Once again I’m playing around with the idea of having scheduled days for each of the MMOs I’m either playing or interested in playing. It’s something I’ve tried before with limited success but whenever there are more than two MMOs I’d like to play at one time, it seems to be a helpful approach.
The advantages are of course in managing progress in multiple titles. If I plan time for each game I’m less likely to favor one over another and thus end up in a situation like I have with LOTRO where it’s perpetually on my “maybe tomorrow” list but never actually gets played. Sometimes I just need to log in to kindle the excitement I once had for a game and a schedule encourages this.
The disadvantage comes when holding too rigorously to the set schedule, such that playing a particular title feels forced. However that has never been a problem for me when I’ve tried this before; I usually just abandon the routine all together when it’s clear the issue isn’t time management, but rather that I do not like one game well enough to choose it over another.
The monthly goals I started to set in March are a kind of alternative solution in that they provide motivation to log into each game in which I’ve planned to reach certain benchmarks however this still suffers from the perpetual “maybe tomorrow” fallacy that I experience when I have no real plans at all.
I’ve also considered focusing on a single title until reaching level cap, and then moving on to the next as I did for most of last year with FFXIV, Trove, Diablo III, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and WildStar. It certainly worked then and as a result I was able to see much of what each game had to offer. This makes community involvement nearly impossible though, and while that is not always a priority of mine, it is something I have missed since my World of Warcraft days. Were I to select this route I would have a difficult time choosing where to begin. In addition to the new titles I’ve tried and enjoyed over the last week, there are a few older ones I wouldn’t mind going back to as well.
I think the fact that I’m considering any of this is just evidence of what I wrote about on Monday; I’m restless and don’t have an overwhelming desire to play one particular game over another. There are certainly titles I favor— most notably Tree of Savior— but not enough that I want to play any of them exclusively.
If you like definitive resolutions in the blog posts you read, you’ll find none here. I’m just thinking out loud in written form. I would appreciate feedback, however. I’ve seen several other gamers try a weekly schedule, have any of you been able to make this work? For those of you setting monthly goals, has this helped you balance your time between multiple titles?
Waiting For Rez 