Didn’t play a lot of Monster Hunter World this weekend. Partially that was because I got it in my head that I was going to finally finish Far Cry Primal (which I did, and wound up earning the Platinum Trophy for it) but part of it is due to two “social” (I guess?) issues I have with the game.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Monster Hunter World. Maybe a little bit too much if I’m being honest. I intend to keep it in my rotation when time permits, which gets me to my first issue.
It demands solid chunks of time. If I don’t know I have an uninterrupted 30-45 minutes to sit and play (and really an hour or more is better), there’s no sense in firing it up unless I just need to farm materials. Most actual monster hunts take me 20-30 minutes solo but there’s prep time and the time it takes to track the monsters down and then there’s those fights that end up taking longer. Quest time limit is 50 minutes and I have failed quests because I ran out of time. Thing is, there’s no pause and no save in the middle of a hunt and that can be a problem for me.
Now to be fair, this is not an issue unique to MHW: any and every multiplayer game comes with the same issue, but that is part of why I don’t play many MP games. I like to be able to pause when a family member (including 4-legged ones) needs me, which they seem to do as soon as I get committed to a hunt. For some reason this seems like a bigger issue in MHW than other MP titles, I think because your whole session tends to be one fight and if you’ve been whittling a monster down for 20 minutes and have to abort, it’s more disheartening than if you have to drop out of a COD match or leave an MMO group between pulls. I guess it’s like having to bail on a raid boss in an MMO. Not that I ever fought raid bosses.
The second, bigger issue, is that I’m kind of an asshole while playing. I find the game so intense that I get really focused on it, and when that happens I start getting really snippy towards poor Angela if she’s sitting with me, which she often is. Because of this, I’ve started to only play when I’m alone. I know I should modify my behavior and I try, but MHW is the kind of game where I get so engrossed that I forget to blink. After a session my eyes are always red and dry from staring intently at the screen. I don’t realize I’ve been being an asshole until after the hunt.
So right now, I play MHW when I know Angela is elsewhere doing stuff and will be for the next hour, and I know that Lola has been fed and taken out and there’re no scary wind storms to freak her out and no delivery men will be coming and… well really just about anything sets Lola off these days. And one last thing…playing it right before bed isn’t great either because I get so amped I can’t sleep after. So finding that perfect time period to play can be a challenge, and this weekend the stars never aligned.
I guess my problem comes down to the fact that MHW is too good and too engaging. How’s that for a complaint?
Your first reason is the reason why I haven’t gone back to it yet. I am intimidated by the amount of time I have to devote to even the simplest of activities, and while I might actually have that kind of time, I never know until AFTER that amount of time has actually past.
I also don’t think the second issue is out of the ordinary. You’re up against a time limit, and you know you’ll have to start all over again if you fail. If you fail because of an interruption, that is maddening. If you can shun reality in order to increase the chances of success, well…that’s what needs to be done! But get the whole self-reflection situation; I played once while talking to my wife on the phone as she was coming home from work, and it was a rather tense conversation XD
Yeah I often DO have enough time but like you say, don’t know ahead of time that I will. I feel like I need to schedule it: “Honey, I’m playing MHW tonight so if you need anything from me please take care of it before 10 and can you watch the dog from 10-12?” LOL
The second issue is mostly down to personal circumstances but the first, the unwillingness to commit to a block of time, seems to me to be very indicative of how the world has changed in just a decade or so. An hour is really a very short amount of time to commit to something you want to do but I also have some difficulty in doing it these days. I never would have ten, fifteen years ago and going back further than that I did it routinely, without even thinking about it. I’m not at all sure this is a good thing.
I think whether it is a good thing or not maybe depends on why you don’t want to commit. If you don’t want to commit because you have an infant, it’s probably a good thing. If you don’t want to commit because maybe you might decide you need a snack in a little while…maybe not so good a thing. 🙂
I’m somewhere in between. I could ask Angela for space and she’d be happy to give it to me if I wanted to make that choice. And sometimes I do, but it’s not something I want to do every night. As for the dog…she just has a direct line to my heart strings with those sad brown eyes and that plaintive little “I need some affection, papa!” whine. Heh.
I have NO CLUE how people with young children play this game, though.
When I was younger and single and had no one depending on me for anything, I could commit to hours and hours and hours!