Are MMOs too time-consuming?

MMOs are a vortex in space-time sucking me in, when I have time. I never have time anymore. I guess it depends on what your responsibilities are. When I was previously in a relationship with someone, our entire life outside of work revolved around WOW. Now that I'm a married mom, I don't really play anything. I think I've logged into ESO like twice since my son was born almost a year ago..

Also, like others have said, the mindset. I don't even open an MMO if I don't have two hours minimum to play. Every time I say, "I just need 15 minutes to clear out my mail and sort my inventory" it's really more like an hour. Ha. It's like waiting for your date to finish getting ready, if you play with me. It's forty-five minutes before we can head out of the town.

 

They are. I hate single player games with MMO similarities because I feel like wasting time when there's filler to play. When talking about MMOs there are very few exceptions that I enjoy, like FFXIV because it has good writing and storyline and the quests are enjoyable to play and I like the universe in general, so the farming and the more time wasting activities feel less boring to do because I look forward to the good stuff.

 

Exactly!!

I lost count of the number of times where I said I would just empty my mailboxes, or just throw things on the auction house.....and then it's been over an hour and my husband is asking if I'm done yet, lol.

I try not to open it up unless I know I have an hour or two to devote to...well, everything. And it is very very much like waiting on your date! "Just one more minute....Almost done!"

I'm impressed/jealous/something of the people who can sit and devote that much time to their game. I don't know how they do it!

 

They're probably the most time consuming genre of games in my opinion. I believe this is due to everything that is "fun", such as bossing, is in the end game. You need to invest so many hours just to get to the end game that pretty much 90% of the casual players stop.

 

My mom spends a lot of time on whichever game she's playing. Right now, I think she's back to WoW. There aren't any kids in the house and she's not really social. My stepdad sometimes guilts her into watching Netflix or doing yard work but that's about all there is to interrupt her. Her job is fairly cool about her looking up game stuff when she's not busy.

So there you have it. Don't have kids and don't socialize much and you can play as much as you want. That's what I aspire to.

 

They're probably the most time consuming genre of games in my opinion. I believe this is due to everything that is "fun", such as bossing, is in the end game. You need to invest so many hours just to get to the end game that pretty much 90% of the casual players stop.

 

Technically everything is time-consuming depending on how much you do it, but I guess there are some MMO aspects which are tiring and long. It takes a lot of grinding to achieve something amazing.

 

Hahaha, great point!

Babyrage is real, and can hinder playtime! Remember that, kiddies!!

 

That's true and mildly depressing. "Want a legendary weapon? Spend weeks of your life gather hundreds of pieces of material." I also dislike the way you're forced to group up. Sometimes games say you can play through totally on your own if you want but they forget to mention the caveat of how much longer it will take you to finish anything. >[

 

The MMO I play currently (which is Vindictus) can chew SO much time out of my life. But, I play mostly to hang out with my friends, and I just happen to level up from running battles/raids with them. I'm trying to find a good balance between gaming and life, but it's tough sometimes. It helps to chatting on TeamSpeak while playing Vindictus is much cheaper then going out to dinner or the movies. (Though we do that to from time to time.)

 

Forced socialization sucks, sometimes. I depended on my husband (who did his own grinding while he was overseas) to speed me up, for awhile. Sometimes, grouping with randoms is great. sometimes, not so much.

And Kitty, you're right, playing is so much cheaper than going out! Same socialization, without the hefty restaurant bill!

 

Yeah.. at this point I spend money since I do have a surplus and just not waste the time grinding. It's stupid to spend that much time for no reason..

 

Lol. My husband bought himself some of the mats for a legendary weapon in GW2 and called it a birthday present to himself. It was $150 just for whatever mats he bought. He had been collecting quite a number of the other components for a while. That's better than wasting all of your time but that's kind of pricey.

 

Definitely. Once I start playing a game, I lose a few hours suddenly. I play casually but the game is so addicting that I just sit there for a long time smashing buttons. I enjoyed it though so I don't really regret investing all those time in them.

 

Time is money as they say. GW2 totally capitalizes on that so much with the grinding and RNGesus of precursors. That being said- raiding's definitely out of the question and I'll never have children thankfully because I cherish my me time- aka game time.

 

GW2 does like taking your money wherever they can get it. Raiding became draining for me, after a while. I would work all day and start getting texts from guildmates if I was running late for the pre-raid buffing and feast. It felt like I was leaving one job to show up to another that I had to pay to get into. The kid thing, eh, well, I was never going to have kids but I thought my husband was a pretty cool guy (still do) so why not make more of us? Not all ideas are the best but the kid's pretty cute so we kept him.

 

Yeah GW2 has become that way which is sad since it was such a great premise. I still play since my guildies are awesome. Raiding was why I quit WoW to play GW2 haha. It totally becomes a second job if you let it. I did at one point. Raiding 6-7 nights a week on a dozen different guilds was just too much. I mean it was great being acknowledged that people wanted me to raid with them, but it just was too much. I said screw it haha.

That's great that you have kids haha. I'm not parent material period. I'm too much of a selfish person with issues to be straddled with the responsibility of a kid. I leave the job of procreation for more saner, nicer people haha.

 

What time I do put into MMO's are the great hours and therefore, the time I spend is fun!! How can "fun" time be consuming? I am gonna use them eventually haha

-DeathXGun

 

You actually argue the fact that they are very time consuming. On the other hand, whether 'very' time consuming becomes 'too' time consuming just depends on whether you think it's worth the time or not.
No minute playing is wasted time, but if you have other more important stuff to do, it can be considered too time consuming. I've had periods myself where I wouldn't touch any MMO until I finished my work, but every other minute I spent on them: time well spent.

 

MMO's can be very time-consuming even if you are not trying to get on the top 10 in the leaderboards. Usually you first have to get to the level cap to start really enjoying the game and that already takes some time. After that you have to earn some in game money to buy your favorite and good gear and stuff. Only then you can really enjoy the good content like dungeons, PvP, raids, etc. In total you end up giving up a lot of time and maybe money if you are playing a subscriptionbased MMO. I hope game developers start changing the model so you can enjoy your game faster without spending a lot of time/money.