Getting ready

Getting Ready vol. 1

There is no question about Diablo 3 being one of the biggest releases in game industry on this year.
While waiting for this great game can be agonising and boring, it sure doesn't have to go to waste.
Preparing for this future masterpiece is mandatory to achieve greatest gaming experience.

Things we are focusing on this post will be following:

1) Preventing gaming injuries and fatigue
2) Proper nourishment
3) Sleeping cycles
4) Mental preparation

 1. Preventing gaming injuries and fatigue

First we need to focus on physical preparations as those often take the longer time to make noticeable difference to gameplay.
We focus on larger muscle and tendon systems as the stress on index finger and distal phalanx is much lesser than past Diablo games.

Some stuff that has helped me to relief my mouse hand pain.

Aside from getting up and taking breaks:

1) I use more than one mouse.

2) I switch to a tablet/laptop every now and then. Some tablets come with mice, so if you have the space, the tablet can replace your mouse pad and you can switch between mouses as the mood/need suits you.

3) I've have a good degree of ambidexterity and frequently use my off-hand when I'm doing non-gaming.

4) Trying different table heights. This seems very effective indeed.


Things to do before long gaming session:

1) Take pain killers. Usually 400mg for every 2-4 hours is enough.

2) Make sure to have your hands warmed up. Having hands warmer than core temperature is more than perfect. Good hand warmups are for example: doing dishes or using devices such as power ball. The perfect air temperature for optimal muscle function is about 26C. While this might not be good room temperature, the temperature can easily be met with proper clothing on arms.

3) Use sports tape or band-aid on your wrists to reduce friction between hand and mouse pad. Band-aid also helps with problems that occur on long gaming sessions like sores and skin peeling off from wrists.

You will be able to push your hand to reach higher gaming durations and better dexterity in hard situations.



There is a possibility to construct 2 archs to support monitor over head. This way it could be possible to play Diablo 3 in horizontal position. The idea is yet to be tested.

 Gaming rhythm

I'm planning to have a gaming routine in 1h cycles. It will include some stretching, fast workout, eating, mental exercise, new positioning and ergonomy check. I'm testing these times with game called minecraft. Minecraft puts your mouse hand in extreme stress and simulates well the Diablo 3 play deep after the release when the gaming has become fluent. I might have to extend the cycle to 1h 30minutes but as I said the we are still in beta state in this matter.

50min pure gaming

 5min phase 1
 5min phase 2
* special event

Pure gaming:
 in this phase you will focus on your game 100% and get into flow.

Phase 1:
 This 5minutes should include the physical exercises with big muscle groups and flexing. It is easy to execute these while you are still in the flow after the "pure gaming" phase. In this phase you also do all other physical needs and get to toilet if needed. None of the previous should distrupt the Diablo 3. Only little handicap is allowed.

Phase 2:
 This 5minutes has the nourishment and the mental exercise in it. In this phase you take your mind of the game and allow it to rest little while checking your goals. Also you should think the game out of the box and try to get the higher level of understanding the game. In this phase your gaming should be continuous with little handicap.

*Special event:
 Toilet break.(aka. BB) should occur during the phase 1 as you can workout and flex while having the BB. Its important to ready up your wc so you do not have to take your mind of the game to try to remember where you stored your toilet pater for example. Also the eye exercises** are done when taking BB.

Eye exercise for D3**

While being one of our most important gaming tool the eyes come under great stress during our gaming marathon. To be sure our important tool is in great shape the following easy exercises should be done. (picture) 1) scanning: scan slowly with your eyes doing banana and circle shapes around the eyes. This helps to stretch the eyes. 2) Wiener: Put your fingers at front of your face and look far at the back of your room to for a hod-dog between your finger. Then focus on your fingers to make hod-dog disappear. This relaxes your eyes after long periods of focusing your monitor. 3) Face palming: Warm up your hands with water or friction by rubbing your hands together. Then place the palms on your eyes to warm them up and give them 15-20seconds "Time Of Darkness". Do not let them to fall to followers of Prime Evils during this time.

2. Proper nourishment

Good nourishment is one of the most underrated aspects of extended gaming. Foods advertised for gamers by common beliefs and tv-ads are very often "no no" for a true gamer.
It is better to take down gamers daily feast bit by bit and focus these major mistakes one by one.

There is no breakfast, lunch or dinner in gamers timetable... only meals so there is no point going into meal specific details.

Common gamer meal:

3dl of Coca Cola
200g Saarioinen Jauhelihapizza

Total energy: 652kcal
Downtime: 61 seconds

Professional gaming meal examples:

1st Example:

Noodles and oil 123kcal +44kcal
banana 95 kcal
2dl mango gefilus drink 100kcal

Total energy 362kcal
No downtime in this situation.

2nd Example:

peanut butter sandwich 327 kcal
2dl hot chocolate / coffee 240kcal / 8kcal

Total energy 567kcal
Downtime: 20 seconds

To make sure the gamer gets all needed vitamins and minerals he should eat food supplements.
For this diet i choose RedRam Combat Pak. It fills all the daily needs what ever you end up missing in the previous simple meals. 

These meals of course need some preparations: Noodles need to be ready in bowls. Also noodles should be crunched to enable drinking of noodles.
Water heater needs to be also in reach of the left hand.

(Downtimes were calculated from average of 5 attempts.)

• Add oil to noodles to slow down the digestion. Don't go over the top with this one as half a tea spoon is enough for on portion.
• Bananas keep your hunger away.
• Peanut butter gives high energy-weight ratio to food.
• Gefilus mango drink helps to prevent indigestion.
• Hot chocolate alternative to coffee

Professional notice: 

As the continuous sitting and staying still doesn't do good to stomach, some people take laxative during the day. This is not necessary if you take care of your dental hygiene with xylitol gum.
I write more about my food preparations day before the release.

(The nourishment part of the article was written after 2h  discussion on matter with Helsinki's top professional food expert. Who also has experience on real time strategies.)

3. Sleeping cycles

Most people only think that there is one way to sleep: Go to sleep at night for 6-8 hours, wake up in the morning, stay awake for 16-18 hours and then repeat. They are so wrong. Actually, that is called a monophasic sleep cycle, which is only 1 of 5 major sleep cycles that have been used successfully throughout history. For example there is tribes in Africa whose members never sleep longer than 2hours. Salvador Dali  and Da Vinci took a nap once in a while and did not sleep longer than 1 hour. That is how Dali made his dream like paintings and Da Vinci had time to do his research.
 

We should introduce the common sleep cycles before deciding which is best suited for our use:

EVERYMAN CYCLE
20h of Diablo 3
4h of Sleep

One 3 hour nap and three 20-minute naps

No negative effects on their health.

Easy to adjust

DYMAXION CYCLE
22h of Diablo 3
2h of Sleep

Sleep for 30 minutes every 6 hours.

Bucky Fullers sleep cycle, that can be maintained at least for 2 years with no health problems

Hardest to adjust

UBERMAN CYCLE
~21,5h of Diablo 3
~2,5h of Sleep

20 to 30 minute naps every 4 hours (by Da Vinci)

Highly efficient

Impossible to miss naps without feeling horribly tired

Can be maintained at least 6months with only positive health effects


SIESTA CYCLE (aka. university student sleep cycle) is not worthy as its used by most young people anyways.

So i came to the conclusion that the Everyman sleeping Cycle would be best suited for my needs as Diablo 3 player. The main positive fact is that it is easiest for the "first timer" in the field of optimized sleeping. Now i just need to think about the best possible positioning of the "3hour nap". Should it be during the day or the night? How i make sure it flows nicely with the time when the servers are supposed to go live.

 Good thing about the nap based sleep cycles is the fact that you are easily able to have something called lucid dreaming. In practice it means you would be easily plan your next move in Diablo3 while you sleep: What item to use? What skill is most efficient on current level? That's what I call fuckownage. You just need to focus on the theme you want to dream about before going to sleep. If you have been playing Diablo 3 for day or two it shouldn't be a problem to have Diablo 3 dreams.

I will update what sleep cycle I have chosen in later post. My plan thought is to slowly start waking up earlier every day during the week before Diablo. That should be enough time to get my sleep cycle leaning back a lot to the point I can get to sleep right after Monday work and sleep until servers go live. I will continue this sleep time during that week with 4-6h of sleep. I have experimented with the times and ended up to conclusion that the 5h is the way to go on that week. I will go to sleep about 4:00pm and wake up around 9:00pm. I don't have daylight to help me out with waking up so i will set timer on my halogen lamp to easy up the "morning". I will also push myself to stay awake 1-2h more every day and same time move the sleeping period. This way i will get into natural non-daylight rhythm like astronauts. Astronauts have 16 sunrises per 24h and they sleep only 6h and have 24h< day cycles. 

Weather

Now we have the problem of weather. Gaming in heat it is not pleasant and efficient sleeping also becomes hard. I studied the forecasts of western Finland between 15.5. and 19.5. Also i found the historical averages. I used 3 respected forecast sites to find idea of the weather.


It seems there will be at least tiny bit of rain what is always good. Also the night temperatures will be perfect for gaming. 


It seems Nephalem are blessed with great weather.

4. Mental preparation

So we have our body, stomach and brains physically ready for our tough challenge. Most of  the time actually the psychological barriers come before the physical. Maybe the best way to start to make sure we are mentally ready for our Diablo 3 marathon is to study how one gets mentally ready for marathon. While marathon running the unique challenge is keep the mind strong and in control when the body begins to break down and rebel against continuing. This is something i will surely face during my gaming. Late in long LAN-parties, for example, after 48 hours of a Diablo 3, the body says, "I get the point, we can stop now." It communicates this message loudly in the form of pain and butthurt. If the mind gives in to those messages, then your APM will slow down or stop, thus immediately failing to achieve your goal. But if you can ensure that the mind resists those messages and commands your body to keep going, then the body will respond (assuming sufficient fitness and manageable conditions) and you will reach your goal.

The easiest way to start preparing to Diablo 3 is to have a goal in game. But finding a goal for myself is not easy. I know only little about the lore. There is no telling how the leveling system and the top level game play is going to be. Picking a goal to aim for is much harder in Diablo 3 than it is for Olympic athlete. It's difficult to have developed the motivation, confidence, focus, and emotional tools to handle the mental demands of the game when the goal is blurred.

Personalities of the people differ a lot and that needs to be taken into consider too. You need to find the best style you can use to succeed. Some like to be alone before the release to focus on their preparations, while others like to socialize to be keep their minds off of the upcoming game and stay relaxed. We won't go too deep on that road. This article would become way too long to be read before Diablo 3 comes out.

Intuition or good strategy?

How to start your gaming marathon? For experienced hard-core gamer the intuition is great tool.
But there is a risk that the intuition, for example, not sleeping and eating well because you feel good, is based on more immediate feelings rather than what is best for later in the "Diabthlon" when it really counts. Many "newbies" make this mistake and change their leveling plan midway and the end result is usually not good. Pushing past your limits should occur before release. After release, you should simply micro up to the limit of what your current fitness will allow you to do. I am thinking about to develop a plan based on my fitness and then have a plan B if problems arise (e.g., need to slow down because of a hemorrhoids started bleeding) and a plan C of owning more if i am feeling good. If i make the wrong choices everything starts to go wrong.

I will continue on my second post "Getting Ready vol. 2"