WRUP: This prom date is going nowhere edition

After half an hour, I am disappointed at the progress that has been made on this prom date, and I've identified several key issues. The first issue is that I am nearly 30 and neither of us is attending high school. Second, you are apparently high on mescaline. Third and most importantly, this is not a high school prom but a boating enthusiast convention in the middle of Nevada. I probably should have noticed that when the tickets mentioned as much.

For now, we can shuffle back and forth awkwardly to slow music in the center of the boating convention while everyone else looks at WRUP. That contains a full list of the Massively staffers' weekend plans as well as what character creation options they would like to see in MMOs. The readers may also leave their weekend plans in the comments afterwards. That should be fun for everyone not stuck on a horrible prom date.

@Beau_Hindman: I'll be preparing for GDC Online all weekend. It's a sad one because it's the last one in Austin, then it's moving to California. I hate the airport, and the traffic in California ensures that I will probably never visit the con again. I'll be playing a few games, but I'm not sure what. Ryzom is definitely exciting now with everyone concentrated in one spot, but I wonder how long it will last? RuneScape has some fun new stuff to check out, and I will be finishing off my time in Mortal Online.

I wish it were possible to make older or uglier characters. I'm old and ugly and feel a bit silly rolling yet another muscle-bound hero.

@becripps: I plan to squeeze just a little bit of time with Star Wars: The Old Republic over the weekend, in between football and the rare social function. I wouldn't be shocked if my brand-spanking-new copy of Civilization V (via a Steam gift!) got a bit of play as well.

Honestly, at the risk of being burned at the stake by RPers, I think developers put way too much emphasis on customization. Gameplay is and will always be king.

@nyphur: It's Diablo III time this week as patch 1.0.5's Internal Machine and Monster Power additions are going to completely change the endgame and I need to get some better gear to be ready. Guild Wars 2 sits quietly on my desktop begging me to play, but it's good to know I'm not wasting a subscription by playing other games this week. In EVE Online, I'm training up the skills for tech 2 Minmatar and Amarr guns in preparation for the Retribution expansion as I have a feeling that the new Crimewatch system will make piracy and bounty hunting very interesting again.

I'd love it if more character designers let you make more average-looking characters, but I'd settle for women with realistic proportions and men who aren't muscle-bound freaks. I understand that artists want to make the prettiest avatars possible, but I don't need to live in a world full of supermodels.

@nbrianna: I hope to log some time in Guild Wars 2 and Torchlight II this weekend so that Justin can't mock me on the podcast for being boring!

I really wish more MMOs didn't skimp on hair options. I'm sick of getting 50 hair styles, 47 of which are poorly animated and ugly.

@psykopigau: I am at the EB Games Expo this weekend covering for Massively! I will be producing some videos for the event. A Guild Wars 2 interview with the publishers is the big one. I'll also be on my Twitter!

@Eliot_Lefebvre: I've got some Final Fantasy XIV roleplaying on deck and some Star Wars: The Old Republic leveling to take care of. I've also got a bit of a secret project right now which is MMO-related, but I don't want to talk about it much right now. No, it's not a secret beta.

I really wish that games on a whole would adopt a creation system closer in style to Star Trek Online, with a lot of control over body proportions, features, and even stances. Failing that, more realistic models for women in general would be great. FFXIV does a good job of making the women look believable; not a lot of other games do.

@elixabethclaire: I am not going to have a ton of time this weekend, but my general goal for the next week is to get my Guild Wars 2 Warrior up past 30 and get a lot more map exploration on her and my Elementalist.

I wish more games had chest sliders so I could tone down some of the busty monstrosities in my character lineup. I am a fan of sliders in general. Aion was pretty great about that.

@Jeremy_Stratton: I'm back to streaming regularly. I'll be sneaking around on my Dwarf again in Vanguard. Woot! I'll try to get in some MechWarrior Online and Guild Wars 2, as well.

I just wish the character options extended to making average-looking, frail, or even sickly characters.

@Sypster: With a new baby at home, I'm probably not going to get much gaming done at all. I really hope I have enough time to finish up a small project in Lord of the Rings Online before the expansion, but I still have a week or so.

Can I vent at just how much I always hated World of Warcraft's meager character creation options? More than any other game, that vexed me. I love facial hair options for the few times I play as males, but long beards are almost always done poorly. They should be done not poorly.

@mvmatt: This weekend I'm participating in the annual tradition of going to Universal Studios to have the everloving daylights scared out of me with a bunch of friends, so I probably won't be gaming a ton. However I fully intend to start getting my World of Warcraft characters geared to raid. Hopefully I'll also have some time to devote to The Secret World as well.

For the bonus, I would kill for more body types. Hairstyles come in a close second, but I'm super sick and tired of every character of a given race having the exact same physique. There is no reason that a lithe, acrobatic thief should have the steroid-infused musculature of a back-alley brawler or vice-versa.

@MikedotFoster: My weekend, to the extent that I have one, is all about Torchlight II. There's just something about tossing ice shards all over a screen that I can't walk away from. I'll also be hopping into World of Tanks to check out the 8.0 upgrades -- you can join me on Massively TV for that one at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday.

As for the question of the week: I wish every MMO allowed you to give your character a last name. It's just the right way to do it.

@mackeypb: I'll be playing a bit of League of Legends, though I'm not playing as much because my free time is currently tied up making a playtest version of a wuxia/martial arts themed pen and paper RPG. It's currently about 90% ready for playtesting, although the playtest version won't include stats yet or any sort of character creation. It also technically doesn't include skills, but I am stealing a lot of skill system ideas from 3.5e/d20 systems, so there is not a lot of actual work for me to do there. I really like dice + roll high versus a target number; I'm using 2d10 (rather than d20) and the core d20 systems emulate reality well enough that I don't have to change a whole lot. I currently have a lot fewer ways to get skill bonuses, so that might change in the final version.

Overall, there's not a lot I would add to the more robust character creation systems currently on the market such as Aion or Champions Online. I would like to see every game have something that robust, and I echo the sentiment that there are not enough good hairstyles and I'd like to see more.

@RichieProcopio: I'll be playing Guild Wars 2. Shocker! I'm making the final push to level 80 after having the first ten days of my play time erased due to account issues. Almost there!

Character creators are getting more and more robust, and I often find myself getting lost in them. I love tweaking tons of sliders and options, and I can spend hours making new characters. But I haven't seen many games allow you to choose whether your character is right-hand- or left-hand-dominant. As a lefty myself, I think it'd be great to see my in-game avatar shoot/stab/swing with his left hand. I know there is only a 10% representation of my peeps out there, but keep in mind that only left-handed people are in their right mind!

@terilynns: This weekend I will playing Star Trek Online, of course! I haven't done the Deferi Dailies in weeks, and I miss a lot of my fleetmates. But I will also be back into Lord of the Rings Online, as I have yet another alt that I'm loving -- a Hobbit Hunter. She's been a total blast to play!

I have to say I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to character customization in Star Trek Online; the tool is pretty amazing... although the main character tool still needs Romulan ridges so I can finally make my 1/2 Rommie character!

At the start of every weekend, we catch up with the Massively staff members and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" (Otherwise known as: WRUP!) Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game -- and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too!