I’m awfully sorry for keeping silence for so long, but there’s nothing new happening (really). Doing emissaries, doing transmog runs, farming Halloween horse… Just routines not really worth talking about. There is one thing though: while on my way trick-or-treating, I took some amazing screenshots which would illustrate this post :)
So, while we’re in a lull, it’s TIME for Z and Cinder’s Blog Challenge: How Do You Find the Time?
How do you balance playing WoW with the real life commitments you have? Are there things you give up in your life to be able to play WoW, or vice versa? What do you to do make the most of your pay time? Let us know!
As many of my readers could have already guessed, I’m a casual but devoted player. I’m not even sure that the word ‘casual’ applies to me.
I don’t do any hardcore activities like raiding above LFR difficulty or mythic dungeons. I did two Mythic dungeons during the whole expansion – yes, two. I despise PvP. In other words, I’m always selecting Easy mode – and in that I’m casual to the bone. It doesn’t depend on the game actually. I never saw Challenge modes as something worth playing. It’s a game, for F’s sake, and it just should be relaxing and fun. I never care about measuring the size of my virtual dick and compare it to others’ – that’s not what I play for.
On the other hand, World of Warcraft is one of my major hobbies, so the time I devote to it is really big – and in that aspect I’m not casual at all. I’m exploring every aspect of the game to find what it is and if it will be worth doing, I’m learning its secrets, exploring the world, digging the lore, hunting the achievements. And I’m an altoholic – which is both a blessing and a curse. One character of every class. I’ve explored every one of 36 spec playstyles and I understand the other players. I’ve seen every artifact and class order hall story, and I never get bored cause I could always switch to another spec/class for dailies/raiding/doing an achievement. On the other hand, they require time of course.
So, time.
On my workdays I normally play an hour or two in the morning before I go to work (that’s my ‘morning coffee’ time), and 1-3 hours in the evening. On weekends it’s 4-5 hours in the morning while my wife sleeps, then she awakes, we have breakfast/lunch, and it depends on what are our plans for the day. It is important to tell that my wife is not a gamer at all – she doesn’t play a single game. So, it depends on whether we have plans and stuff to do together, or we have our own things to do – in that case WoW could always be one of my things to occupy myself while she’s busy.
By all means my game schedule never interferes with my real life activities. I don’t think I ever cancelled any activity or plan due to my gaming. I could even not feel like logging in the other day – like last month, my head all busy with the new apartment, and too often I didn’t even think of gaming or watching something or whatever. The same happens on my vacations abroad – I took my laptop with me a couple of times, and I even launched WoW once in the evening. But playing in a hotel room felt so out of place, so I’m never doing that again :) Same with garrison apps – I just won’t use them anymore when away from my gaming laptop.
Nevertheless in my everyday life I’m happy to go and have some fun in the world of Azeroth. I have stuff to do there daily.
To cope with that many alts, I’m always having a plan to do. I’m making an Excel chart of a current important goal or goals – it maybe leveling, artifact leveling, reputations, professions, collecting a current raid set. Just one glance at this chart immediately lets me know which alt today requires my attention. My ultimate goal is keeping them up to the current content, so they’re now roughly at the same spot.
The things which help my gameplay feel fresh and always fun are these:
- Set goals. Have your own short-term and long-term goals in the game. You may or may not keep track of your goals like I do with my charts, but I find it very satisfying to see how my goals are achieved. Like I devoted 3 months to Ashes of Al’Ar runs on every toon, or doing dailies for Argent Tournament for mounts.
- Understand that your current goal is very important. Your current, own personal goals are the most important things to do. Not what friends, forums, guildmates or even Blizzard designs for you and thinks what you should be doing at the moment.
- Proper scheduling. Keep your personal goals in mind, and be well aware when and how you could complete them. For example, a 30-minute playing window allows you to do an emissary or run an older raid for transmog, but it’s definitely not enough to fully experience finding a riddle mount or whatever. Put the riddle mount aside for a spare weekend.
- Do what you feel like doing at the moment. If I have Argussian Reach emissary to complete, and this on four yet toons, but I’m already puking of Mac’Aree, I may go and run an older raid instead. Or queue somewhere. Or go fishing. Whatever feels like fun at the moment!
Later or earlier, you’ll be there. It doesn’t matter if you would play 12 hours a day or 2 hours in a week – you’ll be there. See how people are eagerly running the older content for what not – pets, transmog, achievements, experience of the missed lore. And it’s the content that grew old 10 years ago! See how people are trying other classes to see if they missed anything awesome.
Set your goals, have fun, and you’ll be there.
Gnomecore 
Well organized! Have you ever discovered yourself trapped in some task that felt suddenly worthless and dropped it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, normally it’s some ridiculously difficult achievement :) Keyword being “ridiculously”.
I don’t count the things that I tried and found out they’re just not for me, like trying PvP and liking it in general, but feeling that it just time spent in vain and for nothing – when I could be doing some interesting PvE progress.
I quit doing the Wrathion’s legendary cape – I don’t have a single one. I’ve farmed some stuff from Throne of Thunder with great difficulty, and then he sent me to SoO to farm 40 shit more. That’s where I quit doing it.
Mind you, I had 15 fully upgraded epic rings in Draenor, so it was just Pandaria’s cape design which seemed too much for me :) In WoD the ring was fine.
LikeLike
What a great read, loved getting some insight into how you manage it all. Good tips too, even for those who have little time :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve never been an “altoholic”, always devoted to my first (and for a long time – the only) character – Horde fire mage. With free lvl boost offered with WoD expansion I’ve got the first alt – different fraction, but the same class. My philosophy regarding WoW is that whatever I’m doing in the game – it should serve as a way to make my “main” (god, I hate that word!) to become “stronger”. By “stronger” I mean getting as many goodies (pets, toys, mounts, transmog, achivements) as possible. So, later on I’ve got one character of each class – always with that in mind: vorgen – to get their starting pet; draenei – to get that tabard (little did I knew it can’t be mogged by other races, but still), etc.
This really helps to focus on your goals and to plan game sessions accordingly.
LikeLike
With latest Blizzard changes (achievements, transmog, pets and everything becoming account wide), my toons are working for the benefit of both the common purpose, but also helping each other become stronger :) Sending mats, tokens, gold to each other according to our needs.
With a variety of classes/professions, you never know when your other toon would suddenly shine – for example, being the only one able to perform an achievement or being the one that will craft a mount. Playing a fully-functional, helping team is awesome. For example, why try to survive hordes of bunnies in Stormstout Brewery for achievement with your mage – when you could enter with paladin in Protection spec and just yawn there?
LikeLike