Balancing WoW and… and… uhh…

*This is yet another shared topic via Blog Azeroth*

The question is simple. How do I, a self admitted addict of World of Warcrack balance my WoW time with my RL time?

The answer is simple. RL time? Wuzzat?

The question for me should be “How do you balance WoW with other games?” Now THAT is something I can answer.

I work full time, 40 hours a week. I work 4 days a week, so that gets me 10 hour days, with three days off. As a side note, this has to be the sexiest schedule EVER. 3 days off every week? Golden. Here’s a general idea of how my average work day goes:

• Wake up (10:00am)
• Poop (10:01am)
• Eat (10:10am)
• Prepare my lunch (10:25am)
• Go to work (10:30am)
• Work (11:00am-4:30pm)
• Eat lunch (4:30pm-5:00pm)
• Work (5:00pm-9:30pm)
• Go home (9:30pm)
• Eat dinner (10:00pm, includes cooking)
• Game (10:30pm-1:45am)
• Shower (1:50am)
• Bed (2:10am)

That, for me, is a standard work day. Here’s a standard day off:

• Wake up (sometime between noon and 4pm)
• Breakfast
• Game until I get hungry (usually 4-5 hours)
• Lunch
• Game until I get hungry (usually another 4-5 hours)
• Dinner
• Game until I fall asleep (usually 5-7am)

I am, in essence, an utter lose. I don’t have a girlfriend, so I don’t have any of those silly romantic commitments. That, and the family is pretty much content to let me do whatever I please, so long as I have a job and don’t mess around with the house too much. Yes, I live at home, no, I don’t live here for free. I pay my rent, I buy my food. I may be a hopeless bum, but HOT DAMN I pay for hopeless bumming!

No pets

So that leaves the only real commitment in my life is my silicon mistriss, the all powerful and seductive computer.

So, really, I have four powers to balance in my life. Eating, Sleeping, Gaming, and Working.

My work schedule is solid. 40 hours a week, the rest of the time is mine to do with as I see fit. I make efforts to always get at least 7 hours of sleep, usually 8. So that leaves gaming.

On work days, I usually have about 3 hours I can devote solely to the computer, whether I be blogging, daily questing, or puzzling over Mission 17 in Portal under advanced mode. On days off, I usually have… well, the entire day, usually, free for gaming to my hearts content.

So the true question is, what do I do for these periods of time? Gaming is a very time demanding hobby to have, after all, your average game is going to demand at least ten hours or so out of you for a proper play through. Obviously, some games are longer, some are shorter. For example, I did Portal, start to finish, in 3 hours, but easily logged 8 hours in The Witcher… the demo… >.>

To be completely honest, there is no active balancing act that is ever taken. Frankly, when I boot up ye olde PC, I end up playing whatever it is that I feel like playing that day. Sometimes, I’ll log in with the intent of doing a couple dailies, then end up doing battlegrounds all day. It happens.

Sometimes I’ll log in, do one daily, then switch to an alt and spend all day killing Murlocs in the Swamp o’ Sadness.

Sometimes I’ll log in, do a couple dailies, wonder if I can double rocket jump in TF2, and then I end up spending the next 6 hours playing 2Fort as a Soldier.

Sometimes I’ll get to the “Welcome” page, sit there a minute, then shut the computer down, rush over to a friend’s place, and play Rock Band until I literally cannot strum anymore, because my fingers are dirty traitors and utilize passive resistance after 12 hours. Jerks.

The point I’m kind of getting around to in meandering way is that WoW is not the only game I play. Not even close. And it rightfully isn’t.

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who only play World of Warcraft. And you know what? I feel sorry for them. I really do. There are so many excellent games out there that restricting yourself to just WoW is… well… it’s sad.

How can you live with yourself if you haven’t played Portal? Did you even hear about Overlord? What about the sheer multi-player genius that is Team Fortress 2? Do you even know who Sam & Max are? Have you at least tried the demo for The Witcher? What about Peggle? Company of Heroes? Have you gotten to Expert Mode in Rock Band yet? Did you even give Gears of War a try?

See, I refuse to get permanently bogged into one game. There are just way too many awesome games I would completely miss if I did.

For example, I still haven’t touched the newest Supreme Commander expansion, and haven’t even bought World in Conflict yet. Half Life 2, Episode 2, sits all dejected on my hard drive. Installed and never played.

It’s so sad.

And what about movies? TV shows? Books and manga? Have you seen the sheer martial arts genius that is Avatar, the Last Airbender? Have you kept up with Full Metal Alchemist? When was the last time you watched a classic comedy such as Liar Liar with Jim Carrey, or Fists of Fury with straight faced Asian Man #3?

The balance is not between WoW and Real Life, WoW is a part of Real Life. At least it is for me.

Things like gaming, movies, and so on, that’s not somehow separate from my life. It is just as integral into my life as anything else. WoW and other games are just as important to my day to day being as pooping is.

Is that sad? Is it depraved?

I don’t care. I work, I play, I eat, I play some more. It’s a great life.

Going from raiding Serpent Shrine, to defending a control point in Dustbowl, then completing a brief side quest to have sex with a bar maid, all in the same night… this is the life of a gamer.

A life I am proud to lead, and have a blast leading.

Balancing? Pfft, that’s the developers job.