Comments on: Grinding in it’s purest form

By: Edie Windham the Mafia Wars Cheats Guy

Edie Windham the Mafia Wars Cheats Guy — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:06:57 +0000

I don’t understand how ppl have time to sit for hours on end playing these games!!! Get a life off of the computer!! Or get a real farm or aquarium and see how things go for you!!!

By: Rachelle Strebeck

Rachelle Strebeck — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:00:51 +0000

The first version of the FBook app was much better. When they relaunched it a few weeks ago�it has all sorts of problems. Doesn�t remember your login. Hangs up. Doesn�t let you scroll down more than about 8 status updates. I hate. I deleted it. Trouble is I can�t find any other app that did as good a job with uploading mobile photos. I may have to reinstall it just for that.

By: Digital Carrots II: Meat Brains | Kill Ten Rats

Digital Carrots II: Meat Brains | Kill Ten Rats — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:04:09 +0000

[...] Why play worthless “social games”? We have found formulas that line up with how our brains pass out neurochemicals, even if they provide no value, even if they provide no enjoyment. The relevant neurochemicals go together often enough that you are conditioned to think you are having fun when you are just feeling compelled to continue. Cognitive dissonance should carry you through the rest. [...]

By: beldeti

beldeti — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:27:49 +0000

Agree with most of the posts above, people play it as it’s easy to pick up, they don’t need much skill to play (just a little planning and resource management will do), don’t require a graphics card, and in the short time you invest in it in a day, you’d see some immediate results.

It’s there for that “quick gaming fix”, and it seems to have become socially acceptable to play them.

Mafia Wars and other similar Facebook games (Vampire Wars, Space Ace (?), Dragon Wars) I lump together as click-to-watch-progress-bar-increase games, and my interst in them has flagged when it started feeling grindy — never went past level 30+, and I have heaps of income in those games.

I still get astonished how some Facebook friends are trumpeting that they’ve reached level 135 or something. Whatever floats their boat, I guess.

What amused/amazed me though that a friend who was a Guild Wars buddy (we used to play until dawn) shifted to doing Facebook games when he got married. And if I understood him, he uses his credit card to buy in-game currency for some of the Facebook games.

He explained to me that his wife wasn’t too keen on computers, and he was “introducing” her to the wonderful world of computers via Facebook and its casual games. So far it’s working, our Guild Wars sessions get interrupted because wifey’s itching to log on Facebook :D

By: Brian 'Psychochild' Green

Brian 'Psychochild' Green — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:20:30 +0000

I wasn’t saying that “real gamers” can’t enjoy these Facebook/browser games. I’ve played a few for reasons beyond research. :) But, I think there are a lot of reasons for playing these games. Why did you pick the Naruto game instead of just loading up solitaire? I guess you wanted to let people know you’re a Naruto fan so that friends who also like Naruto feel free to strike up conversations about it with you?

There are a lot of reasons to play.

By: bonedead

bonedead — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:11:42 +0000

I’m guilty. I got to Cuba, I know that much. The trick is to make sure each member in your mafia has a good weapon and armor, then you find someone with hotels or casinos that has less mafia members than you do. Then you rob the pants off of them, oh, and don’t forget to bookmark that page and send it to all of your friends.

Yeah I pissed off a lot of people heh.

By: Fumbles

Fumbles — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:55:21 +0000

This is probably the main reason I abandoned my Myspace account. At the lower levels it was fun but then I found myself adding random people (over 300) to my friends list so I could stay competitive in fights. I had so much income I could not spend it on anything but more income generating properties. So now on FB I only play Bejeweled Blitz and Scrabble.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:27:01 +0000

True enough, MMO combat is tactical, not strategic. No argument there. :)

And yes, I’m all for some more strategic online gaming. MW doesn’t really scratch that itch for me, but I can see how it might for some.

By: null

null — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:30:49 +0000

I agree with you about depth, but you are confusing tactical gameplay with what the console video game industry has called “Tactical”. That’s what I meant when I mentioned the SRPG’s (SRPG is a popular misnomer…they are TRPG’s. Whatever though, it’s hard to predict what terms people know). Modern RTS games are mostly tactical as well, despite being called strategy (SupCom devs even call their gameplay tactical). Progress in almost every PVE MMO is based almost entirely on how much tactical combat you take part in.

Multiplayer strategy-rpg’s have been around for a long time. People like them. Despite the fact that many modern gamers not having a clue what constitutes gameplay they will continue to be popular because they are fun.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:54:02 +0000

As a further tangent, I’ve not considered the gameplay of most modern MMOs very “tactical”. They pale in comparison with the simplest Atlus Tactics games, or even Eternal Eyes.

As to the question at hand, Progress Quest exists, right? Zork Online? Simple progress metrics are refreshing in a world where who you know is more important than what you know, and there aren’t Rep indicators online for the factions in the office.