I love these threads!

 

My wife is a gamer, but not a video gamer. So she understands and doesn't mind terribly. I think we spend about 1-2 hours an evening (Dinner, whatever) and then go off our separate ways of gaming and other hobbies for the rest of the night in the same room.

 

Pretty much I kill about 4ish hours a night playing, and maybe 6-10 each weekend day (depends what else I have going on). My main hobby is online gaming, but I have a few other hobbies that get in the way. I probably skip ~4-8 nights of the week on other stuff, maybe log on for about an hour.

 

Mostly, you'll find you have more free time as the parties go away, your friends get lives concerned with more than college related things, and your interests change. Many of the people I work with go out to bars, play poker, work on cars, prefer to watch TV, avid Bikers/Skiiers etc. It's all a matter of what you enjoy hobby wise.

 

Honestly having a good net connection and no cable TV with an MMO sub or two is the cheapest option for a hobby I've enjoyed.

I'm currently in business school and starting a new job in October. I don't think I will have much time to play the game as my priorities will go like this:

 

-Job

-Family

-Gym (love to work out, and even that will be tough to fit into my schedule).

-Games

 

Now assuming I only play Swtor, this will leave me a few hours a week at most. I'd rather spend the weekends with friends and family rather than gaming too so it's a matter of choice really.

Job; school; and fiancee game a couple days a week. Its possible to juggle the game time

Currently, I'm a student. So I have plenty of time to waste in this game.

 

But my student life is coming to an end in a few months, and I have some employment opportunities lined up. I frequently run into people who spend a fair amount of time in-game, and claim to have full-time jobs and even families/kids. My question is: how on earth do you do it?

 

NOTE: This is NOT an insulting thread! It is not made to insult anyone! I'm just curious as to how people are able to juggle their time around much better than I am planning to!

 

I'm 52 and have been playing computer games since pong.

 

The key to playing online is no different than setting aside some time to do anything else other than work/school. You just pick some time to relax and do it.

 

For those of you in school full time, do you ever set aside some time to hang out with friends? It's no different than going online to play games.

 

Whether you are in school full time, work, or whatever...you need to set aside some "you" time and relax. Othersie you will burn out. If you're worried about family...don't worry. They will understand. Husband, wife, whatever....everyone needs some personal time away from all of the hassles of life.

 

Here's some advice on husband/wife stuff. You BOTH need your own computers. Trust me on this....it's very important. He needs his computer, and she needs her computer. Sharing a computer can become an issue.

 

If you don't set aside some relaxation time, you will stress yourself out.

I go to work. I come home. My husband's hours are vastly different than mine during the week so I get a lot of solitary time so, I generally craft while making dinner (way easy during the higher levels because all you have to do is send the companions off and walk away to check in on the food). Afterwards, I can usually squeeze in an hour or maybe two during my usual weeknight, but not always I'll admit.

 

Even on a busy week though, since my husband also games, he also has an account and every Sunday we have our Date Afternoon religiously. So while sometimes we'll watch a movie or catch up on shows- more often than not we hop on and team up with whatever "Date Characters" we have at the moment.

 

As Lsya pointed out very accurately: If you don't set aside some time for yourself you really will go crazy.

Edited June 17, 2013 by Dallayna

I'm married with one kid and a full-time job. I don't play every night, but I often play for at least an hour or two. In general, my wife and I both surf the net when we watch TV after my daughter is in bed, so sometimes I'll get a little playtime in there. Also, my wife is a teacher and I'm a night owl, so I'm often up a few hours after she is, which gives me another window to play.

 

For me, part of the trick is multi-tasking. I very rarely watch TV without having the laptop open.

I think it is a matter of priorities. I rarely watch television, maybe that is a big chunk of why I'm able to dedicate time -- assuming I'm interested -- in a game despite a fairly time intensive job, family, volunteerism, and personal time that involves me being out of the house .

 

- Arcada

Edited June 19, 2013 by Nydus

I work a full time, M-F job. I set aside a couple hours in the evening to spend with my family (which may include going out to dinner with my sister, running a few errands, et all), and about 8:30-ish, I play SWTOR 'til about 10-ish or whenever I nod off. Mind you, I do not have a huge social circle of friends, nor am I really social, so that plays a huge part in it, too. (And I'm quite happy with that)

 

It's worked out pretty well so far. I don't play it every single day, maybe every other day, give or take.

 

Weekends are a little more flexible, but it's about the same as the weekdays.

Edited June 21, 2013 by MetaRayMek

Currently, I'm a student. So I have plenty of time to waste in this game.

 

But my student life is coming to an end in a few months, and I have some employment opportunities lined up. I frequently run into people who spend a fair amount of time in-game, and claim to have full-time jobs and even families/kids. My question is: how on earth do you do it?

 

NOTE: This is NOT an insulting thread! It is not made to insult anyone! I'm just curious as to how people are able to juggle their time around much better than I am planning to!

 

I'm a 'somewhat' older gamer. I have a full time job, I lift 4-5 hours a week, wife and one kid at home. I generally just focus on ONE character, and I play in the evenings, after my kid is asleep. Yeah I have alts many in the 50-55 range, but thats more because of these double exp weekends then anything else.

A couple nights a week I hang with my wife. On weekends I can stay up til 1 if I want, so I can literally hang with my wife for a couple hours, and still get a couple hours gaming in.

 

It's honestly part of why I stopped raiding with this MMORPG, and began being completely PvP centric.

 

I probably play around 15-20 hours a week during the school year (my wife is a professor, so I have way more time to game during then), and in the summer time now, I dial it back to about 12-15 hours a week just out of necessity.

 

Weekends are always hit/miss gaming wise. Sometimes I'll have a weekend day that lets me game for 5 hours, but that's not normal.

Edited June 21, 2013 by islander

I got a full time job, a RL-friendlist and some hobbies.

 

My Job takes up 8h a day on average with 1 hour time burnt on the road to and from work. I use that time in the bus or train for my hobby of reading.

 

I play trombone, which takes about 2 hours a week for probing (I do that for 27 years now, I really do not need to probe every day anymore).

 

I play soccer in a "old men"-team twice per month.

 

I love Pen&Paper roleplaying, but my group is scattered all accross the country. We meet 4 weekends a year.. those weekends naturally are completely void of SWTOR.

 

I got an offline-gaming group playing tabletop games. This takes up a couple days per month.

 

Now the key part:

I am single (again)

 

Which leaves me with pretty much time every single evening for playing. Oh and getting around with needing no more than 6h of sleep per day on average also is helpful.

I'm married with 4 kids and work about 50hrs a wk Monday-Friday. I'm another who's been gaming since pong. My wife is a gamer & so are my oldest 2 kids. (The twins are 2 but they like to watch) So family time usually consist of watching the wife & kids play on the kenect or wii While I'm on the laptop playing swtor. I can usually get in 2-3hrs a night thru the week, & on weekends after running errands n stuff I can get 6-8 hrs of play time. I live in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in one of the most dangerous cities in the country so sending the kids outside to play much isn't really an option. Having a house full of gamers & owning every gaming system makes finding time to game simple.

I love these threads!

 

...

 

Mostly, you'll find you have more free time as the parties go away, your friends get lives concerned with more than college related things, and your interests change. Many of the people I work with go out to bars, play poker, work on cars, prefer to watch TV, avid Bikers/Skiiers etc. It's all a matter of what you enjoy hobby wise.

 

Honestly having a good net connection and no cable TV with an MMO sub or two is the cheapest option for a hobby I've enjoyed.

 

^ this. You must find balance between work, social life/hobbies, family and gaming. I seldom wonder while folks are so bored with games when they are constantly logged in to them.

Honestly, if you don't watch a lot of TV, its not that hard to do.

Work, Play, Sleep (and try not to forget to eat)

Well, Playing at work is an option I wouldn't recommend that until you figure out your work place, who has squeaky shoes, who doesn't.....

 

For Real, you can get some time evenings and weekends. If its a quiet evening I will get home at 6:00pm and play till 11:00pm. I find on the weekends though you can actually get pretty busy. Maybe Saturday morning or Sunday evening if you have the time for it.

For my own part, sometimes I don't have time for it at all. When its project time, I sometimes don't have time to go home and wind up sleeping in the office and showering at a nearby gym. When its not project time, I can loaf around at home in my robe and stare at the wall a lot of I please. Bi-annual conferences and quarterly workshops keep me qual'd on my assorted high-maintenance certs, but that's relatively brief demand on what is elsewise my 'free time'.

 

When I had a more consistent daily schedule, time management was the key to all good things in life, as well as maintaining a strict set of priorities. Back then, if I could get two or three hours of gaming in a night and maybe 10-15 on weekends, I was tapped out of hours in the day.

 

I do not have children and my significant other's schedule is pretty consistently busy, so its still a matter of prioritizing time for the things that matter over the things that really just don't. When there's time for gaming, I happily game.

 

When there isn't, I rest assured that it'll still be there when I've got time for it again.

 

What gets really difficult is keeping up with anyone. As a roleplayer, the people with lots of time on their hands and nothing else to do with it but play can be very disheartening to try to stay involved with, as its simply unreasonable to expect them to hold a storyline for 6+ weeks when I'm on a project.

 

It can also make it very difficult to be in a PvE guild, 'cause they can't rely on me to be there all the time when they want or need to fill a slot.

 

Here in MMO-land, the people that have all the time in the world for it are often the ones that can get in or make the guilds that can do all the top-end content, do whatever they like whenever they please and sometimes have no understanding for those of us for whom that's simply not true. I'm certain I'm not alone in the camp of having often received all kinds of flak for it, such as being told I 'expect things to be given to me on a silver platter' when I've put forth miffed complaints about how much of a time sink this or that is to do, or to get.

 

Simple fact is, game developers for MMO's often wind up tuning their game's experience to try to keep people that play constantly at least somewhat engaged, and when a game winds up more and more tuned to that strata of the demographic, it leaves people like myself in a dispiriting place.

 

A place of forever playing catch-up with no hope of ever actually doing so.

 

So, learning to deal with that is also a big part of making it work. Time management is key, but mitigating one's own disposition and tempering one's own aspirations and expectations is another.

 

You won't be able to do everything you might like to do on here if you can't dedicate a whole lot of consistent time to it. If you're fortunate enough to find people with whom your schedule aligns, that might change your mileage, but that cannot realistically be expected.

 

If you don't already know all about it, you'll come to understand very quickly why things like Groupfinder are invaluable tools for folks in positions even like mine, and why all these little quality of life travel options that shave minutes off the hassle of going from one planet to another are the sorts of things people have flipped tables for wanting when we didn't have them.

 

It'll all explain itself very clearly when you've got 120 minutes to play and not a minute more, if it hasn't already.

Edited July 5, 2013 by Uruare

I work FT have 4 kids and find plenty of time to play (my kids are 11-18) so kinda look after themselves nowdays

but in order to get plenty of game time in all I have to do is make sure my missis gets some lovin a few nights a week

the old tap on the shoulder when shes sleeping normally works a treat and then she so happy she forgets I spend hours playing stupid games

You're all doing it wrong.

I don't work, (saved money for a few years to take some "me time") i am not married (just a series of meaningless physical relationships) and i have no kids.

I don't know how life could get any better tbh.

 

I will wake up somewhere between 10am and midday, if i feel like it, i will play, at any point through the rest of the day, i just play when i feel like it.

This leads to some marathon gaming sessions, and also to long stints where i don't play at all.

 

In a weird kind of way I'm the most responsible guy in here, I'm not neglecting my children or partner at all by putting a heap of time into a game, time that would no doubt be better spent spending time with my kids or wife ( if i had them).

 

I don't go to work tired from all night gaming sessions, and my social life is thriving because i have enough time and freedom to indulge both my gaming and social needs.

 

So i guess my advice to all you people doing it wrong would be this:

 

If your gaming is so important you have to allocate time away from your family to indulge it, your doing it wrong, if you go to work tired and perform badly because of staying up all night gaming, your doing it wrong, If the bulk of the time you socialize is spent on the computer, and not with your many RL friends, yep, you guessed it, your doing it wrong!

It amazes me how seriously people go out of their way to "manage their time" around a game.

Kinda sad really.