blakex

Hi guys,

I am looking for (a great! ; ) ) Online game, that over all, has one unique feature - somehow limited actions allowed to perform per day / week. I am rather old gamer (used to and I do not have the time I used to have.
Nevertheless, I'd love to play a game, which requires planning, effective usage of your available resources, making decisions (rock / paper / scissor dependencies, not 1 path to be the best at everything), advancing and eventually fighting with all that you've managed to get wrapped up.
Of course - all in limited time / Action Points per day / week scope. I'd hope to have 0,5h - 2h per day on average to spent daily actions (to be as competetive as others, so it does not make so huge difference, whether you sit 1 hour or 10h per day). After such mechanics, most imporant would be the community, but I've figured that non hardcore grinding/ analyse requiring game like that (if there is any), will hook only older gamers like me.


I've dug through Aldo's MMO Uber game list (great effort there!),
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/12331750#Comment_12331750
but was unable to determine what actually suits. After few tried, I thought I'd ask >,<


As this may matter, here are some games I've tried and enjoyed

Pardus, was the game I've enjoyed most for over 4 years, although it is dying as devs simply left it be.

Other games I've played and liked -
MUDs and Ultima Online - had to start somehow, good times
EVE - this one was the best, charts, tables, dependencies and choices.
Lineage2 - enjoyable, exp, health,mana, gear, skills, quite ok community (long ago I played Tibia, enjoyed the game, but seriously, what's wrong with the evil kids there ?)

I liked all of those, however they made you advance if you put time into it. More RL time, more advance. Meaning in the end, you come home from work and get owned by kids that had spent 12h/day for last year. Eve is a hard nut, but I realised you cannot play this game 'a little'. Play it a lot or give it a break


I've tried Kingdom of Loathing, Nexus Clash and Shratak, Action Points mechanics and rather old / not so much time community like me - great - but it was too basic, had no graphics. I've played Dragon's Call - Action Points mechanics and sufficient UI, just as I was looking for, rest however rather weak. Grindgrind with limited actions per day

I've tried games like Ogame / Travian - but those even if limited time spent, make people wake up in the night to sent army / get resources, wth :>

Non online - I was a standard RPG maniac, Fallouts, BGs, Elder Scrolls, Torment, HoMM. Can't help though, playing with good community is much better then playing single player.

Wow, that was long O_o
Thanks for all and any help !

Aldo

So to summarize: you want a game that not only limits your resources, but your actions, full stop? The thing is, this outdated mechanic is used most often in cash shop scams that don't require much tactic at all. Think Farmville... there's one goal and one effective way to reach it. All other options are essentially distractions.

MMOs will reward players who invest more time in them, that is the essential bit in their business model. If your goal is to compete with people who spend ages on a particular game, you should look into regular multiplayer games. There's all kinds of card games, shooters, fighters, racing and RTS titles that offer as much competition and tactic as you desire.

I think you should reconsider what you want in a MMO: there's plenty of titles on my list that are ridiculously complex. Have you tried Atlantica? It's essentially a SRPG with a hojillion other features and economic systems fitted in. What about SMT: Imagine? It is super complex! You can really break the game if you learn how to [1] play effectively and [2] pick one of many combinations of class, skills, demons and outfits. Unfortunately the game demands a lot of grinding, so right out of the gate you will just be faced by thousands of options and all of them will require at least 40 hours to even be able to explore. To master any one of them you'd be looking at hundreds of hours. It's...not for casual players, I suppose. Have you checked out Uncharted Waters Online? It is so complex even the tutorial takes hours and still only shows you the basics. You even have to manage the water on board of your ship and your crew gets homesick and there's treasure to explore and trading to be done. It's really really really complex

Talking about ships and limiting players in their time investment: Puzzle Pirates? A lot of mini games and a complex political system in one game. Best taken in limited doses over a longer period of time.

Mith

Having enjoyed at least Atlantica and Uncharted Waters Online for awhile, I entirely sympathize with what the OP is looking for.

I have in mind a short list of features that I would consider nearly essential (though not sufficient) for a massive long-term online strategy game:
1. Rounds of finite length.
2. Must be able to play once/day without noticeable loss of competitive edge, however this is accomplished (e.g., by an accumulation of turns or a once/day turnover).

If that's outdated (and I admit I haven't seen a game that fulfills both of those in years, despite some looking), I don't think it's for any weakness in those as mechanics. I'd certainly be a lot more attracted to a game that didn't ask me to check back in 3.27 hours, or whatever.

jothki

Spiral Knights, perhaps? The amount of dungeon crawling you can do is limited by a regenerating resource. You can push yourself further, but that requires spending actual money or a decent chunk of in-game currency.

Neurotika

Estiah - interesting twist on combat (card-based), but it is mostly text based. It does run in a browser, though.

Blakex

Thanks a lot for suggestions.

It's just as Mith has said - I'd love to play some, plan some, but do not feel any pressure that in X hours XX minutes there will be production tick, or if I will not play 6h / day I will lose the edge and will be punch bag for those who could dedicate more time into the game.

I will check those titles and will probably get hooked somewhere.

I was wondering, as gamers are getting old, why so little games for geezers - less time consuming, more planning, plotting oriented - are coming out. I'd say if anyone is going to pay to play a good game, it's and old geek :P

Stupid

I'd point at Spiral knights as well. Although, as noted, the time-limiting resource can be recharged by dumping real money into the cash shop, so the White Whale players will circumvent that mechanic completely.

I think you might also try looking into turn-based games; Play by eMail (PbEM) games are quite easy to drop into, play for a few minutes (or hours), send off your "turn" and then walk away. The biggest problem with those games is that they are absolutely tied to a slow pace. So if you do happen to have a free day or a long gaming session there is absolutely NOTHING for you to do while you wait for your opponent to take their turn. The one I am playing (during breaks at work) is game.pandapoet.com

Aldo

Blakex wrote: »

Thanks a lot for suggestions.

It's just as Mith has said - I'd love to play some, plan some, but do not feel any pressure that in X hours XX minutes there will be production tick, or if I will not play 6h / day I will lose the edge and will be punch bag for those who could dedicate more time into the game.

I will check those titles and will probably get hooked somewhere.

I was wondering, as gamers are getting old, why so little games for geezers - less time consuming, more planning, plotting oriented - are coming out. I'd say if anyone is going to pay to play a good game, it's and old geek :P

I'm not sure I agree with you: Sim City is being rebooted, Civilization V is amazing, Heroes of Might & Magic got a reboot and there's www.gog.com for all your nostalgia needs.

As far as MMOs go... yea, the big investment needed up front is too large to justify projects that stray far from what kind of games are currently selling by the million. In my opinion we should be happy about the Asian market where complex clusterfucks are a lot more popular than on the North American market, which means that new complex games are likely to come from Asian developers because they can point to a game like SMT: Digital Devil Saga or Disgaea when talking to investors. To underscore my theory: Uncharted Waters, SMT: Imagine and Atlantica are all titles from Asian developers.