With so much to do in our favorite video games, how do you avoid analysis paralysis?

When you’ve played most games for any extended period of time, you start running out of things to do. For World of Warcraft, this isn’t currently a problem unless you only engage with a very narrow type of in-game activities. In many respects there’s more available content now than at any other time in the game’s history.

According to a study done in 2020, the average age for a World of Warcraft player is 31.29 years old, with survey respondents ranging in age from 18 to 90 (note the survey dropped the responses of everyone under the age of 18 or who did not agree to the informed consent clause), a life stage where many of us have conflicting life commitments seriously impacting our available hobby and game time. This pressure on our time means you have to use the limited time you do have effectively.

But what does that look like? Do you work on things that will earn currency or reputation towards a specific reward, or focus on activities that have a chance of dropping a desirable item? Do you level or gear up a new alt? Do you focus on pushing up your rating in Mythic+ or Arena? Or maybe sit and fish while listening to an audiobook? Or do you log in and spend a half hour trying to decide where to start?

Anyone who plays a lot of boardgames is likely to have encountered this kind of analysis paralysis: the more choices a player is presented with, the harder it is for them to make a decision. There will always be one or two people in your group who take fooor-eeever to make a decision, worrying so much about the possibility of making a bad decision that they can’t make any decision at all.

There are days when logging into Warcraft can be a bit like that too. I only have an hour free, what should I do? If I do this event I won’t have time to do that dungeon… Maybe I will close Warcraft and go do something else until I can decide.

So what do you find yourself doing when you log on — and how often are you just overwhelmed with choice in World of Warcraft? How do you prioritize what to do with your available gaming time?