Where is my machine gun?

Much better. *

Please note that machine guns are not included as standard hardware in Chima Online. Please consult this entry if you wish to acquire one for yourself. No computers were harmed in the making of this entry.

Anyway. Time delays. Are very annoying when playing games. Period.

To my knowledge, this wasn't a component of older Lego games. I wasn't around for the Drome-Junkbot days, but even Bionicle games never included a time delay component going on. This is why Bionicle games in my mind are still the best Lego games generally (after all, that category included such glories as MNOG and Glatorian Arena 3, despite such bombs as MNOG II and Matoran Escape, but whatever.) Throughout Bionicle's entire run, zero games required you to wait for weapons/armor to be manufactured so you could improve to get over the next level.

Except for the dreaded MLN, which I believe started this trend. For those who don't remember/weren't around, MLN was entirely composed of this stuff. You had to wait for resources to grow on modules, and for people to click on your page, and for your own clicks to "regrow" so you could click your own page and cheat. The best part of that system were the "campaigns" which usually had shorter wait times than the actual MLN game, which was hard. (Especially the Bionicle campaign, which was shorter on wait and longer on story and scavenger hunt components.)

The first group of Hero Factory games failed to succumb to this flaw, I think. It's been forever since I've played Von Nebula/Ordeal of Fire. In any case, the wait times were largely unnoticeable.

They were very much present in the Breakout game, but usually you could earn enough in-game points to bypass them. However, these upgrades were to get into special side areas to get more loot, and not really part of the main game. And the main game was so amazing that I just ignored it for the most part - off to Koolix IV to do cool moves on my bike and stick my tongue out at Speeda's klutzy riding. Still, it's probably to blame for why I eventually got bored and stopped playing - I couldn't "upgrade into" the exclusive areas fast enough, thus removing my motive to continue playing.

Chima online (shown above) suffers from this among the worst. It's all well and good until you can't win a battle in-game, and have to wait several hours (like 4) to increase your armor, weapons, etc so you can actually win. This means that you can't just sit down and play it - you play, and then stop and wait, and then play some more, and then stop and wait. It is frustrating.*

Of course, you can bypass that with golden bricks (i.e. money). If you're not a member, you barely ever earn these - 1 brick per level up, and 1 brick if you fill up the Social Reward Bar. The latter is on a time delay like everything else is! Blargh frustration.

You might also be able to lessen your wait by earning more studs, but you barely ever have those either, since you're constantly spending them on things to heal you in battle anyway, so no good. Playing as a non-member is a good way to shorten your sanity level IMO. It makes little sense to spend money on a game that is only 25 levels long though.

And all of this need not be so. Non-members are already limited by outpost size (barely adequate), lack of golden bricks (required to open mystery boxes and purchase Chi), what missions they can do, what outpost buildings they can build, and even what items that they can collect. I think I would have enough motive to become a member from just that - the member exclusives are pretty cool. They just really need more quests and levels, seeing as if I was a member I would likely scrap this game in a couple of hours, and I'm a terrible gamer.

Having to wait hours to upgrade armor and weapons just comes across as an additional slap in the face. I don't know what they were trying to do - mimic real life? - but it just comes across as a grab for money and an unwitting homage to the MLN. It also decreases my involvement in the game, seeing as I have to wait. (Impatience, that I have at times. )

One could conclude that I don't like the RPG game style in general, but that's not really true - I do enjoy playing a character and smashing enemies grind style, etc. Personally I was more of a fan of LU - from what I understand from the free-to-play and bonesiii's slideshow, no wait times were involved and it could actually keep you engaged. I would have bought it if I could but sadly could not. And it, you know, failed. So far I haven't heard tales of the Chima RPG's smashing success though, and the wait time thing might be the reason why.

And really, why must that game print all those numbers on the screen so you stare at them? Even Breakout didn't do that, yeesh.

*if anyone wanted to know why I'm grouchy this week, you now know why.