Hello, friend! Would you like to trade? You’d like to sell? Seventeen [Yak Horns]? Very good, here’s your money! May you find good fortune in your travels.
Hello, friend! Would you like to trade? You’d like to sell? Twelve [Bleeding Carp Meat]? Very good, here’s your money! Have a good day.
Hello, friend! Would you like to trade? You’d like to sell? Six [Cursed Artifact Fragments]? Very good, here’s your money! Have a good day.
Hello, spouse! Would you like to talk? You’d like to know how much money I’ve made? Everyone has only sold me things! Please don’t leave.
Hello, friend! Would you like to trade? You’d like to sell? Three [Valuable Vendor Garbage Bags]? Very good, here’s your money! Have a good day.
Hello, friend! Would you like to trade? You’d like to sell? One [Blessed Hammer of the Prior Expansion Endgame]? Very good, here’s your money! I wish you well.
Hello, friend! Would you like to trade? You’d like to sell? I’m sorry, I can’t accept that quest item. May good fortune follow you in your travels.
Hello, friend! Would you like to trade? You’d like to buy? You want to buy seven [Vendor-Pelting Cabbages]? Thank you for your purchase! I wish you well.
Hello, friend! Would you like to trade? You’d like to What Are You Playing? Get out of here you rotten freak. We don’t need your kind here.
Bonus question: Have you ever learned to fight in real life? If not, would you want to?
Andy McAdams: I’m predictable – more The Elder Scrolls Online for my MMO-fix and I’ve been really enjoying (again) Oxygen Not Included for my Not-So-Massively fix. I’ll continue to fight the urge to purchase Temtem, and have a strange desire to try to get into Dwarf Fortress again. In the past, I haven’t been able to really crack the UX of Dwarf Fortress despite knowing I’d love the gameplay, as I have over 400 hours into Rimworld. We’ll see.
Bonus Question: Indeed I have! I’m currently 8 years in and a third-degree brown belt in a Traditional Shotokan Karate school; I should have finally get my black belt sometime this summer. It’s kind of amazing me to that it’s taken me longer to get my black belt than it took to get my masters degree (and I actually moved slightly faster than the average student through the ranks). Black belt is on my bucket list, and I’m eager to finally check it off after the better part of a decade of effort.
Ben Griggs (@braxwolf): I just made a burly Nord tank in TESO and have started leveling him through the Ebonheart Pact areas. I’ll probably continue questing with him and maybe even attempt a dungeon or two when those unlock for him. Strangely enough, though I’ve played for a few years, I’ve never seriously leveled a Nord, but the Dark Heart of Skyrim announcement got me excited about the prospect.
I asked my dad to teach me how to fight when I was about eight years old. He gave me a few pointers about protecting my face with one hand and going for the nose of my opponent. Thinking back, I don’t think he really knew how to fight. He was an accountant. Unfortunately, I decided to use my newfound skills on my sister the next time she annoyed me. When my dad found out, he held my arms behind my back and let my sister punch me in the stomach as punishment. I deserved it.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): Honestly, I think I’m going to take the weekend and get out of the house. But I’ll still make it into something, probably Star Wars Galaxies Legends. The population swell lately has manifested in my sales, so I have some restocking to do on my food, droid, and component vendors!
I know exactly enough about fighting to know I’m standing behind Andy.
Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX): Legends of Runeterra! I’ve been really looking forward to it’s release. I know it’s just another TCG for some folks, but it’s finally a chance for me to learn about the League of Legends lore. More importantly, it’s not Hearthstone. I stopped playing serious Hearthstone years ago, but I always came back to it because it was the only TCG with the production values that I was looking for; problem was it was a Warcraft product. I love the Warcraft series as much as the next guy, but playing the MMO and the card game was just too much Warcraft for me.
As for fighting, I don’t know how to fight. But because of everything that’s happening in the news I’m planning on buying a gun for self defense. I also plan on picking up fencing this year if that counts for anything.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): This weekend I’m playing “plan the next leg of my party’s D&D campaign,” which has a couple of added wrinkles of things I have never learned to do before, but by gum I’m gonna do ’em, new DM or not!
I would love to learn a fighting style. Specifically how to wield large swords. Partially because I am a sword nerd, partially for fitness and strength building. Honestly, conventional exercise bores me and my lazy butt needs motivation to move.
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): There is so much Fire Emblem to play as I tear through a second playthrough of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and decide when to pull the trigger on Fire Emblem: Awakening. Oh, and Final Fantasy XIV, of course.
I’ve taken a smattering of martial arts courses over the course of my life and a bunch of firearm courses between Boy Scouts and my adult life; perhaps ironically, I’m a pacifist and don’t believe in fighting. My general interest in actual real-life combat extends only far enough to block and deny any fighting. Despite this, I find learning about weaponry and combat styles in the abstract fascinating, so there’s a bit of a disconnect there.
Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): I’ve been reconnecting with Neverwinter as of late, but I also have plans to get some more Northern Elsweyr done in TESO. Plus, The Sims 4’s Tiny Living has me hooked on making tiny homes!
Mia DeSanzo (@neschria): I will be leveling my Guardian in Black Desert Online. I may drop into TESO. I will otherwise be occupied with family stuff and other projects.
Samon Kashani (@thesamkash): Not too much gaming for me this weekend. I’ll be able to log in and get my Guild Wars 2 festival dailies, but likely not much else.
I took karate lessons for a couple of years when I was a kid until I wasn’t able to anymore. Legend has it that I attended a small tournament once, where, in my first match a kid repeatedly targeted and wrecked my head with blow after blow. They say between rounds I told my instructor through tears, “I don’t wanna be a fighter anymore.” At least that’s how the legend goes.
Tyler Edwards: More Star Trek Online. Turns out the difficulty spike when you hit level cap is pretty intense, but so far I’m managing to endure. I’m on a story arc with the Borg at the moment; the trouble with the Borg in video games is they always want to find a way to make the Borg even scarier. The Borg are already scary enough; you don’t need to lay it on even thicker. Hopefully the next story arc will be more compelling.
Bonus question: Not in any serious way. I learned some boxing moves as part of a fitness class a ways back, but we never actually sparred, and I had one sword fighting class on a whim a few weeks ago, but I haven’t been back. I did enjoy the boxing, and combat sports definitely interests me, but money is an issue, and I have some physical challenges that would probably render learning an actual martial art an impossibility for me.
Patron Pierre: I think I’m on a narrative gaming trip these days. I’m so glad to be back in The Elder Scrolls Online, as I really enjoy the quests, all the little story writing is really well done. As Justin detailed on his gaming blog, combat is far from perfect in ESO, but that’s not what you should look for in this excellent MMO. Solo gaming, I’m going on exploring and delivering stuff in Death Stranding and surviving the cordiceps apocalypse in The Last of Us Remastered. And you, MOP readers, WRUP this weekend?
Every Saturday, join the Massively OP community and staff for What Are You Playing, our roundup of what MMORPGs and other games we’re hoping to play this weekend (with a bonus question or two for our amusement). Tell us what you’re up to! Go off-topic! And don’t forget to have fun!
