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On previous podcasts, Haf and I had mentioned the fact that a guild’s raid times have a huge impact on our membership. We have vehemently stood by the idea that the game wouldn’t detract from our time with our son. So, we typically don’t raid until 8:30 in the evening, after our son has gone to bed.

Well, the kid is getting older, he is 9 now, and I am starting to feel guilty for sending him to bed when it is still light outside. Equally as important, he usually gets up, without an alarm, at 6:30 AM. You see, our little night-night arrangement worked well when he was 6, when we had just started getting into raiding. But, now we are having to reevaluate our situation.

We are weighing some ideas… raiding more often with shortened hours per night is the strong leader at this point. But, I am hoping to work out some details before we decide to make a change.

In our guild, we currently raid 2 nights a week for upwards of 4 hours on progression nights. And, let me tell you how much I enjoy waiting around 20 minutes for buffs and AFKers. My time playing in the evening is limited, and to be delayed because of avoidable issues is super-stressful. It is annoying, but what options do we have? Push on short handed, or deal with it. And, since our bench isn’t nearly as deep as it once was, we deal…

Anyhow… we need to assess our raid time commitments. We still play nearly every night, and we probably will continue to do so until another MMO grabs our interest. But, in handling the struggle to keep our son first and foremost in our interests, we work to avoid straying into the great suck of obsessiveness that is World of Warcraft. It is work to keep things in perspective.

A parental challenge reared its head the other day. It was Haf’s week to get up with the kid in the morning, fix his lunch, instruct him on his morning chores (our son is super-responsible), and send him along to school. It appears that Haf got up, passed along instructions to the spawn, and proceeded to pass out on the couch.

Our son proceeded to do as instructed, eat his breakfast, and leave this note. Clearly, our responsible child did his best to avoid waking the sleeping giant on the couch. And, it goes as proof that we are doing a good job with our little window licker. But, it was an avoidable absence on our part. I have had the same thing happen to me on my week with the kid. I am not exactly super mom on mornings after a 2AM progression night push.

Finding a balance between our passionate hobby and our parental and life commitments is almost like a meta game. There is no right or wrong way to find a balance. But, as long as we continue to put out max LPS (love per situation), we will continue to increase our parental xp.