I don't know about anybody else in here, but it's really hard for me to do MC runs.  I would love to, but devoting 3-4 hours at one sitting (no interaction with wife, children or dinner) is just not something I'm generally able to do.  I can play 3 or 4 hours a night, just not 3 or 4 hours without interruption.

I want to get opinions on doing say 1 hour MC/ZG/AQ/Whatever other instance takes waaay too long to do, runs throughout the week.  Say take 3 or 4 days, 1 hour a day, to do the run.  That would allow us to spend a reasonable amount of time in 1 sitting to do the run, and not aggro other family members.

What do you think?  What would be the best way to accomplish this?  Just interested in seeing what ideas other people may have.

Kathrann

Kath -- the problem is repops. You can get to luci and maybe mags in an hr. When you come back the next day, everything but the corehounds (if you kill mag) will have returned and all the DI ore will be gone.

You can get to the 3rd boss (name just left) in an hr; maybe if you're real lucky you can reach garr.

When you come back the next day, everything (except the hounds if you killed mag and the surgers if you got garr) will be back.

You might be able to get geddon and shaz. Beyond that in an hr? not until everyone's in tier two -- everything respawned.

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If you're looking for <=2 hr events, you're really looking a 5-10 man events, Onyxia, and (if it's agreed upon beforehand) 1 boss in AQ20 or 1-2 bosses in ZG (collecting folks from the alliance for a <2-hr 40 man is probably not worth the logistical headache).

Personally, I've set aside one "Sabre games all night" with the wife -- Thursday. Sure, things can (and have) come up, but unless it's all-hands-on-deck bad, that night's mine.

I totally sympathize with your situation Kathrann. I have the same problems, and I wish game designers were people who had real lives and families. Past games always seemed to develop in this direction too -- making the content an endurance test to make it harder and more of a time sink. It's easier than programming new content.

Sabre is right about the respawn in MC. Another factor against it is to the time it takes to get a raid actually going. You'd probably spend 30 minutes getting it started with people lollygagging on their way to the instance. I don't think it would really be possible to do in 1 hour chunks of time. :-(

The best bet is to build up spouse and family faction on other nights. Make sure you are home, emotionally available and spend time with the spouse and kids on other nights. Beg and plead to sometimes get a "raid night." Just do it less often, as your family situation allows. That is what I am doing. It's actually good because it encourages me to try and be more invloved and in a better mood for everyone on my gaming off-nights.

Great advice guys.  I'll try to set aside a night a week with the fam for the longer instances.  Guess I'll have to go to work for Blizz and set them straight on this

That would be great!  Heck, just tell tem to  knock off the whole repop thing, and that should do it :)

Kathrann,

Things maybe be on the upswing for us less time to devote to the game in chunks folks. There will be alot of 5 and 10 man instances in the new Burning Crusade. Now that doesnt mean its going to be 1 or 2 hours, but it shows promise hopefully.

Virby

Also Im sure you could attend zg/aq20 and just let the raid leader know ahead of time that you will only be able to stay an hour.

TBC will be your friend!

Adere is correct -- last night, we shuffled through a lot of folks with set timeframes. Just make sure to let folks know ahead of time.