Guys, I have a terrible disease.
I can’t keep a Minecraft world or a SimCity city going for more than a couple of days. Or even hours.
I don’t know why! It’s not like I CAN’T keep a city in SC going for a while. Actually, one time I had one going for a really long time. That was in SimCity DS, which only allowed you to save one city at a time, and I played that particular city religiously over the course of about two or three months. I enjoyed the micromanagement and little improvements I could make to an already developed city, and the only reason I finally stopped was because I got to a point where my entire city inexplicably decided to become a fire hazard for no reason, and no amount of fire stations would solve the problem, and I just couldn’t be bothered to fix it. So I quit playing.
For some reason, that was the last time I’ve really been able to “get” into a single city like that. I’ve been playing a bit of SimCity 4 here and there over the past few months. And you know, I know how to set up a good city. I know where to put the zones, the power plants, the roads, and everything else you need, and perhaps most importantly, I know how to actually make money in the game.
But, every time, I’ll get to a point where I’ve played ten, maaaybe twenty in-game years and then get bored and delete it all and start a new city.
It’s certainly a change from the aforementioned SimCity DS, where I played that one city for something like 150 or 200 game years.
I’m not sure why this happens. It happens in Minecraft, too. I start a new Minecraft world… well, I was going to say every couple of days, but truthfully I really only play Minecraft a few times a week. So I’ll start a new Minecraft world every week or every other week or so. I honestly have no idea why. There’s just something so very enticing about a fresh slate.
(Terraria, on the other hand, has had me hooked in the same world for weeks now, so maybe that’s a sign that my attention span is actually lengthening now!)
Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?
See, this is why I only play minecraft on SMP (unless my internet is out). There’s always something to be doing, be it rescuing my buddy Dubyk from his mines or helping someone clear a mountainside for a project. You should check out the 4:1 scale replica of middle earth people are building in MC, you can even apply to help if you want to feel a part of something bigger.
It could be that the fact that you do know just where everything “should” go is why it gets old fast. You get to the point where things start working and some part of you goes “Okay, I’m past the big hump, past this I know it will all work out,” and that makes it boring.
I had the same problem in Civ III & IV for a long time. I’d start a game, get the culture established and then get bored and start a new game. I finally realized it was because it had stopped being a challenge I knew that once my citizens were happy, my resources secure and my cities defended that one way or another I’d win the match. So I started giving myself self-imposed restrictions: playing cultures with bonuses that didn’t fit my normal style, disallowing certain victory conditions, even creating very detailed religions for my cultures with their own sets of rules; like a prohibition against public entertainment (no coliseums, theatres, etc.). All this helped bring back the challenge and made it all fun again.