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The Daily Grind: When's your MMO time?

by Seraphina Brennan on Nov 17th 2009 8:00AM

Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind

We're all busy people. (Well, at least some of us are busy people.) We'd all love to play our games all day long, but we just don't have that luxury. (Plus, your eyes would probably explode out of their sockets.) So, in lieu of playing endlessly, we play for the times of the day that we have free.

So today's question is: when do you sit down to play your MMOs? Are you an after-work person? Are you more of the before-and-after-dinner type of gamer? Or do you play MMOs so late at night that you worry about Dracula breaking into your home and sucking out your blood before you get done with your raid?

You guys know the drill by now. Think up an answer, smash it into your keyboard with the help of the comment box below, and clicky-click the send comment button. We're waiting!

Tags: opinion, play-time, the-daily-grind, timezone

Reader Comments (22)

I play whenever I get a chance, first thing when I wake up, after dinner, or during a break in the day.

In the good old days when I worked for a major Cable News Network and didn't have a lot to do most of the year, I tricked IT into giving me an unlocked workstation, from which I played Lord of the Rings Online for hours during my downtime.

Ah, the good old days!

Way too much, way too often.

I'm East Coast, but often I can't find time to play until well after midnight. That's my favorite time anyway because it's mostly older folks like me who are up all night tending to screaming babies.

I play after 11pm EST, my wife takes it as an affront when I want to play instead of watching dancing with the stars with her. I've found that I can get away with 1 night a week playing primetime 9-12 EST. Therefore, when my kids and wife go to bed I get on. Usually play for about 2 hours. It's an unfortunate habit as I also have to get up before anyone else in my house. If I don't play at night, I'll be up very early and play a bit before work, doing grinding type stuff that I can walk away from if need be.

Back in the days of Everquest when I was a bachelor, I used to play right after work and all weekends until the wee hours of the morning.

But now that I'm older and living with someone, I force myself to spend time with her (while thinking about gaming) until she goes to bed. Then the next 2 hours of the night are mine mine mine!

On the weekends its the same thing but I can extend my game time to 3 or 4am. I sleep in the mornings and that gives her some private time to do her stuff without me getting in her way. hehe

My play time is entirely determined by when my children go to bed. That may be any time between 9PM and midnight.

I usually squeeze in about an hour after work, playing from the office while I wait for rush hour traffic to die down a bit. Then, it's usually around 10 PM CST when I get online, and play between 2 and 3 hours. Maybe once a week i'll go a bit longer than that, and if I'm being particularly stupid, I might stay up till 2 or 3 am two nights in a row....this will be immediately followed by a day of me falling asleep early and not playing at all.

I also get in some extra time occasionally on weekends, especially if it's a Sunday morning and my wife decides to take the kids to church.

In CoX and WoW, I played after work and on weekends ... usually logged on at about 7pm EST M,Th, W.

Now? It's mostly random as I got burnt out on WoW and don't really have the urge to get back into a guild situation with scheduled raid times. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the guild experience. It's just that I've moved back towards the pick-up-and-play mentality. I'm not that interested in games where I can't get into a game and actually playing through content within 5 minutes.

For example, you can log into a FPS like Halo or Modern Warfare, go through the match making and be in a multiplayer game within 5 minutes. WoW was just killer because without a large active guild, you could be trying to form a group for an hour without any success and be paying $15/mo for that frustration.

I play a weird ass times. I get off work around 1430, 1500 EST , so I end up playing with the crazy euro's for any mmo. Nothing like a pissed off german or frenchy yelling at you over vent lol..

I play weekday evening 8-11 pm EST, but not every day. During the weekend it varies, I can play a few hours at a time in the morning, afternoon, evening, or not at all if I'm doing something else. But I guess it averages "mid evening" as opposed to early or late evening, for me.

Okay, let me see if I've got this right (I'm a Brit):

Green is Eastern Time
Yellow is Central Time
Orange is Mountain Time
Red is Pacific Time

Right?

Correct. Gets a little different with Arizona. They don't do daylight saving time, so right now they're on mountain time. But during dst they'll be on the same time with pacific.

I'm also a Brit and tend to play mixed times. Being semi-retired I have to work during the day Monday-Wednesday but usually get to play in the evening, then I have rather more time from Thursday to Sunday and play at various times during the day and in the evening. I tend to play short sessions, rarely more than an hour at time and often less. I have other interests and demands on my time but I fit my gaming in around those. I've no interest in long group sessions or raids so my routine works fine for me.

I'm East Coast in the US and I usually play around midnight because of my work schedule and other things I need to get done before I get some more free time.

GMT -3, mostly at nights... and whenever the alarm clock calls for it.

I usually play after I get done with school that is due for my college course. Lately, though, the girlie friend has been annoying the crap outta me about spending time with each other. My solution? Purchase a second computer so she can play the same game I'm playing. Let's just say that the idea didn't go so well. lol

I MMO weeknights from 7pm to around 10pm, mostly.
When I can find the time, I also play on the weekends at odd hours, though most often mid-day on both Sat and Sun.

During my upcoming 'vacation', I expect to be on 'weekend hours' all week. :)

My wife plays the same hours I do, plus during the daytime as she is unemployed. Lucky girl. ;) (Lucky about the getting to play during weekday daytime, not the unemployed part... if I were also unemployed neither of us would be able to afford the current games we play and maybe wouldn't have an internet connection any more so the whole question would be moot, then.)

Weekday window: Midnight to 6 a.m. Central
Weekend: anytime after noon :D

I try to fit in my gaming time a little before dinner and for a couple of hours afterwards on weeknights, and then play intermittently (fitted around chores and errands) throughout the day on weekends, not usually in stretches of more than 2-3 hours.

Thanks man, that's cleared it up nicely. :-)

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The Daily Grind: When's your MMO time?

Reader Comments (22)

Posted: Nov 17th 2009 8:10AM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Nov 17th 2009 10:43AM eyeball2452 said

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Posted: Nov 17th 2009 8:36PM Tristik said

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Posted: Nov 18th 2009 3:40AM pcgneurotic said

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