Comments on: How do you find the time?

By: Cat

Cat — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:52:04 +0000

I set aside one or two nights a week as “raid night” – where I am for all intents and purposes unavailable except for genuine family dramas. I sneak an hour here or there outside that time (generally late night) to do dailies to make money for raiding.
The flip side of that is that I offer my wife one or two nights a week off to do her thing the same way (not WoW). I take care of any child-related drama and she can do whatever she likes without interruption. Of course, with a 6-month old breastfeeding baby, there is only so much I can do, but the intent is there.
The problems come in when you try to extend it. So we fail to clear Kara on Wed, and the call goes out “same time tomorrow”. Well, at that point I have to discipline myself to say no, because I want my second raid night to be SSC or Gruul, not a couple of bosses in Kara. It’s very easy to justify it to yourself – “it’s not even a full raid night, maybe an hour, etc” but what the wife sees is you pushing the limits and taking 3 raid nights a week when you agreed to 2, and the seeds of the famed “wife aggro” are sown.
Agree dedicated raid time with your partner, offer vice versa, and stick to it.

By: Kheldar

Kheldar — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:24:51 +0000

yep its a problem for me to.

we have a 6 month old baby so wow time is more limited as i need time for him and to help out the wife or let her get some free adult time.

pre-bc i raided mc/bwl/aq40/zg/aq20 etc etc

now i just try to do a couple of heroics during the week with weekends off limits to wow – apart from a few daily’s and some ah checking.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:31:09 +0000

I’ve cut back alot too. (well, in process of). My wife also plays, has more alts than I do. Her main is 69 and climbing. My druid alt hit 70 a few weeks ago, my main is in a BT raiding guild. My alt #3 is 49 and in my friend from school’s guild. All of this means i have alot of stuff i feel responsible to do. Get the druid epiced out. Get the kara key. Get the tanking stuff. Get mount money. Finish professions. And that’s on the druid. Raider? Do Isle of QS for repairs, run around looking for herbs for pots. My 49 lock? Questing and ocassional instance.

Folks that’s alot of time commitement. (plus all the forums and blogs looking for upgrades and research). I decided it was crazy to keep up. I’m shelving my druid unless my wife wants me to play. I absolutely love her but dont have time. I’m shelving my 49 lock. I’m continuing raiding for 3 nights a week. I’m not doing Isle of QS. I’m buying all my pot needs. I’ll do this until i go dead broke then maybe just cut back on raiding to farm a bit. I plan to do max 15 hours a week. I instituted parental controls to only let me play at certain times.

Last week I probably played 50 hours. It’s addicting pure and simple, but not an addiction. I don’t have withdrawl symptoms. Anyway, wish me luck.

By: Bubbleguts

Bubbleguts — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:22:10 +0000

I feel your pain. The wow time isn’t as easy to pull together as it was when i was 19 and could just skip class to hit those last couple lvls (on DAOC of course). With family responsibilities and friends in different cities that I rarely get to visit in person anymore, it’s easy to hop on and telecommute with my buddies, but if I’m not on lvling a toon every night for mutliple hours, I fall 10 lvls behind in no time. Not to mention trying to maintain a relationship with my extremely tolerant and loving wife… Now I finally have a 70, but I’m undergeared and not in a serious raiding guild like my friend with 3 lvl 70s. It’s wild. But for all the frustration that comes with making sacrifices, it’s still fun to hop on and pwn some alli just for fun in the bgs before bed. And there’s always a day off every so often to just play till my eyeballs explode :D

By: bigbearbutt

bigbearbutt — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:49:32 +0000

Wow, a lot of great reposnses, and what I seem to hear is that most of you have made the same decision I have, and intentionally cut back on playing to make sure your family comes first. Awesome!

A few people seem to think I might have been talking about trying to find a balance between life and WoW… I feel like we’ve got that without a problem, my thing is just realizing that I keep feeling like “Oh, a little isntance won’t be that big a deal”, and then when the time comes, going, “whoops, no time for one now! I must have figured wrong”

I do like the idea of setting aside one night a week for banging around with friends on a light eharted run, and then spending some time one the weekend doing something more intensive. It sounds doable.

For those of you that simply don’t play until the family is in bed, and then drop sleep time to play, I will say that while I do that on weekends to some extent, I just can’t do it during the week.

I live in teh same time zone as my server time… and I have to be at work at 5 AM… which means I get up at 4. So… just staying up until 10 means that I get 5 hours of sleep each night. No midnight runs for me! At least, not without knowing darn well I’m going to be paying the piper later. :)

Seriously, though, it’s real nice to see so many of you have found a good balance between playing and life… and that where the decision comes down, you choose life. Rock on.

By: Softi

Softi — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:15:47 +0000

I’m lucky that I can stay at home with my boys, and both the hubby and I play wow, so we each understand why the other wants to play so much. Typically I won’t really log on to ‘do’ anything during the day, maybe check mail quickly and ah a couple of things while the kids sleep, other than that I don’t log on til after they’re in bed, so usually around 7.30-8pm. That’s assuming I’ve managed to catch up on reading blogs, written a post of my own, and done the chores around the house that need done.
The other half plays more often. He’s more likely to play with the baby on his lap and do dailies, get the toddler to ‘help him’ run around and such to help him kill things etc. He currently raids 3 nights a week and it likely to be on most nights. On those nights, I look after the baby when he wakes for a feed, and on his nights off he (usually!) does the same for me.
It makes a huge difference with both of us playing, although we very rarely get to play *together* anymore, which kinda sucks :(
I usually forgo instances and raiding cause I know I’m gonna have to go /afk at some point and I don’t want a group to have to wait around for lil old me, even though my friends are happy for me to be on follow at times!
Now do you see why I have so many lowbie alts? Low lvls = easy questing with kids! ;)

By: Pablo

Pablo — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:56:55 +0000

I’m fortunate in that my wife is a nurse and works overnights for three nights a week. This allows me time to schedule gametime, since I try not to play (or at least not instance) when she’s home. The kids go to bed at 9, and are old enough to tuck themselves in, so that’s not a concern. I still don’t play as much as I like. I’m still catching up to the rest of my friends gearwise, so raiding SSC isn’t really in the cards just yet. Still several of our little friends and family ‘guild-within-a-guild’ group get togetner once a week on non-25-man nights. Our target of choice has been Zul’Aman, since the rest of them are geared out of and bored to tears with Kara. ZA is great because it’s so short. We’ll try to run the first three bosses on one week night, and then pick up the rest of the instance on a weekend. Works ok as long as schedules mesh.

By: Jagoex

Jagoex — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:49:37 +0000

What would I do?

I would spend that time with my family.

I say that with ease now, but guarantee that had you asked this same question anywhere from 1-2 years ago, I would have answered differently.

Too many sacrifices added up over time, however, and so I had to make a choice. It wasn’t about anyone getting upset at me doing something I enjoyed or anything like that… it was about the memories I was missing out on, and replacing them with an experience that would mean nothing to me down the road.

So, I changed things up a bit. Invested some of my day/work time to WoW to justify the time I spent with it, and gave the rest of my time to my wife and now my new baby girl. There’s much better balance this way, for me, and I can sleep knowing my daughter gets as much time from me as possible. :)

Hope you find a balance, BBB. Good luck bro.

By: arnold

arnold — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:36:22 +0000

Basically, I had to quit wow for lack of time. now I get my fix by reading your blog…. Enjoy it for me ;)

By: Stupid Mage

Stupid Mage — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:22:09 +0000

I usually put play time off until everyone is a asleep – kids put to bed, wife put to sleep with a back rub. Which means I don’t log until about 10:00. The singles are often on already and the marrieds may or may not be. As soon as we have enough people, we go for it.

Typically I go to bed around 12:00. Wow is truly evil. As much as I love it, it’s evil. I never get anything good unless I push and play until 1:00.