Lately, I've had a hard time finishing games and television shows. I start them, play or watch for a little bit, but then suddenly stop and switch to something else.
The big game here is Pillars of Eternity. I'm about 20 hours in, and I just stopped. I'm not even sure why, as I was really enjoying the game up to that point. I also have a level 96 Warrior in WoW, a level 7 Templar in ESO, a level 39 Bounty Hunter in TOR, and a Season 3 barbarian in Diablo 3. Not to mention I still haven't finished Transistor.
And then for some reason I downloaded TERA again on this weekend.
I'm also doing the same thing with a bunch of shows I'm watching. I'll get mid-way through and just stop. Even if I'm enjoying the show. Heck, one of the shows on my watch list is at 11 episodes out of 12, and I'm simply ignoring the last episode.
I think part of the issue is that my main games are MMOs, which never really finish and encourage you to play at a low pace but on a regular basis. For example, regardless of whatever other games I'm playing, I'll still log in to TOR twice a week to raid. I'm also still working on the Legendary chain in WoW, and that takes a little bit of effort every week.
Perhaps I've fallen out of the habit of focusing on a single piece of entertainment, and am just jumping around from game to game. It's kind of annoying though. I want to finish Pillars, to finish Transistor, to finish many of these shows on my list.
Welcome to my world! I find it extremely hard to stick to one game for too long. It was not always like this but started after I spent 4 years playing WoW almost exclusively. When my WoW fever started to wane, and I went back to playing other games, I found out I had missed on so many games that I regret the time I spent with the MMO. This got me to a point where spending too much time on one game led to me wanting to play something else just in case I'm missing out.
ReplyDeleteHaving too many games available to play does not help at all and, in a way, the advent of free to play compounded that problem.
I have the exact same problem! And I wanna finish the exact same games! Is this the early sign of gaming fatigue?
ReplyDeleteIt's the same with me too. I've been meaning to finish Transistor for almost a year but somehow never really got around to doing that yet
ReplyDeleteGlad I'm not the only one!
ReplyDeleteSomeone in LOTRO once said to me "You're not a "finisher", are you?" I think that for me I run into a fight I can't win, a problem I can't solve, or I just don't want to do the same thing over and over repetitively. Something new and shiny beckons.
ReplyDeleteI did the same thing in Pillars of Eternity -- I got to the beginning of Act 3 and... stopped.
ReplyDeleteI've got several seasons of tv in my Netflix queue that are about 80-90% watched, but I haven't finished to boot.
I'm currently playing FFXIV and while I have gotten some gear on my BLM job up to a decent level, I'm also doing my "alt-itis" thing and leveling every job up, not just focusing on "finishing" my gear for the 1 job.
There's a reason why I post at a site called "Nomadic Gamers" ;-)
Interesting. I do try to "finish" my MMOs, i.e. at least max-level, whole categories of achievements, all dungeons, the whole raid tier, in the case of WoW even "all classes to max level" - but I hardly ever finish single player games.
ReplyDeleteStrongly recommend finishing Pillars. Once you hit act 3, you can hyper-focus on the main storyline and end the game pretty quickly, leaving you a lot of content to return to once the expansion is out.
ReplyDeleteThis happens to me, but I don't really see it as losing focus. I think of it as diminishing returns. At some point, you really get what the game, TV show, etc. is all about, and then it's more of the same. At first your introduced, and it builds up to the height of complexity, and then it comes back down. Games are particularly bad about drawing it out.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course I notice a typo right after the post is sent.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I should be encouraged or concerned that so many others are having a similar problem.
ReplyDelete@Korkron501st, That's an interesting theory. I play the game until I've demonstrated mastery to my satisfaction, and then stop. Very possible. Perhaps that's a sign I should be playing on a higher difficulty level.