WRUP: Sing the praises of pants edition

I don't understand why someone would want to eschew pants. Pants are excellent articles of clothing. They keep things from touching your legs and look quite stylish besides. Please, people, wear pants. If you're out in a public area, if you're in a private area, if any piece of clothing is appropriate, it's almost always pants of some variety. Nothing better shows your taste than what you wear below your waist. Even if your name includes some variant on "no pants," you should still probably wear pants. In fact, wear several pairs so that your name becomes ironic.

Now, yes, it's Saturday morning, but you should still probably be wearing pants. It's time for WRUP; that's a public event, and that once again means pants. Please be wearing pants. Assuming that you are currently wearing pants (I can only hope), click on past the break to find out what the Massively crew is up to for the weekend. We're also talking about our alts and their status on the pants-pantsless continuum, so feel free to leave your own thoughts — and your weekend activities — in the comment section.
Beau Hindman (@Beau_Hindman): I'll be finishing up my review with Dark Age of Camelot and moving on to my next Rise and Shiny game. (Now to decide what it is!) I will also be having some classic fun in Vanguard and EverQuest, as well as building in Wurm Online and trying to experience some more Istaria. Then, if I am lucky, I can find a way to get those last few points I need in our Saturday Vindictus group.

How many alts do I have? In each individual game, I rarely roll alts. I like to make a character and stick with it, even if it gets nerfed or changed or whatever — after all, this happens to us in real life; why not roleplay those life-changes in game?

Brendan Drain (@nyphur): With Krystalle getting back into EVE, I've had the oddest urge to run low-level missions in high-security space. Providing I find a suitable wormhole back to highsec, I might pull an assault frigate out of the mothballs and track her down for some fun.

Brianna Royce (@nbrianna): I'm going to be writing all weekend, but I'm hoping I can squeeze in some City of Heroes with my guildies. :D

Alts... it usually depends on the game. City of Heroes, for me, is nothing but alts. Hordes of them. Same with Guild Wars. But in most traditional MMOs, I usually only have two or so characters I play seriously... others morph into mules of some form, especially as I have less and less time to devote to any one game.

Eliot Lefebvre: Now that Pocket Legends is on the Droid, I am legally obligated to check it out when I find some spare time away from Final Fantasy XIV and CoH. I've also got a smattering of offline games I want to start working my way through, since it's become clear to me just what percentage of my house is made up of video games I have not yet beaten.

Alts? I've got one or two... or a few hundred. The only game to date that I've played for any length of time without rolling an alt is Final Fantasy XIV, and that's just because of the structure of the game.

Greg Waller: I'll be playing Warhammer Online this weekend (big surprise!), as Fable III still isn't out yet. Patience... As for the bonus question, I have far too many alts on both sides of WAR's faction coin, and all of them wear pants with a few exceptions, mainly my Witch Elf and Sorceress.

Jef Reahard: Another weekend with limited gaming time for me, but I'll be finding a few minutes for Age of Conan as well as doing some Darkfall-related research for CMA. As for alts, lol, yeah. Are we talking games or characters? I've usually got three or four alternate MMOs going alongside AoC; the current crop includes Darkfall, Aion, and Global Agenda (<3). As for characters, I've got 11 AoC toons over 40 with another to follow shortly in service of next week's column. Realistically, most of these guys get played maybe once every two weeks unless I'm focusing on a particular class for work. I've got one main at 80, but unfortunately it's my least-favorite class, hence the alt army. In other games I'm a bit more reasonable, I'll usually have as many characters as the game has ranged DPS classes. All of my AoC alts feature legwear, but Funcom is big on kilts (or skirts for dudes, whatever), so technically quite a few of my characters lack pants.

Justin Olivetti (@Sypster): My Lord of the Rings Online Captain is venturing into Mirkwood for the very first time, and so far I'm loving that zone more than Moria and Lothlorien. Otherwise, I'm mulling over the idea of giving Everquest 2 Extended another try — hey, it's free(ish), so why not?

As for alts, in LotRO I currently have six, and in Guild Wars, four.

Karen Bryan: I'll be playing EverQuest II, Free Realms, and possibly a little LEGO Universe. My son has been gently prodding me into playing, and we haven't checked it out since Beta.

As for alts, I'm not really an alt-o-holic, but if we have a gap to fill on our raid force, I'll switch classes to help out.

Krystalle Voecks (@Krystalle): More EVE Online for me this weekend. I'm continuing the rep grind to get my very first jump clone and finally starting to close in on the goal. As such, missions galore!

As for alts, yes — I tend to have at least one alt in every MMO. Depending on the game, the alt may just be used for banking and auction house duties, or it may be a fully leveled character I raid occasionally.

Larry Everett (@Shaddoe): Although I will stick to the sci-fi genre, I am breaking my Star Wars Galaxies mold this week and giving Global Agenda a shot. I love the Unreal engine, so the game should be a lot of fun.

As for alts, I am an alt-o-holic. I cannot play a game without at least one alt, but if the game allows for more than one, I will have at least four per game. However, if you're looking for me in game, at least one of my alts will have the first or last name Shaddoe.

Ryan Greene (@ThatGayNerd): For the gazillionth weekend in a row, I don't know how much time I'll have for gaming. I'm heading into the city (New York, obvs) to check out the Quidditch World Cup, hit up TKTS and do some shopping (H&M, obvs). Plus, I made the mistake of buying Angry Birds, which will eat up any free time it can get. As for alts, I am officially an altoholic. I get bored easily, so I tend to make loads of toons in whichever game I play. Whether those survive past level 15 or so is another question entirely.