Have you ever procrastinated on a game mission?

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When a game gives you a goal/mission to complete, have you ever decided to procrastinate by exploring the game world/doing something which was not asked of you instead?

I have.

Back when Club Penguin was still accessible on desktop form instead of a mobile app, and when I used to play it at 8-10 years old, there were playable spy missions.

On one of them you had to retrieve a code from a computer, to help save the day.

But on the computer was an option to play a game of pong, so I decided to play pong for a bit, and then I retrieved the code to save the bank.

Used to do this kind of thing on Penny Racers too.

I didn't care much about winning the race, so instead would go the opposite direction, and just drive around to look at the scenery as well as to discover different areas.

There were times where I would just drive through an area because I liked the setting and soundtrack.

Much like how on the Harry Potter PC games for Philosopher's stone (or Sorcerer's if you are American) and the Chamber of secrets if the mission wasn't timed then I'd often wander off and try to find hidden rooms.

Unfortunately those two games no longer run on my PC, which is a shame because I used to use cheat codes which made the games quite fun.

There was one cheat that allowed Harry to jump really high, and sometimes I would use this to avoid talking to certain characters, or to jump over levels I didn't want to do.

Draco being annoying, or Hermione judging you for not being in class? Jump over them and run away from the conversation.

I tend to dislike games which are too controlling.

Played one once which told me "You can't do that as those options don't make sense together" and "Although you picked that option, what actually happened was X because based on your previous choices you would probably do X".

I wouldn't have minded so much if it just pointed out the unusual nature of the choice, but instead it downright refused to do anything else but what it thought I would do in that situation realistically.

Nah. As much as I love exploring video game worlds, I'm not the type to invest huge amounts of time into it, unless the game really captivates me with its lore. Usually I just want to finish a game as quickly as possible. (However, I'm not a speedrunner, though I have dabbled in speedrunning a couple of times, albeit unsuccessfully.)

I dont really do it much.

If I'm playing a game, and start to get that feeling of "this is dull, I could do other things".... it probably means it's not actually a very good game. Because if it was, the main gameplay would be holding my attention to begin with, yeah?

However, I also almost never play games that have even a remote focus on story stuff (provided they even have a story) so I rarely get dull moments in the games I do play. On top of that, the games I do play tend to allow for a heck of alot of freedom in terms of deciding on how I want to go about things. They're the sorts that give a sort of vague goal and then dump you in and just expect you to figure it out on your own. Roguelikes and similar things, mostly.

If that is how you play you should give skyrim a try, that is if you have a console or computer that can play it. Its an open world game so lots of stuff to explore and technically none of the quests/missions are mandatory...there is a main quest-line which really doesn't take very long to get through but you don't even have to do that if you don't want. There are also some different guild type things you can join, or you can join none of them. Really you can do whatever you want. There are other open world games too but Skyrim is the best one I have played.

If I didn't ignore the main quest, games like Breath of the Wild would be very short indeed

Sometimes I literally procrastinate a game, though...like I really want to play Ultima Underworld 2, but I'm getting lost in pocket dimensions within pocket dimensions, and it's very overwhelming and frustrating :/

Uhh, not to mention, I might need to put a different computer back together if I want to play it...

It depends on the game, but generally, yes. I won't if the game is so open and full of side quests and distractions that it isn't feasible to get through it all in any reasonable time frame, but generally when there are side objectives, I'll do those first. You never know when you might reach the point of no return, thus lamenting all those quests I didn't do.

I'll even contradict what I would normally do in real life, sometimes even putting off terrible things, like the world is in danger but I'll go and do that fetch quest that the fate of the world doesn't rest on in any capacity. Most recently for me, girl who got attacked by a dangerous entity is experiencing symptoms associated with that encounter in the real world and not just the fictional world she got attacked in wants to talk about it; maybe I'll try my hand at that competitive card game (an in-game minigame) I've heard so much about first.

Logic goes out the window when time limits are non-existent, thus removing any danger in procrastinating in a situation where one generally wouldn't procrastinate...or even wish to procrastinate for that matter. Of course games are designed that way to make them more enjoyable. Imagine a game that was full of time limits and if you didn't do the main missions in enough time, bad things would happen just like they would in real life. Games would be way more stressful, and their purpose is to be entertaining first and foremost.