Any tips for prolongued gaming?

[Rhyfelwyr]

I always hear people here talk about how they spent 24 hours solid playing their latest M2TW campaign or something along those lines. Yet I find that if I play for more than a few hours for a few days in a row, I end up with sore eyes and a head to match. So how do you guys here manage it? Paracetamol wears off if you use it too regularly. I really wanted to have a gaming marathon for part of my big summer holidays this year, but it ended with me feeling ****.

So, since your all nerds that play TW 20-hours a day in your parents basement - how do you manage it? I'd love to just sit and get absorbed in a campaign for a week or two.

[Decker]

Simple, lost of red bull, pizza, and a toilet system hooked up hospital style.

[AntiochusIII]

Simple, lost of red bull, pizza, and a toilet system hooked up hospital style.

That's unhealthy.

To OP: Just let the nerds be nerds. 20-hour marathons are not cool. You lose enjoyment as your physical condition gets worse, which is kinda counterproductive to the purpose of gaming in the first place.

Now, playing a lot, but with clever scheduling is another matter.

If you want to score 12+ hours of gaming a day with out a headache, it really is easy, just make sure to split that into two or more sections and do something different in-between: snacks, dinner, lay your head down, a shower (best), even a nap...

[scotchedpommes]

Would have to agree with AntiochusIII here. Have experienced overly
lengthy gaming sessions [not entirely uninterrupted, mind, but near enough...
and certainly not intended] and it's only really had negative effect. After too
long the game will become a frustration, the pizza is punishing on its own,
and the Irn-Bru 32 [avoid Red Bull] is doing damage, as always.

[naut]

Drink lots of water: that should stop your headache, because your headache is most likely due to dehydration. Then you'll need to use the toilet more, so you'll have to take more breaks. And you can see where this is going. And personally I'd never (and I actually mean never) take Paracetamol.

[CountArach]

Practice. Start playing slightly more each day before you do it to desensitise yourself to the screen refreshing, then just jump into it. Also if you can see the refresh rates of the computer screen take a small braek for the toilet or a drink/snack.

But yeah Rythmic is right, lots of water.

[LittleGrizzly]

get everything you need within touching distance (anything unhealthy usually helps) then just get sucked in and hours fly by! i find coca cola helps my headaches might just mean im addicted to caffiene though...

[Xiahou]

I never game for more than a couple hours at a time anymore. But, sore eyes are usually because people forget to blink as much when staring at a screen and your eyes begin to dry out. This can be helped with a dry eyes or "tears" type eye drops. Just FYI.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I never game for more than a couple hours at a time anymore. But, sore eyes are usually because people forget to blink as much when staring at a screen and your eyes begin to dry out. This can be helped with a dry eyes or "tears" type eye drops. Just FYI.

Gaming for more than a few hours in a row/per day generally gets old pretty quickly too. I almost never game for very long periods of time anymore, though I guess I did today but that is the exception due to a really long week.

I also take frequent breaks, mostly to get water, that seems to help, though it does cause a lot of runs to the bathroom.

[Papewaio]

If you want to do it for long periods of time (Not 24 hr by the way).

Then treat it like a day at work.

Get up, eat a complex carb breakfast, shower. (all the time planning the strategy)

Play the game for 1.5 hours. Go and exercise for an hour. Play for 1.5 hours. Have lunch for an hour. Play 1.5 hours. Have a half hour coffee break. Play again for an hour or two.

By the PC keep trail rations, fruit (banana or something not to juicy), water.

It is far better to break up the play as much as possible. You can still plan strategy away from the PC (you might even dream about it). But continous play will only dull your reactions and enjoyment.

It is better to play it for 40 hours in a week like a job and at the weekend still feel fresh and fine.

[Beirut]

Get a wife.

You'll be so happy to get two straight hours in before she nags you out of the chair that you'll feel like you won the lottery. And no adverse physical symptoms will have had time to set in by then.

[pevergreen]

Do a whole night and see if you want to again.

As to how: you get to a point where you are incredibly tired. Then you overcome it, and it feels as though you dont need to sleep. Keep that high and you are flying

[edyzmedieval]

Get a wife.

You'll be so happy to get two straight hours in before she nags you out of the chair that you'll feel like you won the lottery. And no adverse physical symptoms will have had time to set in by then.

That has to be the best advice on gaming ever!

My tips: Get a confortable chair. Get enough light, and sometimes even from the front is good. Put a headset, that helps a lot. Get wrist rests, they are very important to prevent wrist injury over the long time (I had problems... gaming + basketball = sinusoidal liquid accumulating at my wrist preventing me even to flex it! ). Water, sweets and fruits and you're ready to go!

[Rodion Romanovich]

I always hear people here talk about how they spent 24 hours solid playing their latest M2TW campaign or something along those lines. Yet I find that if I play for more than a few hours for a few days in a row, I end up with sore eyes and a head to match. So how do you guys here manage it? Paracetamol wears off if you use it too regularly. I really wanted to have a gaming marathon for part of my big summer holidays this year, but it ended with me feeling ****.

So, since your all nerds that play TW 20-hours a day in your parents basement - how do you manage it? I'd love to just sit and get absorbed in a campaign for a week or two.

How about just taking a few breaks every once in a while to drink and eat? For most people, playing over 5-12 hours without any sort of break at all DOES give headache and other issues no matter how they do it. Perhaps a lot of those who say they play "for days without break", probably mean they took a few short pauses for food and drinking during that time...

[Mikeus Caesar]

You need to allow your body to get used to it. Gradually start playing for 5-10 minutes more each day, as well as taking into consideration the other tips such as drinking lots of liquids to keep headaches at bay - you'll be gaming like a pro-loser such as myself in no time!

[Ramses II CP]

I don't do this, but FYI if you alternate doses of paracetamol (Acetominophin to the US) with ibuprofen you get a more even performance out of both. I'd recommend caffeine pills or mints and water instead of sodas as well.

[Productivity]

If for some reason I'm trying to go for a stupid amount of time playing games, I make sure every couple of hours I go for a short run (20-30mins). It's enough to get me re-energised and keep going.

To be honest though, I really wouldn't recommend it - there aren't many games that are worth playing in order to put your body through that much crap, you end up feeling so bad the next day (the only time I've done it in recent history was in a three-day Guild Wars event where the winner at end was sent to Germany).

[Rhyfelwyr]

Thanks for the tips guys. 16 replies in one day must be a record for my posts. Anyway, seems that most people agree that splitting it up is the way to go. Next big holiday maybe I'll try 1 hour gaming, then 1 off. I'm at the stage where I can play safely for in total probably for a couple of hours a day. If I start going 5-6 hours a day, I start to feel the effects.

No pizza or coke for me at the moment anyway, mostly been on rabbit food recently due to other problems.

BTW, why is it that extensive gaming gives you sore heads and eyes anyway? In particular in tends to be the back of my left eye that gets painful, especially when I move it. TV doesn't seem to bother me, only PC screens. Would turning down the brightness help, and playing in better lit surroundings? Can't wait till the first holiday after ETW comes out...

[doc_bean]

BTW, why is it that extensive gaming gives you sore heads and eyes anyway? In particular in tends to be the back of my left eye that gets painful, especially when I move it. TV doesn't seem to bother me, only PC screens. Would turning down the brightness help, and playing in better lit surroundings? Can't wait till the first holiday after ETW comes out...

As has been mentioned before, the biggest issue is blinking enough. Make sure to look away from the game from time to time, so your eyes don't focus on the screen all the time. Take 5 minute (or longer) breaks every hour or so (at least when your eyes start feeling tired).

Besides that, the normal rules apply: make sure the room is sufficiently lit, a light behind the monitor is best, and sit far enough away from the monitor. If you have a CRT monitor put the refresh rate at least on 70Hz, and if you have a rig that has trouble playing the game on higher settings, play on lower settings so you get a decent framerate (it should probably be at least 30 for a comfortable experience).

[Pharnakes]

uuum, are you people crazy?

You acctualy sit down and plan how to play games for the longest possible time?

and some of you propose taking drugs (albiet mild drugs) in order to achieve this? I mean WTF? seriously? This entire thread must be some sort of joke that I am too retarded to understand...

Please say it is. Please don't tell me that people will sit down and work out how to force their body to do something it obviously hasn't been designed to do, and for such a trivial cause. I mean OK, I have played games for 18+hours with no more than 2 hours break all together and I have sometimes had mild reaction to it by the end, but how could you ever want to take drugs just to play games? I mean as soon as playing a game causes you pain surely it is no longer fun and then whats the point of playing it? And incedenatly I entirely agree with Rythmic, Paracetamol cannot save your life, therefore there is never any reason ever to take it, it will always do more harm than good.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I mean OK, I have played games for 18+hours with no more than 2 hours break all together and I have sometimes had mild reaction to it by the end...

You must just be a natural then. Remember, the point in the thread is to avoid suffering the effects. And the point about the headaches etc is that they tend to come after the gaming, you don't really notice them until you stop, at least in my experience, although that might just be because I have never played long enough. Also you make it sound like we're taking class A drugs its paracetamol he's suggesting. And in fact most people don't even recommend that.

[Pharnakes]

Sorry

I was just completly amazed to see such a thing. As for my avoiding it, I can only suggest: eat alot of fruit, I do (being a vegi it is my staple diet) and probaly it does help with the headaches. I also eat alot of rice cakes, though I doubt if that has any effect... (except for getting into your keyboard)

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Have a nutritious snack, like soda crackers with good cheese or fruit, and plenty of water. These aren't too fattening (depending on the cheese), fill you up fairly well, and are healthy enough. Don't drink energy drinks - just take a ten minute break whenever you're tired. Go for a walk or jog every five hours, at least, and read a book during load times or while you're counting down to respawn - this relaxes and refreshes you.

Good luck, and remember that your body isn't designed for this. Don't do it for more than an absoloute maximum of two days in a row. Some people may brag about having done more - don't listen to them. It's not healthy what you're doing already, and it's certainly not to do it more often than two days in a row.

[Productivity]

uuum, are you people crazy?

You acctualy sit down and plan how to play games for the longest possible time?

and some of you propose taking drugs (albiet mild drugs) in order to achieve this? I mean WTF? seriously? This entire thread must be some sort of joke that I am too retarded to understand...

Please say it is. Please don't tell me that people will sit down and work out how to force their body to do something it obviously hasn't been designed to do, and for such a trivial cause. I mean OK, I have played games for 18+hours with no more than 2 hours break all together and I have sometimes had mild reaction to it by the end, but how could you ever want to take drugs just to play games? I mean as soon as playing a game causes you pain surely it is no longer fun and then whats the point of playing it? And incedenatly I entirely agree with Rythmic, Paracetamol cannot save your life, therefore there is never any reason ever to take it, it will always do more harm than good.

Prizes/financial incentives can do it...

[CountArach]

Oh, I forgot this one:

"If you start hallucinating, it is probably a good time to stop."

Yes, this one has happened to me before.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I have to say though, i don't get all this fuss about it. I've been gaming for obscenely long periods since i was 10, and before that watching TV for obscenely long periods, and i've never had any of the problems described in this thread.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Oh, I forgot this one:

"If you start hallucinating, it is probably a good time to stop."

Yes, this one has happened to me before.

When you start seeing little phalanxes whenever you close your eyes...

[Husar]

My tip is don't force anything on you.

I've played for about 12 hours or so while I was in highschool but nowadays(getting old) I get bored after an hour or so sometimes, then I usually stop and resort to pressing F5 every few minutes on the forum frontpage, similar to what I'm currently doing.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Yeah I get those times when I can't be bothered playing and just mill around the Guild.

[TevashSzat]

IMO, having 24 hour gaming sessions is not recommended for single player only games. For online games or MMORPGs, it is probably doable relatively easy, but still gets tiresome pretty quickly. I consider myself to be a pretty avid gamer and only have played around 10-11 hours straight by myself.

Playing with friends at a LAN party or online, is drastically different. It kinda wierd to describe, but its like you're on adrenaline the whole time if you have a good time and have easily had 29-30 hour gaming sessions without eating/drinking/going to the bathroom much at all. It seems that you want to quit after every game once the 20th hour hits or so, but someone always wants one more game and before you know it, 9 hours just passed

Edit:

Make sure that you are in a comfortable position when playing. I had a particularly nasty time when I was sitting on my legs on the floor for 5 hours straight and then literally couldn't stand up or move my legs well due to loss of circulation.