Waitplay - n. An artificially lengthened delay between periods of interactivity which forces a player to wait to continue playing the game until some virtual task is completed or condition is met. Popular in MMOs and social networking games. Examples: Fishing in WOW, crop growth in Farmville, almost everything in Evony. Usually accompanied by a progress bar or timer in order to instill the illusion of progress in what could really be an immediately resolved action. I feel like I'm living in some backward Bizarro mirror-world. I have friends and family members who are playing games where a good chunk of the activity seems to consist of waiting. No choices while waiting, no interactivity while waiting, just (as Sid Meier once said) watching the game have all the fun. Often the waiting seems to be followed by some result, a few choices and then waiting all over again. I. DON'T. GET. IT. What's the allure? Why is this so popular? If you play MMOs with this sort of (usually non-combat) activity or social networking games, can you clue me in? Am I confusing a part for the whole? And what would happen in your favorite game of this type if the waiting was removed?

I'm probably not the best person to respond because the only online game I've ever seriously played is when we used to have a GameDev.net Xpert Eleven soccer management league, but I guess the principle is the same. I really should try out some of these networking games, although I on principle I'll pass on touching anything to do with Evony. [smile]

The Xpert Eleven game was fun and accessible in part because of all the time delays. There were matches at fixed times every few days. All I had to do was set the strategy and plan the training. That's it; set it up and wait. There's low time investment, it can easily fit any time table, I can play with people in any time zone, and it's playable despite my crappy internet connection (the main reason I haven't touched any MMOs ever. That and I know I'll end up hooked.)

In the soccer management game, most of the actions you take make no sense to be instantaneous. The game is at a fixed time, and you've got to give both players the same time to prepare. Budgeting the time to train players is part of the strategy.

Basically, it feels like a different sort of game. It's like playing a board game via email. The time delays allow you to play against people with widely varying timetables, rather than whoever is free right at the moment you wish to play. And you can take breaks whenever you wish.

I can't comment on all games, but in browser-based games (o-game is the one I played for a bit), the purpose is to allow one to play extremely casually. You're not expected to sit and play constantly, just come back after a while when you know/expect tasks to be done and do other things in the meantime.

It's sort of a balance mechanism to keep people who do nothing but sit and play the game from being too rewarded for it by gaining advantage over everyone else. The real game is in the tactics/strategy of your decision making, and the wait is for pacing. If you removed it, the few people who play constantly would steam-roll everyone else.

But then, I only played o-game, and briefly at that. I can't comment on the other stuff you're talking about.

I assume you're talking about real-time games only (not turn-based ones, where you may have to wait until all players finish their turn before the next turn starts). Back when I played Everquest, I was quite the fisherman. Mostly because I enjoyed talking/chatting as much as anything, and fishing was a good activity to perform while chatting. Had it been impossible to chat while fishing, I wouldn't have really seen the point.

I was going to rant about how I hate waiting. Forget the fishing in Wow, it seems like it and every other MMO out there has horrible enforced waits while flying from one place to another, usually designed in such a way that you can't safely get up and go to the bathroom or something useful during them. And I detest Evony - I've been curious about Farmville but repelled from trying it because it was Facebook-linked, but if it's like Evony I'm suddenly not interested at all.

But, then I realized that smaller waits are an important and positive part of games I play. Standard MMO combat would not work at all without spell cooldown times. I just finished playing Popcap's Plants vs. Zombies. (Wonderful game! ^_^ Sort of a castle-siege small-scale RTS, and hilarious.) It also has action cooldowns, waiting for more resources to spawn, waiting for zombies to shuffle across the screen, but I enjoyed most of the slow parts because they were a breather from the more common periods of frantic clicking. Harvest Moon is another example, each little farming action has an animation which you want through before you can do another, and plants and building upgrades can take several days to develop. In a game with no turn-based parts you need little waits to rest your hand, make the world seem realistic and give you time to plan your next move or try to strategically make a move at just the right time. So personally I just hate waits which are both long and you can't do anything else during them.

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot about having time to chat like Silvermyst mentions. Also time to actually look at how other players are fighting and study their strategy. Dofus is the first game I think of in this context - their turn-based combat system had quite a bit of waiting during multiplayer, and I did way more chatting to group members in that game than I ever have in a WoW-like game. The waiting didn't start to get painful until there were more than four people or something was lagging imporperly. But on the other hand, I think the max number of group members was too high (eight) and holy crap muliplayer pvp with 8 a total of 16 players on the two sides was a glacial lagfast, the game suddenly turned into something like chess. :P

We are doing one of those energy recharge games at work and I find it extremely boring to play.

As HelplessFool said for the social network games its a measure of control. They aren't meant to be real time games either. For Farmville, you are supoosed to plant your crops and then go do something else for while. You aren't meant to sit and play the game all day long. Though I'm sure there are people that spend all day watching their little person walk around. It would give way to much advantage over the people that only got 5 or 10 minutes here and there to player.

I absolutely hate Waitplay as a gameplay feature. In the long run in games it because excessively absurd and feels more like a job than a game. On that note there is ONE game that I can think of that uses it well, and I'll explain why.

That game is EVE, with it's massive skill tree learning system. While some skill levels in the game can literally take a month's time or more, EVE also offers OTHER THINGS TO DO WHILE YOU WAIT. Such as PvP/PvE gameplay, crafting, etc.

Contrary to EVE is the plague of fail attempts at internet browser games that offer ONLY this. Tell me something, from an introductory to game design standpoint you learn that the object of creating a game is to make a game "fun" and to reproduce that "fun" ever so often. If that fun is only being reproduced by the satisfaction of gaining a skill every 70+ hours that allows you to build a house or militia person every 20+ hours, then your replay value to your game is failing you if you have nothing else to go along with that fun factor then won't players stop playing?

Implementing subsidary gameplay features, such as the fishing in WoW/LotRO, achievement incriments, whathaveyou WITH THE ADDITION of other gameplay is the key. Basing a whole gameplay system on this is again, absurd in my views.

Waitplay has a few good times, and a lot of bad ones. It is all in how it is used.

Now for some contrast, and maybe insight into what makes Waitplay good or bad.
WoW has travel times, so does EVE. EVE hasn't done much to reduce travel time, WoW has. So why is travel so annoying in WoW but not in EVE?

In WoW, I RUN from point A to B. I collect a flight path back to A. Ok, so I get rewarded for wasting time running by getting a shortcut. Thats rewarding maybe twice. Then tedious.
In EVE, this doesn't exist.

In WoW, I RUN around till some level (40?) then I get a mount and I can ride that around. Then I level again (60?) and get some "epic" mount that goes faster. Then I continue to level, and get some flying mount. Thats just torture, especially when I go to make my second character, and I'm forced to RUN around again.
In EVE, I mostly go one speed and it takes the same time to make 15jumps with a new character as it does an old one. Well, actually it might be faster for the new character. The new guy is in a small ship, and he warps faster in a frigate than my hulking battleship. Oh hey, EVE has some strategic value to ship choice when attempting to travel from point A to B. WoW just tortures me with Waitplay.

In WoW, I run/ride/fly from town to battle and back, maybe from town to town. This takes time. What does the player learn? Get everything you can (supplies and quests), and make only one trip out and back. Make buddies with a mage and warlock so you can teleport places. And most of all, don't ever go places you don't absolutely have to. WoW tells me not to travel.
In EVE, I fly from base to battle and back, and from trade hub to base and back, and go on patrols. This takes time. What does the player learn? Base close to battles, since battles are fun. On the contrary, base far from battle to keep your money operation safe. Make one trip out to get supplies. As corollary, make a killing on the market by transporting goods to hard to reach bases. Learn the chokepoints and common flight paths. Learn to avoid chokepoints, unless you are the aggressor. Explore places, time spent might find you something valueable, and create a unique situation. EVE tells me that I hate traveling, and so does everyone else. It also tells me that there is profit to be made in reducing travel time to supplies, and profit to be made shooting down pilots on those same supply lines.

So, in conclusion, WoW's travel doesn't add gameplay like EVE's travel does. Both games have annoying and long travel times. EVE comes out ahead though, because those travel times provide strategic depth to the game. People profit because others don't want to travel far for supplies. People profit because others take a risky but shorter route over the longer safer one. People take the long travel time because they value not losing their hard earned ship and cargo. People just fly around, because random spawns are random, and you might chance upon something unique in your exploration. If WoW rewarded traveling, people wouldn't consider the waiting around so bad.


[ranting]
I detest WoW's tradegood mechanics. You spend hours grinding to collect some item (like silk), then have to spend another 15min sitting there while your avatar juggles his hands around and weaves 200 silk shirts. I already wasted my time on reagents, let me get back to playing. Also, I don't need to spend 20min making stacks of water for the group.

I detest farmville. I understand the waits are to keep the game casual. But I'd still rather come home and play SimFarm for 30min instead of just sitting there clicking "harvest" "plow" "plant" on 100 tiles. It isn't just the wait that is bad. The selection of actions doesn't present fun.

I love EVE online. The waitplay there really is bad in a sense. Minus external factors, being able to wait for my skills to complete means I don't play the game. On the other hand, I like being able to jump into the game and not have to worry about grinding for 8 hours to catch up to my buddies. Even in the slow times, there is stuff to do. Collecting loot takes time, browsing the market for good deals takes time.

I like WoW's spell and potion cooldowns (even with all the changes they've gone through). Knowing the wait times gives strategic depth to your combat choices.
[/ranting]

KulSeran,

>> In WoW, I RUN around till some level (40?) then I get a mount and I can ride that around. Then I level again (60?) and get some "epic" mount that goes faster. Then I continue to level, and get some flying mount.

AFAIK it's been 20->40->60 for mounts for a while now. But that's irrelevant.

>> What does the player learn? Get everything you can (supplies and quests), and make only one trip out and back. Make buddies with a mage and warlock so you can teleport places.

This is basic and I don't see it as a limitation. That's why you have bagspace and getting supplies to last long enough out there is just common sense. Plus, you forgot about the hearthstone, which really is THE greatest timesaver with its adjusted 30 minute cooldown. WoW used to be far more unforgiving in this sense. Besides, many people enjoy the running-around-jumping-climbing-trees bit because of the rather unique game world (in an artistic sense). If you had to kill-kill-kill only, that'd turn boring pretty fast. On the other hand, if you want to pick on something, then here's a few points:

- reputation grinding (not really waitplay, but just one of those put-a-hungry-cat-in-your-head activities)
- preparing for a raid 5 years ago
- going back to a town every two levels to get your skill updates. The chap you're looking for is always in the farthest corner of a town.
- mail exchange (delivery) quests. Yes, there are a few of those.


Generally speaking, WoW used to be much more challenging in every aspect, which includes the time you spend on running around. Fishing is not something you have to do. Neither are any other trade skills. They're things you can do. Also, you can still chat while your reagents are being combined into something useless. Furthermore - go out and play some soccer while your character smelts or weaves stuff for 10 minutes.

The longest waitplay you might encounter in modern WoW is actually corpse running (in case you know, doing so for places like RFD, (especially) RFK, Karazhan and Gnomeregan (due to its sheer complexity causing people to get lost) used to be 5 to nigh 10 minute runs - not sure if they've fixed these, though). The arguments you have here are: pick the instances you do; pick your group well; don't die; don't do instances (that require long corpse running). And yes, the game can be a bit of a chore quest-wise in the early levels.

Paying a mage 2 gold to get around is common practice and it's part of the gameplay by definition (seeing as only mages can make portals). You don't need friends for that.

In conclusion - you do have a choice, contrary to what I think you've been led to believe. On the other hand, knowing how to effectively make them and liking the game are two completely different things.




Some food for thought, though: many people like the actual immersion that is created by waitplay as, in a very twisted way, it mimics reality. Put that into a context (eg fishing or watching grass grow) and you've got yourself an online persona that is "just like you in real life, only cooler". This effect of projection of personality goes a long way.

I will still have to bash WOW for making you sit there and watch as your avatar processes stuff.

This basically says "Ok, you've gone out and done all these cool things, now sit here and do NOTHING for awhile."

Why is this bad? Because you're not actually doing anything interesting, you, the player, are sitting there doing boring labour. You're not out exploring the game or finding new elements, you're sitting there.


This is where EVE online really shines. It allows all those 'economic' elements found in other games to still be fun. (With the exception of mining, because mining sucks. But at least you can sit there and do that aspect of the game while you do something else.)

You collect enough items to start making your cool new ship or something? Great! Plop your blueprints and materials into a factory and go run off to do something! Why sit there waiting for your new weapon to be finished when you can just come back for it when it is done?



I think the biggest thing that you need to consider in the design process is to insure that the player is always a ranking character. That is, they are the ones in authority, in control, giving the orders. They may have others above them, but there should always be someone below them to do these 'boring' things for. Having a delay before a new building finishes, or some complex process is done isn't a bad thing, it is actually very good. Time is an important balancing factor, and needs to be managed carefully by the designer. The player needs to always have something they can be thinking about, but at the same time they need elements spread out enough that playing doesn't become a click fest that you just memorize before hand and try not to screw up your pattern.

However, if you have an element of the game that feels boring, that you 'sit there and wait to finish while not doing anything', then you really need to consider some method of the player getting the results from this action, without having to be there personally.