olivermoss: (Default)
I completely an goal in Guild Wars 2 today that eluded me for 8 goddam years. I did the Mad King's Tower Jumping Puzzle. Which leaves me with the question, worth it or giant waste of my time?

There isn't a clear answer for this. The puzzle is only around for a bit during Halloween and it's punishing. It does many things to try to trip you up and places constant time pressure on the player. It's cathartic to have done conquered something that gave me so much stress, and made me feel bad for not being able to do it. The best way to do content like this is to not think about it. There is a particular type of focus where the words part of your brain needs to turn off. Practicing that type of focus is good. At the the same time, maybe my time would have been better spent on literally anything else.

This is a tricky thing for me right now. With the whole pandemic thing, events still being cancelled, meetups still not happening, volunteer opportunities keeps volunteer separate and NOT mingling, being sort of part of gaming community has been key. My life is still a cycle of signing up to do things and then thing doesn't happen. Even my dental appointment got pushed out again! But, playing at the level of the people I hang with is A LOT. The people I run with do more in game than me, have partners, stay on top of what's going on in the larger gaming community and have full time jobs and also do other things outside of working, gaming, social. I don't know how they do it. They play 4 hours a day. And... I can't. I also don't want to drop out of hanging with them. It's a balancing act. Outside of Pandemic times, I usually limit my game play to 1 hour a day, unless it's patch day.

I can't keep up with this time commitment. It gets in the way of photography and writing too much. But, I don't want to give up the only thing where I am having verbal (voice chat) conversations and have regular times where people expect to see me. They know me, and I like them. This isn't just random people, I'm very comfortable with them.

What I would like to do is complete a bunch of Guild Wars 2 goals, have art commissioned of my mains, and like keep a toe in with a much smaller time commitment. Rest on my laurels and mostly move on, without cutting ties or anything.

This is one of those 'no good answer' situations. If I was gooder at the game, I wouldn't need to spend so much time on certain things ... like doing strikes to stay in practice for raids. Also, I'd have unlocks and wouldn't need to spend as much time gearing. Doing a new build would take me seconds instead of hours if I had legendary armor ... but no leggy armor for me until I can do Cairn in Challenge Mode with no mistakes.

Still, it's a huge relief to have conquered the damn tower. It's so good to have a goal done, even if it's a gaming goal.

Date: 2021-10-14 02:33 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] mistressofmuses
mistressofmuses: Image of nebulae in the colors of the bi pride flag: pink, purple, and blue (Default)
Gaming goals are real goals! Congratulations!

(I have no idea how my sibling does it. While they aren't actively working right now, they game a LOT with a dedicated group, across a few different games, with scheduled raids and all, and they did that when they WERE working a job that crept into the 50-60+ hours/week at a minimum.)

I can't even make time for my olde single-player console games, lol.

So I'm afraid I have no possible advice, because time management is a CONSTANT struggle for me, and I never feel like I've got time for things. But I think that the social connections you have through games and the goals set and accomplished are absolutely worthwhile ones.

Date: 2021-10-15 02:18 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] mistressofmuses
mistressofmuses: Image of nebulae in the colors of the bi pride flag: pink, purple, and blue (Default)
Balancing the value that something adds while making sure it isn't subtracting from other aspects of your life is a hard thing to do. (The time suck inherent in being/getting "good" at a lot of things is a real struggle.)

Date: 2021-10-14 10:45 pm (UTC)From: [personal profile] walgesang
walgesang: a drawing of a humpback whale with wings (Default)
Congratulations! I love gaming goals. I feel like I'm at a point where I'm okay playing MMO games on my own for now because I can go at it in a much more relaxed pace. But yeah, when does anyone have the time?! I used to raid several times a week in WoW and on a PST server where I was raiding until 2 am my time. Surely couldn't do it now, but I'm grateful for those experiences and memories.
Edited Date: 2021-10-14 10:45 pm (UTC)

Date: 2021-10-15 10:59 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] sperrywink
sperrywink: (Default)
Congrats! Meeting a goal is awesome, no matter what type of goal!

I have no thoughts on gaming time versus other stuff. I'm not a gamer at all.

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Oliver Moss

January 2026

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