It's funny how people respond differently to the same stimuli. If I were to write the title for this thread, I would have changed it to: "Interesting article related to why I DO play ED."
For me, the slow, "time-wasting" pace of ED is precisely why I enjoy it.
One of my pet peeves with the modern world is how everything is
"Faster! Faster! Faster!" or
"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" Our games, our movies, even sometimes our books are all about setting a breakneck pace that leaves little room for reflection. And it really rubs me the wrong way.
Even chess, my favorite game of all time, is starting to buckle under the pressure of the "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" crowd. One of the reasons why I was originally so attracted to chess was because it was one of the few games where individual matches sometimes stretched for as much as 20 hours, and correspondence games routinely last for weeks if not months (I personally rarely play a CC game with a time control less than 10 days
per move). In other words, it was a game where you were encouraged to stop and think. But nowadays, the push in chess is to hurry things along with "bullet" and "blitz" time controls, and to make matches end quicker with various sudden death time controls. I think the game will be worse for it.
As to why this "need for speed" is becoming so prevalent in the modern world is something open to debate, but a lot of sociologists and philosophers believe it is connected to our high tech world where we are used to getting instant gratification via our gadgets. Need a product? Amazon. Boom. Done. Need an answer to a question? Google. Boom. Done. Sociologist Richard Stivers has written about this. He has even come up with a term: the "sterilization of time." He writes, "When time loses its meaning - the memory of significant events and transformation within a narrative framework - it becomes the space within which we produce and consume as much as possible." Think about something: those quick games. Aren't they less about "narrative frameworks" and more about levelling up and unlocks (i.e., "produce and consume")? Interesting, right?
That is not to say that fast games are a bad thing. There are all sorts of games that are fun precisely because of how quickly they play, such as "twitch" shooters. It all comes down to matching the tempo with the topic, so to speak. For me, a space game like ED needs a slower pace because it is not about "winning" but about immersing oneself in the environment. In other words, it's not the destination but the journey. Or, at least, that is how I play it. The missions and various activities are there to provide structure, and certainly (and hopefully!) make the game fun, but the real pleasure is found in just experiencing the intricately-made galaxy Frontier has designed for us. This is not to say that this game, or any game, cannot be made more efficient in certain areas. There certainly is room for that (especially when it comes to needing to "Esc" out of the chat window to check my inbox [big grin]). But, for me anyway, to make ED arbitrarily quicker just for the sake of speedy gameplay would ruin what makes ED, and I have found space games in general, so enjoyable and distinctive.
