Gametime, any way to see for how long you have played without Steam?

[KingNee]

Steam records "game is running" -time as time played, even when the game is paused. I ALT-Tabbed a lot while playing because I had to do other stuff so now I can't trust Steam's timer at all. 

 

So is there a console command or something that will show me actual UNPAUSED game time in real hours?

[Cryptomancer]

Go to the load game screen, it will tell you your total playtime for that saved game.

[KingNee]

Go to the load game screen, it will tell you your total playtime for that saved game.

 

Thanks but do you know if this takes pause into account? If I start a new game and pause it for 20 hours and then save, will that save say I've played 20 hours?

[Rosveen]

Considering that pause is legit gameplay (managing inventory, combat positioning etc.), it makes perfect sense to take it into account.

[KingNee]

Considering that pause is legit gameplay (managing inventory, combat positioning etc.), it makes perfect sense to take it into account.

 

Yes and no. The game pauses when you alt tab, I alt tabbed a lot, now it says I played 63 hours where I suspect that at least 30% of that is me not playing at all. So now when I want to know for sure how long I've actually played, there's no believable number to be found. 

 

So basically a number where it "stopped counting" when alt-tabbed. 

Edited March 31, 2015 by KingNee

[Pipyui]

Sorry I can't test it right now, but I want to say it tracks time while paused too.  In any case, the logs in your journal that keep track, for instance, of how long a member's been in your party does (As I found when I was looking through Aloth's character sheet immediately after adding him to my party).

[KingNee]

I guess there's no accurate number unless you never alt-tab, never leave the game running while doing other stuff and so forth. A pity. 

 

"Why?" you may ask, it's simple really; If someone asks me how long it took me to finish the game(when I do that at some point) I have no answer to give them other than "I'm not sure, probably something something."

 

I see someone saying it took them 40 hours to finish, my ingame counter says 63 and I'm far from finished, I have no real clue if 40 was fast or slow or normal, other than estimates from other players. There should be a proper counter so when you ask someone and they say "48 hours", you'll know that number to be true. 

[Xionanx]

If you are looking for "Total Time Played" across all characters..   use "Raptr"   google it.

[Rosveen]

If you are looking for "Total Time Played" across all characters.. use "Raptr" google it.

I don't use Raptr, but wouldn't it just track all time the game was open, like Steam?

[Sedrefilos]

only reliable wayl: have a timer beside you, pausing it whenever you are not playing and record each session.

 

Is it really so important for one to know how much he/she has played?

[santanzchild]

Or stop doing other stuff during game time.

[KingNee]

only reliable wayl: have a timer beside you, pausing it whenever you are not playing and record each session.

 

Is it really so important for one to know how much he/she has played?

 

A fairly simple reliable way would be to have the timer pause recording if there's no in-game input inactivity for more than, say, 2 minutes. That would leave room for reading stuff and similar but any keyboard input or mouse movement you made would unpause the timer. 

 

At least then there'd be some truth to any of the numbers people give right now as to how long they've played, how long the game really is. When I complete it, the game will claim I've played for 150+ hours or something silly like that. What good are the timers when they are lying?

Edited April 1, 2015 by KingNee

[Rosveen]

More hassle than it's worth. I mean, who leaves a game minimized for hours? People normally just quit when they're busy with something else. When they say how long they played, it's usually an accurate number. If you ever talk to someone about your playtime, just explain that you often leave the game running in the background and try to make an educated guess how many hours were added this way.

 

I was in this situation once, I have roughly 80 hours played of The Longest Journey. I have no idea how it happened, to be honest, I don't remember leaving it minimized. But I don't really care, what use is this number to me anyway?

[KingNee]

It's not a hassle at all, it's just an inactivity timer that would solve the problem. 

 

And plenty of people leave games running in the background all the time, even for hours, yes. Who exists a game to reply to a mail or something like that? That would be silly. 

 

When the developer shows a screen grab of having played 58 hours, how long was he tabbed out?

 

A real number would remove the need for all those extra explanations and questions and doubt. 

[Avantre]

It's not a hassle at all, it's just an inactivity timer that would solve the problem.

What problem? Seriously, I can't see any reason why they'd devote resources to doing something like this in the first place - why would they want to have two timers running, one for total time and the other for active only time? It's not something the masses are clammering for, so it'd be spending resources on programming something, even if it's simple, that they could be spending on programming bug fixes or something else that more people would use.

[Rosveen]

It takes you hours to reply to a mail? Or do you reply to 20 mails during every gaming session?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against your suggestions or anything, I just fail to see it as such a wide-spread problem. Like I said, I hardly ever tab out for hours. I lose maybe half an hour if I start chatting with someone on Steam or go make some food, but it doesn't happen often. Gaming time is for gaming, I can talk to people later.

[KingNee]

 

It's not a hassle at all, it's just an inactivity timer that would solve the problem.

What problem? Seriously, I can't see any reason why they'd devote resources to doing something like this in the first place - why would they want to have two timers running, one for total time and the other for active only time? It's not something the masses are clammering for, so it'd be spending resources on programming something, even if it's simple, that they could be spending on programming bug fixes or something else that more people would use.

 

 

Who said they should drop everything and fix their timers? No one did. 

 

They shouldn't even have other timers than what I'm suggesting. "How long you've had the application open" -timer is useless for everything except maybe obscure bug hunts for stuff such as memory leaks. "For how long have you played the game?" is what matters in any discussion about game length and right now the timer is lying. 

[sparklecat]

Shouldn't you be requesting this from Steam instead?

[KingNee]

It takes you hours to reply to a mail? Or do you reply to 20 mails during every gaming session?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against your suggestions or anything, I just fail to see it as such a wide-spread problem. Like I said, I hardly ever tab out for hours. I lose maybe half an hour if I start chatting with someone on Steam or go make some food, but it doesn't happen often. Gaming time is for gaming, I can talk to people later.

 

Even if it's just a mail here, a youtube video there, a skype chat / steam chat or whatever they all add up to hours upon hours in a long game such as this.

 

I think it's wrong that an ingame timer is displaying what I would call "operating system information" such as "for how long has this application been running", that's NOT game time. That's system information. 

 

I want a game timer that's an actual game timer and it's depressingly simple to make for these guys. 

[KingNee]

Shouldn't you be requesting this from Steam instead?

No? Steam timers only look at their overlay, they don't know about this stuff unless it's sent through their API. So all they see is the same thing; how long has this application been running.