Playtime and Session Length

[LauraMars]

Hi.

So I've played Armageddon for almost 8 years now, and after a hiatus of a couple of years I've been back playing the game for a few months!  

I'm loving it, it is as immersive and rich an experience as I remember!

However, I'm no longer in a position in my life where I can sit down and play the game for 4-8 hour stretches - I have plenty of free time, I just don't have long, uninterrupted chunks of free time in which to really dig in and be absorbed.  However, before my hiatus, that's how I played Armageddon - lots and lots of time investment and lots of long, immersive, 4+ hour roleplay sessions.  Getting back into the swing of things while having less uninterrupted time to give to the game has been challenging - occasionally I won't log on, because I fear I'll have to leave in the middle of some awesome scene - you can't easily pause Armageddon to go attend to real life the way you can pause other games.

Is it possible to have crazy good times without investing crazy long times into the game?  Does anybody have any strategies to share?

[RogueGunslinger]

I'm in much the same situation. My strategy is to keep people informed when I log back in.. and make sure everyone's aware(in clan) of my sporadic playtime's, and frequent need to log out. With quit-ooc you can really do almost anything you could do before, when you were able to do long stretches.

The most important things is to realize you're playing this game for your own fun, don't let other people expectations of how you should be logged in affect you. Most people are very accommodating of low-playtimes of frequent gone/loggers. You can be in a leadership position with this sort of schedule easily.

Don't ever be afraid or pressured to keep playing for other people benefit. That's then the game can be very frustrating.

[boog]

I have the same problem, for real. It's nearly impossible to even have 1 hour of uninterrupted time: during the day, it's sometimes possible, at night? It's hard when your children wake up randomly to nurse or because they had a bad dream or aren't feeling well.

I guess my only strategy is to suggest logging in at peak to play with others and, if you can, during the day to try to skill up or do more personal, solo-RP things for an hour or two. I was doing that for a few weeks and it seemed to work out alright!

[Riev]

Echoing what RGS said, except unfortunately though I've grown up, my schedule allots for some crazy playtime sessions. You can kind of do anything you could before, with quit-ooc if you really need to get out. If you're in a clan, let them know what your playtimes are like, so you can strike some sort of middle ground.

Though I hear you, and have often honestly held back needing to go pee because "Man we should really get inside the gates soon" and then 2 hours later its that scene from the Drew Carey show, where its almost as good as sex. Sometimes, you just have to get up and leave.

Trust me. The less you let us have of you, the more we want you! ..... ?

[Fujikoma]

I think older players getting well-justified skill boosts would be a good thing, hardly no one is a loser like me with no life, how can they be expected to keep up with that? And you don't have to win the sparring matches to be a respected leader, you just have to be a good leader. But a newb looking to earn some skills, yeah, 24/7 style south Korean grind until we can cut you fuckers. Have to give us some hope, you see?

Still, because of my personal disposition, I think maybe investing a lot of time in the game should count for something, as it is, I feel like my skills are paralyzed until someone pays attention and realizes I'm using them often enough, and under the right circumstances. I shouldn't have to emote every time I haggle for an hour over a rock, then be stuck without any advancement for a while until someone realizes, hey, this guy is actually KIND of doing it. Also, haggling over rocks is silly. You gotta make a little room for a guy who overdoes things, not a lot, just a little.

The time I invest usually ends in death anyway so let's skip the formalities and stop being so skeptical.

Then Karma, I never expect to see a point, but I'd love to try to play a desert elf and see how it's done, or use an extended subguild, or better, BOTH. I'm not about to request account notes because, feck, I really don't want to hear it. I don't. I don't care. I like playing in the game world because it's interesting and yeah, sometimes I fail to interact properly, and sometimes I'm driven into a rage by people who ooc shit that upsets me, but it's ok, because I don't respond really, and, because they tend to disappear. Few who don't, but figure eventually they'll come around, or disappear too. And some characters are just built as shitheads because some people like that sort of thing.

I will never RP every single thing I do, but I will pay respectful attention to the environment around me to try and discern when it is necessary.

This rant was brought to you by the letter P.

[Wastrel]

Really...how much grinding is there in this game?

Seems contrary to what its all about...

[ShaLeah]

Really...how much grinding is there in this game?

Seems contrary to what its all about...

It's a combination of both. You want your character to get some kind of skill, or else, why would we need guilds/subguilds. Some people (imho) play the code primarily, they wanna chop muthafuckaz up with bone swords. Me? I play the story first and play the code accordingly. I've had merchants who never made an arrow and thieve's who never stole, assassins who never murdered.
To each their own.

[Fujikoma]

Honestly, I enjoy interacting with other characters more. But I recognize the necessity of being able to chop mothafuckas up with bone swords if the need arises. I also notice how easy it is for them to get away. This is a secondary concern, firstly, I enjoy the character interaction, but I don't think good character interaction leads to badass chop mothafuckas up with boneswords skills or not, and I kind of need that, depending on what kind of character I'm trying to play.

So, to me, for once, the code comes secondary, but it's not far behind. My characters have a very real need to be able to back up their words, even if they're not running their mouths all the time.

Mostly, chopping up mothafuckas comes secondary to saving mothafuckas from other shit, even if my character is not particularly fond of them, and there are plenty of IC reasons for that if you play a non-human, kind of demonstrates your dominance and importance when someone is forced to admit they owe you their life. OOC I don't like seeing characters die, it makes me feel bad.

[LauraMars]

Really...how much grinding is there in this game?

Seems contrary to what its all about...

It's a combination of both. You want your character to get some kind of skill, or else, why would we need guilds/subguilds. Some people (imho) play the code primarily, they wanna chop muthafuckaz up with bone swords. Me? I play the story first and play the code accordingly. I've had merchants who never made an arrow and thieve's who never stole, assassins who never murdered.
To each their own.

Yeah, I'm the same way.  Story first, code second.  If I was all about the code, I could easily just play a ranger in the wastes and forage and raise my skill and log out when I needed to without a problem...but nah, that ain't my thing.

[ponycorns]

I play small bursts too. I lose out on many of the big RPs, but I just accept that. Found I can still have great fun through it. The shift between the two play-styles [as I once had longer times also] isn't that bad really. Learned not to compare my PC's growth to others. Hopefully this is encouraging!

[Drayab]

I manage to find time to play by negotiating with my family for 'me' time and by sticking to a schedule of when I'm going to play and when it's family time. I'm lucky that I've got an accommodating family, plus I don't have kids.

[Harmless]

The easiest way to enjoy this game with crappy playtimes is to devote complete IC loyalty to either a clan or a person or group of other players, so that your sudden disappearances will never be questioned and your casual playtimes do not go unappreciated.

When I realized I can play this game happily while being a minion/bitch, I basically got hooked. Ever since I have been a casual player who generally gets involved in plots due to being supported and appreciated.

I have since become an addicted minion, and have honed my knowledge of the code to a ridiculous degree. I play the code often during off-peak when there's shit else to do; my life forces me to only be able to play off peak 20% of the time. Combine that with being long lived, and my PCs are pretty much fully branched in no time. (sort of. I tend to be lazy on branching skills I don't need ICly, but who cares? Every guild and subguild tends to give too much variety than what is really needed, so I call "fully branched" being able to function for my concept.)

[Case]

Since I got real lifed, I don't have the time to play like I did during/after the earthquakes. 10 hours stretches daily have become 10 hours fortnightly. It changes how involved you can be, significantly. You have a lesser impact, you have less opportunity to react to things as they occur. I don't believe this is fixable, although I have had good results tailoring the PCs I play accordingly. If I don't have time to be lynchpin, I won't play one. It doesn't exclude me from playing leadership, I just can't be the sole leader. I've found the best results in narrowing my focus, as Harmless says, and doing one thing predictably and (I hope) well. It might not be as epic or as powerful or important... but it's satisfying and fun. That's what the game is about.

[Lizzie]

Agree with Harmless and Case - best way for me to enjoy Arm, IS to not play 4-6 hours at a stretch..and best way for me to not feel obligated to do that, is to AVOID roles where I'm responsible for other characters.

So for instance when I play a merchant - I'm happier when I don't have specifically assigned underlings. If I know a guy, who knows a guy, who can get me some pelts, sure - go ahead and grab'em and drop them off and I'll get you some sids or make you a pretty breastplate. But if you're my -employee- I get grumpy, because now I'm "officially" responsible for you. You answer to me, which means I'm supposed to give you orders. I can't tell you "I have nothing, take a month off." If I go on vacation, the whole world starts wondering why my clan is inactive and non-functional. But as an independent, with no minions of my own, all the pressure is off and I get to relax and enjoy my role.

As a minion, it's fun too, for the same reasons. I only have one person to answer to, and my "answering to them" requires that we're both on at the same time. So when they're not around, I can enjoy just playing my character, either being a little code-junky or tavern-sitting or exporing the world or interacting with others, for a couple of hours. As soon as I'm promoted to a role of "responsibility" and told to go forth and seek ye a crew...my enjoyment gets cut in half.

Adding in edit: I also find that being in a clan, with an existing crew, when the leader is either absent or inaffective, cuts my enjoyment.  There's always someone in a crew of people you didn't hand-pick yourself, who you aren't going to get along with. There'll always be someone who insists on doing things one way, while you insist on doing things another way. Without a boss to tell you to do things *his* way.. it just turns into unneccessary, pointless, time-wasting drama.

[Norcal]

Still, because of my personal disposition, I think maybe investing a lot of time in the game should count for something, as it is, I feel like my skills are paralyzed until someone pays attention and realizes I'm using them often enough, and under the right circumstances. I shouldn't have to emote every time I haggle for an hour over a rock, then be stuck without any advancement for a while until someone realizes, hey, this guy is actually KIND of doing it. Also, haggling over rocks is silly. You gotta make a little room for a guy who overdoes things, not a lot, just a little.

This paragraph makes it seem as if skill increases are done by staff.  While this might be possible I think it is an exception rather than the rule, and probably only done through request.  In my -limited- understanding, skill increases depend on a lot of things, including the wisdom stat of your PC. I was taught IC a good way to steadily increase skills. This method can easily be picked up IC and is very compatible with random and even relatively short chunks of play.

[Kismetic]

Is it possible to have crazy good times without investing crazy long times into the game?

Yes and no.  I find I enjoy the game more when I have more time to put into it.  When I do go away, the time I manage to put into it is more maintenance on whatever relationships my character has.  That said, there are still moments you can be lucky to stumble on, and sometimes they take less than ten RL minutes to enjoy.

[Fathi]

I too can only play in short-ish spurts these days and I've found that the best thing I can do to get the most out of my shorter logins is to maintain a consistent-ish schedule and be visible to the people I want to interact with.

Even if my hours are sporadic to the extent that I don't play some days (or even most days) and can't always play for a great amount of time, I do my best to log on consistently around the same hours so that way other people will bring the RP to me.

It's easier to maximise the ratio of good RP vs. sitting around waiting for stuff to happen if people know they can come to your character and find them at a certain time of the day, even if you aren't around for hours. There's also the added benefit that your clanmates or friends or enemies or whoever won't be constantly searching for your PC and assume you're never around. People you've never met who are looking for your PC will hear through the grapevine, "oh yeah, she's usually available about a day or so from now."

While everyone has a few memories of those crazy hours-long RPTs or epic scenes that were like 6+ hours in length, I've found that you really don't need more than a solid hour or two to get the most out of just about any type of RP. The key is to start that hour of awesome as soon as you log on, so that way you won't feel curtailed or have to log on halfway through.

[boog]

While everyone has a few memories of those crazy hours-long RPTs or epic scenes that were like 6+ hours in length, I've found that you really don't need more than a solid hour or two to get the most out of just about any type of RP. The key is to start that hour of awesome as soon as you log on, so that way you won't feel curtailed or have to log on halfway through.

Oh, goodness. This is hard, though, if you have to walk the desert, or across an entire city-state. I feel bad when, in the interest of time, I spam walk. :<

[RogueGunslinger]

While everyone has a few memories of those crazy hours-long RPTs or epic scenes that were like 6+ hours in length, I've found that you really don't need more than a solid hour or two to get the most out of just about any type of RP. The key is to start that hour of awesome as soon as you log on, so that way you won't feel curtailed or have to log on halfway through.

Oh, goodness. This is hard, though, if you have to walk the desert, or across an entire city-state. I feel bad when, in the interest of time, I spam walk. :<

I wish more people WOULD spam walk when there's little time. I think everyone pretty much thinks it's okay to start hauling ass if the gates are going to close or something like that.

[Barzalene]

I tried to post this but ended in the wrong thread by mistake. What I was trying to say was with less time I enjoy it more.

[Suhuy]

Is it possible to have crazy good times without investing crazy long times into the game?  Does anybody have any strategies to share?

In my experience, long-lived and/or high-profile roles tend to be played by people with very limited amounts of online time. In fact, one of the best ways to court power is to use absence to increase respect and honor (I'm quoting the 48 Laws of Power here FYI). I don't know about having "crazy good times", that depends on the individual, but you can definitely get involved in the game world with only a little bit of time each day or even every couple of days. I don't think anyone should feel discouraged about playing when they can't login for 4+ hour sessions and things like that. The game needs mature players and usually those are the people with limited time on their hands. So play away