When I die, I don’t want my last thought to be, “Why oh WHY didn’t I grind out another thousand AAs when I had the chance?”
- Etha, 67 Druid, 191d 3h played
- Tipa, 71 Rogue, 254d 12h played
- Brita, 75 Cleric, 181d 8h played
- Tipa, 68 Ranger, 9d 1h played
Those aren’t even all my EverQuest characters. Six hundred and thirty five full days playing just across those characters. I could add my 65 mage or 58 shadow knight to that. At eight hours a day, that would be five and a quarter years. (Though, it’s easy to see how much quicker leveling in EQ has gotten. 1-68 in nine played days? Sweet! And that included raiding!).
It’s easy to claim that the time I spent playing EverQuest and other MMOs would just have been spent watching television or reading, but that’s not true. Before EQ, I was making and finishing furniture, spending a lot of time with my kids, learning to write, teaching myself 3D animation, running PBEM RPGs over Usenet, delving into photography and working on open source games.
I pretty much gave up all those things so I could play MMOs full time.
When I got disgusted enough at myself, I quit EverQuest and vowed to never again spend all night, every night playing MMOs. And I haven’t. I limit the amount of time I spend online each night. And when an MMO demands an unwavering commitment in order to get to the next level (as EQ2 now demands of me so I can get the troubadour spell known only as “UT”), I stop playing that MMO.
Two things were in my in-box this morning. The first, an interview by Kill Ten Rats’ Ethic with Grim of a hardcore World of Warcraft raiding guild. He spends six hours on weekdays and fourteen hours on weekends playing World of Warcraft. He literally does nothing else but play WoW.
At some point, he’ll stop playing WoW — it will happen — and he’ll be left with pretty much nothing. He’ll look back on his life up to where he started playing WoW, and then see where it continues after he stopped, and it will be as if those days spent playing that game were as if he’d been in a coma for several years.
That’s how I feel about my years in EverQuest. Like I was in a coma.
The other item in my in box was a note from a promoter for the MMO documentary “Second Skin”, a fairly unflattering look at the lives of those of us who devote our time to massively multiplayer games. That will be aired on SnagFilms.com for a week starting Friday, and I’ll have more about it when I’ve seen it.
These days, I rarely play “hardcore” MMOs. They really turn me off. I play EVE Online and Wizard 101, both casual MMOs — at least the way I play them. If a MMO comes out that clearly wants me to devote my life to it in order to get ahead — I pass. Maybe it’s a great game, but any game that uses as its premise that their players should expect to be playing this game as their sole hobby and obsession deserves to die in flames.
MMOs are great games. It’s easy to get lost in them. The best make warm, comforting worlds surrounded by your friends that you never want to leave. And then you move on and all your accomplishments vanish.
love to you. preach it, sister. i did the same math awhile back, slapped myself, lost a hundred pounds and met the love of my life.
ain’t life grand?
sometimes i miss flemick, though. 🙂
The majority of my free time is indeed spent playing WoW, but I still make time now and again to go see a movie, go out to eat with friends, host UFC get-togethers for every PPV event, etc.
The day I quit playing, I will look back and say, “Well, that was fun!” just like any other form of entertainment.
Take care!
Thanks for replying! I had fun during most of my time I. EQ as well. But, will you ever devote this much of your life to another game, ever again?
I work 40h a week and better do something fun with the rest of the time. If it is MMOs or robbing grandma’s on the street, who cares? No wait…
I had a pretty similar experience with DaoC. I don’t think of it as a waste, but I did think that I’d be careful in future not to spend quite that much time in another game ever again. I just think they can be really fun, but it’s actually more fun and not less if you can find ways to regulate the time spent.
Yeah, I got that “Second Skin” email too. I started laughing when they called me “a respected voice” in the gaming community. At that point, I knew they hadn’t bothered to read what I write, and figured I’d return the favor.
I have had more than one discussion about how deleterious these games can be, and it’s absolutely true, but at the same time, it’s the “flavor of the month” for time-wasters. (Just like games are the “demon of the decade” when it comes to protecting the children.) A while ago, it was TV. (It still makes me laugh when Lost or American Idol addicts point fingers at gaming.) Before that, film. Throw D&D in there somewhere, and theatre.
Bottom line, *anything* that takes you away from the things that really matter, first among them family, deserves a hard, critical look, and careful self-regulation. I don’t care if you’re the best friggin’ gardener or photographer in the world, or just another basement swelling MMO crack addict, if you’re not taking care of your family, you’re out of line.
“basement swelling” has to be one of my best typos. It’s so much more evocative than the original.
Great, honest post, and I agree 100%. All things in moderation.
I’ve come to understand that MMOs, by design, push the player towards devoting more and more time to playing as each passing level is achieved. I’d have more respect for the genre if there was more thought concentrated on the end-game.
Let’s say you didn’t get into MMOs at all. Do you think on your deathbed you’d say, “If only I had varnished a few more pieces of furniture!” or “If only I had run one last PBeM game!”? Probably not.
The most important things are the ones we love. As Tesh says, anything that makes you ignore things you value, such as family or friends or even fuzzy best friends, is suspect. Even if it’s something as noble as trying to cure cancer, or something as acceptably non-offensive like reading classic literature. Ignoring the ones we value is what really hurts, not the socially-acceptable things we “could have done” instead of “wasting our time” playing games we enjoy.
For me, I pretty much only play a game long term if I’m playing with a friend or loved one. Playing LotRO with my better half has been awesome. Playing WoW with my friends before that was good, too. Since I’m a professional developer, I do play a lot of games, but I notice that my passion is really invoked when I’m playing with people I care about. That could include people I find in the game that become people I enjoy being with.
As always, you have to make decisions that are right for you. If you aren’t getting enough out of the game, then perhaps it is time to take a break. But, don’t feel that you’re wasting your life “just playing a game” just because other people are too short-sighted to understand that it’s fun for you.
I judge the worth of what I do with how I grew as a person from doing it. Anything which doesn’t move me or someone else forward, is nil — worth nothing.
Playing MMOs does not make me a better person. Finishing furniture makes me a better craftsman. Running a PBeM game makes me a better writer, story teller, and to some extent, a leader. There are things you can do WITH MMOs that advance you as a person — for instance, running a guild or a raid, but that is more META-gaming.
Grinding another level adds nothing to your balance sheet. Talking to friends in game is good, because socialization is good, but that really has little to do with the game itself. You can chat in any sort of multiplayer game, or without a game at all, right?
You play MMOs for socialization, nothing wrong with that in my view; it’s probably the best reason there is.
I just want to live a life without regrets, and EverQuest, for me, is one gigantic, long-term regret. A mistake I won’t make again.
Your accomplishments vanish no matter what, really, unless you are one of the few that make something worth reading. West Karana will just be a page on the internet wayback machine some day, its links broken, talking about things that will seem alien to people even 40 years from now. MMO’s really are no different from anything in that regard.
It’s best really to make peace with your decisions. You can have regrets in anything. I spent one real life year in FFXI, and I accept it, the wasting of time with the fun. That’s life, really.
I judge the worth of what I do with how I grew as a person from doing it.
What does it mean when you die, though? Even the best person in the world no longer (directly) influences the world when they’ve passed on. Not to get completely fatalistic here, but that was the situation you mentioned. Eventually your furniture gets worn and broken, or your PBeM games become forgotten. And, yes, your characters will eventually be wiped when the game they’re in finally closes down.
The best you can hope for is for people to be improved by your actions, and those actions carry on into the future. Maybe it’s taking care of your children to carry on your (genetic) legacy. Maybe it’s a kind act that inspires someone else to be kind to others. Perhaps it’s helping someone else to realize an important goal. This is why it’s important not to ignore your loved ones.
But, people still need time off. We need a bit of down time to calm our minds and focus ourselves. So, all gaming (or other entertainment) isn’t a waste. Unless you let it dominate you and distract you from things that truly are important. And, that threshold is different for different people. Obviously Grim is happy to commit more time to a game than you are. But, you probably have wisdom that comes with experience at this point, Tipa. 😉
I still play MMOs, after all. I play them for fun and relaxation and socialization. I don’t play games that require me to build any part of my life around them — that’s it.
As for dying, well, all accomplishment is for nothing in the end. I saw a documentary which said that 10,000 years after the death of humanity, Earth will show no traces we ever existed. All we really have is this moment, right? And all we can do is decide if we are spending this moment in a healthy way?
Ah, but if you leave a signature on the Moon, where very little changes…
The question for me is which one of these statements fit you best:
1) You wish you had spent less time playing (fill in the blank)
2) You wish you hadn’t spent any time playing (fill in the blank) since MMO’s are a waste of your time
While I could see some people argue for #2 I’d have to strenuously disagree at least in my case. There is a place for leisure in life and I’ve honestly confronted and solved a lot of RL problems due to my time in MMO’s. Granted, most of the take-away’s I got from the MMO’s were due to either the socialization or the meta-gaming (ie gaining new skills in coding while working on projects for the MMO’s) but the MMO’s provided the motivation to push those boundaries. And even if I hadn’t taken anything away what I did get was a lot of enjoyment – much more than if I’d just sat and watched tv or read a mediocre book (there is very little in life that can compete with a GOOD book though 😉 ).
I think what Tipa’s complaining about though is #1. The point is that a ton of MMO’s are set up to have a grind to max level which lacks the teamwork and socialization aspects of the game followed by some sort of large-group raiding structure. And because there’s always going to be people that play the game more than you the situation arises where you’re expected to play at least a large portion of the majority’s schedule, if not by rule than by simply attempting to keep up and be a contributing raid member. The more you succeed…the better you play…the more gear you get…the more all of these things ramp up those expectations on your time.
I’ve had a couple times in my life where MMO’s got in the way of the important things. One was about 9-10 years ago with UO. Nothing completely cringe-worthy but I started to look for ways to sneak in extra time between other obligations and those other obligations started to suffer. The other time was about 5 years ago with EQ. Again, pretty much the same story – nothing disastrous but bad enough that it was clear to me it was a problem.
Older and wiser (well, older at least) I started to notice that the scheduling for raids in WoW was putting pressure on my scheduling of things in RL. I had to move my kids’ bedtime up 15 minutes to make the raids. Not a big deal…they could honestly use the sleep…but it was a sign to me that things had taken a step beyond leisure into commitment. And while some people DO have the time to ‘commit’ to a hobby the vast majority of us do not. I stopped playing WoW completely a few weeks ago after a 2-week step-down period where I trained my poor replacement to handle the loot module that I modified for our guild and will be canceling my account today.
I’ll definitely miss the raiding – there’s really nothing else like it that you can do with a smaller time commitment. I liken it to playing on a soccer team…having your raid group really click together has the same feeling as having your soccer team really click. You practice together, learn everyone’s strengths, and then put it all together to succeed. Unfortunately playing sports would be even more of a scheduling nightmare than MMO’s have been for me – at least you can do an MMO at home after the kids go to bed.
So a month removed from walking away from WoW I can say that I don’t regret playing. I may wish that I hadn’t played quite as much as I did but I’d also like to have eaten out less this week and had healthier food. But even though I wish I hadn’t eaten what I did for lunch this week NOW I can tell you that I enjoyed every minute of it while I was eating the food and that I’m still in very good health overall despite the fact that I indulged this week. If MMO’s are an ‘indulgence’ for you and you keep your overall life in good health then enjoy it! But if you think you should getting up from the MMO table because it’s getting unhealthy then stand up and back away from the table. Overindulgence of ANYTHING is bad and MMO’s can be so tasty that people often don’t realize they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.
wow… Tipa you hit close to home with your “make and finish furniture” comment. I quick EQ back in 2003 to return to my workshop. I never went back to any games but I have built a couple houses full of cabinetry and furniture, moved to a new house and completed a new… even bigger workshop. You’d say I’m heavy into crafting like I was in EQ.
Anyway. No judgement in my reply… everyone should do what they enjoy.
Whenever i stop playing MMOs, I feel really good. All that time I spend on a multitude of other interests, and I feel more well-rounded so to speak.
I wonder if there was more opportunity to create rather than merely consume if the time in MMOs would be better? For instance, do people who play second life feel better when they stop than when they play? I don’t know, but a world like that doesn’t interest me anyway. It would have to have both, a lot of opportunity to be creative, while at the same time offering challenges and games.
Now I wish instead of computer science I went into biology or chemistry and was working on nanotech or life extension or something, but that’s cause I’m getting older and want to live forever. Hmm can I go back to school at 37?
37 isn’t old and yes you can!
I have this feeling that some day we’ll all wake up, wonder what we were doing all these years, and MMOs will die. This will probably happen around the time WoW closes.