Is there a game that you can meaningfully play forever?

[DemoGraph]

This guy plays his game for decades.


Do you know RPG, strategy or collectible PC game that could be played for at least a decade, store world history and still have a meaningful progress?

That is, replaying Diablo or Civ ten times doesn't count, because the world resets each playthrough.
Bonus points for singleplayer game. MMOs are kinda obvious choice though they are mostly static.
Game of life and other abstract sandboxes are probably not enough of a "game".

[rusty_shackleford]

MMOs are kinda obvious choice though they are mostly static.

What does 'static' mean here? There's plenty of MMOs that have been online for going on 30 years now with regular updates.

As for MUDS… Gemstone IV is nearing 40? I think?

[OnTilt]

I would put Minecraft on the list. Its a creative medium as well as a systems game. The only real limitation is your own level of inspiration.

Edit: I read the OP more carefully and simply disagree about abstract sandboxes not being enough of a game. We'd have to have a whole discussion about what qualifies as a game.

[Oyster Sauce]

Dwarf Fortress maybe?

[rusty_shackleford]

We'd have to have a whole discussion about what qualifies as a game.

You're free to make the thread, but the answer is no, sandboxes are simulations not games.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd say the main issue is that no(?) singleplayer games steadily release content for long enough periods of time because it's not profitable or even sustainable.
At least, I can't think of any counterexamples without getting into stuff like playermade mods.

[Oyster Sauce]

I'd say the main issue is that no(?) singleplayer games steadily release content for long enough periods of time because it's not profitable or even sustainable.

I'd look to collaborative ****** Github games such as CDDA or SS13 (although that one is multiplayer).

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd say the main issue is that no(?) singleplayer games steadily release content for long enough periods of time because it's not profitable or even sustainable.

I'd look to collaborative ****** Github games such as CDDA or SS13 (although that one is multiplayer).

He ruled out games that are run-based and you reset your progress.

I think Neverwinter Nights could have been this, or something close to it. Dragon Age Origins similarly, I liked its DLC modules that were small adventures with a self-contained story.
It's possible it may be profitable — at least for a small team — now that it's much easier to distribute content, and there's a much bigger customer base. A handful of people could probably produce a decent NWN module every 2-3 months.

[Oyster Sauce]

I'd say the main issue is that no(?) singleplayer games steadily release content for long enough periods of time because it's not profitable or even sustainable.

I'd look to collaborative ****** Github games such as CDDA or SS13 (although that one is multiplayer).

He ruled out games that are run-based and you reset your progress.

Just don't die

[Valter]

Forever huh... and a "game" game, which I assume means combat at the very least...
Bethesda games might qualify, but the save file starts getting crushed under its own weight when a playthrough gets too long...

[Valter]

Oh, aren't sports management games endless, since it's just season after season after season? (never played any)

[rusty_shackleford]

That is, replaying Diablo or Civ ten times doesn't count, because the world resets each playthrough.

There needs to be more games where you can create a new character without creating a new world altogether.

[gerey]

That is, replaying Diablo or Civ ten times doesn't count, because the world resets each playthrough.

The Eternal War is a Civilization II save game posted on the social news aggregation site Reddit by the user Lycerius in 2012, which has attracted a significant amount of media attention. According to the post, the original player had been playing the game on and off for ten years. The game world, in the game year 3991 AD was a "hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation". The civilizations were locked in a perpetual war that lasted 1700 in-game years. All of the land on the map has been transformed into swampland because "ice caps melted 20 times... due primarily to the many nuclear wars". Reddit contributors have helped Lycerius come up with a "solution" to end the war. However, the “Eternal War” continues to live in fanfiction.

[Trickster]

This guy plays his game for decades.


Do you know RPG, strategy or collectible PC game that could be played for at least a decade, store world history and still have a meaningful progress?

That is, replaying Diablo or Civ ten times doesn't count, because the world resets each playthrough.
Bonus points for singleplayer game. MMOs are kinda obvious choice though they are mostly static.
Game of life and other abstract sandboxes are probably not enough of a "game".

I'm curious what level his players are and how OP they are.

[rusty_shackleford]

This guy plays his game for decades.


Do you know RPG, strategy or collectible PC game that could be played for at least a decade, store world history and still have a meaningful progress?

That is, replaying Diablo or Civ ten times doesn't count, because the world resets each playthrough.
Bonus points for singleplayer game. MMOs are kinda obvious choice though they are mostly static.
Game of life and other abstract sandboxes are probably not enough of a "game".

I'm curious what level his players are and how OP they are.

I doubt it's in vogue anymore, but they're almost certainly the people to regularly make new characters.

[WhiteShark]

This guy plays his game for decades.


Do you know RPG, strategy or collectible PC game that could be played for at least a decade, store world history and still have a meaningful progress?

That is, replaying Diablo or Civ ten times doesn't count, because the world resets each playthrough.
Bonus points for singleplayer game. MMOs are kinda obvious choice though they are mostly static.
Game of life and other abstract sandboxes are probably not enough of a "game".

I'm curious what level his players are and how OP they are.

I doubt it's in vogue anymore, but they're almost certainly the people to regularly make new characters.

He said in the video that if a player runs out of living characters, he's out of the game. He also mentioned PCs having families and the campaign spanning many generations in the game world. So, it sounds like they can have multiple characters, but they have to be generated through... generation. Since the game covers such a large time span, the earlier characters presumably die of old age eventually.

[Vaako]

Not with a meaningful progression, its either endless grind or resets of some sort. But theoretical you could play something like daggerfall or starfield forever. But thats far from fun.

[Tweed]

That is, replaying Diablo or Civ ten times doesn't count, because the world resets each playthrough.

There needs to be more games where you can create a new character without creating a new world altogether.

[Acrux]

40 years huh? That's nothing. Try 45 (oh they won't talk about his campaign because Rick Stump is a trad and the other guy is woke).


There are a few other games like this around. I'm part of another one that's been around continuously since 1985. It started off as a home game and then has grown pretty steadily since then. Most of these that are really long tend to have more than one group playing at any given time (mine has 10 games, I think, with about 5-8 people per game).

[DemoGraph]

What does 'static' mean here?

Static means the world doesn't change due to player actions. However many gnolls you kill in starting location, they never run out and don't get replaced by goblins, bears or guards.
I assume that changeable world is necessary for the game to be interesting for a long time.

I would put Minecraft on the list. Its a creative medium as well as a systems game.

I thought about it. And I did spent great number of hours optimizing my alchemy lab.
But while I think that the decade long game should have some elements of a "canvas" for player to play freely with, it can't be only canvas. In Minecraft you can get pretty much any resource in abundance in a few dozens of hours. The game stops after that and the painting begins.
And you can "play" the original "game of life" potentially eternally, making up and testing the endless amount of new forms. Again, it's more of a canvas than a game.
The thing is, it's hard to imagine a game mechanic that would provide you with some progress for thousands of hours of play. Farming a pokemon that both has max stats (1d10 IIRC in 3 stats) and is shiny (1 in 8k chance) might suffice. Maybe.

Dwarf Fortress maybe?

That's the closest I thought about, yeah.
And Noita seems kinda maybe close, though the world resets each death there.

[Nemesis]

This guy plays his game for decades.


Do you know RPG, strategy or collectible PC game that could be played for at least a decade, store world history and still have a meaningful progress?

That is, replaying Diablo or Civ ten times doesn't count, because the world resets each playthrough.
Bonus points for singleplayer game. MMOs are kinda obvious choice though they are mostly static.
Game of life and other abstract sandboxes are probably not enough of a "game".

I'm curious what level his players are and how OP they are.

Death is always around the corner. Robert Wardhaugh, the DM, has a long waitlist of players, and if anyone in "The Game" dies and can't be resurrected through traditional means, they're out and will have to wait a long time before returning, if they're lucky enough to be invited back.

[rusty_shackleford]

they're out and will have to wait a long time before returning, if they're lucky enough to be invited back.

sounds lame honestly

[Nemesis]

they're out and will have to wait a long time before returning, if they're lucky enough to be invited back.

sounds lame honestly

I agree. His regulars must've been ****** after The Game got popular on social media and everyone in the Ontario area wanted in on it.

[Tangerine]

Robert Wardhaugh, the DM, has a long waitlist of players, and if anyone in "The Game" dies and can't be resurrected through traditional means, they're out and will have to wait a long time before returning, if they're lucky enough to be invited back.

He sounds like a dork that wants to feel important by having people really want to be in his game.

Ontario area.

Ah, Canadian. Theory confirmed.

[WhiteShark]

I think the keep-your-character-alive-to-keep-playing rule is interesting. It seems like a good method to make people take the game seriously. Since he controls who gets invited back anyway, he can just invite back the good players and not the bad ones.

He sounds like a dork that wants to feel important by having people really want to be in his game.

Having more people want to play in your game than you have room for is completely normal. I'm not even a particularly great GM, but I still have to be selective about whom I tell when I start a game lest I be badgered by all my gamer friends and family who want in.

[rusty_shackleford]

If I feel like I'm being inconvenienced just trying to play a game, I'm not even going to bother. The only people you will attract are people who want to record it for tiktok and wholesome chungus redditors that want to tell their story, so, have fun!

[anvi]

I think it is sort of possible on paper but not really in reality. I always thought Elite was amazing how they fitted a universe on a floppy disk. But in reality, procedurally generating planets that are little more than a circle is not really going to work long term for most people. Amazing for a game made in the 80s though. If it had endless procedural style quests similar to Space Rangers 2 and an infinite procedural universe, then I guess people could play it forever. But I didn't even like playing Elite (Frontier was my era) for more than a month.

There are people who have been playing Everquest since 1999 and are still playing it now. But it has had 31 expansion packs that people have paid for. So it's not really 'a game', more 31 products pieced together, and counting. As much as I love EQ, I only actually played it for 1 year and then rage quit. Then I went back a few times but only for a few months each. I last paid them in about 2002 and since then I just played it on emulators. Usually they change things enough that I can get interested again to play it in a new light.

Neverwinter Nights like people mentioned above is one of the best I can think of. They made it so that people can quite easily make their own campaigns and stuff, so as long as it has fans that are willing to make stuff, that could go on forever. I would even play it forever too if only the combat was better. But D&D/AD&D just isn't interesting enough to me. It blew my mind as a kid but 10000 RPGs later that all used the same spells and rules... I can't stand to see another Fireball or Cone of Cold. And even if the combat was better, I would probably still get fed up of it eventually. I was relieved to play things like Blackguards instead which have different mechanics.

I've played a **** lot of Magic the Gathering since about 20 years ago, but only on and off. And it's like EQ to me, I love some things but some aspects are just bad. And it got worse over the years to the point that I rarely play it now. And if I do it's usually in Manalink/Shandalar.

One of the games I've spent the most amount of hours on in my life is Age of Wonders 1-3. I probably spent thousands of hours playing that over the decades. I didn't even use player made scenarios, I was just happy playing the original scenarios over and over. Several different races mean you can play the same scenario several times from a different angle. But even that game got old for me eventually and the sequels were always 1 step forward 2 steps back. That is close to something I could play forever if it was done a bit differently/better. But it probably doesn't qualify as you are starting from scratch each time.

[SoLong]

Only games that you effectively make yourself, since any commercial game is by definition finite.

[Norfleet]

I think it is sort of possible on paper but not really in reality. I always thought Elite was amazing how they fitted a universe on a floppy disk. But in reality, procedurally generating planets that are little more than a circle is not really going to work long term for most people. Amazing for a game made in the 80s though. If it had endless procedural style quests similar to Space Rangers 2 and an infinite procedural universe, then I guess people could play it forever. But I didn't even like playing Elite (Frontier was my era) for more than a month.

Procedural quests don't really cover the "why" loop, only "how". WHY are you doing quests, procedural or otherwise? It's probably not for the joy of doing quests, since most quests, procedural or otherwise, are of the form of "Go to place, interact with thing". Quests are never anything but a means to an end. You do quests, to receive a reward, which can be the thing, or something that leads towards obtaining the thing. Why do do we obtain the thing? This is the question that must be answered. No game, no matter how much content there may be, lasts unless it can answer the question of WHY, whereas a game that has relatively little content can go on for years if it CAN. Thus, the game which have the most longevity are the ones which provide the players with what is best in life.

And what is best in life?

[Tangerine]

And what is best in life?