How do you make the time to actually play this game?

[Megatarius]

What I love the most about Oblivion is that it's single player and you can actually turn it off. You can be an avid Oblivion player, with a rich character life of adventure and action, and yet still find the time to do such things as:

 

Go to work.

Bathe.

Brush your teeth.

Sleep.

Eat.

Have sex.

Get exercise.

Meet people who aren't into the game.

Cultivate new and exciting friendships.

Maintain healthy relationships with friends, family, and significant others.

Travel to foreign countries.

Learn new skills.

Take part in volunteer work, military service, or a church community.

 

The only thing you need is some self control!

 

 

If only.

 

This week, I've been busting my ass trying to get something very important done, and I'm learning once again that the smallest tangible results can take hours or even days of repetive and agonizing work. I don't really mind it. I'm proud of myself for not caving and playing Oblivion when I haven't met milestones or finished things I said I would.

 

But I have been sitting here doing this agonizing and repetitive work, and finding myself thinking, "Damn, when can you actually play this game?"

 

I find that when I start playing it, I don't stop for a long time and it does start encroaching on many of the things above. (Sadly some of them aren't happening anyway. :wallbash: )

 

It's a really good way to flip my sleep schedule upside down, which sometimes has its uses.

 

 

So how do you make the time for this game? I say make and not find, because it's been my observation that you pretty much have to sacrifice something in order to have any real time in this game. It's not quite World of Warcraft, but it can be pretty close sometimes. It's very slow paced, which I like, but that means it takes a lot of time to do anything in it, which I don't.

 

 

It's been several days now. I'm jonesing. It's not quite as bad as that scene from Trainspotting where he sees a dead baby crawling towards him on the ceiling, but I'm jonesing..... :wallbash:

[Netwit2008]

What I love the most about Oblivion is that it's single player and you can actually turn it off. You can be an avid Oblivion player, with a rich character life of adventure and action, and yet still find the time to do such things as:

 

Go to work.

Bathe.

Brush your teeth.

Sleep.

Eat.

Have sex.

Get exercise.

Meet people who aren't into the game.

Cultivate new and exciting friendships.

Maintain healthy relationships with friends, family, and significant others.

Travel to foreign countries.

Learn new skills.

Take part in volunteer work, military service, or a church community.

 

The only thing you need is some self control!

 

 

If only.

 

This week, I've been busting my ass trying to get something very important done, and I'm learning once again that the smallest tangible results can take hours or even days of repetive and agonizing work. I don't really mind it. I'm proud of myself for not caving and playing Oblivion when I haven't met milestones or finished things I said I would.

 

But I have been sitting here doing this agonizing and repetitive work, and finding myself thinking, "Damn, when can you actually play this game?"

 

I find that when I start playing it, I don't stop for a long time and it does start encroaching on many of the things above. (Sadly some of them aren't happening anyway. :wallbash: )

 

It's a really good way to flip my sleep schedule upside down, which sometimes has its uses.

 

 

So how do you make the time for this game? I say make and not find, because it's been my observation that you pretty much have to sacrifice something in order to have any real time in this game. It's not quite World of Warcraft, but it can be pretty close sometimes. It's very slow paced, which I like, but that means it takes a lot of time to do anything in it, which I don't.

 

 

It's been several days now. I'm jonesing. It's not quite as bad as that scene from Trainspotting where he sees a dead baby crawling towards him on the ceiling, but I'm jonesing..... :wallbash:

 

Ok, I'm rolling on the floor laughing, cause I got the same problem right now. I didn't get to play yesterday or today and it's callin me man, it's callin me, lmao!

I miss a lot of sleep, sometimes I procrastinate (as I've done right now, and like you am scrambling to meet some important deadlines), sometimes I rationalize to make time, which of course is a vicious cycle that leads back to one! :wallbash:

 

I SAY I'll play for an hour or just do one thing, and then I look up and at least 5 hours have passed. Sometimes I use the game as a reward. (ok self, if you get this much work done, then you can play.....lol) :blink:

 

I guess we should be glad there is something that we can do that hurts no one, but we get great enjoyment from. I just wish it wasn't like crack, lol Cause for real....real talk dude? You CAN turn it off?? I swear I didn't know that! :whistling:

[Megatarius]

I was going to say Oblivion isn't like crack, WoW is.

 

 

But now I'm thinking, Oblivion is crack, and WoW is meth.

[Sharkull]

Time is not made. We all have an indeterminate amount of it, spending it as we live, never knowing when we'll run out. Working smarter to get the things done we need to get done allows more discretion in how the rest of our time is spent.

 

The time I spend gaming is basically when I don't have anything better to do (or I am procrastinating, avoiding doing something better... :pinch: ).

[Germandeathkittiez]

Yeah sometimes I play this on like a Friday night and my only clock's on my computer so when I finally shut the game down I realize it's like 2-4 am, or the sun rises. So yeah I lose sleep due to it sometimes, but I don't find myself playing it too frequently except in large bursts every once in a while. Rather I waste more time procrastinating with things like internet/ facebook / just surfin the net / downloading mods.

I usually end up stopping because there's just an empty world with nothing left to do. Either that, or there's too much to do and I get confused.

[Pushkatu]

I spend more time trying to make it better. I download hundreds of mods. I check for new mods every day and I still can't get enough. My problem is that even when I have the perfect load order and everything works fine, no CTDs, no FPS drops, I ruin in by installing another mods that breaks everything apart and everything starts again. I actualy play every 3-4 days and only for a couple of hours before I do something stupid again. But it's FUN and I don't complain about it. :)

[Germandeathkittiez]

I spend more time trying to make it better. I download hundreds of mods. I check for new mods every day and I still can't get enough. My problem is that even when I have the perfect load order and everything works fine, no CTDs, no FPS drops, I ruin in by installing another mods that breaks everything apart and everything starts again. I actualy play every 3-4 days and only for a couple of hours before I do something stupid again. But it's FUN and I don't complain about it. :)

 

Exactly. That's exactly what I do. But with every reinstall Oblivion has only gotten better for me, it's like every time I try out a different group of things and see how they work together and when they don't, I start fresh with new ideas, and now I have a good base of great mods which I've learned all work well together and are compatible with practically anything. So really, you really don't get anywhere with Oblivion without taking risks.

[wizardmirth]

I tell my girlfriend I've been downloading porn rather than modding. It sounds less dirty that way.

 

I took a looooong break since I first found this game. Some people get very absorbed to the point of it being unhealthy, I'm sure. When I first started, I spent a lot of time after work and during the weekend playing and modding this great big crack *explitive deleted* called Oblivion. But then I started going out again and met someone and thankfully I have a lot of different interests anyway I'm passionate about and so I said nay to the beast. (I'm talking about Oblivion here.) Really if it weren't for the modding that makes the game so wonderfully pliable I wouldn't even be going as far as the boards (and only cuz it's Nexus).

 

Now I'm juggling a couple of unfinished projects when I can find the time, which isn't more than an hour or two here or there. Sometimes I even just relax and play the game again, though ultimately I find modding more rewarding. Now I need to decide whether to tidy up my place or mod some more before gf comes over later....

 

hmmm..... what would my Oblivion character do?

[SaijaRii]

I am 19, currently on Christmas break, thats how... But even during the school semester I spend more time playing games then I should, I sacrifice study time, but I still get all my work and research done... What I sacrifice for games has been my social life.

 

I only have two really good friends, one I know in real life, the other over the internet but I am in contact with both of them everyday whether it be through vent, chat, phone, face to face, etc. I've only had one girlfriend (My gaming habit is what broke it, though she seems to think it was her).

 

Different people sacrifice different things, and even though I am not always having fun in this particular game, it always seems eight hours dissappear in this game faster then eight hours ever have in any of the MMOs I've played.

 

The only way I will ever quit my gaming is if it ruins a future marriage or something like that... Sure I am lonely right now, but gaming is to much fun! :biggrin:

 

P.S. I do miss the interaction with other people in MMOs, thank God for X-Fire and Vent, though its not quite the same. Can't wait for V!

 

P.S.S. In responce to Pushaktu (Sp?), yah, sometimes I spend time downloading mods for this game and trying to get them to work proporly then actually playing the game.

[Starsickle]

I can only share the complaint of time sink in terms of a few mechanics in TES games in general that bothered me a little, and the logistics of playing a newer bethsoft game:

 

1. Mods.

 

Too many. Many many small changes, and not enough compilations, not enough use of OMODs wonderful installation options, and such. OMOD is pretty damn powerful, but considering this, everyone seems fine on spending the time to dig around forever with a plethora of mods and their corresponding support and resource files. This is a nono for users, and you should be ashamed.

 

To recap:

- Identifying problems

- Finding mods

- Installing mods

- Testing mods

 

It takes too damn long to get the changes you need because there's little standards. What I propose is for the community to make an effort to compile and organize work. There's just too much in the way of trash mods and experiments (like mine) to really make use of the database - which is made "...to help us, not to F us up!" in the words of Pacino.

 

2. Gameplay

 

Harder to nail down. Morrowind is hampered by training your skills, which is a pain, and invites the temptation to cheat, but maybe that's because they relied a bit too much on combat without having more options like companions.

 

Another possible time - thing is the running around you have to do in most of them. Oblivion made it easy, I like it most in Fallout. Made it very easy to deal with a crummy scenario where there's nothing to see on the way (unnngh) and places you need to be.