When the music's over, turn off the lights

My wife is currently looking for other games to play. She recently quit EQ2 (for about the third or fourth time) and has already reached saturation point from TV. Until The Vampire Diaries comes back on our screens, she’ll need something else to get her teeth in to before she throws the TV out the window.

She gave RIFT a go when it came out, as did I, but for some reason it didn’t gel with us. I’m not sure why, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with the game.  I think it’s kind of a MMO fatigue that gets in to your bones after you have been playing them for a while.  By ‘a while’, I mean for about the last ten years on and off for Ema and I. Any who have had this feeling when playing an MMO will know what I’m talking about. The way that we log in, then just sit around, chat a little and before you know it an hour has passed by and you have nothing to show for it. When things get like this, in my experience the game pretty much becomes social networking site with folks logging on just to see their friends and guildies. Not a problem of course, but the focus is definitely different and you end up paying a premium every month just to be able to hang with your friends.

The lethargy that you get after a while just sits there. It’s usually not big enough to stop you playing the game, but when you log in it’s certainly enough to stop you from getting started on anything substantial. Even when we switched to RIFT for a short while, we couldn’t become enthused. Like I said, it’s not because of the game. I think it’s because we have become fed up of starting at the beginning time after time. We both played a lot of alts over our time in MMOs and have ‘started’ time and time again. RIFT was different, but not different enough to stimulate us or to grip us in a way that an MMO hasn’t before.

I’m not quite at the stage Ema is as she always plays the game to death. I don’t mean time wise, as Emas log in times were conservative compared to others, but when she did log in, only a minute would pass before she was in a group doing tough content or raiding. My play style is a little more relaxed and as a result I feel I don’t burn out as quickly as she does. But it does happen for me. I have quit EQ2 twice before, not found anything to replace it and come back. Ema is very keen to see this doesn’t happen again with her. She’s trying to fill the time with alternative gaming options and real life stuff instead (there’s a surprising amount of RL stuff out there apparently!) and as such hopes that she won’t feel the need to log in to EQ2 again. The only thing that would bring her back I think is absolute boredom and her friends, but even that isn’t too much of a draw back in to the game as she has contact with most on Facebook.

I have to consider that it wasn’t just the fatigue that pushed Ema to quit. At the time there was a period of unrest in her normal circles and she got fed up of being mentioned in drama, when she didn’t cause it or really have anything to do with it, but she get’s dragged in because she was popular and someone folks confided in her, taking her listening as a green light to mention her name in their point of view. Anyhow, it was a joint reason between the fatigue and the fact she was simply fed up of seeing her name dragged in to stuff that was closely related to drama, and she was fed up with how some who she thought were old ‘friends’ and how they treated her and most of all was fed up of watching her friends and folks she cares about fall out and not get along. All of this compounded her fatigue with the game and gave her the ‘it’s not really worth it’ vibe.

Ema does have RL stuff she can be getting on with but what can fill her gaming vacuum assuming she still has time?  Anything in depth with a long complicated storyline is not going to cut it. Gaming time has been cut down already and for some instant gratification, I suggested our PS3. I recall back in the day when I had just had my new Playstation2 delivered and several of my friends including my now wife used to spend evening upon evening trying to beat each other down in many a competition of Mashed, Mini Micro Machines, or SSX Tricky. I recon we can have just as much fun with that type of competitive gaming nowadays. I know we haven’t indulged in that sort of gaming for a long long time but it doesn’t always have to be sat at a PC playing a game that really has no end and has been our gaming staple for the last decade or so. Whatever she decides I know she’ll find something to fill her time, and that’s the thing. MMOs take up SO much of your time, there really is a huge gap to fill if you quit. Not just that particular MMO, but any of them. I’ve mentioned previously my /played hours on EQ2 caused me to cancel three of my accounts in horror at the amount of time I have spent playing in total and you can’t just rip that many hours out of your calendar and expect that you are still going to be busy. That’s a lot of downtime to fill.

I must admit though, I’ve just thought of something that’s got me a little worried. When my wife has time on her hands, she comes up with ‘ideas’. Those ideas usually involve some sort of physical task or chore requiring my input. Oh my, I should have thought of this knock on effect previously. I need to finish this post quickly and convince Ema that MMOs are the way to go, and that the Devil creates work for idle hands, (or work for my busy hands, allocated by the idle).

Be well.