Do you wish you had more time to play games?

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I hear of life and jobs and not having the time to play as much as one used too. I find this sad. What's the point of more income to buy more games/playstation if you don't have time to play them??? Imagine if you still had the free time as your youth? Do you miss it?? Forget playing story heavy games like GTA/Fallout it'd be UH? Where/what was I doing again???? and you've done forgot where the story was at that point. What your are thoughts on this?

I mostly on,y get to play on days off. I only work part time, but with 3-4 hour transit time and 2 hours to get ready and then eat and some days laundry. Really eats into. Y time on work days.

I'll just put it this way: Having lots of free time aint all it's cracked up to be.

I have nothing but free time, ALL the time. All.... the.... time. I have no job, because there's no point in doing that. Hasnt been for about a decade. For most people there's a point, but not in my case.

And holy crapsticks am I ever tired of this damn house and.... this entire damn region. And this stupid chair. I get stir-crazy from having nothing to do and nowhere that I need to go. Leads to agitation and anger. I can spend time on gaming, yes, but I can only do so much at once before I start getting agitated again. Just... from being in one spot too long. I typically last about 2 hours at most, in one session.

Bah. Even just bringing it up irritates me.

I think I have too much free time to play games and should be spending more time doing things that actually matter, or so the non-gamers say.

I always find that they tend to have a very strange idea of what actually "matters".

Because, clearly, cashiering at a McDonalds is critical to our society. Anytime someone says something like that to me, about me needing to do things that "matter" (usually followed by "get a job and be productive!"), I always say that line, and they usually just stammer and look genuinely dumb in response. Eventually most of them gave up.

Too much free time sucks.

It makes one get bored with games quicker and easier because it takes far less time to do everything there is to do with most of them.

With games that are never-ending story and quest-wise, or games like The Sims with unlimited replay value, they also get old quickly as even if there's often new content with these sort of games, that doesn't change the base game itself, and if you're bored with the base game, than a few new bits of armor or costumes or a new mission pack isn't going to make that much of a difference, and also wouldn't last long before you grow bored once again.

Because one gets bored so quick with games, there can reach a point where you've already tried and/or played every game you own several times over, and so the only way you can get interested again is by buying and consuming new games, which just chews up your wallet over-time.

Finally, I just find I can value a game more if I'm at a point in my life with less free time.

Instead of feeling I have all the time in the world, that I can play whatever I want whenever I want like it's just some commodity, something that doesn't matter because you can come back to it at anytime, I'd actually value whatever and savor whatever short time I have with it because you never know if you'd ever find the time to play the game or reach that level or do this thing or that thing ever again.

This is a big reason why I tend to stick with games that are very difficult, and also games that use procedural generation. They dont end quickly, and I dont reach a point where I get bored of them.... because they never get easy enough for that to happen. A roguelike for instance; it's always going to be challenging (and thus interesting and engaging) and it's always going to be different each time. I cant memorize level layouts or something, because that's not possible. I have no idea what items I'll get or what sorts of loopy situations the game will throw at me. It's easy to get hundreds or thousands of hours out of games like that (and many players do).

Whereas alot of "major" games... I tend to get bored fast. They tend to be about the "experience" rather than gameplay, which almost always translates to "very easy", so... yeah. Cant hold my attention. I dont really bother with them anymore... not worth the money.

Of course the problem with that is that it means that when it comes to gaming, I have zero shared interests with any friends of mine, so there's really not much to do with them... aint even seen them in like a month. So that's irritating. But I'm just not interested in freaking Dark Souls or watching them play Skyrim for the 75914698th time.

I find that just having games as an alternate frame of reference is valuable for dealing with day-to day life. No matter how boring life may be, games have the potential to be even more boring.

I find this baffling.

^^Sometimes I think about life in the context of some video game and laugh; for example playing Spec Ops: The Line, I thought of the US political situation. And you have to admit games can be boring as hell sometimes. The gameplay of Spec Ops is a yawn-inducing gorefest.

I am unemployed, and to be completely honest, for me it's everything it's cracked up to be (besides the lack of money). I was miserable when I wasted my time on boring school. Being stuck with doing boring stuff and kept away from interesting things is seriously torture for me. I once saw a comment on another site saying that aspies need to either do their special interests for a living or have a lot of free time to pursue it in order to be happy, and that is decidedly the case for me. The best years of my life are those I have wasted in the eyes of others, but were not wasted for me. I have a lot of time and I spend much on it doing my interests (reading books, playing video games and solitaire games, surfing the net). If I had no physical ailments and never lost loved ones, my life would honestly be pretty much perfect. I still don't get around to do all I want. Time flies! So yeah, despite having a lot of free time, I still wish I had even more.

^How do you eat or buy things [if you don't mind me asking]?

Hmmm, you have alot more patience than I do, then. Or it might be that Iv'e been in this state for simply much too long at this point... come to think of it I dont think I've worked a job in like 10 freaking years. Ugh. Has it really been that long...?

The problem for me is that I cant JUST sit at this damn machine all the time or I'll go crazy.

I mean, I think like you do, in that being stuck doing boring things (AKA, any job) ends up being this endless nightmare of drudgery, but still.... the dullness and repetition (I dont handle repetition as well as many in this place) of basically everything else started to wear thin alot faster than I thought it would.

....not that I'd go back to employment, mind you, no no no. Not happening if I can avoid it, which I can. But still.

Yes and no. On the one hand, I wish I could just take a 6-month break and get my room all organized how I wanted it to be, (there's stuff in it I can't move out by myself, and, not to mention, IDK where else to put it in the house without it getting the way of something) as well as playing through my huge Steam library that I have. On on the other hand, playing video games really doesn't accomplish anything. Oh, sure, the games pester you with level ups and stuff like that to make you think you're doing something, but more often than not, it's just a bunch of small level ups until your character is probably overpowered and can take most, if anything, on by himself. That, and, to be frank, playing games by myself just isn't fun anymore. There are some singleplayer games that have interested me like Doom 4 (D44m, Doom 2016, whatever you want to call it) and such. But then there are others that have so much extra stuff in them like sidequests and such that I feel like I'm about to climb a tower if I'm going to try and complete a good amount of the tasks the game has. Thing is, I go and try a game out like Counter Strike and, honestly, outside of the "OMG I'M S0 G00D at QU1CKSC0P1NG GUYS! 1'M G00D 4T TH1S G4M3 AND D0N'T H4V3 4 GF!! !" crowd, it doesn't interest me in the same way as playing with a bunch of people on something like Smash Bros. or pretty much any local multiplayer game does. You can crack jokes, get something to drink, kick back, and relax. I just don't know who to talk to or how to meet fellow "gamers" who enjoy all of the same games I do. Many of the gamers I have seen lately at my work place are more of the COD/Madden crowd, the former being something I just don't care to keep up with anymore due to my time being limited and the latter just being something I'm not interested in.

Now, something like Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Tekken, Streets of Rage, Rocket League, and hell, maybe even Mario Party will interest me more than those games simply because I can play the games in the same room as the other person. Also, playing those games doesn't take up nearly as much time as say, Far Cry 3, a game that I have not beaten due to me knowing how much there is to upgrade in that game. Only problem is that, when there is a family gathering, most of the people in my family just talk to each other, and that's it. Granted they have other responsibilities, like a family to take care of and such, but it still is depressing when you realize that it's still you by yourself playing these games.

So, IDK. At times, I have felt like just selling my PC and buying a console so I can play with other people more easily since I have noticed that the amount of players on PC is just plain small assuming you aren't willing to take a dive into the cesspool of toxicity that is LoL and DOTA 2 and even CSGO. Or, I have felt like just giving up on games in general since things have not changed too much (outside of the games that try some gimmick(s) to make them stand out from the crowd), and the types of people I see online who like to play the games I enjoy have turned me off from playing games. I know, other people shouldn't influence your opinion, but when you see a fanboy going "OMG! This game sux!", Or "Xbox One is so much better than PS4!", I just want to throw my hands up and go "OK, I'm done. I want nothing to do with these people who get worked up over things that don't matter!" I've been playing more games than I did in college, but my ability to enjoy them has diminished ever since I started seeing the futility in it all. Other times, I have felt like just quitting my job and giving up on ever becoming social and on the thought of having someone who loves me romantically. It's a pendulum that keeps swinging back and forth, and I wish I could figure out a way to be happy. My desire to do things with other people really makes it hard to be happy at times, you know?

Maybe try out different types of games than what you normally do?

I tend to think the same way as you about certain things here. For example, I get bored to death if a game ever presents me with a situation where my character/whatever is just plain overpowered. I need a challenge in order for a game to hold my attention whatsoever, and that situation kills that.

And I also dont like dealing with 10 kersquillion sidequests or... whatever. I tend just not to give a damn. Many big-name games are too damn easy to begin with... I never feel like I need or even want all the extra little gizmos that can be earned, because why would I? Enemies just die in my general direction to begin with.

In addition to that I also tended to just get bored as hell with AAA games or "major" titles, however you want to put them. There's very rare exceptions, but typically if it's a "big" game, it'll probably bore me to death. Graphics and cutscenes over gameplay, and they're also usually very, very easy, because God forbid the player not have the skill to reach the end of the all-important STORY. Oh NOES. Cant have THAT. It's all about the story and nothing else! Ugh.

And I wont even speak of what I think of "open world" games like Skyrim.

I ended up shifting my focus more to indie games, or non-standard "big" games like Monster Hunter even. I tend to play alot of games like, say, Enter the Gungeon. That one is *always* challenging (brutal, even), it doesnt bog itself down with stupid side bits, a full "run" through the game is typically about an hour long (it's a roguelike, it's designed for extreme replayability, yet like nearly all games I play it works very well for short-ish sessions), and it's damn near impossible to become overpowered. I've gotten into strategy games too, and I dont mean 4X games like Civ (too slow-moving for my limited attention span, and also too easy). Games like AI War or the oddly-named Creeper World 3, both of which I consider to be a couple of the best strategy games ever made. Stuff like that always keeps my mind engaged, very easily (and both are endlessly replayable, which is a quality I like in games, and I can save & exit at any time, so I dont HAVE to play in huge sessions to get somewhere). I can think of TONS of other examples like this. Things that dont take 10000 years to play, yet I CAN keep coming back for hundreds of hours without getting bored if I want, and things that will always provide me with challenge and depth.... without trying to drown me in cutscenes or unnecessary fluff.

The problem is that alot of these sorts of games arent very well known... they dont come jumping and screaming at you like alot of the bigger ones do, so they take a bit more effort to find, which can take some time. But I think it's worth it. A few years ago I'd been mostly into console gaming, and had started to get very, very disillusioned with things overall. Games were getting easier and easier, and seemed like they wanted to be freaking movies rather than games. I was buying new games less and less, because there wasnt anything interesting, and spending WAY more time on retro consoles than I was with the new ones. Eventually I decided "Screw this, let's try something new" and just dove into the massive world of smaller, lesser-known games.... totally revitalized this all for me. I went from "rarely buys anything" to "buys extremely frequently" because there's always something INTERESTING now.



The other bit you mention though... the multiplayer thing... I can tell you right now, there's no easy solution to that. Like you say, communities for games like Dota are a toxic nightmare. But I can tell you this: Communities for games on consoles... they're no better. In some cases, they're every bit as bad, or worse (the fighting game community is the one I consider #1 on the "list of awful communities" in my opinion). People act like idiotic jerkbag children in all of them. ALL of them.

There are some games where it's not THAT big of a deal, because you can just mute the hell out of everyone and it wont matter all that much. But for team games that REQUIRE lots of team-coordination, that doesnt work.

I wish there was a better solution to this one, really. It's certainly an issue for me, where I end up hardly doing anything with my friends these days because I have like, no shared interests with them, even within gaming. I just cant find multiplayer games that would work for myself AND them. And I'm not interested in playing online with random jerks. So lately, outside of fighting games (a couple of very specific friends will at least do those with me) I just... dont even bother. It's been quite a long while since I've done multiplayer, really. Granted, outside of issues with friends (the not seeing them much part) I'm extremely anti-social anyway... so I dont exactly miss the "dealing with other people" aspect. I tend to think that most people are jerks to begin with, so.... yeah. But I still understand the problem as a whole. The industry today just doesnt make it easy, for those with a real interest in multiplayer.

Emulation and ISOs?