It’s certainly been an unprecedented year for all of us, especially with the coronavirus impacting pretty much all spheres of our daily life. Even MMORPGs weren’t immune to the pandemic, with many titles experiencing content delays, development teams transitioning to working from home, and conventions cancelled left and right.
But now that we’re in the home stretch of 2020, I’m curious how this global event may have influenced your gaming habits as you look back over the year. Did working from home give you more time to sneak a quick game session or two? Did you pour a lot of interest into a single title in an effort to escape reality? Did you branch out and try some different titles?
Cast your mind back over the last eight or so months and take stock of your MMO gaming: What did the pandemic change about how you played, if it did at all?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
I have more time to play, but have less interest in interacting with other players.
I used to be on the road for work 3 days a week so I only got to play Fri-Sun. I still do most of my playing (SWTOR) Fri-Sun, but I will log in on the former off days to check mail, see what is in the Cartel Market and on Tuesdays to collect the reward for finishing the Conquest missions. I also played two single player RPGs. But that’s about it.
It didn’t
Pandemic did make me get properly into WAR: RoR.
I’d tried it out a few times in the past but didn’t stick around long, this time got an ironbreaker to R40 RR51 and had some fun. Felt nice hanging out with lots of people again, I probably spent more time in RoR this year than I have in all other mmos combined over the last 7 years…..so, about a month :P
Mostly though, no changes to gaming. Other lifestyle changes (non pandemic related) did make me change my habits a bit, I now seek out more intense games or at least approach games more intensely. No more monging out with chilled out games…..
It hasn’t changed since the last time you asked this question.
A bit!
In other words, I got out more, did more online gaming with people I knew, and attempted to have the gaming I did to be more shallow so I could drop it, instead of tempting me to literally spend all day diving into systems. For others, it worked differently, but I have the life the past year of someone who could get totally sucked into gaming, but can pull back, but still wants to not quit cold turkey, so the pandemic’s changes just reinforced this necessity to pull back.
It might have changed my partner’s gaming more. He has time in the morning to game, sometimes with others (RTSes), time for an unmonitored break in the day to just do whatever and that can include gaming, and he’s taken more chances to play past 11, 11:30, midnight sometimes to finish something in a game instead of ready sleep before that. Work also starts later and ends later, but for the most part if it wasn’t for the loss of socialization, I think he likes this schedule more. Its even been fun for him to mix coding and cooking just steps apart from each other haha.
It could be much worse. I can see in the other comments some examples. I’m unemployed, with some very close opportunities recently, but I don’t see my schedule changing too much once I’m working again. I just know that I am unlikely to get very active in any particular MMO with the habits and tech I have right now. Get me hooked on a single MMO and a great PC of my own with modern hardware? … well, the door’s open. But not right now.
Not much as mmo gaming goes (as not much have changed with mmos). But I am going through a bunch of the single player games I haven’t had time to play.
I have become so much closer to my FC friends in Final Fantasy 14. Our Discord is very much like a “hub” of activity for us. We create so many wonderful activities that are RP related and fits so very well within the game itself. An example is on Malboro server my FC is the largest by far, however, one of the most unique things we do for each other in our FC is the FC Cafe we’ve created.
You would find tables, wait staff, cooks in the back, and entertainment in the form of our many Bards we have in FC. Tipping is NOT mandatory, but greatly appreciated. We are able to accomplish this by having so many “omni” crafters within our ranks. There is of course food and drink provided to the customers by our Cafe staff. I just so much love being in this FC and being a part of all the activities we do.
I suppose, during this rough time of staying home, I have come to learn patience. It really helps when you so many fantastic people to play FF14 with.
No change at all as my work remained in place. I manage a self storage facility and thankfully didn’t have to close shop at all. If anything, I’ve played more on my laptop AT work due to a lot of downtime with the job type so it’s almost made me bored of my current MMOs, but I feel it’s more of a lack of new MMOs that is the culprit. That and delayed expansions/content patches, ahem FFXIV and WoW ahem.
It may have reduced it a little, based on having less staffing at work to cover the work needing done. The issue being that hiring people seems to be taking longer for management than normal.
My work doesn’t stop for the pandemic, so otherwise nothing has really changed there.