What could you do in 48 hours?

So tonight I thought I would play Warhammer. So I did what I do to play Warhammer every night -- and in fact what each of you do every time you decide to play Warhammer.

Starting The Game

First I click my little quick launch icon for WAR.
Then I log in.
Then I click "Launch" on the launcher.
Then I wait through four -- count 'em -- four splash screens (EA, Mythic, Games Workshop, and Warhammer Online).
Then scroll down and hit a checkbox and then accept the EULA.
Then the character selection screen.
Then it loads on the final splash screen.
Then it goes to another loading screen.

Then finally the game is up. Time elapsed (on my fairly fast computer) : 1 minute 15 seconds.

Quitting the Game

Well, quitting is a little simpler. You hit the "Exit Game" button. The game counts down twenty seconds until you can exit. And then the game takes another twenty to twenty five seconds to actually exit. There's only one way to instantly exit the game, and that's to hit the "decline" button on the EULA. Maybe the EULA should be available during normal play so we can instantly exit the game.

But I digress. It takes 45 seconds to exit the game.

The Bottom Line

So, 1:15 to enter, :45 to leave, so that gives us 2 minutes of wasted time every time we play.

So, if my average play session is, say, 1 hour and 30 minutes, that means that around 2% of my playtime is spent waiting on the game. So if I eventually spend 100 days playing WAR (which is likely if I play for a few years) I will have spent 48 hours of my life just waiting for the game to start and end.

Yeeha.