Ideas for Playing the Game Long Term

[A Nonny Moose]

Well, maybe I wasn't completely clear as to why I play games like this one:

• I am a rather non-violent person.  I don't care one bit for blood and guts games.
• I am retired.  I need games to use up all this time I have on my hands.
• I am partially disabled, so I can't go play in the traffic any more.
• I live alone in a secured senior's apartment building.  Most of the others around here are LOLs waiting for God.  Not much to talk about for a retired professor of computer science.

[snapster]

• I am retired.  I need games to use up all this time I have on my hands.

I'm 25 but we come at it from the same angle, for now at least. Been a long while.

[irrelevant]

Which is why I plugged the word "really" in there. Put yourself in my position and try to interpret what you're writing. It ain't eaasyy, to bee, me.

Dude. I have to say, I have tried and tried, but I can't figure out what you are getting at. Can you perhaps rephrase your question, since none of us seem to be getting it?

I do NYT Sunday Xword puzzles every morning while I'm, you know. I do them because I have the time, and I enjoy it. It stimulates my brain.

I play Banished in the evening while I'm sitting here alone at home. I do this because I have the time, and I enjoy it. It stimulates my brain. Also, there's nothing I'd prefer to be doing. Demented and sad, but posting here makes it social (movie reference). That's why. But you say there has to be some "really" why? I don't know what that "really why" could be. Help me!

Until I discovered Banished I was playing a wargame. Against the AI, of course  HPS Panzer Campaign Bulge 44. It had me fully-occupied, and had for over a year, and its sister games Smolensk 41, Tobruk 42, Normandy 44, and Market Garden 44 for two years before that. Then I found Banished. It has me fully-occupied, and additionally has the bonus of having this forum.

Gee, even engaging you is interesting, bizarrely enough

[snapster]

...I forgot what the question is and I'm too tired.

There seems to be a common thread, rather there is one in some of the fleshier responses given. Why people play pertains to something personal or their lives, not solely or primarily to the game, hasn't been put in those terms. The game is the issue. It needs to have more to do, basically. Don't feel like elaborating but this appears both doable and needed. May not be reflected here outside of the low numbers but it is reflected elsewhere (yesterday I read some of the comment section of an article on the mod kit being released, as an example among others; those people treated the game diminutively and rather dismissively despite compliments here and there, with good reason). This game hardly has a future unless the mod kit turns out to be really something while it might otherwise have a good future. Nothing specific or substantive in this post but there have been other posts. As I play the game I might even come to the opinion that I was just imagining too much about its potential in the first place, whether that be the fault of the developer or have more to do with some more innate/inherent limitation or perhaps with my capacity. The questions have been prodding at exactly what makes the game playable in the long term, which should be an important goal.

The "really" thing referred to the lack of game related content in posts explaining why people play the game over time.

I am impressed by how engaged you are with this game. Makes me wonder what you do again and again, or where you find something new to do.

PS

I forgot to mention there is also the need for meaning. Some point to things, some challenge. Don't take this in isolation and run with it.

[irrelevant]

No game has a future. New games come out every day. Ten years ago I was fully occupied by a game called War in the Pacific. I played it for 5 years (against actual living opponents!!). Before that I had played an analog (paper map and cardboard counters) version of it on and off for 20 years. I'll probably never play it again. It has been surpassed and supplanted.

I played Age of Empires II for a couple of years. I played Railroad Tycoon 2 for a couple of years. I played the Sid Meyers Civilization thing for a year or so. Games come and go. Why would you expect longevity from this game, when no game ever (save chess, checkers, backgammon, Candyland....) has ever endured?

Games fill niches mostly. This one's doing it for me now. What's next? Not looking. But there inevitably will be something.

[snapster]

You must know this is a really bad response. Too late at night?

[irrelevant]

There you go again.  If you dislike a response, you must give some hint why.

[snapster]

"All games have no future, but some games have more future than others." - wayward communist snapster

[irrelevant]

- wayward communist snapster means absolutely nothing to me, I'm sorry. You must consider your audience of clueless boomers.

What, all are equal but some are more equal than others? How is this relevant?

[snapster]

You'd figure that would've been perfect for boomers.

The longevity or life of games varies. Better games, more appealing games, or more gratifying games over time for whatever reason you'd imagine have longer futures. What this also means is that you stand to gain more from the game as well. No need to be so... what's the word about making horses look just straight on? You've got your little perspective and you just run with it. Be more reflective. Who knows, might make you a lot happier.

[irrelevant]

At some point you don't want to work so hard. Something for you to look forward to.

And part of what I mean by working so hard is, I can't figure out WTF your last post means. English MF'r, do you speak it?

[snapster]

I'm at a loss what is so cryptic. You just can't make an all games have no future argument.

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=567.msg9557#msg9557

From here perhaps another interesting and/or significant discussion.

[irrelevant]

Yah, maybe tomorrow. My few surviving brain cells need a break

Thanks, I am enjoying this, I think?

Oh, I wanted to ask, are you actually building a town? What year are you on? Having any fun? Cause if not....why really are you playing?

[snapster]

I'm near the first winter on hard (first snow late autumn). Down one lane dirt road I have five houses, the storage site for wood, stone, and iron, a barn, a woodcutter or whatever for firewood, maybe regrettably a queued blacksmith, and at the end a fishing place. Two bridges have been queued that would connect a gathering hut and a forester to the settlement, but they'll have to wait and probably won't be helpful factors during the winter, if construction on them even begins then.

[irrelevant]

Glad you are playing. Don't start construction (even unpausing for a second) of a structure on the far side of an unbridged river; death marches will result. Putting down footprints is okay, but paused.

So wait, maybe this is it; we'll like the game more and it will have more longeviy if it is more challenging?