The Daily Grind: Favorite activity to do at the same time as MMOing?

by William Dobson Sep 25th 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind

Let's face it: there are times when playing MMOs that your full, undivided attention isn't really required. Maybe you're in a slow group or raid, or camping some rare spawn, or just online to keep an eye on the market. We're often left with enough mental capacity to start up a second activity. Here are some popular ones:

Reading a book
Watching television
Getting paperwork done
Browsing the internet
Playing another game

These are just some examples. Maybe you have something a little less common you like to do that you could share with the rest of us. Knitting? Making and flying paper planes around the room? Sorting M&M's by color? Let us know how you keep yourself occupied during the duller passages of gameplay.

Tags: activities, multitasking, opinion, reading, tdg, television, the-daily-grind

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Macabre said on 8:05AM 9-25-2009

pr0n.

Havok said on 8:06AM 9-25-2009

I like to either get homework done or do some writing. :)

Jack said on 8:08AM 9-25-2009

Posting comments here ;D

Rangtark said on 8:21AM 9-25-2009

Playing WoW while waiting for the queues in Aion is quite common for me at the moment. Otherwise I tend to play WoW while doing massive trade runs in EVE.

Vitamin Dei said on 9:54AM 9-25-2009

That's funny. I've also been hauling stuff around and running missions in Eve while I wait for the queues in Aion. Eve is fairly lightweight clientwise so it all works out pretty well on my system. :)

Bluefunk said on 8:37AM 9-25-2009

Drinking for crying out loud. I thought "oh there's 4 comments before me, going to be drinking, drinking, drinking and drinking - nope. So:

DRINKING!!!

Crode said on 8:40AM 9-25-2009

I have to be listening to music so that I can tolerate the grinds. And CNN.

sillygenu said on 8:46AM 9-25-2009

Watching a movie, or southpark. Surfing the net, basically, anything that i can do on a 2nd screen that ain't slowing down my games.

Carl Curtis said on 8:47AM 9-25-2009

Drunk convos on vent while attempting to attack carriers using battleships while outnumbered.

John said on 8:53AM 9-25-2009

Either watching TV or listening to various Podcasts.

The Platypus said on 9:07AM 9-25-2009

I keep my baritone ukulele close to my computer. If I'm looking at a long travel time or waiting for something else, I'll grab it and start strummin'. I wrote part of a song the other night flying around Millennium City on my unadvantaged jet boots.

OMAC said on 9:07AM 9-25-2009

It varies for me, paperwork, browsing or TV. Depending on the time of day.

Lorthic said on 9:25AM 9-25-2009

You can usually catch me beating off in Stranglehorn Vale

Scones said on 9:23AM 9-25-2009

Hulu. Nuff said.

Vulturion said on 9:24AM 9-25-2009

Nothing: 'cos I don't play MMOs with built in down-time, or that are so slow paced I need to seek entertainment while ostensibly being entertained by them.

GRT said on 10:01AM 9-25-2009

What Vulturion said.

If I feel like I need to have a 2nd activity going on, I log off. If that becomes common, I quit the game. There's always another shiny new MMO around the corner waiting.

rheric said on 9:43AM 9-25-2009

Sadly, work. EVE provides a great balance between getting stuff done in-game, and actually needing to pay attention...

When I'm not working, I'm playing something a bit more active - Champions Online, etc.

Vitamin Dei said on 10:16AM 9-25-2009

I load pretty much everything through Steam, so I'm usually using the overlay and chatting with a friend while I play. I also tend to either be listening to music or podcasts or chatting on Ventrilo.

eddie said on 10:19AM 9-25-2009

Streaming talk radio, or catching up on missed episodes of tv shows, or sadly, entire cancelled series I never noticed til it was too late... like The Dresden Files.