Downtime Doldrums

Whether you’re hurting waiting for server maintenance to finish (as is the case with Champions Online), for a game to come out (Aion), or for a massive ISP fubar to clear itself up (WAR), you’re going to experience that wonderful thing called downtime at some point or another in your online game career. Even the most stable games have to take a break every so often, and I like to think of server downtime as a game’s way of telling us players that it needs to take a sick day or a floating holiday. Why not, right?

It might be frustrating when you have the itch to play to not have the opportunity to do so. It’s probably even more frustrating when you’ve set aside precious time to play your favorite games, only to see that your window of playtime has been robbed from you. Idle hands are dangerous when it comes to online games and not being able to play them, and most people are eager to take out their anger on the nearest target, such as innocent keyboards or mice, or worse yet, the game’s official forums.

Now unless you like to get your jollies cataloging how many threads get made in a 5 minute period screaming about downtime, you probably want to do something else while your favorite game is unplayable. For geeks, this might seem a bit too much Captain Obvious for you, but the next time you feel like nerd-raging over downtime, think about doing this stuff instead:

• Surf the Intarweb: There are people who get the kind of entertainment you get from slaying rats and pwning noobs in battlegrounds from the internet all day. Sure, these people are either students, really bored paper-pushers at work, or trolls, but that shouldn’t stop you from joining in on the fun. The Internet has anything you fancy, from grinding friends lists in Facebook to “real” PvP on any news commentary thread.
• Do some housework: You know, those dishes don’t really do themselves, and the carpet doesn’t suddenly become clean on its own, either. Laundry needs to be done and hanged, and that layer of dust on your desk except where you put your food needs attention. You’d be surprised how therapeutic a little housework can be, and next time you have friends over you won’t have to clear piles off for them to sit down.
• Find other entertaining media: TV is full of high-quality celebrity nonsense to get yourself immersed in, music from your secret favorite artists V-Factory or the Jonas Brothers calls your name, and the 10th private re-watching/worship of “Night at the Roxbury” can’t been that bad, right? Games aren’t the only media out there that can make you “lol IRL”.

And of course there’s always…

• Go Outside: Yeah, as much as the great outdoors might be something you only venture into to earn your paycheck or buy your latest round of Cheesy Poofs, let’s be honest. There’s little to no lag, the resolution is pretty good on most days, and if there was any downtime for it, I think we’d be concerned with more than just our favorite game not working. Outside – it’s the other other other other white meat, and you should have a bite of it every so often.

So don’t despair when that game of yours goes down faster than a drunk person after their 5th kegstand – find another way to fill the time. Your sanity (what’s left of it) will thank you.