We’re excited to announce that Massively Overpowered is getting a new browser mode, the What Are You Playing mode! Some of you will get to opt in to test this new mode, and some of you are going to be opted in whether you like it or not and you don’t get to opt out. If that sounds horrible, that sounds to me like a you problem. Here are some of the features of the new browsing mode:
- Sometimes you just get thrown into the Grotesquerie Pit. What’s in there? Well, I’m pretty sure from the name that it’s nothing but good things.
- You can clip out-of-bounds really easily, but that doesn’t help you all that much because when you do so I get notified and possibly get the legal right to change your wifi password without telling you the new one. Not that I mind.
- Exciting new friends! Do you like swarms of friends? I sure hope so.
- El Chupacabre.
- Reginald.
- Not every time, but sometimes, when you try to post a new comment you’ll just hear a duck quacking.
- If your opinion gets flagged as wrong by the review board, which is staffed by my cats, a human skull I call Capitan Blinky, a hand puppet of IDW continuity Getaway, and an undisclosed number of lizards, your comments will all be edited to explain the various ways in which you are afraid of goats. Trust me, you’re better off this way, by which I mean we’re better off this way and I don’t care.
- Have you ever wanted your headlines emailed to you at midnight with an override that turns your phone up to max volume even if you have notifications turned off? No? Well, too bad.
Bonus question: Are there any single-player games you’ve stopped playing just before the end, and why?
​Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): Exercise games are getting some work, but it’s also a new season of Splatoon 3 so I’ll be in there a bit.
The only game I can think of that I stopped just before the end was Earthbound Beginnings, back when it was only a fan-translated ROM called Earthbound Zero. As some people may know, there were multiple ROMs, and some had security settings hackers hadn’t always figured out a way around, and I naturally had one of those versions. I think I eventually found a different version and finished it, but dang, it was quite a disappointment to have to restart. I ended up buying the game two times, but the trauma of that first version still haunts me.
Andy McAdams: Probably more Lord of the Rings Online;Â I actually did finish Epic 1 last weekend and I’m up to my eyeballs in Moria right now. Since my significant other has been playing EverQuest II, I’ve also gotten a bit of the urge to play that, but I have too many characters and I’ll need to resub to create a new one which is… ugh.
Bonus Question: Um, all of them? I’m notorious for getting 75% of the way through and just … not … finishing. I think the last game I actually finished was the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and before that… well, a couple years ago I played through Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, but I quit before I finished Dragon Age: Inquisition, naturally…
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): Likely nothing, although I’m hosting a Princess Peach party for my kid, so that’s sort of video game-related! After this weekend, things might get back to normal around here. Hopefully. Maybe. My harvesters and hobbits need me!
If I get close enough to finishing a thing that can be finished, I usually finish. The hard part is keeping my interest through the first chunk, not the last.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): This weekend is looking pretty similar to previous ones – that is to say it will involve dailies and weeklies in Destiny 2 and Final Fantasy XIV – but I also am going to give an honest and concerted effort to pop in to Black Desert through the avenue of its summer season server.
Man, too many to count, honestly. Ghost of Tsushima, The Witcher 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dragon Age: Inquisition… I think the reason these slide off of my back is simply because I think I prefer MMOs more, though there is also the matter of open world fatigue. Sometimes I just want something a little more guided, you know?
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): Some usual stuff in FFXIV and then some single-player stuff as I gear up for the next big single-player game I’m looking forward to, Final Fantasy XVI. I could use something that’s just fun and makes me happy after the past couple of months, not going to lie.
Video games, for me, are like anything else. It’s possible to have a fantastic early game that keeps getting more and more irritating without giving me reasons to keep going, and if I have reason to take a break in the middle there… well, that’s it, I’m not coming back. There’s a perfect storm for longer RPGs (which are my generally preferred style of game) where the game gets more and more slog-like over the runtime, and then eventually I get to the end, which is truly annoying, and I have to take a break… and that break lasts long enough that I feel like I’d need to restart to play it. Many games don’t make it over that hurdle. (Sorry, Star Ocean: Till The End of Time. I could handle your weird plot twists, but you just got too annoying.)
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): I’m still boring. Tower of Fantasy and Chained Echoes are my games of the week. I’m so close to PvP levels in ToF that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t imagine it’ll be a great hook but I’m excited to try it. In Chained Echoes I’m in the final act of the game at last and I’m ready.
Bonus: I think Final Fantasy IX. If that was the one with the monkey or cat boy or something. He had a tail is all I remember. I stopped playing somewhere near the end or at least dozens of hours into it. It was a game I was playing during the summer that I was cruising through until some underground area. I remember dying to the same mob maybe two or three times in a row. I turned it off, went to hang out with some friends, and never turned it back on again.
Tyler Edwards (blog): I’m giving Lord of the Rings Online another try now that they’ve added open world difficulty settings for all servers. I’ll also be continuing to grind Loot Groot in New World and possibly chipping away at my replay of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Bonus question: Bound by Flame. It was a pretty mediocre game to begin with, and the final boss kept kicking my ass, so I just kind of gave up.
Alexander Metcalf, patron: I’m off the New World train but still chugging along in Albion Online. Someone in the Albion subreddit commented that they treat the game like a full-loot survival game, which stuck with me for some odd reason and I’m playing it more (and for longer!) than I originally thought I would. The never-ending task of skilling up weapons and gear and gathering and refining skills continues, but now I have my personal island to tend to as well! Also, as I type this, I’m waiting for the Embers Adrift free weekend to start. No idea if the game is for me, but I’m not paying box and sub money to find out, so kind of excited to take it for a test drive for the next few days.
Bonus: All of them, but most recently Red Dead Redemption 2. Two things killed this beautiful and genuinely fun game for me: 1) Learning that upgrading your camp through tasks and achievements had little to no effect on your gameplay or the overall story. 2) I never played the original but reading about it spoiled the story of RDR2 and…my desire to see what happened in RDR2 faded. I hope I get motivated to pick it back up one day because it really is a great game.
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!
