During loading times

[CrashBang]

The problem with loading times is they're often not long enough to do anything productive during them but too long to just sit and twiddle your thumbs, especially when you're as antsy as I am.

So, what do you do during loading times when playing games which have a lot of 'em? I've been reading A Game Of Thrones and playing Skyrim a lot recently so I try to get through a paragraph/half a page whenever I fast travel or enter/leave a town.

 

[DoPo]

Depends on how long the loading times are. I could make myself a cup of coffee/tea and sip it in the meantime (recommended to have biscuits or something to munch, too) if it's short enough. If it's really long I could actually read a book. For example, I read the entire of Stephen King's Firestarter while waiting between turns in the last map of the campaign of Heroes 5. The combination of AI thinking and just the game being slow (due to the map also due to hardware) was horrendous.

But otherwise, if possible, I could Alt+Tab and do something else shortly, like check my email, forums, that sort of thing. And finally, I could just watch TV. If I have a TV nearby.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Thanks to my SSD, long loading times are a thing of the past! Woot!

Back in the day I had 15-20 minute loading times for missions in Wing Commander 3. I wish that was an exaggeration, but it's not. I read a book.

 

[Rumpsteak]

I admire the pretty loading screen and maybe read the tips if I have not been able to disable them. On occasion where I'm subjected to a three minute loading screen on my top of the line computer (serious, I'm looking at you game, you know who you are) I uninstall the game.

 

[DustyDrB]

I ask my dog who is a good boy. It always turns out to be him.

 

[Pearwood]

I just get a drink of water, if it's a twitch reflex game I'll spam click the mouse just to get warmed up.

 

[IndomitableSam]

Sit on my hand to warm it up, reposition myself on the couch (computer's hooked up to the tv), take a drink, wiggle my fingers to wake up my hand, talk to my sister, check my phone, etc. Things that only take a few seconds. ... Though with the amount of mods I downloaded for Skyrim yesterday (haven't played in months), I may have to take up knitting or something during loading screens.

 

[StriderShinryu]

If a game allows you to muck around with something on the screen while waiting, I do that. It's kind of sad because even in games I spend a lot of time playing, like Skyrim, I never seem to get tired of doing it. I may have rotated that same statue 50 times before but, dammit, I'm going to do it again.

If I can't do that, I usually just press buttons. As I'm a fighting game player, I'll often tap out specials or combos while waiting.. even if I'm not playing a fighting game.

I ask my dog who is a good boy. It always turns out to be him.

I tried to ask my cat who was a good girl. She just looked at me as if I was stupid for even asking and then walked away.

 

[GundamSentinel]

I usually have a book lying beside me. I just read a couple of paragraphs at each loading screen.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I can get up and make a whole cup of tea when waiting for League of Legends to load. Fucking. Epic.

Get into lobby, pick Lulu, lock in, make tea, profit. Come back to find that one guy with the Stone Age PC still loading XD

Must suck to have an epic PC when you're playing LoL online...

I can sometimes play some Ace Attorney during loading screens if they're long enough. But Fallout: NV's loading times are in the zone where it's not worth picking up the DS cuz it's over just as you open it but the loading is still long enough to be annoying XP

EDIT: Speaking of epic, 2 hours of a queue to get onto the LoL servers... Riot. Dafaq you doing?

 

[Fappy]

I ask my dog who is a good boy. It always turns out to be him.

My cat sits and waits patiently for the loading screens to pop up because he knows that's when I can take a moment to give him his belly scratches.

 

[DoPo]

I ask my dog who is a good boy. It always turns out to be him.

My cat sits and waits patiently for the loading screens to pop up because he knows that's when I can take a moment to give him his belly scratches.

And there goes my respect for you. Judging from your avatar, I thought you were an adorable cat pawing at the keyboard and sharing its opinions with the world. Either that is not true and you are in fact a human (or not a cat, at least) or it is true and you are an evil sadistic slave owner.

 

[Fappy]

I ask my dog who is a good boy. It always turns out to be him.

My cat sits and waits patiently for the loading screens to pop up because he knows that's when I can take a moment to give him his belly scratches.

And there goes my respect for you. Judging from your avatar, I thought you were an adorable cat pawing at the keyboard and sharing its opinions with the world. Either that is not true and you are in fact a human (or not a cat, at least) or it is true and you are an evil sadistic slave owner.

Hey, don't bash my culture! Slave trade is very important to the province of Morrowind and the Batarian Hegemony! I'll let you guess which one of these illustrious societies I call my own.

PS: I wish I had thumbs, paws are hard to type with.

 

[DoPo]

I ask my dog who is a good boy. It always turns out to be him.

My cat sits and waits patiently for the loading screens to pop up because he knows that's when I can take a moment to give him his belly scratches.

And there goes my respect for you. Judging from your avatar, I thought you were an adorable cat pawing at the keyboard and sharing its opinions with the world. Either that is not true and you are in fact a human (or not a cat, at least) or it is true and you are an evil sadistic slave owner.

Hey, don't bash my culture! Slave trade is very important to the province of Morrowind and the Batarian Hegemony! I'll let you guess which one of these illustrious societies I call my own.

PS: I wish I had thumbs, paws are hard to type with.

YOU... YOU! You are forgiven. I can't be hating on Morrowind. I'm sorry I was such an n'wah.

 

[Fappy]

I ask my dog who is a good boy. It always turns out to be him.

My cat sits and waits patiently for the loading screens to pop up because he knows that's when I can take a moment to give him his belly scratches.

And there goes my respect for you. Judging from your avatar, I thought you were an adorable cat pawing at the keyboard and sharing its opinions with the world. Either that is not true and you are in fact a human (or not a cat, at least) or it is true and you are an evil sadistic slave owner.

Hey, don't bash my culture! Slave trade is very important to the province of Morrowind and the Batarian Hegemony! I'll let you guess which one of these illustrious societies I call my own.

PS: I wish I had thumbs, paws are hard to type with.

YOU... YOU! You are forgiven. I can't be hating on Morrowind. I'm sorry I was such an n'wah.

"YOU ENNN-WAAAH!"

I am sorry that just came out... I couldn't countrol it.

"YOU FETCHER!"

I---

"DIE CUR!"

Dammmit I---

"Breton"

That's still offensive

 

[Diddy_Mao]

There have been occasional games where they included a little interactive doodad to the loading screen and in those cases I admit that it's usually enough to keep me entertained while the game loads. I honestly wish more games would do it.

But I think that's more of a console thing that something that PC games might be able to utilize.

My computer desk has a fairly large number of paint pots, brushes and a water glass right in front of the monitor (not obstructing the view obviously...I'm not dense.)
If it's a game with a lot of load screens or down time(Like flight paths or waiting for the Zeppelin in World of Warcraft.)
I'll usually use that time to piece together and paint a Warhammer model.
With few exceptions I think my entire Daemon army was assembled and painted while playing WoW.

 

[Flip-Shying]

During loading times I snack on small and irregular chunks of oxygen.

 

[anthony87]

I scratch myself....

I scratch myself goooooooooooood

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

I don't often get loading times that justify multitasking, but I read during Shogun 2 coop campaigns. When I was playing EVE online I spent a lot of time browsing Danbooru while I waited for enemies' tanks to break.

 

[ElPatron]

What loading times?

Oh, wait, PC master race.
PHWAHAHAHAHA.

Really, I used to read when I had a slow hard drive, but I don't remember the last time I had to wait over 30 seconds when I upgraded 3 years ago.