MMO Funtime with Dad

So I've figured out (so far) how to get some game time in here and there, which is good. Sometimes I can get some game time in with Marcus present, sometimes mom and dad swap duties to give each other a break, and sometimes I get lucky and he passes out for a few hours, giving me some uniterrupted time to blast geth, locusts, zombies, Covenant, or what-not.

One thing I've found really hard to do lately is keep up with MMOs. Part of it is that with limited time I think I prefer shorter normal games that offer a sense of direction, resolution, reward and progress over a tighter span of time. I really want to love Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, and it wants me to as well, but its a MMO disguised as a CRPG, and I have a hard enough time finding the timeblocks necessary to play Skyrim or Mass Effect, let alone the insanely time-demanding environment of an MMO.

I'm also terrible with repetition, and when a game has me doing too much of the same thing over too long a period, I can burn out much more quickly than your typical hardcore modern MMOer (i.e. my wife). I don't know why, it's just that way for me. So thus am I stalled in Guild Wars and Dungeons & Dragons Online, where the ability to finish a character to max level (or end of story in GW's case) seems like a nigh impossible task due to the unending grind.

But I did notice one thing, which might explain some of the long term success of World of Warcraft: that game lets you play the entire thing one handed with a mouse. A few years ago I might have cracked jokes about one-handed gameplay on FeatherMoon server and the proliferation of stripper night elf chicks. No more! Today I realize that being able to play one handed while you bounce a baby on your lap and keep him propped up is a distinct "game play advantage" that WoW offers, and a pretty compelling one.

I'm tired of WoW, have been for a long time, but getting my character to level 85 seems like a laudable goal if I want a bit of random gametime that also lets me entertain the kid (who appears to be fascinated with WoW's simple but elegant cartoon graphics).

TGIF! Gamers and Parenting

There's a fun article over at No High Scores (a decent blog/news site for computer gaming) about coping with life as a gamer after Baby arrives, and I definitely enjoyed reading it. I'm counting on my sheer enthusiasm and desire to at last have a kid to help shuttle me through the adjustment process of no longer being Master of My Own Time (as is my wife), but for some reason I am feeling more confident about it now than I was recently.

That said, I admit I fell into the mindset of, "got to get the gaming done before baby arrives. What gaming? ALL The Gaming!" I mean....in the last year just since February I've finished or exhausted Singularity, Cursed Mountain, Crysis, Crysis: Warhead, Dragon Age:Origins, Dragon Age Awakening, Fallout 3, Fable II, Enslaved, Halo: Reach, replayed Gears of War 1 and 2, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, Red Dead Redemption, Blur, Split/Second, Burnout: Paradise City, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Aliens vs. Predator, and likely a handful of other less memorable games and countless DLC packs. And this is not even counting many hours logged on WoW (which I have been cold turkey from for a few months now) Dungeons & Dragons Online and Champions. I finished virtually all of these just in the last eight or nine months. I am a sick man, and need help. Or Something. That's effectively more games than I've finished in the previous four years. When I look at the list I'm...well...damn. I don't know where I've found time to blog, re-watch the entire nine seasons of X-Files on Netflix, and still pull 45-50 hour work weeks.

And my wife? She's run out of room for her level 85 characters on Wyrmrest Accord. She's got 10 of them. Just on that server. So yeah. 

Anyway, I think I've worked it out of my system. As my wife's put it to her guildies: she's not going to be available to heal on raids starting late next month, she's got a brand new level 1 human almost out of character creation, and its going to take a looooong time to level him up!