Balancing Life and WoW

[Monkey]

Summary: What are some strategies that Lurkers use to balance WoW and Life? In particular, how do Lurkers balance the demands of raiding with their regular lives?

More Information: The recent extended (and excellent) Lounge conversation about raiding vs. non-raiding content in WoW has got me thinking about WoW-Life balance. My own strategy has been to 'Just Say No' to raiding. While I enjoy raiding, I just didn't want to go back to a 6-day-a-week WoW habit and give up the real life I rediscovered. But the excitement about Naxx has re-piqued my interest and I have begun to wonder if there is another option.

This topic often ripples through the official WoW forums with (at best) limited substance. Usually the two viewpoints are 'raiding takes too long' or 'Molten Core only takes 3-4 hours per week'. The issue proves to be more complex--Your guild and character both need a variety of things from outside of the raid to support the raiding endeavor. The raiding you might want to do isn't limited to MC or Onyxia. And you want to help your friends out--you don't just want to quit raiding as soon as you get your own gear. So do you raid, and if so, how do you handle it?

[Derek]

Summary: What are some strategies that Lurkers use to balance WoW and Life? In particular, how do Lurkers balance the demands of raiding with their regular lives?
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My personal rule is "WoW is always the lowest priority activity", and I've been lucky enough to find a casual (multi-guild) raid group where most everyone else also has real life constraints so it doesn't cause friction. Even with that, we just killed Broodlord, though that may be a sign I don't actually have much of a life :o .

[Kevin]

Summary: What are some strategies that Lurkers use to balance WoW and Life? In particular, how do Lurkers balance the demands of raiding with their regular lives?

More Information: The recent extended (and excellent) Lounge conversation about raiding vs. non-raiding content in WoW has got me thinking about WoW-Life balance.  My own strategy has been to 'Just Say No' to raiding. While I enjoy raiding, I just didn't want to go back to a 6-day-a-week WoW habit and give up the real life I rediscovered. But the excitement about Naxx has re-piqued my interest and I have begun to wonder if there is another option.

This topic often ripples through the official WoW forums with (at best) limited substance. Usually the two viewpoints are 'raiding takes too long' or 'Molten Core only takes 3-4 hours per week'. The issue proves to be more complex--Your guild and character both need a variety of things from outside of the raid to support the raiding endeavor. The raiding you might want to do isn't limited to MC or Onyxia. And you want to help your friends out--you don't just want to quit raiding as soon as you get your own gear. So do you raid, and if so, how do you handle it?
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Here is how I'm handling it.

I allow myself at most 3 raids, 20 or 40 mans, a week to go on. Between the two servers and my 4 level 60's I think I could likely be in on around 15 raids if I wanted to spend 30-40 hours a week raiding. I haven't looked closely at how the schedules overlap, but I know that some of them would allow me to raid on one server and then do a different raid on another server or potentially even two raids in one day on just the one.

Because of this and the structures of the groups I raid with, I do not put myself as a regular for any raid. This isn't a major issue, but it means that there are some raids I want to go on that I won't get in. Not a huge deal, that 2 to 4 hours then becomes the farming time for money for repairs or potions or anything else I will need for raiding.

I also won't let myself play for more than 15 hours a week. With 3 raids of 3 to 4 hours that leaves 2 to 6 hours for my alts, doing 5 mans and farming if I get into the 3 raids I sign up for. I've set up a seperate budget of 4 hours out of game time for forums and such, though with dual monitors and the video card I have, I can often do a lot of the web browsing in game (while on flights, while waiting for the group to get together, etc).

Because trying to enforce these rules in my head can get a little tricky I've actually started to track the time I play WoW. I'll let myself have "special exceptions" now and then but I talk to my wife (who plays WoW as mentioned) and friends first to verify that I should be able to.

Simply tracking how much time you have played can be a huge step for many people into controlling how much they play. It's a simple trick used to help people control many things. You put down on paper how much money you spend on "junk food" or cigarettes or lottery tickets and many people just from having a concrete thing to look at will be able to better control what they invest in something because they've created personal accountability for it.

You could very well be able to set regular raiding nights with your group and just count that vs whatever budget you want to set for yourself. Let your friends know what your limits are and they can assist you with staying in them and using exceptions wisely (not a horrible thing to be in on that first Nef kill even if that will push you to 20 hours and 4 raids for that week say, just don't do it every week)

So I personally forced limitations on it. For me it's much easier to choose which raids I'm going on. In most cases I choose to go on raids my wife can make as well. In the past 40 mans got preference over 20 mans, and learning runs got preference over farming runs because I enjoyed them more. I don't pay a heck of a lot of attention to gear, where it comes from and all that jazz. If I get stuff, wooohoooo, if I don't, oh well. If I know where gear comes from I expect at least 20 kills of that boss before I will even see it drop, which could mean 40-50 before I will actually win it. Helps to not set myself up for disappointment on the few things that do draw my interest. But then again I'm pretty easy to keep happy. Just hanging with friends online and killing stuff is usually enough, even if it is the 30th time we've done the same thing. The solo repetition kills me, I'm not a good one for solo grinding for something, and the motivation of loot at the end of the grinds doesn't usually help me either.

So, talk with your guild/raiding group and see what they think about you only being able to commit to X number of raids. If they are cool with that, be prepared to just be a "bit player" as you won't gear as fast and gear = power. This doesn't mean you aren't important and if you are skilled with the class you will still feel you contributed. Or maybe that's just me, if I played to best of my abilities and knowing that in this game, the best that I can do my not be as good as what an uber geared person can do even if they are having an off night, I'm fine with it. You don't have to be completely epic'd out to be a contributor in BWL. If you play to your abilities you will be more than just another warm body. If you are the type of person that feels the need to be on the top of the DPS or healing charts then this might not work for you.

But really I think the simplest tip is that if you want to control WoW time and real life time is just to give your WoW time accountability and the simplest way to do that is to track it.

If you have 10 hours a week to play and you want to raid you can raid 2 nights, pretty much anywhere, and still have time to farm items/cash you might need in the other 1 to 2 hours you have. This would mean you aren't going to be playing your alts at all anymore and that might not be a bad thing for you. If you enjoy alting too much then you might be limited to one raid a week and that may or may not work for your raiding group.

If just giving your WoW play time accountability by tracking doesn't work to help keep it under control you can try adding another layer and fully scheduling the time you can play. Strict limits of 6 to 10 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday say. If the servers are down, oh well you don't move that chunk of time. If you can't block time as it is for WoW then raiding is out anyway in most cases because the organization that is needed to run raids is just not friendly to people just showing up and joining in. Well if a group is just starting to raid this will work but as the group gets more successful, spots won't be open, people won't want to leave for reason X anymore, etc.

I don't really have any other tips other than just giving it accountability via tracking time, and forcing a schedule on it. Raiding will like force a schedule on it for some of the time anyway. You just look at playing WoW vs going to the movies with friends. If you have a group of friends that you can do both with it becomes easier, if those groups are different people, you just have to make the choices.

[RTM]

Summary: What are some strategies that Lurkers use to balance WoW and Life? In particular, how do Lurkers balance the demands of raiding with their regular lives?
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I quit. :)

I thought I could juggle WoW, a family, and other activities but I just didn't have the discipline. I usually latch on to a new game and play it constantly until I'm sick of it. This process takes around a month for most games; for WoW it lasted about 9 months. A lot of what kept me playing so much was the fact that I felt the need to "get my money's worth" out of the game since I was paying monthly for it, despite the fact that I spent less on games overall during my WoW playing career. In the end, it felt almost like a job- freeing up my schedule for raids, checking my auctions so as not to miss a potential good deal, grinding for faction, etc.

Quitting was extraordinarily freeing. I didn't realize the amount of time I spent on the game until I was no longer playing it. It's nice to not feel tied to the computer chair anymore. I gotta stop reading this E3 news though- it makes a small part of me want to come back. I'd have to start all over, as I sold/gave away/deleted all my equipment & characters.

*concentrates on faction grinding*

[Kevin]

Quitting was extraordinarily freeing. I didn't realize the amount of time I spent on the game until I was no longer playing it. It's nice to not feel tied to the computer chair anymore. I gotta stop reading this E3 news though- it makes a small part of me want to come back.  I'd have to start all over, as I sold/gave away/deleted all my equipment & characters. 

*concentrates on faction grinding*
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I agree it's hard to realize which is why my biggest suggestion is to simply track the time.

I let my subscription lapse for nearly 2 weeks, I've come back mainly because Treesh still plays and we still enjoy playing together. Some of that play time is raiding so I still have to deal with that scheduling aspect, I'd prefer to be able to get a group when I could and if I couldn't oh well, but raids generally can't work like that. :)

The biggest thing I'm cutting back on is the effort I put in outside the game. Doing most of my forum reading while on flights as mentioned or in a break from doing household chores of filling out job apps.

[Artega]

Quitting was extraordinarily freeing. I didn't realize the amount of time I spent on the game until I was no longer playing it.
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Definitely. Took a break a while back, and although I'm still playing a couple nights of the week (until my subscription lapses in exactly 32 days :) ), I'm not hooked on it like I was for the first... 18 months :whistling:

I'm still an utter PC addict - I just play different games now. Been getting back into Dawn of War multiplayer, replaced UT2k4 multiplayer with Quake 4 multiplayer, and still rely on good old fashioned Counter-Strike: Source when I don't feel like anything else :)

[ZugzwangZeitgeist]

Summary: What are some strategies that Lurkers use to balance WoW and Life? In particular, how do Lurkers balance the demands of raiding with their regular lives?

In general I don't, because I'm on the tail end of a year long leave of absence from College due to medical reasons. Because of the timing it's something I haven't had to deal with - back at my dorm I didn't have a computer powerful enough to run WoW. It's something I honestly don't know how to deal with, and I very much want to avoid the mistake I made my first year of becoming solitary and not really doing much on campus. As I see it, I have two choices: I can either continue playing WoW intermittently or just stop playing completely.

Although I do still enjoy the game in the small, pure doses that regular raiding provides, I often find myself playing about 2-4 hours a day when I don't raid simply for lack of anything better to do. I'm not a well-balanced individual and I've never tested myself by simultaneously playing a MMORPG or other potentially addictive and comforting activity while trying to balance academics and a "real life". I'm afraid that I'll fall into old habits of staying indoors and the best way to combat that is to throw away all my computing diversions.

On the other hand I also want to be happy and not only is WoW something that I genuinely enjoy, but gaming in general is a huge part of my personality that I'm very happy with. Especially when you consider that the Burning Crusade expansion will be coming out this fall, right as I'm returning to class, which simultaneously offers more "casual" gameplay and also the potential to spend 16 hours straight levelling up.

In truth, I really can't see myself raiding Wednesday and Saturday nights the way I do now that I'm an unemployed, vacationing (of a sort), student. I feel sorry for the East Coasters in our guild who really have to deal with what is IMO a slightly unreasonable raid schedule for a casual guild - Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday 8:x0-12:00, attendance optional. If I'm going to stay up til midnight, I don't think I want it to be with my door closed, inside, playing a computer game.

There's also the slim possibility that the decision could be made for me, with my guild self-destructing over the complexities of the Razorgore and Vaelastrasz fights. We have enormous turn over from one raid to the next, and it's becoming very trying for key members to deal with re-explaining something like Razorgore for the third time, having to deal with the inevitable poor execution due to lack of experience, getting to Vael afterwords and just getting blasted.

A distressing number of members have had to resign from high ranking officer positions like class lead because they couldn't find a balance between their status as parents of a 3-year old and WoW. Several more have quit because they "couldn't find balance in their lives" or whatever (ie. i was addicted and realized what that i was playing this game way too much).

I think it's entirely possible to successfully raid as a truly casual player who can prioritize properly, but it becomes like any other hobby, and sometimes it's good to take time off. Too many people seem to get the idea that they can't stop playing WoW because they'll fall behind, or once they stop they can never play again.

[Flymo]

I hardly ever raid because (1) I have a family and can hardly ever make enough time available in one chunk, and (2) I work and raids happen at times convenient for schoolkids/students, i.e. too early (exacerbated for me because game time on European servers is an hour ahead of time here in the UK).

It is a major pain that the WoW end game requires you to spend several hours grouped with 39 other people at a time convenient to the majority of them. When I do raid I don't find them at all enjoyable; there is little scope for individual skill in what amounts to a big choreographed setpiece.

[Yakisoba]

RL>WOW. Just like that. Sometimes that can mean I appear somewhat flighty in game, having to leave suddenly and so on. But after Asheron's Call, SWG, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains and Guild Wars, I learned the hard way.

I also do situps and pushups during griffon flights. My wife thinks I'm insane. She also plays MMOs, so we've had long talks about this and it boils down to RL>MMOGs.
--Yak

[Hedon]

Quitting was extraordinarily freeing. I didn't realize the amount of time I spent on the game until I was no longer playing it.

Yes, it's true. I quitted WoW as the mood in our raiding alliance IFFHDS went south and I was fed up by it all in general. After I quit, I suddenly realized how much time it has freed up for me, and also how much stress and sleep deprivation I've suffered when trying to juggle raid attendency and my job. WoW has really become something like second job to me. I work nightshift four days a week for 48 hours, and the other three days were basically raiding and raid preparations, so it was always like changing one job for another. I hadn't something like days off work to relax; when it wasn't RL work for money, then it was virtual work for DKP, and it really felt like work. Some weeks I was even glad that my four days of RL work came up, so I had an excuse to not being commited to WoW activities.

So yes, now I have time to relax, during my free days. :blush:

I started to play another MMO though, EVE (it's strange: since I started playing MMOs with "Saga of Ryzom", conventional games basically lost their appeal to me). I'm not committed to EVE now like I was to WoW then, perhaps because it's just a different game, perhaps because I haven't made it to endgame yet, which might or might not eat up time like WoW used to.


As of now, my old raiding alliance IFFHDS broke up in drama, as one half took the oppurtunity of a server move, to establish a new hardcore raiding guild on the new server. Yesterday I received an invitation to join this new guild. Although I should know better I feel tempted.... I must make up my mind up to the 26th of May if I reactivate my account and make the move or stay away from it.

[Malakar]

Nefarious Blizzard says: In this world where time is your enemy, it is my greatest ally. This grand game of WoW that you think you play in fact plays you.:huh:

[Arnulf]

Nefarious Blizzard says: In this world where time is your enemy, it is my greatest ally. This grand game of WoW that you think you play in fact plays you.:huh:

Ignore that other line.. it's of no consequence.

[Sabra]

Raiding seriously is very time consuming. I basically schedule the rest of my life around it, which is easy for me since my family responsibilities keep me at home with quite a bit of free time. If I had today the very full life I had 20 years ago, there is no way that I would even think of playing WoW, let alone raiding. WoW fills the time, and fills it very pleasantly.

If you have a yen to see the end game content, raiding is the only way to get there. I like to see what lies ahead. That is the strongest appeal for me in gaming. There was never any question in my mind that a lot of things like movies, some reading, etc. would go on the back burner, so I could achieve that end. But it's always things related to self-entertainment that go on that back burner. RL comes first and when it needs me, I'm there.

There are so many people who want to raid. There's always someone who would be happy to take your spot in the event you can't make it on a particular night.