MMOs that do offer open-world, turn-based usually make it very interesting. We used to play tabletop games for hours because we loved the process of deciding what to do almost more than combat. I believe that the need for consistency has done away with much of the strategy and fun that comes from, well, sometimes overthinking a move. Now, I understand that turn-timers that are normally featured in MMOs (usually a 30-second timer or somewhere around there) are there to stop players from torturing others during PvP matches, or to make sure the experience of playing the game is consistently challenging, but wouldn’t it be cool if group of players could vote to extend the turn limits? I would love nothing more than for turn-based MMOs to feature the ability to stop time completely, meaning to pause for as long as a player would want. Here are some pros and cons of turn-based MMOs. So, it’s not that turn-based is unpopular in general, it’s that it’s not a common mechanic in MMOs. The entire thing literally shuts off while the game calculates what happened for that turn. In both, each real-life day is broke into smaller turns or, in the case of Die2Nite, each day is marked by a 10-minute period of an unresponsive website and game. There are some really interesting pseudo-MMO mechanics out there, as well, like the ones they use in Die2Nite or MUSH, two amazing titles from Motion Twin. I have seen this in city-builders and other titles, but the turns seem to be mostly for organization and do not generally pause things. Some games use a tic-based or timer-based system. There are other titles like Nexon’s Atlantica Online that utilize turn-based combat. Wizard101 and its sister title Pirate101 are turn-based games (and wonderfully fun for all ages) and developers Kingsisle recently released information that showed 50 million players had joined the game. In fact, Dofus (the sister game to Wakfu) is more popular that World of Warcraft in its native country of France. MMOs don’t seem to get it on the whole, but I do not want to say that turn-based is unpopular. It’s pretty common in single-player RPGs, and can still be found on handheld game systems and is even becoming much more popular in the mobile market. Many gamers might be more familiar with turn-based through the Final Fantasy series or other titles. The greatest part was that more troops on the field meant more time for the out-of-turn players to stand back, stroking their chin in mock-general fashion, and plan their next move. One of us would go, moving all of his troops a few inches, firing weapons and taking damage. The gameplay was mostly simple and we were not exactly sticklers for the rules. I would wet the sand down and we’d make caverns or hills and then proceed to play for hours at a time. My father worked in construction so he built me a 4x8 foot table with siding that ran on the edges, so I was able to fill it with sand. When I was younger, I loved nothing more than to get together with several of my friends to play Warhammer 40k in my bedroom. Many gamers, no matter their preferred genre, seem to appreciate turn-based gaming because it represents or feels a lot like a board game or tabletop war game. Turn-based is pretty rare in MMOs, but I am not sure why.
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