The "Perfect" Game

I've been thinking about what I really like in a game, and what I don't like. Below are some characteristics of my "perfect" game. I'm curious what others would like to see in a "perfect" game!

- I don't want a single player game, I want a game where you can be very social and play with friends. But you aren't forced to be social when you don't want to be--you don't need a lot of people to complete game objectives.

- I like to make new characters, so I'm frustrated in games like Pet Society where I can have only one. On the other hand, World of Warcraft allows me to create too many characters! I think the perfect number would be around 5.

- A rich environment to explore. I love all the scenery in World of Warcraft, the subtle movie references and all those little touches, but don't like so much that everything is trying to kill me, LOL.

- A chance to be truly creative. This was wonderful about the GoPets item maker, the fact that you could make something that was really used by your pets. Even if you weren't into making your own stuff, you could still use items made by others.

- An auction house! Search everything for sale, buy from anyone for in game currency and not worry about being scammed. (If a game has a small percentage of rares or bind on account items, that's fine, but I'm sick of games that are geared entirely to keep items you want out of your hands.)

- Being able to level and gain currency in a variety of different ways. Could include professions, puzzles, selling items you created yourself (as mentioned above), credit for exploring, combat--the key is you don't have to do any one thing, you can enjoy the combination of activities that you like best and still get ahead. Include things that encourage good community spirit, like leveling credit for giving gifts.

- A set fee. I know some people hate this, but I much rather pay $15 a month for unlimited fun on World of Warcraft, than be constantly tempted by these pet games that want me to spend more and more, and trying to push you to do dubious surveys and all that crap. Of course you'd need some kind of trail period to get people hooked before you ask for money.

Hello Asynjur, It's cool to hear the criteria of what's a "perfect" game to you.

for me, games that I like should contain a few of the followings:

- While it's good to have multiplayers option, there also should be a single player if not offline option! Like playing offline while able to update our stats once we get online is really cool. Offline and online can be as seperated data file.

- causal plays, don't have to spend lots of time for most tasks.

- sense of humors in the game itself.

- fast pace is also good. (30 minutes to 1.5 hours)

- contents update and bugs fix (of course if there is no glitch in the game, It is the best!) once in a while

- different than other games out there, creative idea (could be in storyline, gameplay, graphic)

- paying each month is a big turnoff for me... If there is an option to pay one-time fee, then we can enjoy the game through offline mode, then I will say yes. I think of payment this way maybe I don't have a job yet, though I doubt even if I have a job, I willing to put much time on an online game that we don't own any part of it unless we keep paying...

I wish GoPets did get a CD release so we can actually play it offline and online.

games that I play quite often between 2008 to 2009 are: Spore, Diablo II, Demigod demo(even I don't have the real game, demo was just as good), zOMG, Majesty 2 demo and The Sims 3. Of course GoPets and Godance were included in the list!

A fast pace is definitely good. I just tweeted something to warcraftpets (WoW fan site) that I realized I'd like to yell to every friggin' game designer in the world. (They were talking about the upcoming expansion, and how long it's going to take too master the new archeology skill.) -

I'm fed up with time sinks. I want to play the game less, but enjoy it more when I do.

Making something take a long time isn't more content, it's just more boring. When I find myself procrastinating about reaching a goal in a game, and often I don't play at all because of it, I realize it's not playing anymore, it's work. And if I wanted to do work, my house wouldn't be the complete mess that it is, now would it?

My 'perfect' game would be Fun to Play...

I agree with Asynjur about different ways of leveling - so people can do what they most enjoy. And the idea of leveling points for gifts of generosity is genius! LOL



I would have farming, fishing, cooking and tailoring similar to gopets, because I did love homesteading and making food for my pets, i would always have a few pets in addition to mine on the land, and i loved laying out a big spread for them. But I would have a magic tractor, a magic mixing bowl, a magic sewing basket, a magic fishing basket to put on the land so you could 'gather all' if you wanted to spend your money that way.

i would also have hunter warriors. But very funny, though skilled and suspenseful hunts and foes.

I would also have Sorcery. You could level through different spells that you could cast on different accounts, some good, some bad, but all pretty funny. They would have to go to the chemist's to get an elixir to cure themselves. The sorcerer would also have to hunt around lands to find the ingredients for cauldrons and incantations to cast spells.

I'm always thinking of buying gopets from Erik and recoding it and changing it. One thing I'd do is have some way to reuse all the trashy 'premium' gifts we got at the end. One idea is, blow up the bat caves. You'd go to the store for your sticks of TNT. You'd put it in the cave and light the fuse, the cave would blow up into many boulders and rocks which would fall to earth making a lovely stone cottage or a beautiful waterfall.

Decorating options would be everywhere.

I'd like a game where you didn't need to be social aside from the forum if you liked that. I'm a hermit, and pretty much just like taking care of my pets with friendships at a distance on the forums. Altho there would be crafts where you do need to be social, and quests. The game would be designed for optional sociability.

The pace of the game would be varied, some activities being more fast paced than others.

CCT items created by players might be purchased by the game for real money and sold in stores. Nothing else could be sold for real money by players, and the games currencies Couldn't be sold for real money.

I always think of getting a billion dollars somehow, so I'm pretty filthy rich, and running the game in a way that didn't need revenue to survive, just running it as a hobby. And one of the things I would do is use the money from premiums and currency sales and occassional cash shops to do fun things for the players, like hold conventions around the country so we could meet each other. Or maybe actually have actual cash gifts for players who do something or another.

Can't think of all the things I've thought along the way.

If a pet game had say, 5 species only, what would you want them to be?

cat, dog, guinea pig, rabbit, raccoon...

cat, dog, fox, giraffe, platypus

Interesting choices!

Cat, dog, bird, hedgehog, chicken (oh wait that could be considered bird, right?) Oh maybe alpaca or llama instead of chicken haha (my sister has alpacas - they're adorable!)

I'm frustrated when it comes to gaming right now. Gaming chews up too much time, the objectives all take too long. I want a game that doesn't expect me to dedicate my whole life to playing their &!#$ game and still have fun!

I don't have time to try new games, because I haven't stopped playing the old ones. But sometimes the old games don't make me happy, I get frustrated with other players or with the game itself. But I'm just attached to my pets and characters, so I don't want to abandon them completely. I also know friends who play.

I'm still playing my 2 Facebook games, Pet Society and Happy Pets, too much, really. I also still check on my FooPets every day, but I use the mobile link so I can feed my pets and my friends pets really quickly--and that's all I do. I've been meaning to log into WoW, but I realized today, if I log on to WoW I'm sure any mail I had from the AH will be expired. That doesn't make me anxious to log in. I haven't been playing because trying to get anything done takes so long and is so tedious. Also, playing a lot of that game hurts my arm, so I can't like play for 8 hours in a row even if I have time, and feel like I've actually accomplished something.

I'm going to play Pet Society through Easter, and a little past, because Sprite wants to do the egg contest again! So that will keep me busy for the next couple months. I'm going to log into WoW and give that another whirl--but if I can't get into it, I obviously can't justify the monthly fee. It's the only thing my husband plays at all and the main game of my best friend, otherwise I would have canceled it already, at least temporarily.

So a couple months of what I'm doing now, then, see how I feel about it. Maybe take a break from gaming for a while this summer.