Why people play games with locked action timers?

[Chris]

There are games where you select an action and it shows you how long it will take. Until it is finished you can't do anything.

Do you like such games? Or do you know someone who like such games? Why do you/someone like such games? If you have such game do you know why your players like this mechanic? Or maybe everyone hate this mechanic and play these games for other reasons/features?

I'm not interested in opinions why you *don't* like such mechanic/games since I'm one of such people and I understand it very well
Only people who like such mechanic or at least have some theory why others might like it.

[CygnusX]

http://www.kamikazegames.com/dominion/   This is one such game that has 'timers'.  Its basically a project management game.  Once you start each task, it takes x turns to complete.  You can start multiple tasks (as long as you have the resources), but once you're out of resources, you're pretty much stuck until the task resolves.  Its actually a fairly fun game as you can screw yourself by not building in the correct order, forgetting to build something on time, etc.  The absurd amount of in-game ads ruined it for me though.

[gnoh]

Timers run hand in hand with a real time strategy,   it's a way to help  balance between active and super active players.

Turned based games have turns. (and resources)
Real time games have well you guessed it: time :p  (and resources)

[Chris]

Well, I understand timers in strategies, like you send an army and have to wait for arrival. This is a gameplay feature that balance things, make is more real, give opportunity to react, etc, etc.

But I'm more interested in games like Sunchaser's game. You perform na action, any action, like cutting down tree. Then it displays a timer, it will take 2 hours to cut down that tree. And that's all, there is no balance connection nor any real need for this. Why players find such systems attractive? What is the benefit of such meachnic (except for making player checking the game after a certain amount of time, or making the player stay online longer)? Or maybe that's the only reason behind this mechanic? What players really think about such solutions?

[dbest]

Am not so sure how much my answer would help you... but as a player of one such game, I found myself bound to go online and visit the game after the predetermined time, knowing that I can perform another action. It does get annoying and eventually I gave up on the game.. but its just something at the back of my mind, which tells me to visit the game after x mins/hours.

[dsheroh]

Turned based games have turns. (and resources)
Real time games have well you guessed it: time :p  (and resources)

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

Well, I understand timers in strategies, like you send an army and have to wait for arrival. This is a gameplay feature that balance things, make is more real, give opportunity to react, etc, etc.

But I'm more interested in games like Sunchaser's game. You perform na action, any action, like cutting down tree. Then it displays a timer, it will take 2 hours to cut down that tree. And that's all, there is no balance connection nor any real need for this.

I don't really see the distinction between "you send an army and have to wait for it to arrive" and "you go at a tree with an axe and have to wait to finish cutting it down".  Time can be used as a balancing factor, add realism, provide opportunities for other players to react, etc. just as much in either case.

Games with time-based turns are really doing the same thing anyhow - if you get one turn every five minutes and it takes 24 turns to chop down a tree, then chopping the tree down still represents two hours of time.  Same thing if you get a single batch of 60 turns per day and it takes 5 turns to chop it down.  The difference is purely one of whether the time passes before (accumulated turns) or after ("locked action") the player initiates the action.  Time required to complete the action can be used as a balancing factor just as readily as the number of turns required for the action can be.

Am not so sure how much my answer would help you... but as a player of one such game, I found myself bound to go online and visit the game after the predetermined time, knowing that I can perform another action. It does get annoying and eventually I gave up on the game.. but its just something at the back of my mind, which tells me to visit the game after x mins/hours.

Although that's the easiest way to implement such games, it's not a necessary feature.  Allowing players to queue up orders can avoid the need to check in with the game constantly.


As for the original question of why people like this style of game:

• I like the sense of realism it gives to the game's flow.  In real life, I start doing something, I continue doing it while time passes, and, eventually, I finish it.  In turn-based games, I sit and do nothing for a while, then say "I'm doing X" and X is completed instantly (unless I have insufficient turns available, in which case I go do nothing a bit longer because I generally can't even declare an intention to do X and have it completed as soon as the turns are available).
• You have to think ahead more because, if you want to do five things, you have start the first, wait for it to finish, start the second, and so on, which provides the opportunity for other players to react and (attempt to) disrupt your plans.  Even if you have an action queue to save you from initiating each action manually at the appropriate time, each begins in sequence, then the next has to wait for it to complete before starting.  In turn-based games, you save up enough turns to do all five and then click-click-click-click-click, they're done without anyone else having a chance to even see your plans in progress, much less respond to it before it's all over.
• You also have to be more diligent in prioritizing your actions.  If that sequence of five actions I just mentioned are all independent of one another[1], then you'll need to decide which to do first, based on the relative importance of each, the extent to which they expose your ultimate goal, whether one will make another easier or harder to disrupt, etc.  In a turn-based game, once you have sufficient turns available, they all take place (practically) simultaneously, so there's no need to prioritize their sequence at all.

And before you nitpick the last two by saying "you can get those same effects in a turn-based game by not allowing players to accumulate enough turns to do five things at once", that solution would just push to the degenerate case of only allowing players to store enough turns to do one thing at a time, which is effectively identical to a time-based game - take one action, wait, take one action, wait...  The one minor distinction is whether you decide what the action is when you start it (time-based) or when you finish it (turn-based).


[1]If they're not independent, then this doesn't apply because the dependency chain forces you to do them in a certain order.

[Chris]

Let's ignore other people having chance to react, I can easily see plenty of nice features that are possible only with such system (like multi player real time battle). But what bugs me are RPG games. Such system is used there frequently too and no other player would a chance to react to you action of chopping down a tree, they can't prevent it, they can not even see it. Why the system is used in non reaction RPGs?

Let's also ignore queues, there are plenty of such games (basicly all non strategy games) that have no queues and have no intention of ever implementing them.

Again, by locked action timers I do not mean games like Travian or Ogame, you have plenty of things to do in these games when the timer is ticking or the timers have important gameplay related functions. I meant mostly non strategy games that have only one timer and once you trigger the action you can't do basicly anything else.

Realism. This could be an explanation if they weren't using timers almost always with energy. You need to pass the time but at the same time you have to spend some points/energy to make it happen (the result is that casual/lazy players just use timers and don't worry about energy since they will never spend enough time so it will become a limiting factor, hardore ones who spend whole day online on the other hand will be limited mostly by energy). So it can not be because of hatred of points/energy systems... There must be something different going on here.

[CygnusX]

Ok, if I understand correctly, you're asking specifically about count-down timers (like in Mafia-Wars) and why designers would include them. 

For this, you need to consider that games are not only about designing them to be 'fun', but designing them to be addictive.  For this, many people will sit and watch the clock tick down until they can perform the next action.  There is almost a thrill to watching the clock get closer and closer to zero.  Think New Years Eve celebrations.

However, I know of no successful games that have timers in which there is 'nothing' else to do until the timer reaches zero.  If such a game were to exist, I'd probably think it was just bad design.

[Dasein Fiasco]

I design such games, among other reasons, in order to normalize the time investment of hardcore vs. casual players, or in non-competitive games just just to 'group' social actions by timeframe to make player cooperation easier.

[Chris]

However, I know of no successful games that have timers in which there is 'nothing' else to do until the timer reaches zero.  If such a game were to exist, I'd probably think it was just bad design.

That's the problem, such games exist It's quite a few of them and they are definitely popular.
Now the question, are these popular/fun/appealing because of the timer OR these are popular for other reason and the timer is just irrelevant addition?

[CygnusX]

I think I'd have to comment on this question based on a specific example.  The timer is a function in the game.  The game is not a function of a timer.

[Chris]

I think I'd have to comment on this question based on a specific example.

I always immeditaley forget when I encounter such game so I don't recall many examples but I remember there were many  
Try Sunchaser's game: http://community.bbgamezone.net/index.php/topic,2739.0.html it's a good example of this.

The timer is a function in the game.  The game is not a function of a timer.

That's what I wonder... I have a feeling the timer here is not just a function but something much more. Like core of the game maybe?

[Sunchaser]

As a note, I don't think my game is _only based_ on locked action timers; but because resources (weapons, food etc) are very important for a kingdom to be able to attack other kingdoms or to defend from them, time it's needed to make them and that needs activity.

And activity, and get lot of players in a common projects, is that what is required to succeed in the game; the King that will be able to lead his citizens and organize his Kingdom in such a way will succeed;

I agree that the game is atm more interesting for a player that has a kind of role and for an individuals maybe it can be boring atfer a while, we will work into features that can make the gameplay interesting for lone-wolves players type. One can be - for example - choose to improve some attributes to follow the mercenary path. But this of course will require works in terms of time or energy.