Tag Archives: PC

Lifestyles of the Naked and Desperate

I just wrapped up a few weeks somewhat obsessed with the Steam Early Access darling open world survival game Rust. Honestly, it was a surprise that it would even run on my relatively old gaming PC but some of my old gaming buddies were playing it together and invited me to jump in and, after hearing all kinds of hilarious stories about it on various podcasts and forums and whatnot, I couldn’t resist. Unfortunately I was plagued by a bug that caused me to frequently, randomly disconnect and my group seemed to have horrible luck with encountering cheaters and abusive admins on servers, and the few servers we did well on wiped or went away after we got established. Bummer!

“Rust: the exhibitionist sociopath simulator!”

There’s a lot I could say about Rust. It’s a fun game, particularly with a group of friends, and I expect it or similar games to make a lot of noise in online gaming in the future. The concept is definitely solid. Rust itself, however, still feels like it needs a lot of refinement in the design before it’s truly a compelling long term experience. After playing for just a few weeks cracks began to show and it became a lot less fun. The game is only in early alpha for now though so hopefully Garry and company will have something truly special on their hands by the time the game is officially completed. Personally, I’m sure I’ll be back (hopefully with friends) after a bit of a hiatus for them to expand upon the game a little.

The real magic of Rust is all of the hilarious systemic, emergent experiences and the stories that result from them. This sort of “put a bunch of people together and see what happens” gameplay is what made sandbox MMORPGs such as Eve Online or, way before that, Ultima Online so compelling for many of us. At its core it seems like that’s all Rust really is: one big, silly social experiment. Its crafting isn’t that deep and “surviving” without other players in the world to kick over your sandcastle, as it were, is a cinch. Luckily there are no shortage of assholes in Rust who will delight to ruin your day and if you ever do run out that mantle is easy enough for you to take up yourself.

I first started out on a “PVE” (player versus environment, as opposed to “PVP” or player versus player) server where I’d hopefully be somewhat free to learn the ropes of the game before having to deal with having my progress constantly impeded by other humans and, I have to say, it was going well. I had finally located a steady supply of enough resources that I could build just about anything without too much trouble. Being fascinated by all of the oddly shaped, tall rocks that dotted the landscape I built a huge tower next to one that particularly stood out on its own in a valley with a lot of easy to reach resource spawns. I purposely left the top and some of the sides of the stairway open so that I could climb out onto the surrounding rocks and run around like an idiot. I’m not that naive though, as I was at least smart enough to further compartmentalize all of the rooms that actually contained valuables though you couldn’t necessarily tell that from the outside.

One day I logged in, did a little hunting near a local zombie spawn, and returned home only to find a couple of gentlemen in full Kevlar armor (the best armor in the game) with assault rifles quickly and haphazardly building a stairway up onto the other side of the rock where my new tower was. “Were these guys building their own house? No, no way… they were moving too quickly and seemingly only interested in making it to that top!” I thought. “These guys are trying to raid me!” It was too obvious that they had noticed my open roof design and were planning on jumping in through the top to rob my ass blind.

“Meeting the new neighbors. Sugar?”

I quickly ran into my own tower and onto the top of the rock just in time to watch them finish their stairway. When one of them hopped onto the rock he fell to his death which caused the other one to bide his time while he waited on his buddy to respawn. I used this time to restock and watch for them. Eventually the lone survivor spotted me. We watched each other tensely for a minute or so, guns drawn. Finally he took a shot at me. That was all of the encouragement I needed. I opened up on him with my submachine gun hitting him at least a couple of times in the hail of bullets. Humorously, my would-be uninvited house guest immediately turned around and jumped back to his stairs and disappeared from my sight. Wow, some PVE server, eh?

I quickly formulated a plan. I had the raw materials stored to hastily close up the top and sides of my tower which would make their attempts to raid me impossible, or at least in the way they had originally planned. Once I completed my modifications I left my house, circling back around to the base of their stairway to attempt to flank them. It was night by now, pitch black even, and I got there just in time to watch them both gather their gear (evidently my attacker had also fallen to his death attempting to flee me! Ha!) and return to the top of the rock. I slowly followed them. I chuckled to myself as I watched them run over to my now enclosed tower and shoot at the walls a few times in frustration. Sorry guys!

Over the next few days I identified my attackers as belonging to a small group who setup a large base just across the valley from me. Nice neighbors, eh? Once I caught them snooping around my front door, firing shots into it randomly, and decided to call them out in the global chat. Some others questioned them for possibly breaking the server’s rules but as an admin got involved I decided to let it be – I had no real investment in this server and these guys were either being fairly good sports or were totally incompetent. Either way their antics were amusing to me. Our little war of words only served to escalate the behavior however. One day I logged in to find my front door and the paths to it totally blocked off by spiked barricades. I, of course, returned the favor. The next time I logged in I found that they had built a stairway up the side of my tower, and blown a hole in it, though they never managed to get into any of my locked rooms so no real harm was done. This kind of silly passive-aggressive stuff continued before I finally abandoned the server to join my friends elsewhere.

“I was sure to thank them for the additions they made to my house.”

Speaking of which, here’s a Rust-ass story for you. My group and I had established a tiny shack in the rocky southern coast and, after spending a night chasing off our neighbors and gathering resources, eventually built a small house in a nearby clearing. We were starting to get a foothold, in other words. The next day I log in to find that our server had been wiped. Damn! Since I logged in long before everyone else I decided to spend some time gathering resources and building another shack in the exact same place as our original one so that when my friends got on later they could have a leg up to continue where we left off. Right after completing my shack, before logging off, I decided to explore the neighborhood only to discover two nearby shacks with metal doors. Now, unlike houses, despite it taking a long time shacks can be completely destroyed by basic tools whether they have a metal door or not. All the metal doors did was demonstrate that the owners probably had plenty of raw materials to spare. After making damn sure the shacks were unoccupied and the owners weren’t in the area I started trying to hack them down.

After several tense minutes the first shack is destroyed and, as luck had it, there was a ton of decent starter loot inside. Lots of raw material, some blueprints, even a gun! I grabbed it all and quickly ran back to my own shack to stash it, excited about this seemingly incredible stroke of luck. As I approached my shack though, I heard footsteps. Wow, really? This was a fairly isolated area and the whole time we were here previously we never had anyone come wandering by. I waited several tense minutes with my gun drawn and eventually the steps lead away. I darted to my shack to stash my new valuables. Shew! Just then I heard footsteps approach yet again and then proximity chat kicked on. “Anyone home?!” I declined to respond. Whether he called my bluff or not, he immediately started hacking down my shack. Shit! What could I do? If I logged out or just stood here it was only a matter of minutes before he was in and all my hard work, never mind my loot, was all history. “Well, I do have this gun.” I thought.

“Just like real life, leaving your home only to run into a group of naked men with bows is bad news.”

I rushed outside carefully closing the door behind me and started shooting wildly. Now, at this time I didn’t have much experience with Rust’s atypical feeling ballistics system so I ending up missing all but a couple of shots which apparently only winged him and, having just looted the gun, had no extra ammo to spare once I had shot my magazine dry. The anonymous looter on the other hand was apparently an expert hatchet man. The next thing I knew I was lying dead on the ground. I felt damn stupid having just died to a practically unarmed guy when I had some armor and a gun, but whatever. I spawned back in my shack using my sleeping bag and figured my sole remaining option was to attempt to rush him and hatchet him down like he did me. Again, no such luck. A quick hatchet duel later and I was dead again. This time, because of the way Rust’s spawning system works, I was forced to spawn in a random spot and ended up absolutely nowhere near my new home. By the time I could make it back my stuff would be gone. I simply called it a day.

After my frustration subsided I couldn’t help but laugh. Wow, truly the circle of life in Rust: I get incredibly lucky and manage to loot someone’s stuff having only been on this newly wiped server for a little while only to be ganked by a random passerby for all of my newly won loot literally only minutes later. Only in Rust!

Lightsabers and Labyrinths

I haven’t really sat down and attempted to complete anything new but I’ve definitely played some odds and ends on PC lately that I feel are worth a quick mention.

First, let me step back in time to something I forgot to mention several months ago which incidentally happens to me a lot with my blog – I randomly decide to pick something up for a few hours and put it back down without it ever earning a mention here. Anyway, I was feeling the MMORPG itch and since I hadn’t touched my old World of Warcraft account in quite a while I decided to make a brief incursion back into the galaxy of Star Wars: The Old Republic. You might recall when I mentioned the game originally that, despite being kind of a cookie cutter WoW clone in so many ways, I was actually quite fond of it and planned to go back. While I really wasn’t truly ready to return, having long since decided that this would be a game best played in all of its graphical glory after I build a new gaming rig, I still somehow ended up getting sucked back in.

“The perks of dogfighting in an asteroid field.”

I played my my Sith Inquisitor through a whole new planet and got my first taste of the on rails space combat which was surprisingly fun and appropriately Star Warsy. Most of all, the game is still mainly most satisfying because I like my character which is to say I like the way I imagine my character. Make no mistake, this is a twisted amalgamation of the imaginary image of him I have and my head the very wrote and scripted ways he behaves (no matter what choices I make) in his storyline dialogs and cut scenes. This is still very refreshing to me and gives me a much greater sense of attachment to my character than I’d normally have in an MMORPG, or even a lot of single player games.

I got so into it, in fact, that I ended up rolling some new characters in some other Sith Empire classes just to get an idea for the other characters and storylines at my disposal. I played a ruthless female bounty hunter pirate and a goodhearted but dutiful imperial agent somewhat based on the titular character from the Rogue Trooper comics and enjoyed the hell out of both. While I intend to stick it out with my Inquisitor (when I return to the game sometime later) I can definitely see why some people with far, faaarrrr more free time than I opt to level up each of the classes in the game.

“An audience with Nem’ro the Hutt.”

Moving on, I got a bit of an itch to play a classic hack and slash action RPG. I’m not quite sure what inspired this but I decided to warm up the original Torchlight. Although I got fairly close to the end (or bottom of the dungeon, as it were) in my first playthrough as a Vanquisher I had never actually beaten the game. You may recall from a 2012 blog post that I was considering replaying it on Xbox Live Arcade and actually played around with an Alchemist at the time to do a little theory crafting, so this time I went through on Hard mode with a brand new Alchemist. It was fairly fun, though I more or less breezed through the first two thirds of the game until I reached somewhat of a difficulty spike in which my character switched from an iron cannon of doom to a wee delicate glass cannon and I suddenly found myself relying quite heavily on my potion stores. I started to feel a bit burnt out by the repetition and lack of good loot upgrade options but forced myself through to the end anyway. While I still standby my words of immense praise for the game I’m definitely curious about whether or not the team at Runic managed to fix these issues with Torchlight 2.

“Ember Lightning and Ember Shield all day long!”

While the loot system (and the rest of the systems, really) are essentially refined versions of those from Diablo 2, I felt like I so rarely ever got loot that was actually better than what I had that it made the whole looting, identifying, and selling cycle more of a chore than anything else, and it isn’t like this was because I was already wading through the dungeon in some exceptionally awesome, epic gear or anything. One thing that isn’t lifted from Diablo 2 but rather Diablo is the mission and story structure. Torchlight takes place in one town, in one large, somewhat randomly generated dungeon, and has a simple main plot and even simpler side quests. Diablo made up for this by having an amazing and compelling atmosphere and while Torchlight’s isn’t bad by any means, it doesn’t really hold a candle to that of the Diablo series.

So, after beating Torchlight (the final boss was bullshit, by the way!) I dusted off my last playthrough of Diablo 2 which I had also started all the way over a year ago in 2012 in anticipation for Diablo 3. I have to say, the Paladin isn’t my favorite class and act 5 (the expansion act) isn’t my favorite act either, or perhaps the dreaded ARPG repetition is simply in full effect by then, who knows. Regardless, I flailed Baal to a fiery grave.

“Flinging flaming flails at foe’s frozen faces…”

While playing back through again my above statement about Diablo’s atmosphere was reinforced without question, and then some. I simply love the dark, serious, gritty feel of the world of Diablo and Diablo 2. The music and sound effects are particularly affecting – I ended up turning off the otherwise excellent music in Torchlight and listening to some podcasts and audiobooks while playing it but in Diablo 2? No chance! I’ve got to hear that eerie score and the those freaky ambient noises and sound effects! After this playthrough I’m now foaming at the mouth to finally load up Diablo 3, providing it stays true to those aspects of the series. My only hesitation besides the impending launch of the expansion pack is sending myself into some kind of horrible ARPG overdose but I don’t think I can resist, especially after the major pre-expansion pack patch that just dropped has renewed so much interest in the game again. Ugh!

The Tale of Garn Chapter 42

Warning: potential side quest (Mages Guild) spoilers ahead!

From Garn’s recollections:

Blackened Soul Broken

When I arrived at the Arcane University I immediately made my way to the Council Chambers to present Arch-Mage Traven with the Necromancer’s Amulet. The Arch-Mage was much less interested in the return of the artifact than he was the news of Caranya’s deception, hardly able to believe that one of his closest and most trusted advisors had betrayed him so. He then declare that I was to be his only advisor and that no one else on the Council or in the Guild could be trusted with his plans until the necromancer threat had been stamped out. With that he had my next task for me. I was to meet up with a small contingent of Imperial Battlemages to sack the ruins of Silorn, wherein the Worm cult was producing large numbers of Black Soul Gems. Most significant, they were apparently working on a special Colossal Black Soul Gem for Mannimarco himself to use as a powerful weapon. Traven was vague about his intentions but it seemed that he wanted the Colossal Black Soul Gem himself.

At Silorn I found Thalfin, Merete, and Iver hiding in wait behind some of the outer walls of the site. When I introduced myself they explained that, unaware of reinforcements arriving, they had already tried storming the stronghold but the door was magically sealed. In the ensuing chaos they lost a man and were forced to retreat. Their new plan was to wait for the necromancers to leave the sanctuary of their liar again and strike then, hopefully by surprise. Just then, both Thalfin and I heard the familiar sounds of stone sliding against stone and everyone rushed to take up better positions around the entrance.

“Necromancers vs. Battlemages”

Worm cultists came marching into the ruined courtyard in two columns, totally unaware of us, their lanterns casting a glowy bloom against the hazy gray of the stormy day as they swung. When the group passed the first of our hiding positions the attack was on. Minions were summoned, lightning, fire, and ice spells shot out in every direction, and the sounds of shield, axe, and mace ringing together joined the shouts and screams to make a chorus of battle. The plan was a success – we slew them all without taking any casualties of our own. All but one – the one who appeared to be their ring leader, walking at the center rear of the group when they first emerged, had ran back below the moment we sprung on them. While the Battlemages cleared the field and gathered themselves I continued into the now unprotected inner structure of the ruins of Silorn.

“Planning my attack…”

The inside of the ruin resembled most of the other necromancer lairs I have encountered up to that point. Macabre decorations accompanied by the odd makeshift study or alchemists’ lab, but otherwise nothing but a dusty abandoned dungeon filled with undead. These undead though, were commanded by the living, unlike most of the other places I had plundered as an adventurer. I’m not sure whether that made it better or worse. Regardless, I slew many a necromancer of varying skill, shuffling zombie, undead warrior, powerful lich, and spectres bound by the foul cultists to do their bidding. Many of these battles were quite difficult and I found my trek deeper into Silorn in search of the Colossal Black Soul Gem growing a challenge with every new room. Finally I reached one of the last accessible rooms in the ruin and found my target. The elf who ran was not just any necromancer – it was none other than Falcar, from Cheydinhal! Likely knowing he was cornered Falcar wasted no time pressing the attack. After a short but fierce battle I stood over Falcar’s corpse, Colossal Black Soul Gem in hand.

“Traven seems quite happy with his plan, all things considered…”

I parted ways with the Battlemages, who were sweeping through the inner ruins much further behind me, and immediately set back to see the Arch-Mage. Traven didn’t seem at all surprised to see me back with the gem and immediately took it from me and held it in both hands. His mood was grim as he told me that I would deliver the gem to the King of Worms myself but not before it had been infused with an extremely powerful enchantment that would keep me from being turned into one of his thralls, giving me the chance to strike him down. His orders were simple enough. He then proceeded to tell me that I was to be Arch-Mage of the Mages Guild after he was gone. Before I could put two and two together Traven’s body lay dead on the floor, crackling with arcane energy. He had infused his own soul into the Colossal Black Soul Gem. No, I didn’t see that turn of events coming at all but Traven had left me with no real option but to finish carrying out his plan, both to honor his sacrifice and to put an end to Mannimarco and his cult. I took some time to gather my head and then set forth for Echo Cave to the far north of the Imperial City to see my task through.

“Echo… Echo… Echo…”

The entrance of Echo Cave was guarded by a powerful necromancer who challenged me as a I approached, claiming that he was the only one who held the key and he would not part with it while a living breath still rolled through his body. Naturally, I obliged. The King of Worms picked a worthy wizard to guard his lair, as he was quite skilled with all schools of magic, not just conjuration. He used illusions to hide himself while peppering me with fireballs and curses, yet to hide from me without running is just prolonging your enviable defeat, and soon I was walking through the great rock labyrinth of the cavern, torch in hand, seeking my audience with this false king.

“Who needs captions?”

Echo Cave was without a doubt the headquarters of the Order of the Black Worm – it was positively teaming with Necromancers, some guarding, others researching, and still others going about their Order’s more menial duties. Each one, though, fed their blood to the thirsty edge of my Daedric longsword. Thankfully Mannimarco’s cultists didn’t appear to be expecting attack as guards were never placed in sufficient number as to be a real threat to me. Some of the higher ranked necromancers were skilled sorcerers, many probably defecting from the upper ranks of the Mages Guild long before I ever sought to join it, but one on one, or even one on two, I could manage them well enough. Finally I reached the last area of the cavern, a large chamber with a sizable underground stream running through it. The King of Worms sat on his throne on the other side of the stream, no doubt very much expecting my arrival.

“So, we meet at last!”

I cautiously stepped across the narrow stone ledge leading to the throne. I thought for a moment that I might have actually caught him by surprise but all at once he stood, raised his hands, and I was trapped. Not only by his magic, but giant bony spikes rose from the ground like the grasping fingers of great giants and turned that side of the stream into a island. Paralyzed, my blade dropped from my hands, my back straightened, and my chin rose to bring my gaze directly into his eyes. Mannimarco expressed disappointment in not being able to meet Arch-Mage Traven himself and proceeded to mock him, the Mages Guild as whole, and me of course. He told me of his plans to enthrall me regardless. The joke was on him, of course, as he was about to meet Traven in a very unexpected way.

“The King of Worms strikes a pose.”

Mannimarco cast a quick spell no doubt meant to turn me but nothing happened. Confused, he attempted it again but this time his words of power were met with the response of a powerful blast knocking him off of his feet. I was released from his paralyzing spell and immediately reached for my sword. In a blink of the eye the King of Worms had regained his feet and started summoning. Liches appeared, at first two, and then three. I had no choice. I would need to kill him right then before he summoned a whole undead host to overwhelm me.

I concentrated long enough to summon a Daedric warrior from Oblivion to help distract some of the liches and focus on gaining ground on Mannimacro himself. I successfully landed a few blows as he tried to back up and weaken me with further curses. Another blow and he stumbled backwards, clearly injured. He composed himself and prepared a powerful fireblast to send my way but my reaction was quick and I sent it bouncing off of my enchanted shield, landing in the surrounding waters and producing a huge wall of rising steam. For but a moment this caught his eye, just long enough for me to land a forceful swipe of my sword cleanly into the sinewy meat of his neck. The liches suddenly vanished leaving my Daedric minion swiping at thin air, searching for his foes, and the bony barricades crumbled into dust and vanished before me.

Mannimarco was dead. The King of Worms was dead! The cost was terrible but the Mages Guild would rebuild, and few would ever know how close it had come to total annihilation.

Once again Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul conspired to fuck me, despite being level 40 and have pretty decent gear. Practically all of the enemies in these two dungeons had been replaced with much more difficult ones. Spectral warriors and spectral wolves were everywhere and a large portion of the necromancers were replaced with the much more difficult Keepers of the Dead. Ugh! Tedious.