NO!
upkeep is a necessary part of a rpg
many things can be upkeep but the most common ones are food, sleep and repairing equipment
upkeep helps with inflation
too little upkeep and everyone becomes rich bastards
too much and it becomes annoying
the key is to find balance

upkeep will make the game more fun... if done corectly

maybe i will go into this further at a later time but right now i can''t find the words to use to explain this

@taiyou
humans in general tend to have a pattern, sleep/school/work/dinner all tend to happen at the same time each day. their free time also happens at the same time each week. dont worry if their not all on at the same time because it wont happen but what will happen is the players will be on around the same time as their friends and that is what matters. eating takes a short amount of time so it can be done on the fly so it dosent matter when it happens. sleep on the other hand cant so make it happen when they log. now they will all be ready for the next adventure with their friends when they log

Earlier I was getting at the idea that characters eat/sleep/whatever when the player''s offline, in MMORPGs at least.

As for realism -- I actually enjoy having a realistic explanation for everything in a game, whether that explanation is scientific, arcane or otherwise. I''m always very intrigued when there is a lot of detail and background in a game -- and while things like eating and sleeping don''t need to be included in the game flow, I don''t see anything wrong with people being generally aware that, yes, their character DOES require sleep and food, but he''ll take care of that when you''re not around.

As for the day/night cycle and time zones thing, I understand about the world size, but I find that most RPGs don''t give you access to the whole world anyway. Most games take place within an area narrower than 1 real timezone anyway, so I guess the time zone thing specifically is kind of pointless; but I still would prefer real time over proportional time, unless there''s some kind of believable explanation. Like I said, I love realism and background and details, even in "fantasy" games.

Incidentally, I''ve been rereading the Myst series of books lately, and it amazes me how much detail and background and science they put into this supposedly "fantasy" universe.. and they did it without being monotonous about it, most of it is just barely hinted at, which is quite sufficient. It only reminds me how much I admire that in a fictional setting.


Brian Lacy
Smoking Monkey Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@smoking-monkey.org

"I create. Therefore I am."

I''ve played with the idea of sleeping characters in multiplayer games.
I thought of a Quake map time ago, consisting of a ''correctional facility'' where all my quake buddies would virtually ''live''. Everyone would have it''s own room, which could be locked from the inside.
Of course, the concept didn''t work in Quake as player objects are removed when the user logs off. But it would be very funny if that player object became part of the static environment, and you could visit your buddy at it''s house to see where he''s about.
When offline, you''d hear him snoring deeply, not answering your call.
Things like virtual mobile phones and that sort of thing can also be very joyful.
Eating, on the other hand, is one of the oldest concepts in video gaming, so I guess having your player to pick up some food now and then is totally acceptable and makes sense to the player.

with enough cocaine, they will need neither sleep nor food... of course, i don''t know whether cocaine exists in your game world...

quote: Original post by RuneLancer
If we wanted RPGs to be realistic, we''d throw in the following features...

-Hunger
-Thirst
-Being tired
-Having to go to the bathroom
-Fear
-Shock
-Panic
-Mental Illness
-An actual explanation behind everything that isn''t standard in our world (such as monsters and their habits, or magic)

-Itches
-Bad habits
-disease
-having to bury the dead
-beginning game at birth
-most characters playing for a year, then dieing cuz they don''t survive till their 5...
-lawyers
-politicians
-country music
-Carpal tunnel syndrome
-nerds
-ability to invent computer, sit down and write game all people in that game want to play while playing that game. make sense?
-flying cars
-internet outages
-500 errors

i think i''ll stop

There''s another way to look at this.

An "adventure" is generally meant to refer to something outside of one''s ordinary life, when one is called on to put out superhuman effort and make critical decisions over a short period of time. I don''t buy RPG timescale especially as it compares to leveling: So in this one hour, which is one day, I''ve managed to grow twice as strong as I was when I started? Jesus, what was I doing in the twenty-five years of my life before this little emergency came up? And why is it already nap-time?

I liked System Shock 2''s approach to these little quandaries. At the start of the game, you choose a branch of service for your character to go into, determining your "class". Then you choose a sequence of three tours of duty, each of which last one year to the character and one line of text to the player: these tours give you ability boosts dependent on the nature of the duties you performed. Then the game starts: it is to be your last, easiest tour, but due to special circumstances it ends up being an "adventure".

Game time progresses as real time, and it takes about 10 to 20 hours of real time to complete the game. During this time, your character neither eats nor sleeps: instead, he uses remarkably dangerous and unhealthy drugs to stay moving until the business at hand is complete. He also advances in ability quite quickly, again, by using unusual and dangerous means to sear knowledge into his brain and power into his body. This makes sense in the game because the game is an adventure, a set of unusual circumstances which justify risky behavior.

This model can be adapted to MMORPG quite simply. Game time progresses as real time, or at most at a 2x ratio. When the player is offline, the character has a "day job" and routine which includes all the necessities of life: eating, sleeping, and so forth. When the player is online, the character is taking a break from his routine to have an adventure. During this time he can forgo eating, sleeping, and other needs for as long as it takes to get things done - perhaps by using drugs, magic, or some other jury rig. Or he can indulge in a meal while discussing his next move with his allies. When the player goes back offline, the character calls it a day and heads on home.

Doesn''t this seem reasonable?

-STC

---------------------------------------------------
-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

What''s the average amount of time of MMO gaming sessions? 1 hour? 2 hours?

Of that time, how much would you be willing to spend on mundane tasks like eating/drinking/sleeping?

I think there''s middle ground here. If players want to eat/drink/etc while they play, they can do so. If they do not want to, they don''t have to. Manual feeding might give some minor benefits, such as increased energy (as opposed to letting your character eat while you''re offline, which would simply feed your character enough to not let him starve to death).

About realistic movement:
If my character can travel 20 miles per hour, and I want to reach a place 100 miles away, should I have to walk/run for 5 actual hours?

How about giving players the option to put their character in stand-by mode at the end of a gaming session. When they start their next gaming session 20+ hours later, they can pick any location within say a 100 mile radius (those 20 hours would''ve been used to run for 5 straight hours, then to rest for the remainder).

Deciding to not place your character in stand-by mode at the end of a gaming session might mean the character is much more rested at the start of your next gaming session (when the player''s away, the character sleeps).

Eating and drinking are pretty mundane tasks, and not really something you should need to bother the player with.

If you are going to include it, i''d be inclined to make it fairly automatic - ie you can buy ''supplies'' which represent enough food for a day - and have them tick down in your inventory automatically, maybe include some ''rationing'' options so you can keep limited supplies for longer. It should also be possible for players to make their own supplies, perhaps from certain monsters, or from certain plants. Food is therefore an important consideration, but not too much of a hassle. (hopefully)

As for sleeping - You don''t want to force people to sit there watching their character sleep for 8 hours, or whatever. Let the sleeping take place during offline time.

Thanks for your input everyone! It seems like most people have the same view on this topic. So, I guess food will be an item that recovers health in the game or something but I won''t require the player to eat regularly, and sleep probably won''t be a normal game option since it requires time.

I was gonna say exactly the same thing as Sandman. It''s reasonable to expect players to need to ensure that they have enough food, just as they may need to ensure that they have enough potions, weapons, arrows, etc. It''s just unreasonable to expect the player to have to manually tell the characters when to eat. I''d just have a certain amount of food be automatically eaten every X game hours, and issue a warning to the player when food supplies are getting low.

As for the "realism is Bad" kneejerkers...

quote:
-Hunger
-Thirst
-Being tired

All interesting game mechanics, if presented well. Food and drink are mentioned above. ''Being tired'' might be skipped when it comes to sleeping (especially in a multiplayer game) but could be useful if it refers to stamina. Having to rest periodically for a few seconds when fleeing something would add a nice sense of tension. I can imagine the player''s eyes flicking nervously back and forth between the slowly-replenishing stamina meter, and the horizon where the chasing demon is set to appear any moment now...

quote: -Fear
-Shock
-Panic

Many games already model these to some degree: Baldur''s Gate includes morale effects, for example. Picking braver characters or casting certain spells to reduce the effects of fear sounds like another potentially enjoyable game mechanic to me.

quote: -Mental Illness

Why not? This covers so many interesting possibilities... Many RPGs already have some sort of ''Insanity'' status ailment, but there''s no reason why you couldn''t diversify it somewhat. It would probably be interesting to model a number of different neuroses that a character could have (which aren''t actual ''illnesses'', I admit).

quote: -An actual explanation behind everything that isn''t standard in our world (such as monsters and their habits, or magic)

And why not? Plausibility adds immensely to the immersion factor. Even when it''s blatantly humorous (eg. the explanation in Ultima 7 for why there are only doors in the south and east walls of buildings).

quote: -disease
-having to bury the dead

How about having to bury the dead to prevent the spread of disease? Or having to collect herbs to cure minor ailments - both for your characters and for various quests?

I certainly am not a realism-junkie, but I think that a lot of nice details can make a game so much more enjoyable, providing there is actual gameplay choices involved rather than just click-click-click tedium.


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