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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: A "total time played" counter  (Read 6787 times)

ANGRYABOUTELVES

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A "total time played" counter
« on: April 27, 2016, 12:45:09 PM »

I like to compare the amount of playtime I get out of a game to the amount of money it cost me, so I can see how efficiently I've been spending my entertainment money. Starsector doesn't have this feature, and while I'm absolutely certain I've got more than my money's worth out of it, I'd still like to be able to know exactly how efficient my purchase was. I doubt it could count hours retroactively, but it would still be useful for anyone else like me.
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Sy

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2016, 04:08:02 PM »

agreed. there's no doubt whatsoever that the purchase was worth it for me, but seeing hours played (even counting from now on) would still be nice.
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David

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2016, 04:55:42 PM »

Weird! When I get into a game, I don't want to know how long I've played. Let's me focus on the experience itself, on whether I'm enjoying myself or not, engrossed or not, rather than feeling bad about the time I've ... (hmm, "wasted" is a strong word) ... used. Or somehow quantifying it. Similar feelings about achievements: why let this external factor into the experience that should be judged on its own merits?

I mean, I know the worth of my time -- I've got a freelance rate for that ;)
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2016, 05:49:17 PM »

...rather than feeling bad about the time I've ... (hmm, "wasted" is a strong word) ... used. Or somehow quantifying it.
Time you enjoyed wasting is not time wasted. ;)
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Gothars

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2016, 01:35:40 AM »

I like to compare the amount of playtime I get out of a game to the amount of money it cost me, so I can see how efficiently I've been spending my entertainment money.

I commend the desire to do statistics, but IMO that is a incomplete metric, it's missing how much you enjoyed the time spent. You should invest into a dopamin probe implant to calculate your actual entertainment efficiency as dopamin secretion/playtime unit. Better yet, play inside a MRI tube to measure bloodflow in pleasure associated regions of your brain. (Noise may impair game experience.)
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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ValkyriaL

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2016, 02:19:22 AM »

Personaly, ever since I bought the game back when it costed 10$ quite a few years ago, and i know for a fact I have over a 1000 hours played, and enjoyed more or less 80% of it.

I can safely say I have gotten a good 10/1 ratio of enjoyment vs the amount of money spent, the game could easily double or even triple its purchase cost and still come out ahead in terms of playability and enjoyment even in its current alpha stage, and im sure many of the other old dogs feel the same way, and if it can do that now, imagine what the finished product can achieve? :)

on the other hand, being able to actually see your total play time can be a scary thing, i remember this one time back when i played WoW all those years ago,
I found out that you can actualy see how long you have played by typing in /played, so i did, and i had YEARS of time logged in, makes you think "what the hell am i doing with my life?" ;D
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Sy

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2016, 03:14:25 AM »

Weird!
i feel the same way about achievements. but time played is just a neat little info that i can check if i want to -- or avoid if i'd rather not know. ^^

You should invest into a dopamin probe implant to calculate your actual entertainment efficiency as dopamin secretion/playtime unit.
well, if Alex can implant such a probe into my brain with the next patch, i'll take it! sounds perfectly reasonable.
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Megas

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2016, 06:15:21 AM »

Weird! When I get into a game, I don't want to know how long I've played.
Depends on the game.  For fast games that have speedrunning or score you based on time played, sure.  For Starsector or other games that can be only be enjoyed after you grind a character for days or weeks to max level, I do not want to know, either.

Not a fan of frivolous achievements, either.  Especially since they are often used to block game content and you need to do some grinding before you can play what you want.
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Tartiflette

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2016, 09:06:46 AM »

I mean, I know the worth of my time -- I've got a freelance rate for that ;)
Fortunately, games don't cost anywhere nearly as much!  ;D
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Bastion.Systems

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #9 on: April 28, 2016, 12:35:04 PM »

It is very likely that when the game reaches 1.0 and is released proper it will end up on Steam.
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Sy

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #10 on: April 28, 2016, 02:14:40 PM »

It is very likely that when the game reaches 1.0 and is released proper it will end up on Steam.
yeah, but it's still gonna be years of undocumented playtime until then! ^^
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ANGRYABOUTELVES

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Re: A "total time played" counter
« Reply #11 on: April 28, 2016, 05:55:11 PM »

Weird! When I get into a game, I don't want to know how long I've played. Let's me focus on the experience itself, on whether I'm enjoying myself or not, engrossed or not, rather than feeling bad about the time I've ... (hmm, "wasted" is a strong word) ... used. Or somehow quantifying it. Similar feelings about achievements: why let this external factor into the experience that should be judged on its own merits?

I mean, I know the worth of my time -- I've got a freelance rate for that ;)
Time you enjoyed wasting isn't wasted.

Achievements have many reasons for existing, and most of them aren't "be an extrinsic reward for playing the game". Some of them are more for the developer than they are for the player. For example, the achievements you get just for playing through the main storyline in many games don't exist to be an extrinsic reward for playing the game, but so that the developers can see how many people have gotten to a specific point in the game and alter the game based on that. If 90% of people complete level 4 of a 6 level game, and 10% of people complete level 5, then there's something weird going on with level 5. Other achievements exist to provide voluntary challenges to the player that they might not have thought of on their own, like "get through 3 levels without losing your hat". The worst type of achievement is the "do thing 100000 times" achievement, because that's just lazy grinding, and I agree that that type of achievement really shouldn't exist.

I commend the desire to do statistics, but IMO that is a incomplete metric, it's missing how much you enjoyed the time spent. You should invest into a dopamin probe implant to calculate your actual entertainment efficiency as dopamin secretion/playtime unit. Better yet, play inside a MRI tube to measure bloodflow in pleasure associated regions of your brain. (Noise may impair game experience.)
The amount of pleasure you get out of a game is certainly harder to measure than the amount of time you've played, but just because your data won't be perfect is no reason not to gather the data you can. I still buy and enjoy shorter "experience" games that I'm not necessarily going to play more than once, like Jazzpunk, but that's not the kind of game Starsector is. Ultimately you do have to ask yourself if you've enjoyed the time you spent playing the game, but if I'm enjoying that time, I'd like to know how long it's been.
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