Decline Can someone explain what an idle mmo is

[Norfleet]

Yup, that's Scam Shitizen for you.

 

[J1M]

A Skinner box without any lever for food, but instead a looping gif of a lever being pressed with food being dispensed at regular intervals.

Well, the other evolution of the MMO is not having any lever OR food, but instead, you can pay tons of money to get pictures of the food that would be dispensed if there was a lever to pull. Which there isn't.

Maybe the final evolution is there not even being an MMO, but instead, we can pay tons of money to get pictures of a hypothetical MMO and think about all the food we'd get if we were to play it and pull the levers in it.

Oh wait that already exists. Star *cough* Citizen

Star Citizen was innovative, certainly. But there have been many other entries in the "screenshot MMO" genre!

 

[Ismaul]

A Skinner box without any lever for food, but instead a looping gif of a lever being pressed with food being dispensed at regular intervals.

Well, the other evolution of the MMO is not having any lever OR food, but instead, you can pay tons of money to get pictures of the food that would be dispensed if there was a lever to pull. Which there isn't.

Maybe the final evolution is there not even being an MMO, but instead, we can pay tons of money to get pictures of a hypothetical MMO and think about all the food we'd get if we were to play it and pull the levers in it.

Oh wait that already exists. Star *cough* Citizen

Star Citizen was innovative, certainly. But there have been many other entries in the "screenshot MMO" genre!

I wouldn't know, I'm not even remotely into the "proper MMO" genre.

Just came into this thread to see what new degeneracy has been cooked up. "Idle MMOs" lul, I thought MMOs were already about parking your mind at idle.

 

[Azdul]

Progression is a form of fun. Putting it as a primary mechanic in a social setting places more emphasis on doing it efficiently (optimizing is another form of fun) and increases the length of time before the brain tires of being tickled that way (competition and other social interactions are a retention mechanism).

Progression is a slippery slope - if you respect time investment of your most loyal, most insane customers - every MMO eventually becomes ProgressQuest.

Many other issues, like grind, bots, macroing, real money trading - are the result of letting the progression genie out, and trying to put it back into the bottle.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I tell you what they aren't...

Spoiler

They're not RPGs.

If you think idle games are bad, then idle AFK games are worse. I'm trying two atm. The space one sucks to high hell. The Angel/Goddess one at least has ok ASSets to look at. Gets old and eventually the developer firgets there's a story. Many many mini games and attempts to overwhelm your senses. Reward city but in the end they're paltry. I deleted about 7 games. I should get rid of the last two.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Progress Quest was a novel idea for its time.

I wonder if a good idle game exists. Maybe one with a lot of monster variety, some party management, robust combat log, a lot of equipment, descriptive locations to visit, and a good amount of skills to work on. One that takes itself seriously. It would need to be engaged with more than most idle games. Maybe with advances in AI it would be possible.

 

[Alex]

I just got an ad on youtube for an idle MMO

Is that a game that you don't play

What is happening

I think it is supposed to be like a normal mmo, but instead of downloading a bot to do all the repetitive stuff for you, the bot is already baked into the mechanics.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Progress Quest was a novel idea for its time.

progress quest was a prank, a joke, not a manual.

 

[Late Bloomer]

progress quest was a prank, a joke, not a manual.

novel idea: adjective. of a new and unusual kind; different from anything seen or known before: a novel idea.

I could be wrong but I simply don't remember anything like it before its release in early 2000's. I remember being amused by it's humorous take on mmo's though. Had it running for a time but then just kind of forgot about it. Steam keeps showing me idle games because I dared to try some d&d themed one before quickly uninstalling it.

 

[Perkel]

I would wish for RPG where i am party manager instead of playing actual party.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'm surprised Diablo Immortal doesn't have an idle mode. Or does it? I'll never know since I won't try it in my nigh dead zone I reside at.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Are there any idle MMOs with hardcore PVP? With permadeath and full loot preferably?

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

Basically, they get an MMO, remove all the bad gameplay, and all that's left is a hollow automated shell.

I really am not surprised they are effectively automating MMOs now, since MMOs are 95% busywork most of the time

 

[Higher Game]

Sometimes the only winning move is to not not play.

 

[Norfleet]

I would wish for RPG where i am party manager instead of playing actual party.

How does this work? You just dispatch the party on adventures and don't control any of it? That sounds like Majesty where you play as the King instead of any of the adventurers.

 

[Perkel]

I would wish for RPG where i am party manager instead of playing actual party.

How does this work? You just dispatch the party on adventures and don't control any of it? That sounds like Majesty where you play as the King instead of any of the adventurers.

Not quite. You basically follow party. They are making all decisions, where to go, who to attack etc. Your job is to find way to unload loot, stock, equip party, who is in party and manage interpersonal relations trying to fit party in a way for it to be most effective instead of them killing each other after one bad look at each other. You start as noname manager so no one fameous will want to work with you and as your fame increases more fameous and high maintance party members become available.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Sounds like a pop idol mangement game or porn shop manage game.

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

Shop manage game?
Say no more!

 

[Zeriel]

I have a friend that likes playing these, one time I asked him why he likes playing them and he just said he likes seeing numbers go up in good time (like going up several levels a day, or doing more damage than the previous hour).

I sometimes play these, but not really because I like them per say, I play them to break them by either hacking them, or just screwing around with auto clickers.
Sometimes you can get some nice looking ones with nice visuals, but after the first few hours it wears out.

I think best one I played was some type of village clicker or something where you had a plot of land and you could build buildings and they'd auto generate resources, kinda like those browser based mmo castle builders, but this one was much quicker and single player. It looked quite nice actually, and you could visually see the buildings being built, or getting upgraded etc... the land even changed at one point to a more "elven like" area when I joined an elven faction which I thought was pretty cool.
Unfortunately that was pretty much it, once you join a faction the visuals don't really change after that, so I quit shortly after.

Realm Grinder. And yeah it's pretty well designed. I feel like the genre could be improved by hybridizing it with more active gameplay, but then it's a very low effort genre (on the dev side I mean) so I guess it has its niche.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

It's a stupid, stupid genre but damn it, it works. Your dumb monkey brain will give you that sweet dopamine when those numbers go up.

I "played" adventure capitalist for a while, same idea. You automatically make the numbers go up, then you spend the numbers to buy upgrades to your number generation. Which means you can then spend more numbers on even better number generation! And after a while, you don't even have to click anything to make the numbers go up.

I don't blame devs for cashing in but goddamn what a stupid genre.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

The ones you make an account, log in then just click off the app are even easier. Your account does shit while not even actively playing. Yep. Damn easy.

 

[mondblut]

It's a stupid, stupid genre but damn it, it works. Your dumb monkey brain will give you that sweet dopamine when those numbers go up.

I "played" adventure capitalist for a while, same idea. You automatically make the numbers go up, then you spend the numbers to buy upgrades to your number generation. Which means you can then spend more numbers on even better number generation! And after a while, you don't even have to click anything to make the numbers go up.

So it's like an RPG minus all the annoying clicking that you normally have to do? Sounds exciting.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

It's a stupid, stupid genre but damn it, it works. Your dumb monkey brain will give you that sweet dopamine when those numbers go up.

I "played" adventure capitalist for a while, same idea. You automatically make the numbers go up, then you spend the numbers to buy upgrades to your number generation. Which means you can then spend more numbers on even better number generation! And after a while, you don't even have to click anything to make the numbers go up.

So it's like an RPG minus all the annoying clicking that you normally have to do? Sounds exciting.

But you still have to do all the annoying setup and creating accounts. Ugh why bother, I might as well be playing a fucking game, the absolute horror.

I think someone should start a company where they make truly idle games. One day you just get a notification or something in the mail telling you your character leveled up or beat the game or whatever, I shouldn't have to actually go through the effort of finding these idle games and starting characters and shit. Idle games still aren't idle enough damn it!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Er... so you want them to add your name and rl bank account or identity to a game and it plays itself without you knowing it like some Chinese malware, spyware, virus?

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Er... so you want them to add your name and rl bank account or identity to a game and it plays itself without you knowing it like some Chinese malware, spyware, virus?

Yeah, that's what my obvious joke was about. I want the chinese to steal my identity, exactly. Jesus and I thought I made useless comments here...