Breakfast topic: Time is the fire
Somehow I missed the memo that Blizzard was changing the minimap to include an upfront clock, alarm, and stopwatch. It's a pretty neat idea. My favorite part is that you can switch the clock to read local time. This adds to time management tools located in the account setting to limit play time.
As I've mentioned before, I live in Las Vegas . It's a strange place, with time dimensions similar to World of Warcraft. You have to look pretty hard to find a clock or a window in one of the casinos and the floors are like mazes that are designed to disorient you. Why? They want you to stay there and spend your money. As far as I know, WoW has always had a clock, but until yesterday, you had to hover your mouse over it to see the time. You can always look around the room. I don't know how many times I've checked the time and wondered where the time went. I found it nice tonight to have it right in front of me.
One part of me thinks that Blizzard is acting too much like a babysitter. By the time we start playing WoW, we may have some concept of time management. Though some folks truly have a problem with gaming, I think most players can manage their time responsibly without these bells and whistles. I'm sure at some point it'll come in handy. For instance, if I'm waiting for a friend to come over, I can set the alarm to go over before she's due to arrive. You could set it to remind yourself that the WoW Insider show is starting at 3:30 PM.
The stopwatch could be useful for keeping an eye on queue times, or measuring encounters. If nothing else, I'll probably use it for cooking, since I hate the timer on my stove. I usually use AV for that now anyway, which is imperfect. Or maybe I'll just keep doing what I've always done, and ignore the new toys.
What are you going to do to with your clock?
