HANDS ON GUIDE

8 - Set your alarm clock for a virtual event

The raid is definitely more important than your exam

Some hardcore MMO players can go longer than twenty four hours without sleep. That’s mighty impressive in some circles, but the real hardcore don’t just stay awake - they wake up at the time their game demands. Perhaps it began with the rare spawn collectors logging in to Ultima Online at the server reset every day; now we have the massed fleets in EVE Online coming together as one vast unit to make a strike on an enemy target while they sleep and squadrons in Pirates of the Burning Sea who pile into the game bright and early at 4am to attack vital supply ports. Many are the games in which players have adapted their sleep patterns for the cause.

Rolling out of bed at some ungodly hour, fixing a pot of coffee and logging into Teamspeak or Ventrillo to find your guildies already there (usually in the same sleep deprived or hungover state that you are, slurping coffee and munching yesterday’s pizza) is one of those unique shared experiences of MMO gaming. It's an experience you just don’t find in ordinary gaming, or indeed often in life itself, and maybe that’s a good thing. Nothing brings a guild together faster than the collective resentment of whatever harebrained scheme has forced you all to get out of bed.

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