So I’ve been playing a lot of City of Heroes lately, and I’ve roped in my son to play with me, which is always a treat – watching him go between flashy modern games and antiques that were old when he was born and sunsetted before he could talk. I recently tried to explain the concept of Day Jobs to him. Day Jobs in CoH are basically a fun way to rack up badges for your character while you’re logged out (i.e., while your superhero is at her Clark Kent-style day job): log out at the bank, earn a currency bonus when you log in; log out at a hospital and snag a health regen bonus when you’re back. Some of them take dozens of hours of being offline to confer those bonuses in full, which makes it perfect for cycling through a fleet of alts.
But of course, these bonuses and titles only accrue while the character is not being played, which struck my son as very weird, and in so doing stood out to me. Login rewards make sense to him, but logout bonuses? Vets are used to MMOs having things like rested experience for so long (hell, I remember Ultima Online’s first go at “power hour”), but isn’t it weird to reward us for not playing?
What’s your favorite MMO bonus for not playing? What games do this sort of reward the best?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
