Hey everyone, I know that generally speaking these entries for What Are You Playing are just ridiculous and you can totally ignore them if you want to, but this week I actually have something really important to talk about. So I was recently trying to figure out which old HTML tags are still technically supported because I didn’t have a really great idea for a joke this week and so I wanted to make this week’s entry as bizarre as possible, but it turns out that the constant favorites of BLINK and MARQUEE are both no longer supported in modern browsers because they’re really annoying and provide no useful function. Then I found out that I can make all of this text way too small to read and nearly impossible to pick out from the background, but it had to be just dark enough that you can still tell there is actually text here and so you can almost read it because that way you’re going to squint and look closely and call me an annoying bastard for doing this, and eventually you’re just going to copy and paste the whole thing into another window to figure out what it actually says. Oh, and you’re probably waiting for the really important part, right? Because I think this is going to display normally on the main page, but it’s going to look all messed up when you actually click on the page, and you’ll wonder what the heck is wrong with your display. It’ll be really funny; I’m laughing about it right now. If Bree fixes it because it looks horrible, I will pout. Oh, the important thing is what MMOs are you playing this weekend?
Bonus question: What book do you find yourself re-reading most frequently? (Checking a reference book does not count, in this case.)
Andy McAdams: My weekend will probably be equal parts Palworld and City of Heroes, and maybe World of Warcraft because I offered to be a pocket healer for my guild if they want to run mythics.
Bonus: I’ve read Michael Crichton’s The Lost World probably 10 or 15 times. Not just because dinosaurs, but mostly about the philosophy that actually informs a lot of how I see the world today.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): I’ll be in City of Heroes – probably modding City of Heroes. I’ve been obsessed with supergroup base hubs and pop-menus this week, and I see no reason to stop!
Bonus: I don’t really re-read books nowadays the way I did as a kid (finish it and start right back at the beginning 80 billion times – my fellow bookworms understand). But I have been on an epic re-read of The Wheel of Time, spurred on by the TV show. I’m on book 8 now, plus I did New Spring already too. Some of it is worse than I remembered; some much better. Not sorry I started!
(There was no way I was going to change the prank intro!)
Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX, YouTube, Twitch): Phantasy Star Online for me! I’m trying to level up my Ranger to 80; I’m currently level 61 so I’m close. I’ll be bashing that out on either Mt. Magnus or Retem Alnoth over the weekend. Got laundry to do too, boo.
Bonus Question: The Great Gatsby is the perfect novel and the greatest American novel hands down. Its critiques of the folks that have a room full of unread books are just as relevant today as ever and I can’t find any fault in the book. Its the one book I always go back to reading. Gatsby’s demand to declare Daisy never loved Tom and how Fitzgerald executed it all is top tier. I read the book once a year..
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): I’m probably going to dip in and out of Palworld for a little bit, but most of my focus isn’t really about games right now if I’m honest. I’m kind of scattered feeling overall. Maybe something chill and braindead will help.
I haven’t re-read a book in a very long time, but I definitely recall reading the Redwall series of novels over and over a bunch growing up. I kind of want to get back on those again, honestly.
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): It’s going to be some Final Fantasy XIV and it’s going to be CoH. It’s always going to be CoH at this point. Did you know that WoW had a patch back on the 16th? That hasn’t been as interesting to me as beating up the Knives of Artemis. A game that shut down all those years ago has been such an endless delight. I haven’t even started re-leveling my previous main whom I just remade. CoH, people, I tell ya.
Back when I was younger and foolish and was pursuing a relationship out of state that didn’t work at all, I wound up flying a lot and I brought Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War with me a bunch. I wound up reading that book so many times that to this day I can pick it up, open to a random page, and continue reading without any need to go back and figure out what was happening before then. Fortunately, it’s a good book.
Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): I’m splitting my attention three ways these days, working through Lord of the Rings Online‘s latest expansion, leveling up a Dragoon in FFXIV, and starting a new Mesmer (baby Mez!) in Guild Wars 2. And the book I re-read the most is my trusty ESV readers Bible.
Mia DeSanzo (@neschria): What am I playing? That’s a good question. I am on the fence about dropping into Palworld because I have a lot of friends and family there, but I will probably cheap out and play something I already have. It seems like EverQuest has a bunch of stuff going on this year, so maybe I will check that out. I may do a little research to see if I can play any games I already own in Swedish, which I am learning as a 2024 challenge with some other folks.
Why you gotta go excluding reference books like that? If you hadn’t done that, I would have said Describing Morphosyntax by Thomas E. Payne, which I carry around in my backpack like some kind of ultranerd. References excluded, it would probably be What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah or Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard. Now that I think about it, it is probably actually The Hobbit, since I have read it to kids on multiple occasions.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): I’m still rocking Harry Potter Magic Awakened. The dueling event only has two weeks left and I’m actually #2 in my House! Also this past week I actually started a new MMO. Shocking I know. Ravendawn has the retro look I’m into and the class system sounds pretty sweet too. I don’t have high expectations but I have hopes it’s at least fun.
Bonus: You asked book, not novel! So the book I’ve most re-read is likely “I want my hat back”. It’s a child’s book by Jon Klassen but it’s hilarious. Even though we’ve out grown it I still like to slip it into a bedtime story now and again.
Tyler Edwards (blog): The promise of a free T6 ship has me back in Star Trek Online for the first time in years. I don’t know if I’m going to stick with it, but I’m going to give it another session or two anyway. Going back to an old MMO is always hard, but with Cryptic’s Rube Goldberg systems, it’s even worse. My brain hurts.
Bonus question: Lord of the Rings, though it’s been a few years since my last reread.
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!
