As you can tell I like these sorts of threads. I like to get to know people more instead of have them be a faceless nothing on a board.
So, question is the title. What game and why? Is there a special interest in the content or is the gameplay that good? Something else?
I have 3, 1 optimally though. My one is Fallout New Vegas. Theres enough space to go and see and with some mods that space can be filled with fanmade missions and content. Its basically a direct continuation of the first two games, with the original systems in tact plus many systems to toy around with weapons (with mods you can do a lot more than just gun mods too, like pipboy mods), and very very interesting quests all over the place. Its definitely a game that I could play forever.
The other 2 are TF2 and the first Deus Ex. TF2 for the gameplay and community, and Deus Ex because no matter how many times I play it I still get 50 + hours and come away with different storylines that I didn’t follow as closely before.
Backgammon is in first place, chess in second and bridge-belote ( a Bulgarian mixup game made from two french games ) in third. Why ? - Because I can play them without electricity or any special computing units. Which makes them able to play forever … in the literal sense of the word.
Empire Earth. Random maps /build your own/ and I never get tired of nuking entire civs out of existence in a single assault. Plus the AI always cheats and hardness levels that are actually hard.
Warframe. It’s constantly updating, adapting, and changing adding more and more unique content. From weapons, to warframes, and the next update will add in an open world environment, weapon customization based on parts, fishing, mining, and more. DE has done an amazing job of making the game feel fresh no matter how long you play it.
Carball. It should be no surprise that I love this game, you don’t get to 867 hours (at the time of posting this) by accident. The physics are great, the competition is fantastic, and the effort it takes to even get the basics of car control down add a very rewarding grind. Yes there are a lot of toxic players, yes it’s very difficult to get the hang of, but if you ignore the toxicity, once you get the hang of it it’s extremely satisfying.
Actually forever? Minecraft because it is truly infinite and varying
More than a thousand hours? Ark survival evolved because you always want a bigger base or Crossout because I always want a bigger gun or vehicle.
GTA V is the only other one that I may be able for a long time but not forever because lobbies eventually get toxic and steam friends can only stay on for so long.
If I only had a single game forever it would have to be Minecraft without a doubt. Why, there is always something new to do or create in Minecraft that you’ll never get bored, and with the expansion of mods the possibilities are endless. Getting bored of vanilla gameplay? There are literally thousands of mods, custom worlds, and new gameplay modes to choose from. That still isn’t enough? create your own mods, mod packs, mess around with world generation to create truly unique gameplay experiences, play online with others. Hell you can even create your own Atari 2600 emulator if you wanted to.
Minecraft is forever and always will be.
Other than that only other games that even come close are in the TES series, specifically Morrowind and Skyrim.
Well…
Roller coaster tycoon and Skyrim…
Basically because I can play countless different options in a single scenario… So there is almost unlimited replqyability… And that’s all there is to it…
If you have a couple of friends and your network card allows you to set limits per app, it’s pretty easy to get good lobbies.
Whenever I’m playing with friends in a public lobby and some idiot starts annoying us, I just open my Killer network manager, put GTA at 0.04Mbps upload and within 20 seconds I’m alone. Then I just open up the network again and my friends join me.
At that point I appear to be hosting the session. If some other a-hole enters and starts dicking around, I just reduce the upload again and almost everyone gets kicked out (they all end up alone).
Sure, I end up doing that quite a lot on certain days. but it’s so worth it.
Sudoku, for a game that I can play when ever where ever.
Disgaea for grinding, B4 my nephew erased my save I had items that had hundreds of hours into them each.
Tales of Maj’Eyal, because I need my undead Sun Paladin that can control time to save the world with its bottomless well of hatred.
A.I. War: Fleet Command. I like to make it as hard to win as possible without making the A.I. completely broken. Best game I played on it I got almost 1/2 of the map but am in a never ending battle where I can keep my fleet full and split between 4 fronts. A 63 hour save with almost 40 hours of it being one never ending battle. If I try to take a system I will lose and my production is to close to the front to pull back. I don’t get much out of beating it but sure is fun when you push the AI way to far and it tries to crush you with overwhelming force and it fails.
LYNE.
Starbound, it IMO was better balanced when it was in early access but the new mechs are fun.
Dragon Wars - You can import your characters from the first 3 Bards Tale games.
Albion - Takes a lot to get used to this and Dragon Wars.
There are quite a few I can sink huge amounts of time in to without getting really bored with them.
Unturned - The constant stream of updates and fixes to this game make it awesome. There may only be a few times that the entire game changed due to a single update, but if you were to walk away for a few months you can see how quickly all of those little things add up. Added to that is all of the modded servers out there that can completely change the experience. Many of them aren’t great, or long lived, but it is really nice to find that one server that ticks everything on your list.
GTA games - They are always good because you combine shooter stuff with a driving sim in an active world with missions and side quests. You can try to get all of those things done or just see how crazy you can go without getting taken out. Or purposely take yourself out in the most ridiculous ways possible.
Unreal Tournament - Specifically UT 2004. Any of them are really good, and I don’t have good hardware or skills to get the new Alpha running in Linux, but they have been solid games. I can play the heck out of them. It gets rough when it is more than 2 - 3 years after a release because the only people left playing are usually well beyond god-like. I can get back to god-like bot skill after a day or 2 of practice, but then go online and get completely obliterated. Once you get in the zone it is great, but I can see why people wouldn’t want to go back to it after a long break.
RuneScape - Just putting this here because let’s be honest, pretty much everyone has been down this road at some point. It’s not really great at any one thing besides wasting time, but that’s the description of most games. It has come a very long way from the first time I tried it maybe 12 years ago. There is a native Linux client that works well for me. Being able to buy membership with in-game currency made this game bearable again. With health issues keeping me on the sidelines I got bored with other stuff and decided to go back and goof around with it. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but I would keep playing if it was the only game left.
iO - This is a physics game on Steam and I have really gotten into this genre. Maybe if it was expanded a bit with updates like has happened in the past, then I could really play this forever. There are a few other physics games that aren’t just one trick ponies which could also fit the bill if they regularly got new puzzles added. I like how the game slowly builds up new skills for you to practice as you go through the game. Some of the puzzles rely on you to do things very differently to finish quick enough to get gold. Usually they are well designed so you can only finish using intended methods, but occasionally you can find your own shortcuts. It’s super addictive if you like physics puzzles.
A few more honorable mentions would be 7 Days to Die and Ziggurat. Both of these I didn’t like much at first because of bugs in Linux versions and there are a few things that are just rough to learn starting out. Both of them sat for a while with multiple attempts before they stopped crashing and I was able to get a handle on how to do things. I put a lot more time into them this summer and could easily live with either of these being the only game I could play.