Weekend Game Plans: WoW, LOTRO, Warframe and More in What Are You Playing

This weekend’s plans range from a slow tour of a new Lord of the Rings Online expansion to more time in Diablo IV, Warframe and World of Warcraft. For some of the Massively OP team, the bigger challenge is finding time to play at all. Their weekly roundup also turns to a more personal question: which living public figure would they miss most?

Addendum 1: Don’t ask why I ate all that dog food.

Addendum 2: Seriously, don’t ask why I ate all of it.

Addendum 3: The charitable donations will go to the International Foundation of Cats, which is searching for the single brain cell shared by all orange cats. The hunt has been narrowed to somewhere in the southern hemisphere. That may sound like a lot of ground, but it’s less than before. Earlier donations went to Beepalus Slimon’s foundation for finding out what happens when you sauté an ice cube in a frying pan. Nobody has been helped by that effort.

Addendum 4: Obviously I ate the dog food for charity. Why else would anyone eat dog food?

Addendum 5: At least I’m not the kind of fool who gives Funcom money.

That’s the spirit behind this edition of What Are You Playing: a mix of game plans, seasonal distractions and digressions. This week’s bonus question asks which living celebrity or public figure’s eventual passing would leave you saddest.

Andrew Ross (@dengarsw) has a Pokopia project that’s grown beyond what he can comfortably tackle at once. He plans to keep at it, though, one piece at a time. He’s also mixing Pokemon Go activities with Halloween events as part of his dog’s ongoing training. It’s an unusual pairing of game time and dog time, with the seasonal activities giving both a shared routine.

On the bonus question, Andrew says he isn’t especially invested in celebrities. Sir Patrick Stewart’s passing affected him, though he didn’t know Stewart personally. He wonders whether Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto might be his answer.

Andy McAdams expects to have little gaming time, and will likely divide what he gets between World of Warcraft and Fire Emblem. He’s been enjoying the current retail version of WoW while waiting for WoW Forever to launch. That gives the weekend a familiar fallback: a few relaxed sessions in a game that’s holding his attention while another release remains on the horizon.

Andy has no living celebrity answer for the bonus question. The people he’d have named have already passed, and he says the last couple of years have been a hard stretch for celebrity losses.

Brianna Royce may drop into Lord of the Rings Online. Whether the servers can handle the visit remains to be seen. It’s a compact plan, but one that depends on getting into the game and finding room to play.

Brianna’s answer to the bonus question is someone who has already passed. She adds that becoming too attached to celebrities may not be healthy, while reflecting on the certainty that everyone eventually dies.

Chris Neal says Final Fantasy Resonance continues to take up most of his available free time, and he expects that to continue. He’d also like to visit Final Fantasy XIV for the typing minigame at the Gold Saucer, with a Tifa outfit as part of the plan. It’s a mix of a current time sink and a specific activity he still wants to try.

Chris doesn’t have a living celebrity in mind. The people he’d most mourn have already passed, and Sir Patrick Stewart would have been his answer otherwise.

Eliot Lefebvre has fan festival coverage on his schedule, along with ongoing projects in Warframe ahead of its next major update. He also wants to spend proper time with Final Fantasy Resonance, which he hasn’t had much chance to play this week. His plans show how easily a busy week can leave a game waiting even when it’s already on the list.

Eliot reflects on the passing of David Lynch, Peter Cullen and Sir Patrick Stewart, among others. Their losses have sometimes caught him by surprise; Peter Cullen’s passing was particularly difficult to take in. He also says he isn’t ready for the eventual losses of Lyle Lovett or John Waters.

Justin Olivetti is taking his time with Lord of the Rings Online’s new expansion, Wolves of Mordor. He’s enjoying the experience so far and considers it a marked improvement over the previous couple of expansions. Away from Middle-earth, he’s still having a good time exploring the wasteland in Fallout 76 as a shotgun-carrying vault dweller. Those are two very different worlds, but both have enough to keep him occupied.

Sam Kash expects to play little while spooky season runs on. Candy and monsters, he says, may leave him too dazed to focus on games. For the bonus question, he names Jon Stewart: decades of watching The Daily Show and following Stewart’s thoughts and antics would make that loss hit hard.

Tyler Edwards remains busy with Diablo IV and may fit in some The Secret World too. The season suits the latter, though the plan depends on how much time he has. Tyler says celebrity losses have never affected him much, even when he’s been a fan. The possible future loss he expects would feel different is Lauren Mayberry’s, because her music has meant a great deal to him.

Every Saturday, join the Massively OP community and staff for What Are You Playing, a roundup of the MMORPGs and other games they hope to play over the weekend, plus a bonus question for fun. Share your plans, go off topic and have fun.