An MMORPG Summer

Welcome to the May (barely) 2022 edition of...
What I'm Into, What I'm Working On
#28

What I'm up to:

• I've been chipping away at Ghost_Layer, my serialized novel about a young guy (and his robostrich) trying to make his way in the digital world. Since the last email, I've published five (!!!) new chapters—
  Chapter 15: This Never Happened,
  Chapter 16: Room #423,
  Chapter 17: Formula Hit And Run,
  Chapter 18: The Drop, and
  Chapter 19: Pure White Nothingness.
• Building part two of our driveway garden bed!
  
  When we first saw our current house, we immediately noticed a giant rectangle of mulch in the middle of the oversized driveway (Google Maps shows there used to be a giant oak tree growing out of it). It did nothing for curb appeal, let me tell you. It took us a while to figure out what to do, but we finally decided on a raised garden bed, which has gone pretty well, so now I'm adding part two, which will hopefully feature multi-level terraces and waterfalls!

What I'm into:

I have decided to embark on a big research project this summer, with the help of some friends and family members, to play as many MMORPGs as possible before our kids go back to school in the fall. (Yesterday was their last day of school, so today is officially the first day of summer break!)

For those of you not into video games, MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, and of all video game genres this one has always interested me the most.

I could give you a whole personal history of how video games have been a part of my life in different ways at different times, but for now I'll just say I've almost always become immediately bored with games I play by myself. I have friends who have sunk hundreds or thousands of hours into solo gaming, but I've never been able to do that.

I like games as a collaborative and social experience, and I have future plans in that realm, so this research project is a good excuse to have a lot of fun and learn as much as I can about my favorite game genre.

For now I am spending a little bit of time when I can with World Of Warcraft (free trial up to level 20), Lord Of The Rings Online (free to play), Final Fantasy XIV (free trial up to level 60), and Trove (free to play).

I will keep you posted on my progress as summer continues. Would you be interested in doing your own version of this research project and sharing your results with me? I would love to hear about it!