Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Real life needs to take priority over online gaming. Spending time with friends and having fun needs to take priority over most things even in real life. Sure, we need to work for a living but when it comes down to either spending a night out for a friend’s birthday or wanting to wake up early to go for a long run, you can rest assured I usually wake up late with a headache. Some things can wait, but friends might not always be there.

That said, going to baseball games (Go Phils!), bike rides, days at the beach, camping trips, etc. have all taken up time I would normally spend playing RS. This is fine with me. My playing always takes a dive in the summer, every indoor activity does. I spend 8am-6pm in an office and when I get home I want to be outside. I’m convinced I am solar powered. I hate being inside, except to either watch the Olympics, the Tour de France or baseball. In the winter I can’t stand to fight the slush and wind and generally stay inside more. When I first moved to Manhattan, people thought I was from California because I was so adverse to the cold. I would tell them I’m from 99 miles south of this glorious island, they would tell me I should be used to the winters. Let me just say, you do not get used to it. All that time indoors those months drives me to stay outdoors these months.

That said, I travel about 2-3 weeks a month for work. Being in these strange cities has made me play a little more often than previous summers. This leads to a few different things. The first is, playing more makes me want to play more. The second, playing more makes me want to be inside playing more. I would have no problem with this if the conditions were miserable outside. However, its gorgeous. Some of this has been alleviated by being able to play outside on the deck using my laptop, while firing up the grill. The other point this brings up is that the more I play, the more goals and ambitions I set for myself in the game.

Playing roughly an hour a day, more on weekends and maybe about 2-3 hours when away on work trips has definitely made me into a “better” player. By that I mean, I’ve gotten more levels than I normally would have. However being less than 100k from an Attack level, and instead of being able to bang it out in a session, it takes about 3 days is incredibly frustrating. With that limited time, I try to get in the chores I can (definitely battlestaves, might sacrifice the pineapples though), then I’m usually indecisive as to what I should work on because its too insignificant to make any real kind of impact. My RS life has been hectic and part of me feels a little bad not devoting time to it. New friends meeting old ones (worlds collide!) and getting along, new friends in general, fun new clan events to places I’ve never been before, enough 99 parties to almost match the amount of real life weddings I’ve had to attend lately.

Part of me just wants to take a week off. A week off from work. A week off from all obligations and just play the game. Would I then be satisfied? A week is a long time with all those hours to play each and every day. I could get so much accomplished! I only have 30 quests left and I haven’t quested in about a month, I could easily finish that with a week off. 7 days, roughly 4-5 quests a day, definitely do-able. Think of all the Agility tickets that I could have. All the Cooking xp that would lead to my cape trimming. All those steels just waiting to drop a dragon face that I’ve wanted so bad. I guess this is just the mindset of your addicted player. Maybe the playing less is making me appreciate it more. Since I have so little time, I’m spending more time preparing for what I want to do as to not waste any time when I log in. Those 15 minutes of dazing off at work are usually RS induced by glancing at high scores. Since I get this much xp/hr, I can level at that in 15 mins, then make the quick hop over to *insert skill here* where I can almost level, but I’ll definitely get it tomorrow.

Maybe a vacation from real life is what we all crave at some point. Escaping reality is a major factor in a lot of players. So here, while I file state forms and call clients, I’m daydreaming of being at home, phone off, tv on, perhaps sipping a cold one and slaying some dragons because I am a mighty warrior. You feel that way too, right?