Sea otters hold hands while napping so that they don’t drift away. Yes, that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard, and I live with three small people who make it their hobby to try to top each other in cuteness. There’s something about sticking together that tugs on our hearstrings — and speaks to our deep fear of being alone.
Anyway, this is a roundabout way of getting into my topic for today, which is how I sometimes envy folks who have that “one” game that they’re sticking with for a good long time. Back in my pre-children era, when most MMOs were subscription, it was a lot easier to be this monogomous-type gamer. I had City of Heroes, or World of Warcraft, or Warhammer Online, or Lord of the Rings Online — and that was pretty much it. There was no deciding every night what I was going to play, just whether I was going to play or not.
My envy comes mostly from knowing that those gamers can really deeply invest themselves into a game. They can get through all of the content. They can be a big part of their guilds. They can do dungeons and other challenging bits. They always know what’s going on with their specific game community and have a greater wealth of knowledge on this one MMO. Sometimes I feel that they are the ones that “belong” and I am merely a transient, visiting but not living there. An outsider.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to go back to that style of play. It might make more sense for a time-strapped gamer dad to do so, sure, but I enjoy bouncing around too much to settle down. I like having variety on any given night. I am glad that sampling multiple games gives me a wider perspective on MMOs. With most MMOs offering a bulk of the content to the solo gamer, I don’t feel that left out. And I know that sticking with one game only — for me — is a recipe for eventual burnout and crashing. A more diverse portfolio means that any time I near the burnout zone, I can easily switch my attention elsewhere and not have to encounter that danger.
Still… once in a while I look across the aisle and I have that wistful twinge. I wouldn’t mind belonging like they do, but I’m not going to trade what I have to get it.
Bio Break 
As long as you’re having fun, there’s no wrong way to play.
I’ve done my share of bouncing around, but I’m too used to the oldskool ideas where one game was it. I always felt like in playing so many games at once, I wasn’t getting the full experience, and was getting pulled in too many directions. But then, I had to find a game that could hold me for a long-term, and it’s been a while since I’ve found that kind of game.
I still dabble in other games on the side just to try things out, but I’ve come to terms with the idea that FFXIV is going to be my exclusive sub game, and the one I put most my time into. A year and a half into playing and I still have lots to do. That’s the perk of being a slow player, though. 🙂
Frankly, I don’t know how you handle bouncing around from game to game so much, Syp. For me, sitting down to my one or two main games is much like sinking into a good book. Its comforting to really just engross myself in it for a couple hours. I can’t understand wanting to hit 4 different games in the same night. It seems like just as you really got going in one, its time to stop. To rip yourself from that immersion and then have to repeat the process over. I have three kids and get enough of hopping around from one to the next when they are awake.
Strangely enough, I’m a hopper at heart. It’s a rare game that can hold my attention for a long period of time, and every so often I will still have to branch out and start playing another game hardcore for a couple of days to a month before I can refocus back to the designated ‘in it for the long term’ game.
I don’t know that “belonging” is automatically out of the question even if you play multiple MMOs at a go though. I really feel that it’s about how deeply you invest in relationship building in a game – for example, one could make it a point to just attend a regular guild event weekly for an hour and if you interact, over time, folks get to know you.
I never played A Tale in the Desert monogamously, but because I wanted to progress, and progress there is easier when you’re socially connected, I made it a point to say hi to my neighbours, chat up some nice veterans and so on.
Conversely, I was playing Glitch at the same time and played it completely solo, never talking to a single soul. Ditto City of Heroes, really, I never made any deep connections in that game beyond the overall forum community, it was just one random PUG after another.
I guess maybe it’s more of a problem inherent to traditional gear grind MMOs where one is only encouraged to socialize with people of roughly the same level or gear quality, where lowbies have nothing to offer veterans or have many opportunities to play with or alongside them.
I am sure somebody is looking at you wishing they could play as many games at once. Everybody has their method.
I have found over the years that I really need to stick to 1 or maybe 2 games at a time, plus EVE Online, which is barely a game at all. Going beyond that means one gets neglected which, oddly enough, burns me out much quicker than too much focus. It just makes me feel exhausted trying to keep that extra ball in the air and getting around to it becomes a chore, something I feel I *need* to do versus what I want to do.
I also find that 1 game(MMO) is max for me at the moment, especially with my parent and husband duties eating most of my time, getting into other games is hard, I even find picking up an alt at the moment too distracting. But having 1 main game, I do like to hop around for lighter distractions every so often… although I have found that my technical restrictions and lack of cash have seriously prevented this is recent years. Oh to be able to power up the PS for a quick blast of gaming are things of the past and (hopefully) future 🙂
I can’t dabble anymore either. With sporadic play already, remembering what I was doing, where I was going, how to actually *play* each game is enough to make me not play if I have too many titles juggled at once.
Right now I have only been playing baseball on my PS4. Before that, just TSW (which I still want to play..) and soon it will be the EQ progression server. I may try to play all three of those but that will probably be it.
I miss one game like I used to as well. I felt so much more connected to the game and players in them. First, just EQ. Then DAOC. Then WoW. Those where the three games I was (and will probably ever be..) the most invested in.
I play fewer MMOs concurrently than I’d like. Right now I seem to struggle with more than three. The three on the go at present are GW2, EQ2 and DNO and the time allocated to them is very unbalanced, with GW2 getting around 80%, EQ2 10%, and Dragon Nest Oracle 5%.
At least with those three I can honestly say I am playing and progressing characters. The final 5% goes to a whole bunch of MMOs I do no more than update or log into for a few minutes every now and again.
I’d love to expand the number of MMOs I’m playing regularly and meaningfully to half a dozen and split the time much more evenly between them but it doesn’t seem to be happening. It takes *so long* to get anything done in an MMO even in these supposedly casual-friendly days. Smed’s “45 minute sessions” make me laugh – I can’t even get my bags sorted on a single character in less than two hours in some titles.
I would really love some genuinely casual MMOs to come along where I can play for half an hour and see satisfying, meaningful character progression. Don’t believe it will ever happen though.
After spending the last few years hopping about, i made the decision to stick with one MMO. It all came down to realizing that all the new eye candy and options weren’t making me happy. I missed the consistency and community of playing with a steady guild and friends.
I go back and forth on this topic a lot, in the past month I’ve written a couple of posts on it. Part of me wants to go back to the early days of playing a single game but I always reach a point about a month or two into a game where I’m ready for something new.
Right now I’m trying to stay with one traditional MMO- SWTOR- and bring variety to my gaming with more casual titles like Marvel Heroes and Trove. That seems to work, but lately Trove has been keeping my interest and playing SWTOR is less compelling. Yep, it’s been two months, so that’s about right.