Self-Help Guide: Defeating Downtime!
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Amatera on Monday, June 15, 2009 - 20 Comments Tags: Addons, bejeweled, downtime, final fantasy xi, peggle, raids, television, wipes
Amatera on Monday, June 15, 2009 - 20 Comments Tags: Addons, bejeweled, downtime, final fantasy xi, peggle, raids, television, wipes 
Master these bad habits, and you too can be a Lord of Time like Nozdormu!Despite how stressful it can get sometimes, I'm a multi-tasker at heart. When I'm doing one thing, I generally have to be doing two or three others. Got to keep that brain entertained! Though WoW is far from being the worst offender where downtime is concerned (go play Final Fantasy XI!), there are nonetheless those times when waiting on things to happen is just too much to bear, and your mind begins to wander...
As I've already established, I'm especially bad about this. When my guild wipes on a boss, it generally takes anywhere from five to ten minutes to rebuff and get set up for the next attempt, and that's more than enough time for me to begin losing interest. I mean, as a rogue, there's not a whole lot I have to prepare before a fight. Often, I'll just tab out and start reading something on the internet while I wait, and it takes a fellow officer barking at me over Ventrilo about missing the Ready Check to get back into the game.
I'm sorry, it's a habit! I have the attention span of an excited puppy on speed! It gets so bad at times, that I'll be multi-tasking right in the middle of an intense fight.
Regardless of whether I'm just killing some time, or yawning in the middle of a stationary boss battle (hello, Patchwerk!), here are a few of my favorite ADD-friendly activities:
- Watch TV - Television is traditonally a passive medium, and as long as you've got the muscle memory down for a particular encounter, turning your eyes towards the boob tube for a little while probably won't impact your game much. I'm guilty of watching such thought-intensive shows as LOST while raiding, which isn't the best of ideas (hey, not my fault my favorite shows come on during raid nights!), but trash television is absolutely perfect. Turn on a reality show or set your receiver to just about any Discovery Channel network and you're good to go! It'll give you something vaguely interesting to look at when you're bored without having to spare too many synapses. Optionally, movies you've seen before work, too (I'm watching The Last Action Hero while typing this article, in fact)!
- Personal Grooming - We all play Warcraft, sometimes a lot more than we should. And, on some days, this means we may skip the shower or sit around in our dirty boxers all day. Contrary to popular belief, taking care of yourself doesn't need to be hassle, so when you're waiting for a fellow raider to come back from their smoke break or kid aggro, why not pick up a pair of nail clippers and trim those claws of yours? Try brushing your hair or your teeth. I don't think I'd recommend anything too crazy, like shaving or waxing your chest (imagine the yelps of pain over voice chat), but there are plenty of little things you can do to make yourself a tad more acceptable when you crawl out of your cave to grab some midnight burritos.
- Eat! - Feed your face! I can't count the number of times I've come home from work, hungry as a bear in Spring, right around the time a raid starts. Grab whatever deliciously greasy snack you can and pound it down your gullet during or between attempts. Make a little game of it to see how many french fries you can consume while healing through Hard Mode Iron Council!
- Play With Your Dog - Or cat. Or guinea pig. Or whatever. If you've got a pet, force it to entertain you! Got your face smashed in on a fight and staring at the release button? Pick up a damn tennis ball and throw it down the hallway for Fido. Guaranteed to be more fun than waiting for a battle rez! Cats will probably still ignore you, though.
- Play Another Game - Go on. What's stopping you from loading up old classics like Minesweeper and Solitaire. I prefer console games, myself, and usually have one running in the background when there's nothing on TV. Honestly, it's even easier to ignore the raid now that semi-official Peggle and Bejeweled add-ons are available (and you can even set them to pop up when you die, too!).
That's just a small sampling of the things you can do when the chips are down (and some I simply can't mention here). Sure, it may on occasion be a detriment to your group, but at the same time, it's nice to get you head out of the game, if only for a few minutes, so that the stress of constantly wiping or waiting on others doesn't begin to consume you. We all need breaks, and if your raid leader isn't giving you regular "fivers," go ahead and give yourself one. Hey, this is the internet. Nobody needs to know what you're really up to, unless you forget to set your "push to talk" key on Vent!
At the end of the day, I think my suggestions are fairly standard. How do you readers handle the downtime? I'm hoping to hear some rather creative solutions, myself!
Reader Comments (20)
Normally I watch TV or listen to music while at it. I even read "Angels and Demons" in raid time during those times before a new assault at Hodir.
ACK!
As a raid leader, I have to say I've often been frustrated by TV and other distractions while raiding. It definitely can affect performance.
When I lead a raid, I'm giving 100% of my attention for 3+ hours. If it's a new boss, hours of research have already been invested before the raid even begins. So it's disheartening when we wipe due to a silly mistake or hit an enrage timer and you hear your raid members talk about some show or ballgame that is on.
We do schedule a 5 minute break every hour or so. We time it with our flask expiration. I agree it's good to clear your head, but doing other stuff while raiding is a recipe for disaster as far as I'm concerned.
I usually don't do too much else if I'm doing group things, but sometimes while I'm waiting on groups to finish getting members and such I'll have my DS with me playing a game and watching the screen for the last member to join up.
I have an Attention Disorder (nothing to major), so I can't always keep my focus on one thing. Playing games is a way of me to train my attention-keeping, but sometimes it gets all a bit to gray.
Whenever anyone's on a mana break, I grab those few seconds to go downstairs and grab a snack. I am tanking most of the time (great role to have AD with :D) so they HAVE to wait for me and they WILL because it's never easy to get another tank.
Second thing is when we're doing a raid and we're waiting for someone or someone isn't ready yet, I tend to go rewatch the tactics. That way I'm not bored and still feel 'engaged'.
BTW, a guildie of mine used to have his cat at his desk and play with her while WoWing. One night, we heard a loud, high-pitched "AAAAAAAAAAHH", apparently his n*ts grabbed aggro from the feline and she went claws-out, sharptoothed, ENRAGED, straight for the poor twins. Now, his cat is locked ut of his room, lately his DPS have been pumped up too :D.
i'll grab a cup of tea in between wipes or get freshened up in the bathroom before rushing back to the screen, thats all i'll do.
no food where my keyboard is... period...
and its generally accepted as a standard that multi tasking while fighting a boss or even running through an instance killing trash is an excellent recipe for disaster.
I do not recommend multi-tasking and encourage Raid Leaders to properly discipline raid members who do these disruptive activities instead of paying attention to raiding. My goodness, its a total of twenty five people investing their time in every single raid. Its just plain disrespectful if anyone in that raid takes that time for granted.
Its also good to watch the on-going fight even after you are dead to get an accurate feel of the whole game mechanics for yourself so you'll know what's going to happen and not make the same mistake again.
aggro@
i laughed so hard when i read your coment i dont have a pet to distract me and i am a bit young for what you were thinking of ametera but i do have some distractions one of the bigest causes is TV i am often draged to the screen by a BIG BANG!!!! or any loud noise or when one the characters in the movie reveals a secret its like a reflax allmost invulntery another distraction is my sister now that she broke the laptop she allways interupts my play time i never really been very cautious of my appearance when going to school or anywhear i just throw on what ever i can find unlike some clean freaks i dont shower everyday and when i do its doest take me an hour to do it i never spend more then 10 minets in the bathroom if i get up of the a chair is either to fart or to scratch my ass or both when the raid wipes ill go to the kitchen get my self some juice or a bottle of coke or something to munch on or simply get up and get some excercise and stratch my legs kitchen is only about 10 steps away so its not much of an excercise but i take what i can get
my guild isnt a raiding guild so noramlly i raid with some of my friends guilds but even during a new boss encounter ill stop for 20 seconds and type a along message in gchat it is so fun when the right people are on
but my dps never really suffers that much since i just faceroll with my DK in fact ive become so good at it im facerolling this inter comment :)
I do this a lot, I just got prototype and I know almost every northrend fight, so I play that and keep up my rotation. It's gotten me in trouble a few times with bosses who do some kind of protection thng like Elder Natoxx or the drake on the right in the obsidian sactum.
RE cats ignoring you.. buy a laser pointer for $2 and your cat will never ignore you again. Mine comes running if he even hears the keychain part clink when I pick it up. You can even make achievements out of it.. how long can you make your cat run in a tiny little circle before it gets wise and waits for the light to stop moving? :D
lmao, i drive my guild and pugs crazy i'm always doing 5 or 6 things at once. When i heal not a good thing....hehe
Well i recently got a new PC game to play for downtimes Silent Hill 3 keeps me entertained till the servers come back up.
lol i have got the attention of a exited puppy on speed i think i have that to its not very funny like i listen to music and i find my self typing /dance in game in the middle of patchwerk my guild gets annoyed and we wiped once or twice WOT A RESULT
anyoen know hen teh servers gointo be back on
When I go down early in a fight, I usually don't have to wait long for the rest of the raid to join me in the afterlife because having one of your top healers die is never a good sign. On the chance that the raid manages to survive, I typically still find myself watching the screen and listening to the raid vent (when they're not swearing up a bluestreak). Why? Well if you're gonna be doing a raid with 24 other players, you may as well observe what they're doing in case one or more are going to be a headache all night.
My system isn't up to having WoW and internet/another game up at once, and it's not in the ame room as my TV, so I usually spend downtime reading a good book.
*same
I normally mash the space bar button and use the mouse to turn 180 in mid air, to jump over my pet.
Constantly.
Jump.
Jump.
Jump.
Occasionally I'll swap the pet for a blood elf, or someone drinking for mana.
But usually I'm jumping over something.
Or, if I'm bored, I'll misdirect to the main tank and go pull, if it's trash we're on. (rebuffing before the next wing in Naxx).
I don't like being bored, if I have my BoK and BoM, then who needs a readycheck? I like to keep the raid on their toes.
In an instance, I'll sometimes drop a freezing trap at the healer, then misdirect a trash mob to them. They shit bricks, it's hilarious.
Reading that, my guild must hate me.
I also have the highest post count on the guild forums, yet rarely post anything worthwhile. Hmm..
Alayea, you just made me realise one of the unknown bonuses of being a tank. You never have to wait to long after you're dead.
When I am playing WoW in general even sitting in IF trying to make some cash, i tend to always have a film on. I usually choose films i have seen before otherwise i will end up logging out in order to watch the film. I mainly tend to watch videos on Youtube, watch a film or play some of the classic games like freesonic.org or freespaceinvaders.org. =]