Gaming....

Late last week I ended up alt hopping within Eve Online.
For no reason I can pinpoint I actually stayed logged in on an alt. Instead of logging in, checking planetary interaction etc and quickly logging out as I usually do I actually started to "play" that character.
Refining a lot of ship fits, clearing inventory and altering what I had and where I had it. I put a few ships on sale in contracts. I spend hours logged in on the character and considering the number of hours of training I've investing (At around 20 million SP) it actually felt like a "real" character for once. Holding it's own in lvl 4 missions and other content.
That got me thinking, dangerous I know.
When does an Alt stop feeling like an alt. The age old question.
That's ALT not an ALT(Assistant Language Teacher).
Is it an Alt's use or perception of use that makes it an alt or maybe the lesser number of SP/level or experience.
Anyway it had me thinking that if I spent less time doing quick gaming hops I'd find greater gamplay not just between alts in specific games but with the likes of solo games like darkest dungeon.
Instead of doing one dungeon crawl every now and again, what could I do if I spent a larger amount of time with it... or any other game...
Fallout 4 is the best example of flat out precision specific gameplay, I racked up a colossal amount of gameplay hours (and still counting), which has given a great deal of enjoyment.
I wonder why I haven't done that more with other games. Is it habit or happenstance.

My usual gaming session starts with a batch of daily tasks on my MMO games (Eve Online, Dust 514, Star Trek online & World of Warcraft), then move onto a solo (or two) game of choice.

Sometimes I will ignore games and other times I will pay more attention. Maybe not a lot more, it's a mood thing.
Take wow for example, I could log into all my level 100 characters and harvest all the garrison ore/herbs and mission rewards to send to my auction house alt who would sell it all for gold. Other days (or longer) I'll ignore wow.

Even that auction house alt is no longer a real auction house alt as she is nearly 100.

Overall these session times change on personal circumstances but my time is usually plentiful rather then limited. So the sessions usually last for longer times and over multiple games.
2 a.m. has become a not abnormal bedtime. Unhealthy as that may be.

Fallout 4 and XCom 2 don't help and I'm not pushed by the adverse effects of a lack of sleep to "make" me go to an earlier bedtime, but that's my problem. Living the dream some would say, gaming addiction say others. I dont' think I can sell the gaming dream to the wife (as understanding as she is) for much longer.

That "longer" may be more than even I can think of.
My current crop of non mmo games in no particular order are:
Xcom 2,
Darkest Dungeon,
Homeworld 2 Remastered Edition,
Fallout 4 (playthrough #2),
Cities Skylines (lost count on how many cities I've done)
Terraria
Faster than Light
Democracy 3
Race the Sun
Minecraft

If Star Citizen ever gets a polished stable release that feels like a  proper game then I really think that it has the potential to blow all other MMO and solo game's time out of the water and my gaming time with it.
 
Over the next few weeks I hope to do a series of posts on specific games. Giving each game it's own day to be played 100% of the time with a blogged write up.
Even thinking of that now makes me wonder  if I'll be able to set aside some of the "specific game" day to do MMO tasks/dailies etc. That would be a distraction but one that may need to be worked into the "plan". 11 Days of "solo" games might be a lot to work into, some games are not games for longer game sessions. Race the sun is a perfect example of that. Once you get used to the day's random race course you can only go so far until the sun goes down and you "finish" the game. Maybe I can do a more mix and match session with smaller games. MMO games might have to be split over a few days.... In the end I hope to see that I'm getting more value in gameplay per game. Time will tell.

For anyone interested that current desktop image is:

  rescue_by_emilisb-d68fllc : http://emilisb.deviantart.com/