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The Daily Grind: What game did you spend the most time not playing?
Picture this: it's Saturday afternoon, and you're absolutely determined that you're going to spend some time leveling up in your game of choice. It could be World of Warcraft, it could be Star Trek Online, it could be anything. But you log in, and you note that before you go to town, you just need to check up on your auctions. And, oh, right, there's a bit of crafting you should do. Plus an old friend sent you a letter, you should respond, and the next thing you know four hours have passed and you have to log off without having gotten a single experience point. This doesn't mean that the time spent was a wash, naturally, but looking back you didn't really wind up playing the game so much as existing in the game space whilst doing other things. Sometimes you might even have more fun playing the auctioneer, but it's still time spent in a game all about orc-punching wherein no orcs were punched. So when did you spend the most time not actually playing the game you were logged in with? Was it in-game business that needed your attention, or were you alt-tabbing away until you lost track of time? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Gone fishing?
If you came from an alien world and had to evaluate our culture based solely on our MMOs... well, you'd probably conclude unpleasant things about our culture, but that's not the point. You would certainly come away with the impression that one of the most important hobbies we possess is fishing, considering how many games it shows up in. Nearly any fantasy game (and several others) will give you the opportunity to stand next to a body of water with a rod, cast your line, and wait for a while until a fish bites. Or until you realize that you're paying $15 a month to play a game that accurately simulates how mind-numbingly tedious fishing can actually be. Do you like fishing in MMOs? For some of us, yes, it's the sort of thing we look at once or twice and swiftly conclude isn't what we'd like to spend our time doing. For others, however, the calm and tranquility of just standing by the water, taking a look at the virtual landscape, and relaxing a bit is a welcome change from the pace of the game as a whole. Do you prefer when it's there, do you miss it if it's not, or are you completely uninterested in fishing?
