Post by Caylus Stark on Sept 22, 2018 0:42:32 GMT
Sometimes I get stuck on an idea, song, show, video game, phrase, concept etc - like a catchy tune you just can’t get out of your head.
This one has a story to accompany it...hmm.
I haven’t been on the internet. I’ve been spending all my time playing Ark...
I started perhaps two months ago as a “Beach Bob”. Back in the day all default characters were named Bob. It became something of a tradition to call newbies (who ironically often build - unwisely - on the beach) “Beach Bobs” even though the default name is now set to “Human”.
Ark is a game with a very big spectrum of player freedom. Although it offers both PvP and PvE modes, I think that PvP on Official Servers is really the most interesting and insane ways to experience the game.
Other than your character - which can be at worst handcuffed and caged up by other players indefinitely- there is nothing Ark is afraid to take away from you. Forever. You spent 4 days raising a baby Wyvern? Getting milk to feed it every couple hours from a hoard of angry adults? Cuddled with it? Became best friends? Too bad - when it dies its dead. Gone. Your armor? Everything in your inventory? You have 30 minutes to recover those things from your old body. How about your tribe (this game’s “guild”)? Any member of your tribe can take everything from you and run, provided they have admin permission...and even if they don’t, they can still do almost anything. Because while a tribe is the only way to really survive in the brutality of Official PvP, the game doesn’t code in guidelines for behavior...it took the developers two years simply to decide that they would ban people that imprisioned other player characters for longer than a week.
So everything in the tribe is shared. You tame something - a process that takes hours of time and planning - and if your leader wants to kick you out and take it...he can. If you want to upload it to the obelisk and take it to another server so you can keep it for yourself, thats fair game. The same goes for larger alliances between tribes. Nothing prevents you from raiding allies. However human nature being what it is...vast multi complexes of tribes known as mega tribes enforce their own blacklists and standards of conduct for members. While others go on as mercenaries, specializing in “insiding” (getting in a tribe, gaining trust, and taking everything while potentially also demolishing the base) for a price. Some pay real money for tamed and breed dinos. “Bloodline” bred dinosaurs with thousands of descendents are traded over facebook or even between enemies...
If your enemies want to raid you while everyone in your tribe is asleep, they can. You need allies thusly, but you have to be discerning in trust or any ally could make an easy traitor or enemy. Expect to wake up after months to find your most beloved pets and warrior dinos sniped by bored teenagers or your entire base made of hundreds of thousands of resources and countless hours gone...starting from scratch, or quitting. Many quit. Some don’t and find themselves to have the tenacity to pick up and learn something about perhaps both patience and the significance that permanent loss seems to magnify...
So I have seen the temper of angry demons in 24 year old men and the patience of saints in 13 year old boys. You learn something about a person by the way they handle the formidable intensity that is Ark’s constant companion. Those with any life to speak of are at a distinct disadvantage if not part of a powerful megatribe.
In two months I have transitioned from beach bob to the pet project of a confused young man who destroyed my base and then helped me build a new one on his heavily fortified island after I’d told his tribe to fuck themselves in global chat.
His name was blue...the story continues
It’s a very accessible game as it is on pc, xbox, and ps4. However it is not cross platform so different platforms have very different politics and power structures.
On ps4, TU or “The Unknown” is one of the top two most powerful megatribes across all 800+ official servers. I knew this because, of course, blue bragged about it. He did remind the couple of us under him that it was himself and assid only whom belonged to TU, and the rest of us only in some nebulous indistinct way through him.
Mega tribes work in different branches. Each branch name is chosen by the branch leader but appends the megatribes tag to denote their affiliation. Thus “Apex” becomes “TU Apex” and “Nocturne” becomes “SC Nocturne”. Blue wouldnt put the TU tag on his tribe, “DBL” (Death b4 light). Kezzy, the australian leader of the well-established “TU Natives” would express his own personal sentiment to me, that those who were afraid to wear the TU tag were cowards. I suppose I can see it from both perspectives in restrospect.
Coming from 48 straight hours of beach bobbery with stone pickaxes and campfires, blues island with irrigation, electrical power, industrial grills and air conditioning was initially shockingly advanced - his structures were all made out of metal and he had four dragons and a gigantasauros (lovingly and knowingly referred to as ‘giga’ by most). A giga is fucking huge and the first giga I saw made my heart stop for a second. Assid tamed me a max level pteradon (think mini and more friendly pterodactyl) and I named it Crowley with more than a little nod to my time here.
When you spend your first painstaking 72 hours of this game constantly naked because raptors are always leaping out from behind rocks pinning you down and ripping your insides out - and trust me when you see them eating your old body upon respawn you fucking leave them there - well, the first moment you get a flyer and take off is truly magical. And after you’ve had even the most basic of entry level flyers which is the pteradon, you become very spoiled by this convinence. But I can say those first 8 hours with Crowley was a great adventure. Finally I was no longer confined to a tiny segment of shoreline on the island that I’d memorized as not to become lost. I went everywhere and sprinted away in terror from t rexes, titanboas and also a number of neutral herbivores because I didnt want to learn the hard way. Crowley, however, kept me safe. He was higher than level 200 and killed easily what my primitive bow would hardly dent the scales on.
After awhile it felt like crowley could kill anything. It’s true genrally if you are smart with your tames the only big threats ought to be a fatal disconnect or another player. But there is one more thing - if you die, you need to go find your tame which will still be wherever your body is. As many players use tames to kill while mounted, their aggression level is generally set to passive so that they cannot be lured away by “griefers” (it’s exactly what it sounds like) and killed. This however also means that if you die in the wild before you whistle your tame to defend itself, more often than not it will sit unflinchingly as it is ripped apart by sabertooths and some abomination called terror bird.
Well that’s not what killed Crowley. Crowley fought to his last breath. Troodons killed Crowley. What is a Troodon? It is very hard to distinguish from the vastly less threatening dilosophaur, but both are a variety of raptor. The dilosophaur spits poison, but the bite of the troodon is a tranquilizer making your character unable to act in any way until a little “dizzy” meter depletes. The troodon does not allow any time for that to happen. So while it causes pitiable damage, this simply stands to prolong the torture of seeing your torpidity climb to maximum. Death is far less inhibitive than torpidity can be - you live again and can take action. While tranquilized the game does no even do you the dignity of showing you the screen. You get a blurred mostly indiscernable black vignette.
When the troodons finally killed me my first thought was saving crowley. Adrenaline kicked in - I could always spawn again, but my buddy could only die once. I ran naked halfway across the island, evading scores of carnivores in a mad dash and often dying again in the process. When i finally reached crowley after an hour I saw him flying in circles but he couldnt get the tiny fuckers as they were too fast. I flung myself in there like rambo to save him and of course was killed again in the slowest possible way.
I had no idea how to save Crowley and perhaps had I thought it through more I could have been more effective, but i was only thinking of saving my new best friend. It took me another hour to get to him that second time, and this time I arrived just in time to see that Crowley was covered in blood everywhere and on the verge of death. It seemed like only a few seconds later that the feed on the screen officially recorded his death. The troodans ran off and I morbidly saw Crowley’s lifeless bloody body on the beach.
I felt genuinely morbid at this loss. You get used to it very quickly, but I wasn’t back then. Yes, it was only a few hours, but I was devestated for those two hours and i realized that it was a personal sense of loss as opposed to a sense of sympathy extended to an outside character, such as in a story. A video game has never scarred me emotionally and rather than being put off I was intruiged. If Crowley couldnt die forever I don’t think that batch of pixels could have caused a sincere feeling of sadness to self-professedly cynical girl like me. Transience is potent. I literally skulked, sulked, and moped dejectedly on my front porch reminising and feeling genuinelly disturbed by the memory of his bloody lifeless body.
Blue was an alcoholic with trust and anger problems which I recognized but didn’t particularly phase me. His right hand man whom i met at the same time over ps4 party chat ended up being a 13yr old boy with the handle acid.dumper. I thought for a good couple days this person was a 20 year old canadian female and finding out what might as well have been the precise opposite was quite:..surprising.
Assid is loyal to blue completely and blue has a massive power trip. But they were very nice to me - blue probably because I was female. He would always remind me that every position of power I ultimately winded up in on Ark could be traced back to the fact that i am a female and in his opinion attractive. I didn’t bother telling him that in a game like Ark, it doesn’t really matter why you wind up with power in the end. What matters is what you choose to do with it...
I often would hear through blue’s microphone heated exchanges between him and his girlfriend. He played Ark constantly and slept when the sun came up, a pattern that reflects myself, Assid, and basically every other serious player I have encountered thus far. So you can imagine: he’s out a job and barely spends any time with her. He alludes nonchalantly to how his car will soon be fixed and he’ll be back at work, but weeks go by without this happening. I on the other hand profess bluntly to having no life whatsoever and all the time in the world to prance through this beautiful death metal assrape of a video game.
Hehe...the story continues
This one has a story to accompany it...hmm.
I haven’t been on the internet. I’ve been spending all my time playing Ark...
I started perhaps two months ago as a “Beach Bob”. Back in the day all default characters were named Bob. It became something of a tradition to call newbies (who ironically often build - unwisely - on the beach) “Beach Bobs” even though the default name is now set to “Human”.
Ark is a game with a very big spectrum of player freedom. Although it offers both PvP and PvE modes, I think that PvP on Official Servers is really the most interesting and insane ways to experience the game.
Other than your character - which can be at worst handcuffed and caged up by other players indefinitely- there is nothing Ark is afraid to take away from you. Forever. You spent 4 days raising a baby Wyvern? Getting milk to feed it every couple hours from a hoard of angry adults? Cuddled with it? Became best friends? Too bad - when it dies its dead. Gone. Your armor? Everything in your inventory? You have 30 minutes to recover those things from your old body. How about your tribe (this game’s “guild”)? Any member of your tribe can take everything from you and run, provided they have admin permission...and even if they don’t, they can still do almost anything. Because while a tribe is the only way to really survive in the brutality of Official PvP, the game doesn’t code in guidelines for behavior...it took the developers two years simply to decide that they would ban people that imprisioned other player characters for longer than a week.
So everything in the tribe is shared. You tame something - a process that takes hours of time and planning - and if your leader wants to kick you out and take it...he can. If you want to upload it to the obelisk and take it to another server so you can keep it for yourself, thats fair game. The same goes for larger alliances between tribes. Nothing prevents you from raiding allies. However human nature being what it is...vast multi complexes of tribes known as mega tribes enforce their own blacklists and standards of conduct for members. While others go on as mercenaries, specializing in “insiding” (getting in a tribe, gaining trust, and taking everything while potentially also demolishing the base) for a price. Some pay real money for tamed and breed dinos. “Bloodline” bred dinosaurs with thousands of descendents are traded over facebook or even between enemies...
If your enemies want to raid you while everyone in your tribe is asleep, they can. You need allies thusly, but you have to be discerning in trust or any ally could make an easy traitor or enemy. Expect to wake up after months to find your most beloved pets and warrior dinos sniped by bored teenagers or your entire base made of hundreds of thousands of resources and countless hours gone...starting from scratch, or quitting. Many quit. Some don’t and find themselves to have the tenacity to pick up and learn something about perhaps both patience and the significance that permanent loss seems to magnify...
So I have seen the temper of angry demons in 24 year old men and the patience of saints in 13 year old boys. You learn something about a person by the way they handle the formidable intensity that is Ark’s constant companion. Those with any life to speak of are at a distinct disadvantage if not part of a powerful megatribe.
In two months I have transitioned from beach bob to the pet project of a confused young man who destroyed my base and then helped me build a new one on his heavily fortified island after I’d told his tribe to fuck themselves in global chat.
His name was blue...the story continues
It’s a very accessible game as it is on pc, xbox, and ps4. However it is not cross platform so different platforms have very different politics and power structures.
On ps4, TU or “The Unknown” is one of the top two most powerful megatribes across all 800+ official servers. I knew this because, of course, blue bragged about it. He did remind the couple of us under him that it was himself and assid only whom belonged to TU, and the rest of us only in some nebulous indistinct way through him.
Mega tribes work in different branches. Each branch name is chosen by the branch leader but appends the megatribes tag to denote their affiliation. Thus “Apex” becomes “TU Apex” and “Nocturne” becomes “SC Nocturne”. Blue wouldnt put the TU tag on his tribe, “DBL” (Death b4 light). Kezzy, the australian leader of the well-established “TU Natives” would express his own personal sentiment to me, that those who were afraid to wear the TU tag were cowards. I suppose I can see it from both perspectives in restrospect.
Coming from 48 straight hours of beach bobbery with stone pickaxes and campfires, blues island with irrigation, electrical power, industrial grills and air conditioning was initially shockingly advanced - his structures were all made out of metal and he had four dragons and a gigantasauros (lovingly and knowingly referred to as ‘giga’ by most). A giga is fucking huge and the first giga I saw made my heart stop for a second. Assid tamed me a max level pteradon (think mini and more friendly pterodactyl) and I named it Crowley with more than a little nod to my time here.
When you spend your first painstaking 72 hours of this game constantly naked because raptors are always leaping out from behind rocks pinning you down and ripping your insides out - and trust me when you see them eating your old body upon respawn you fucking leave them there - well, the first moment you get a flyer and take off is truly magical. And after you’ve had even the most basic of entry level flyers which is the pteradon, you become very spoiled by this convinence. But I can say those first 8 hours with Crowley was a great adventure. Finally I was no longer confined to a tiny segment of shoreline on the island that I’d memorized as not to become lost. I went everywhere and sprinted away in terror from t rexes, titanboas and also a number of neutral herbivores because I didnt want to learn the hard way. Crowley, however, kept me safe. He was higher than level 200 and killed easily what my primitive bow would hardly dent the scales on.
After awhile it felt like crowley could kill anything. It’s true genrally if you are smart with your tames the only big threats ought to be a fatal disconnect or another player. But there is one more thing - if you die, you need to go find your tame which will still be wherever your body is. As many players use tames to kill while mounted, their aggression level is generally set to passive so that they cannot be lured away by “griefers” (it’s exactly what it sounds like) and killed. This however also means that if you die in the wild before you whistle your tame to defend itself, more often than not it will sit unflinchingly as it is ripped apart by sabertooths and some abomination called terror bird.
Well that’s not what killed Crowley. Crowley fought to his last breath. Troodons killed Crowley. What is a Troodon? It is very hard to distinguish from the vastly less threatening dilosophaur, but both are a variety of raptor. The dilosophaur spits poison, but the bite of the troodon is a tranquilizer making your character unable to act in any way until a little “dizzy” meter depletes. The troodon does not allow any time for that to happen. So while it causes pitiable damage, this simply stands to prolong the torture of seeing your torpidity climb to maximum. Death is far less inhibitive than torpidity can be - you live again and can take action. While tranquilized the game does no even do you the dignity of showing you the screen. You get a blurred mostly indiscernable black vignette.
When the troodons finally killed me my first thought was saving crowley. Adrenaline kicked in - I could always spawn again, but my buddy could only die once. I ran naked halfway across the island, evading scores of carnivores in a mad dash and often dying again in the process. When i finally reached crowley after an hour I saw him flying in circles but he couldnt get the tiny fuckers as they were too fast. I flung myself in there like rambo to save him and of course was killed again in the slowest possible way.
I had no idea how to save Crowley and perhaps had I thought it through more I could have been more effective, but i was only thinking of saving my new best friend. It took me another hour to get to him that second time, and this time I arrived just in time to see that Crowley was covered in blood everywhere and on the verge of death. It seemed like only a few seconds later that the feed on the screen officially recorded his death. The troodans ran off and I morbidly saw Crowley’s lifeless bloody body on the beach.
I felt genuinely morbid at this loss. You get used to it very quickly, but I wasn’t back then. Yes, it was only a few hours, but I was devestated for those two hours and i realized that it was a personal sense of loss as opposed to a sense of sympathy extended to an outside character, such as in a story. A video game has never scarred me emotionally and rather than being put off I was intruiged. If Crowley couldnt die forever I don’t think that batch of pixels could have caused a sincere feeling of sadness to self-professedly cynical girl like me. Transience is potent. I literally skulked, sulked, and moped dejectedly on my front porch reminising and feeling genuinelly disturbed by the memory of his bloody lifeless body.
Blue was an alcoholic with trust and anger problems which I recognized but didn’t particularly phase me. His right hand man whom i met at the same time over ps4 party chat ended up being a 13yr old boy with the handle acid.dumper. I thought for a good couple days this person was a 20 year old canadian female and finding out what might as well have been the precise opposite was quite:..surprising.
Assid is loyal to blue completely and blue has a massive power trip. But they were very nice to me - blue probably because I was female. He would always remind me that every position of power I ultimately winded up in on Ark could be traced back to the fact that i am a female and in his opinion attractive. I didn’t bother telling him that in a game like Ark, it doesn’t really matter why you wind up with power in the end. What matters is what you choose to do with it...
I often would hear through blue’s microphone heated exchanges between him and his girlfriend. He played Ark constantly and slept when the sun came up, a pattern that reflects myself, Assid, and basically every other serious player I have encountered thus far. So you can imagine: he’s out a job and barely spends any time with her. He alludes nonchalantly to how his car will soon be fixed and he’ll be back at work, but weeks go by without this happening. I on the other hand profess bluntly to having no life whatsoever and all the time in the world to prance through this beautiful death metal assrape of a video game.
Hehe...the story continues
