FoH, is your answer.

Jelly

I've only met one FoH member in real life. The guy was pretty successful for his age at the time: he had his own house and a really well paying job.

However, he was always by the most socially awkward individual at any event that I ever encountered him. I wouldn't say he was necessarily a degenerate, although he did once make an undead priest named Lynched because "he was black in his past life."

Judging from some of the responses in this thread, it looks like there is plenty of this awe still to go around (whether it is folks in awe of others, or of themselves).

Also,

What the hell were you doing in grad school? I'm jelly of your experience. By the time I got out of grad school, I had about 50 extra pounds I had to burn off.

I had a very regimented life and was extremely focused, that's it. I was getting a PhD in physics, and had a crazy advisor (Korean guy) so I had to learn to optimize my time really well. I would wake up at 8AM, eat oatmeal with nuts/raisins, wheaties type cereal with a banana. Get to the lab around 8:45-9 and go very hard with experiments (no email/reading/whatever) until 12-12:30. Eat lunch 1. Work until 4-5. Eat lunch 2. Work until 7, and then sprint out of the lab before my boss could hold me up. At 7:30 (or 8, depending on the day) I would get to Judo, train for 2-2.5 hours. Go home, eat dinner, make lunch for next day and go to bed... rinse/repeat Mon, Tue, and Thu. Lunchtime or evenings, on Fri or Sat, Sundays, and usually Wednesday, I would lift weights hard with 2 other physics grad students for 1-2 hours, usually try to go hard for 1.25 hours only doing functional lifting, no bodybuilding crap. In the fall/spring would play intramural soccer, so I would do 1 less day of weightlifting. Usually either Friday or Saturday I would go out with friends, and once I got a girlfriend (now wife) would go out with her on Wednesdays after judo, and Fri/Sat.

I would try to maximize efficiency in the lab, although it was not easy. I would get behind from time to time, but if I lightened up on my physical/eating/sleeping routine, that was the worst solution. Certain things prevented me from keeping a regimented schedule from time to time, like qualifying exams (if you don't pass with flying colors you get the boot) which I had to study for like 5 hours a day for 5-6 months.

I tried to really rest my brain on Saturdays/Sunday... but that was not always possible... sometimes I had to play catch up on the weekend in the lab. But if I couldn't rest, my brain would just be sapped for the next whole week and I would struggle. I tried as much as possible to make the weekend just about sleeping, eating, and maybe just lying in the grass for 2-3 hours, or sitting on a bench outside, letting the stress dissipate.

However, being extremely focused with little wiggle room really helped me out. I was a machine for a few years... a good example is that I didn't eat any sugar (besides fruit) for like 2-3 years. Then one day I had a piece of cake at a birthday party, and I had to go home and sleep for like 12 hours lol. I ate really clean the whole time... probably only had 2 beers a week or less, and just pushed the pace.

The funny thing though, is that it was one of the happiest times of my life... I felt satisfied in everything I was doing. While the pace was high, I rarely noticed how busy I was because I really loved everything I was putting valuable time into (although weightlifting gets boring, besides deadlifts!). Now, with a kid/married/both of us working... I have less time to focus on me... however I do some squats/lunges with my daughter on my back while we play at the playground. More fun now :)

And we know FoH were all degenerate neckbeard basement dwellers how?

I lived with one of their WoW ilk for a few years. Can verify Neckbeard basement dweller.

Had zero social ability, would often stare full on at my GF's chest, walk in on sex no knocking. Not clean up his messes in kitchen, barely ever worked. Proper grooming/laundry were not high priority.

Now this isn't all of them, or their EQ ones...but this guy was a major raider in EQ and EQ2 prior to WoW...sooooo.

I take the "You see me putting in 70 hours a week in EQ but I'm still super successful outside game and dating a supermodel too!" crowd with a grain of salt. A few of them may be on the level but most aren't. This may be a shock to some, but people have been known to lie on the internet.

Folks riding the coattails of the high-hours players can achieve "success" in EQ with mild time investment (a few hours an evening) but it comes with its own costs--ie, largely relegating oneself to being a pawn in someone else's game.

Danth

Man the lifeboats!

Hahaha