Askgar

I’m starting this post with a quote from me on the Van Hemlock forums.

I went through a period myself where I was playing a lot, I ended up at the top of the group, which was how I managed to only end up a couple of levels behind after missing a good month of playing. Now however when I think “what game do I want to play?” I think I SHOULD play LOTRO, rather than I want to, which instantly puts me off. Somehow despite it being the same game, leveling because I’ve got behind seems like work, while leveling because the game is fun is more enjoyable for no real reason.

After thinking about what I said there some more I came to a conclusion.  When I don’t have any reason to play a game, and am just doing it because I want to, then I see the game as fun, i.e. play.  However when I’ve got behind and need to catch up, or have another reason to play a game, then the game suddenly becomes more like a job, or a chore, i.e. work.

The major example is with LOTRO, which caused me to think about this, before I moved house I was level, if not slightly ahead of the group, I would log in just to potter around, gather some crafting stuff, do low level quests, etc. and I wouldn’t care about how much XP I got, just if it was fun.

However, after I moved house, lost a month of gaming time through no internet, and got behind, in both level and book, the game suddenly became a chore, it felt like I was only logging in to level up and suddenly, the same tasks I had before enjoyed, suddenly seemed like a needless grind, I was even avoiding group nights because I didn’t want to hold people up and feel like I was getting in the way.

I had a much longer, and more detailed version of this blog before wordpress on my phone crashed and I lost it, but I still felt this needed to be said so… here it is.  I’ve now started playing properly with the group again and I’m only a couple of levels behind, and am level with others on the book content so all is good again.