A game called DayZ has been getting a lot of attention lately, and I hope to be able to try it out soon. FPS play can be very exciting and immersive, but I still find myself coming back to turn-based games like TBSes and roguelikes in the end. Turn-based games in multiplayer run into a lot of issues though, just try playing multiplayer Civilization some time. You either have some awkward simultaneous play mode, or have to slog through a play-by-email game that takes months. Ultimately, you’re always stuck waiting for another player, and that’s not particularly fun.<\/p>\n

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So that got me thinking, why wait? If you’re directly interacting with another player, such as in combat, you want the turn-based gameplay to be seamless. But if you’re alone in the woods, or only fighting AI opponents, why does it matter? I’ve talked before about cell-based map structures<\/a>, and I got to thinking that something like that would be perfect for an asymmetric or asynchronous MMO.<\/p>\n

Basically, the idea is that each individual game cell is a separate time-line. If nothing is going on in a cell, it doesn’t need to age at all (although background processes could probably help keep these going if AI actors are present). If only one player is in a cell, it can age exactly at their pace, so the experience is of a single-player game. If more than one player is active, then it would switch to the multi-player rules. This would probably be a round-robin experience with a time limit on the turn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A game called DayZ has been getting a lot of attention lately, and I hope to be able to try it out soon. FPS play can be very exciting and immersive, but I still find myself coming back to turn-based games like TBSes and roguelikes in the end. Turn-based games in multiplayer run into a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[],"tags":[5,1],"yoast_head":"\n