RPG recommendation for work

[Hoaxmetal]

https://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

Best. Browser-based. RPG. Ever.

Agreed, my recommended.

 

[hackncrazy]

Eh, i would strongly advise against playing games at work... but if you must, please, please, please play ASCii type games like Angband or whatever. At least a cursory glance from a boss or coworker wouldn't make fucking heads or tails of what they see. If they did, well, they'd be a bro. Kind of like I used to browse the web at work, but only with Lynx web browser. Games are great, but... you work so you can game, not the other way around. I work in IT and I would probably fire a gamer. Just because I trust folks, and I couldn't trust NOR respect someone who is so goddamn blatant as to play a game with VGA or better graphics. If someone was playing an ASCII game, I'd accept that at least they are making a good effort to not make me (their boss) look like an idiot.

But hey, tiny windowed Betrayal at Krondor would be acceptable, because the graphics are so bad, the I doubt anyone would be able to cypher what you are doing.

Since you work at IT and seems to be a boss or something, let me ask you this.

You have a worker that does 100% of his job. The thing is, since he is so good at his job, he finishes what he has to do before everyone and a couple hours before the end of the turn. Since he works under a dumb manager that forces workers to fulfill 8 hours per day even if they finish their jobs, he has to stay at work even if he doesn't have anything to do.

Know, considering that this worker uses these 2 extra hours to play an Ascii or a low profile game (meaning that nobody but an IT worker that has his screen cloned could see it), would you fire him?

 

[Gregz]

OpenXcom

 

[Daemongar]

Since you work at IT and seems to be a boss or something, let me ask you this.

You have a worker that does 100% of his job. The thing is, since he is so good at his job, he finishes what he has to do before everyone and a couple hours before the end of the turn. Since he works under a dumb manager that forces workers to fulfill 8 hours per day even if they finish their jobs, he has to stay at work even if he doesn't have anything to do.

Know, considering that this worker uses these 2 extra hours to play an Ascii or a low profile game (meaning that nobody but an IT worker that has his screen cloned could see it), would you fire him?

Well, to summarize: I'm not exactly certain you know what a good employee is. Good employee works 8 hours a day and plays games with 2 additional hours? No. A good employee works 8 hours then goes home and games. A fantastic employee works 8 hours, then sees he has to be at work another 2 hours so he works those two hours.

An employee who has two hours to kill at work and "doesn't have anything to do" so they game or do anything else non-productive? How about telling your boss "I have nothing to do"? I'd find you something! Jesus! "I don't have anything to do!" I'd love to hear that from an employee! Great Caesars Ghost, you'd get your 2 extra hours of work and then some!!!

[Boss Hat]Look, we are all in this together. While I can understand your need to let off some steam after a long day, ultimately its our customers that suffer. Hackncrazy, you are a good employee, but I think if you applied yourself, you could be a great employee. While I'd like you to work on %big prestigious project% I can't, I'm afraid you'd let deadlines slip because you feel you only have to put in 8 hours a day. I'm going to give this project to %someone I know you hate%, someone who spends their time more in tune with our company culture. Also, if you are caught playing games again, we'll have to let you go. Thanks, I hope we can turn this around. [/Boss Hat]

 

[Kev Inkline]

I thought it'd be the output that counts, so if someone gets done more in 6 hours than another guy in 8, I'd rather take the guy that plays 2 hours.

Since you work at IT and seems to be a boss or something, let me ask you this.

You have a worker that does 100% of his job. The thing is, since he is so good at his job, he finishes what he has to do before everyone and a couple hours before the end of the turn. Since he works under a dumb manager that forces workers to fulfill 8 hours per day even if they finish their jobs, he has to stay at work even if he doesn't have anything to do.

Know, considering that this worker uses these 2 extra hours to play an Ascii or a low profile game (meaning that nobody but an IT worker that has his screen cloned could see it), would you fire him?

An employee who has two hours to kill at work and "doesn't have anything to do" so they game or do anything else non-productive? How about telling your boss "I have nothing to do"? I'd find you something! Jesus! "I don't have anything to do!" I'd love to hear that from an employee! Great Caesars Ghost, you'd get your 2 extra hours of work and then some!!!

What incentives there are, excactly, to tell that you need more work?

 

[anvi]

Wasn't there some RPG written in Exel?

Yea its called Eve Online.

 

[hackncrazy]

Since you work at IT and seems to be a boss or something, let me ask you this.

You have a worker that does 100% of his job. The thing is, since he is so good at his job, he finishes what he has to do before everyone and a couple hours before the end of the turn. Since he works under a dumb manager that forces workers to fulfill 8 hours per day even if they finish their jobs, he has to stay at work even if he doesn't have anything to do.

Know, considering that this worker uses these 2 extra hours to play an Ascii or a low profile game (meaning that nobody but an IT worker that has his screen cloned could see it), would you fire him?

Well, to summarize: I'm not exactly certain you know what a good employee is. Good employee works 8 hours a day and plays games with 2 additional hours? No. A good employee works 8 hours then goes home and games. A fantastic employee works 8 hours, then sees he has to be at work another 2 hours so he works those two hours.

An employee who has two hours to kill at work and "doesn't have anything to do" so they game or do anything else non-productive? How about telling your boss "I have nothing to do"? I'd find you something! Jesus! "I don't have anything to do!" I'd love to hear that from an employee! Great Caesars Ghost, you'd get your 2 extra hours of work and then some!!!

[Boss Hat]Look, we are all in this together. While I can understand your need to let off some steam after a long day, ultimately its our customers that suffer. Hackncrazy, you are a good employee, but I think if you applied yourself, you could be a great employee. While I'd like you to work on %big prestigious project% I can't, I'm afraid you'd let deadlines slip because you feel you only have to put in 8 hours a day. I'm going to give this project to %someone I know you hate%, someone who spends their time more in tune with our company culture. Also, if you are caught playing games again, we'll have to let you go. Thanks, I hope we can turn this around. [/Boss Hat]

While I don't agree 100% with your point, I accept it.

It just seems strange to me. You have the employee X which is very good and can do his job in 6 hours and then you have employee Y who is "normal" and do his job in 8.

If employee X finish his daily work in said 6 hours, why should he get more work if his quota is done, while employee Y didn't finish his?

Unless we're assuming that X is going to have a bigger salary than Y, than I agree with you.

And finally, for the boss hat part:

[good employee] But Mr. boss, why are our clients suffering if the work is getting 100% done? [/good employee]

But seriously, I can understand your point, the thing is that I just find it strange that a good worker has to work twice, sometimes 3 times more than he needs just to cover the ass of someone that plans his day to finish his job at exactly the 8th hour.

 

[J1M]

The type of manager that you have is likely not the type of manager that owns the company. There is a breed of manager out there that views finding you more to do as a chore that you are forcing them to do. I completely understand how wasting 2 hours a day became a path of least resistance for this codexer. One that appears to be preferred by his manager.

It's still a bad idea to play games at work. Unless of course you love this job, want to be doing it forever, and are happy with your pay never going up.

The truth is that measuring productivity is hard, and is rarely done in a scientific manner. What will happen is when promotion/raise time comes around they will assume you aren't a hard worker because you are not working.

When you are done 2 hours early, do one of these:
a) Tell your manager, say that you would like to use the extra time to work on some tasks that will prepare you for the next promotion.
b) Ask for a long-term project.
c) If your manager has no concern at all for your advancement, use those hours at work to pursue some self-taught education. In many cases, the company will pay for online courses, but there are also top schools that put out free courses, online tutorials, etc.

Your instinct to avoid volunteering to cover for your less capable co-workers is correct. That only makes sense if they can reciprocate in some other way. But you should be using the time you are paid for to either do what the business needs, or make yourself more valuable to the business.

 

[jungl]

nah playing games at work perfectly fine if your emplopyer is rich and its hard to fire you. Funny thing is the more higher paid your job is the more likely you can get away with it. weak computer? you could settle for emulating older generation games. You can google full set roms people made and there several thousands of games you can play.

 

[Biff Tannen]

While I don't agree 100% with your point, I accept it.

It just seems strange to me. You have the employee X which is very good and can do his job in 6 hours and then you have employee Y who is "normal" and do his job in 8.

If employee X finish his daily work in said 6 hours, why should he get more work if his quota is done, while employee Y didn't finish his?

Unless we're assuming that X is going to have a bigger salary than Y, than I agree with you.

And finally, for the boss hat part:

[good employee] But Mr. boss, why are our clients suffering if the work is getting 100% done? [/good employee]

But seriously, I can understand your point, the thing is that I just find it strange that a good worker has to work twice, sometimes 3 times more than he needs just to cover the ass of someone that plans his day to finish his job at exactly the 8th hour.

Because your boss either wants to have just one guy and fire the rest, or wants to convince his boss that his dep is woefully understaffed and needs more money and manpower. Either way someone who works undertime is a bad blow to his plan. But most people who do computer stuff don't even work half the time anyway except some programmers during crunch.

An RPG is a bit much to play during company time regardless, it's going to be hard not to get into it so much you forget to work at all. Some old FPS you can minimize easily like Doom is probably your best bet.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

I used to play 2D games all the time at work by using Splashtop to remotely access my home PC, p. smooth experience overall.

 

[Daemongar]

[good employee] But Mr. boss, why are our clients suffering if the work is getting 100% done? [/good employee]

But seriously, I can understand your point, the thing is that I just find it strange that a good worker has to work twice, sometimes 3 times more than he needs just to cover the ass of someone that plans his day to finish his job at exactly the 8th hour.

Look, I understand. The world isn't run by the hardest working, those with the highest IQ's, those with the best physique, or run by any brilliant logic. Neither is the workplace. I agree with your premise and will be cheering for you, but I've been in IT a long time... a long time... and I'm just a bitter man now. I'll still be a random boss out there firing those who are caught, but the key word is caught.

 

[Kev Inkline]

The right response to someone who is more skilled than others at his job is not to give more work to do without any extra compensation, that's just bad management. People react to incentives, it's the management's job to see they are rightly aligned. Watching people and trying to catch them also signals that things are managed badly.

 

[Barnabas]

Baldurs gate

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Yeah, I had a job like that in the past, where I would work really hard to finish my stuff early, so I could goof around and surf the web toward the end of the day. My manager would always get on my case about finding something else to do, or re-doing stuff I already did. The thing was, I got paid next to nothing, and doing extra would at best result in a raise so tiny as to insult me more than no raise at all. So naturally I left that job for another one.

You have to be realistic about stuff like this. Just because you might be a workaholic (and lets be honest here, most people think of themselves that way, when they are really not), doesn't mean someone else has to be. Considering that 80% of workers out there in any industry are completely shit at their job, do you really want to mess with the 20% who are actually productive?

As far as the OP, play Dwarf Fortress in ASCII. Even if someone catches you, they will think you are coding up SETI algorithms or trying to take over the world.

 

[Renevent]

Just to throw my $.02 in the mix since I started this thread, I would never work for a company/manager that micro-manages my time and judges my output by hours worked and not goals completed. Few things about me: I'm the Lead Database Admin and run the data services team at a fairly large SAS company. I run my own department and work under the Director of ITS. For the size and scope of our database infrastructure we are actually under staffed if you go by common industry staffing guidelines. That said, I have basically automated most of my job and within my first 6 months (been at this current position for 3.5 yrs) solved most of the major issues they were having prior to hiring me. Very rarely do we have any fires, very rarely do I have to do boring daily tasks since I've automated that stuff (or built something so customers can self serve), and most of the stuff I work on is self directed projects.

I just had my review and received the highest possible rating and will get the maximum bonus/raise (again) this year. I also just got budget approval for a new hire so my team will be expanding in the 2nd quarter of next year. Not a single time did anything about hours or wasted time come up and the review was entirely based on my project output and things like cost savings and optimization (ie decommissioning old servers, writing scripts to cleanup directories from 1000's of VM's, performance optimizations, etc).

Not saying this stuff to imply every company/role/manager is the same but at least in my personal experience managers care more about the quality of your work and your ability to complete tasks on time, not that you're filling up every single minute of every single day. If you rock at your job and get your shit done nobody is going to care that you have a browser window open with Card Hunters and occasionally waste some time playing it. And if I did happen to join a company and my manager was a petty dick head who cock watches and gets bent out of shape over that stuff, I'd leave and find a new job.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Realms of Arkania HD.

 

[laclongquan]

The boss ALWAYS think he pay his workers too much. ALWAYS. It's a hidden code line inside the job, and anyone ever has to wear the boss hat, will, sooner or later, think that way.

Logic doesnt come into that.

So if you are smart, you dont play game at work. If you do, try to use ASCII games with good boss app.

Dont even show that you are playing games at work to your coworker. Morals, ethics, and calculation aside, you might infect your less-than-you worker with the attitude of it's okay playing game at work. you owe your boss at least that consideration.

(OF course, there's some bosses say and appear to not mind you playing games at work. That is because you are a too-valuable-to-lose-over-this-issue smartass, so they have to salvage what they can. If you are no longer valuable, yeah, well, out the door you go.)

 

[Renevent]

I don't know what kind shit holes you've worked at and what kind of petty bosses you've had, but I've had really good relationships with my managers and they flat out don't care so long as you get the job done and go over and above what is expected. Shit, at my current position I'll bring in my Raspberry Pi (loaded with Retropie) and my current boss will actually play a game or two with me. Not every company, and especially with technology driven places, are shit hole grist mills with asshole managers.

 

[Diggfinger]

Grimoire!
I managed to get that running without installing it.
That's the issue - I cant install anything due to missing admin rights.

Tales of Maj'Eyal.

Is there some way of running it without installing?

 

[waterdeep]

Card Quest. It's a half RPG/half card-puzzle game that is all about resource and combo management.

 

[Catacombs]

Can we back to the game recommendations? I'm sure OP wasn't looking for a lecture from managers.

 

[udm]

Just to throw my $.02 in the mix since I started this thread, I would never work for a company/manager that micro-manages my time and judges my output by hours worked and not goals completed. Few things about me: I'm the Lead Database Admin and run the data services team at a fairly large SAS company. I run my own department and work under the Director of ITS. For the size and scope of our database infrastructure we are actually under staffed if you go by common industry staffing guidelines. That said, I have basically automated most of my job and within my first 6 months (been at this current position for 3.5 yrs) solved most of the major issues they were having prior to hiring me. Very rarely do we have any fires, very rarely do I have to do boring daily tasks since I've automated that stuff (or built something so customers can self serve), and most of the stuff I work on is self directed projects.

I just had my review and received the highest possible rating and will get the maximum bonus/raise (again) this year. I also just got budget approval for a new hire so my team will be expanding in the 2nd quarter of next year. Not a single time did anything about hours or wasted time come up and the review was entirely based on my project output and things like cost savings and optimization (ie decommissioning old servers, writing scripts to cleanup directories from 1000's of VM's, performance optimizations, etc).

Damn, Vince sounds like a really cool boss.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Not new, but plays in a browser Castle of the winds

holy shit, never knew such a site even existed

 

[Shackleton]

[good employee] But Mr. boss, why are our clients suffering if the work is getting 100% done? [/good employee]

But seriously, I can understand your point, the thing is that I just find it strange that a good worker has to work twice, sometimes 3 times more than he needs just to cover the ass of someone that plans his day to finish his job at exactly the 8th hour.

Look, I understand. The world isn't run by the hardest working, those with the highest IQ's, those with the best physique, or run by any brilliant logic. Neither is the workplace. I agree with your premise and will be cheering for you, but I've been in IT a long time... a long time... and I'm just a bitter man now. I'll still be a random boss out there firing those who are caught, but the key word is caught.

This post hit a bit close to home for me. I can empathise so much, although I don't work in IT I see it daily in the industry I do work in. It's much less about ability and more about if you're liked by the decision makers- and you don't get liked by the decision makers if you make trouble for them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease? Maybe, but it also gets rolled in every pile of shit the driver can find.

And as to the OP-surely mobile phones were invented so we can grab a quick 20 minutes of gaming between annoying bouts of work?