The Daily Grind: Running on MMO time

As anyone who has ever raided can tell you, people who are late can be annoying. They come screaming online at the very last minute, spend time grabbing reagents and making apologies, and unless you happen to be in a game that allows for you to teleport/summon them to your location, you have to wait for them to get there. Of course, on the devil's advocate side of things -- life happens. They may have just finished getting children into bed, just gotten home from a late class, or had to deal with insanity at work that prevented them from being at the keys on time. From my personal point of view, this is also where you tend to see the "casual" mindset bump up against the "hardcore" mindset. (Note: using the terms loosely here.) People whose sole focus is getting on and raiding view this as a particular flaw in the other person's game style. "I was here on time, why can't you be here?" The people whose intent is just playing with friends may well be irked, but more often than not, you'll hear things like "That's okay, RL > game." (And it's probably best to note that I'm not referring to the habitual offenders who are always late, no matter what they try.)

In World of Warcraft, you see guilds lose members or disband over this -- casual guilds won't sideline raiders for being late, and those who lean more towards the hardcore side of the table will grow resentful of what seems to be a guild culture that allows tardiness. Eventually, the hardcore people in question will either /dramaquit in a fit of "you all suck", or if they are in power, there may be a shift in the guild's focus towards more hardcore strictures that make the guild hostile to half of its population. Of course, without those changes, you will lose some people anyway. (Unless you're very lucky and get the rare person who can just say "Sorry, this isn't working for me" and leave on good terms.) It's a lose-lose situation more often than not.

So today we'd like to ask you about your time habits in MMOs, and what your thoughts are on keeping real time versus MMO time. It is certainly argued that people being tardy are disrespectful of other people's game time. The people who have other responsibilities that supersede gaming might argue that in real life you'd be no more likely to stomp off in annoyance if they were 10 minutes late to meeting up with you at the movies. In either case, raiding and even some grouping situations (like Task Forces in CoX) can often bring out the rancor from both sides. Do you think that it's acceptable to be late every once in a while, or do you think that being late at all in a situation where other people are depending on you is out of the question? Do you find it hard to enjoy your gaming because of other people's tardiness issues, or are you on the other side of the coin and feel that people setting times on attendance place too much of an emphasis on MMOs in general. Is it just a question of mindset -- those who treat the situation like a job (you should never be late for work, so why do so in game) versus those who, as illustrated above, may view it as more of a social gathering (like going to the movies) than anything?