Draw to Travian?

[hallsofvallhalla]

Whats is the big deal with that game? I have had tons of people ask me how to build a game similar and there are a few emus for it...why?? I just played it and to me it was barely fun, okay it wasn't fun at all. Everything is timed so your first action takes like 2 hours. Whats the point?

[Xaleph]

I suppose the mass makes it fun. Even though, that depends too. It`s true, it takes ages to get somewhere but then again, that`s the point i guess. It`s a game you can play at work ( takes a couple of minutes to get your city ordered ). But yeah, i see your point. There`s no real fun. Altough, they did update the game earlier this year, adding real combat to it, creating a hero, managing an army, that makes it more fun. Other than that, i too see no point in playing it.

[UnknownUser]

it's a simple Brain Time Delay, and when your friends are playing as well the effect of simple human battle who can be best etc,
it's basic psychology the brain is easy to lure into doing something that is //printed in brain to be fun// but in real it "might not be " that fun.
i forgot to say this: but that is not the whole picture you can always find it to be fun with other factors that is not code,
for example, friends, social-media, interesting story there is a lot but in short, we are in fact easy to entertain generally speaking.
but oh well i prefer - the browser game grepolis


Edit: to correct my words!

PS: as has been mentioned in previous post, can be you have time to kill at work etc,
and that is another factor as i said, there is a lot that can make something into something else if that makes any sense

[hallsofvallhalla]

wow all done in javascript from the looks. Amazing!

[UnknownUser]

yeah i'm trying to do some research to find out if it uses anything extra for it's engine or if coded from scratch.

[Callan S.]

I think it's probably a bad idea to idly dismiss it as not fun, because in the end it's going to share elements of interaction that your own game will have. In a way to say it's not fun is to put down your own future efforts. Like if it was flour and you go "how boring is flour - it's just powdery and dry and messy" then you might not include flour in your own future recipes, when flour is actually an ingrediant of all sorts of yummy cakes and pastries.

Or maybe I'm just saying this to myself - I've dissmissed things in the past as crap or boring and tried to develop the superior game...yet in the end I still need to use the ingrediants from those crap games and I was simply delaying myself in avoiding using them. However, those ingrediants can be cooked alot more than they have been in travian, torn city, etc.

[hallsofvallhalla]

i disagree, this is not flour as flour is the base in which you make other things, this is a end result. Javascript would be more like flour and Travian would be like baking a chocolate cake and not including enough sugar to make it sweet.

I see no more elements in this game to my own ideas than WOW would be to Fallout.

[Jackolantern]

Oh man a guy at my office played this game (Travian) and tried to get me to play it. I, too, found it very dry and boring. Obviously it strikes a cord with quite a few players, as it is one of the more popular PBBGs out there. Sometimes I think it just has to do with the "germination period" of the game, when it was first starting to become popular. If the game taps in to social media as it is growing, and uses it well, it can gain a lot of players quickly as it catches on, and those players mean more players will join so they can play with their friends. That has been one of my only explanations over time as to why such crap games like FarmVille have millions upon millions of players. It is just so easy to let your friends know about it, its growth is almost like a virus infecting a host.

[Ravinos]

People like these types of games because you can play at your own pace and you can do it while at work. While designing my game I asked my co workers questions about why they play games like this. Nearly all of them came back with that response. A few brought up the fact that they only play them to compete with their co-workers.

[hallsofvallhalla]

I guess I can see that appeal.