Invites

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Game actions the result in new players being invited to join the game.

Some games allow, or may even need, players to arrive after specific game instances have started. While this can be handled informally by players and facilitators like game masters in many cases, the games themselves can provide Invites, game actions that allow players to try to recruit new players and possibly get in-game rewards for doing so.

Examples

FarmVille and Mafia Wars allow players to try and recruit new people to the game. By doing so they get other players that are likely to help them with the various tasks the games challenges them with.

The Left 4 Dead series uses the Steam platform to make it easy to invite other players owning the game to quickly join ongoing games.

Using the pattern

Invites are mechanized ways for players to invite new people to play the game. As such, they require some kind of medium the games can communicate to non-players meaning that they typically require internet connectivity. Given that they are actions handled by the game system to add more players to game instances, the games that are to include Invites need to already support Late Arriving Players or Drop-In/Drop-Out gameplay. They make most sense in games with very many players, i.e. Massively Single-Player Online Games and Massively Multiplayer Online Games, but may also be important for games relying heavily on Cooperation, e.g. the Left 4 Dead series.


Extra-Game Event Broadcasting

Non-Player Help

While games may provide players who successfully invite other people with Rewards, as FarmVille shows the Invites them can be packaged at Rewards waiting for the new possible players.


Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

Narrative Aspects

Consequences

Relations

Can Instantiate

with ...

Can Modulate

Cooperation, Drop-In/Drop-Out, Late Arriving Players, Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Massively Single-Player Online Games

Can Be Instantiated By

Can Be Modulated By

Rewards

Possible Closure Effects

Potentially Conflicting With

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

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Acknowledgements

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