Busy Doing Nothing
If you’ve figured out this tenuous movie reference then give yourself a pat on the back
As I mentioned recently in my monthly gaming roundup, I’ve currently stopped playing the three MMORPGs that are my usual gaming mainstay. Namely The Lord of the Rings Online, The Elder Scrolls Online and Star Trek Online. It’s something that I do from time to time when I’m tired of the repetition this genre offers. At present none of these titles has anything on offer that motivates me to play them enthusiastically. Especially LOTRO. I find weddings tedious and self indulgent in real life, so I’m hardly going to get “excited” about a virtual one set in Middle-earth. However, that’s not to say that I’ve lost interest in the MMO genre. I’m merely temporarily burned out at present. I find that after a few months or so, either new content is released that lures me back to these games or I tire of what I’ve been playing in their stead. It’s a cyclical process that I go through from time to time and nothing to worry about.
However, despite the fact I’m not actively playing these games, it’s surprising how they still manage to keep me busy. How do they keep me busy, I hear you ask? Have I not deleted them from my hard drive? Of course not, that’s crazy talk. Before I move on to the various tasks involved in not playing a game, let me first address this ludicrous assumption that if you’re not playing a game you can delete it from your hard drive and reinstall it later. Because we all have fast internet connections nowadays? Well for starters let me list the current installation size of these three MMOs. LOTRO 30.1GB, ESO 71.7GB and STO 35.5GB respectively. Those are not “small beer” and irrespective of your internet connection speed, if you wish to install these games from scratch you’re at the mercy of three separate game clients and three sets of patching servers. All of which are painfully slow and temperamental. So unless you desperately need to reclaim the space on your SSD or HDD, never delete a game just co’s you’re not playing it at present. Don’t even get me started on customisations and addons.
Moving on, these unplayed MMOs need constant tending. There’s constant patching, especially for ESO who seem to release new content based on two criteria; when it’s raining and when it’s not. Rather than be inconvenienced when I finally decide to return to these games by finding a ton of updates to download, it’s best to keep the client current just in case. And then there’s the login presents and rewards. Both LOTRO and ESO giveaway daily incentives or “free shit” as it’s called in marketing parlance, to encourage consumer loyalty. I may not be playing at present but FOMO is a real thing. I’d hate to pass up on a one off opportunity to claim the “Sword of Kagnazax” or a cosmetic Humboldt Squid pet. I’m also a member of at least one guild that regularly kicks players if they don’t log into the game after a set period of time. So I have to show a face, so to speak, at least once a week or I’ll be given my “marching orders”.
Blogging about these games also adds to the every growing list of chores. Just because I’m not actively playing through current content doesn’t mean that I have nothing to say on the state of any of these three titles or regarding any breaking story or development associated with them. Which leads me to my next point, I often find myself without a suitable screen capture that I can use to illustrate a post. So I have to quickly log into the game in question and grab a few images. And of course you don’t get to just “log on and then log off”. There’s invariably someone online who spots you and decides to engage you in lengthy conversation regarding your health, what you’ve been up to and that wretched bird on Mrs Coltart’s roof (yet again). So as you can see, it can be quite exhausting not playing games. Talk about busy doing nothing. It’s amazing I find time for the games I actually am engaged with at present.
