What's on my Radar?

While I easily get excited by trailers for upcoming single player games, I don't remember the first time I was excited about upcoming MMO Hype, but I certainly remember the last two. The first was when I heard about Vindictus, and being a big Mabinogi fan it looked awesome despite being heavily instanced - until I read that due to region lockouts I couldn't play it. The next one was TESO itself, but my odds of playing that live look grim since it will be using the subscription model which I never use. Ever.

Now I'm pinning some hopes on the distant land of Black Desert. Yep, all because it looks pretty on Youtube. Open world Vindictus sounds and looks good, but I guess I'll have to wait and see about the region settings, payment model, and platform release. Of course, not everyone is as finicky as me so you should go check it out! Just hope it doesn't go the way of Core Online, or should I say - Core Offline.

I might have to upgrade my PC to run this though.

Lastly Juris has introduced me to the anime "Attack on Titan" and damn it's good. Those who are so inclined and haven't seen it yet should go do so. Also I think an MMO like DayZ with Titans instead of zombies would be a good idea. :P

Monolithic Defense

My journal through Stalker Soup - a mega mod for Shadows of Chernobyl! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Holy crap. Upon arriving down the main Southern road I came across a monolith controlled check-point under attack by a military squad PLUS a helicopter. Deciding to stay far away I watched through my binocs as the monolith team absolutely tore the military guys and their flying support into pieces! Though it didn't look like they lost any of their own number I figured they should have at least been injured so began my own assault. Downed the first two with sniped headshots while they were unaware (damage bonus I guess) then began slugging it out with the remaining four from behind an overturned supply truck on the road. Killed two more in the shootout, but the last two were giving me big problems. One had a heavy MG while the other was armed in a super exo with a Vintar - they were beating me no matter what I tried. It soon became clear that due to my low count of remaining ammo and the growing annoyance of having to restart the game per death I would not be beating them this night. With a loud curse and louder gunfire I withdrew back to the warehouses and left them to their victory.

It was like bashing my head against this.

With a quick check on my map it looked like there was another way to reach the Radar and that was through Yantar of all places, so I made my way to the merc checkpoint I had cleared earlier which led me back to the Rostok Wild Territory. Unfortunately the game decided to continously crash at this point, and having a 24 Gigabyte game (stalkersoup is huge) with frequent crashes, bugs and long loading times chips away at the appeal even to an avid fan so it was time to say goodbye - but this isn't the end of the story.

The Rostok Wild Territory was a war-zone as I arrived near the train station there with another bunch of mercs attacking a big group of free stalkers loading up a cargo train with supplies. I rushed to the defense, using my remaining rifle ammo on a flanking group of mercs before getting knocked down by a nearby grenade. Still managed to stand up with my ears ringing and continued to hold off the attackers with my pistol to a lesser degree as the remaining free stalkers finished loading crates and the train started to move. They called out to me to get on board while they provided cover so after emptying my current clip I chased after it with bullets flying overhead. Had to ditch my pack to keep up and lost my pistol as I jumped on, taking cover behind some of the food crates that had just been loaded. The two guys that helped me on weren't so lucky, one taking a bullet to the head and his buddy getting his legs shot out in quick succession - they both fell, gear and all, out the door. After a few minutes the train was safely on its way - picking up speed away from the surviving mercs. Seemed like I was alone in this carraige now, speeding to god knows where. My armor was damaged beyond repair so I discarded it, and found a warm blanket to curl up in and sleep until the train reached wherever it was headed.

Anomaly at the End of the World

My journal through Stalker Soup - a mega mod for Shadows of Chernobyl! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Monolith patrols were abound in this place, and I managed to down a dozen of them before the high radiation in the area became too much to bear. Decided to withdraw for now, only to find there was no way back! Well shit. Loaded the game from the Warehouse and returned to the Bar where I picked up a ton of quests - the main one being in Radar again, as well as my green scientist suit (good rad protect). Now that I was all prepared I journeyed back to the Warehouse... or tried to - only to find the way there -gone-! Instead I walked down the road, hoping it connected only to fall off the edge of the world and into bytespace. Frustrated by the long loading times and the broken travel links I decided to call it quits here. And so due to this strange anomaly I was hit by another bout of amnesia and blacked out.

Oh man, not this again.

When I awoke sometime later, I found myself near Cordon - as "the Collector". Yes, I love the game so much I'm willing to try it's other mode out still! Seems I traded all my good weapons for a lot of MP3 USB sticks. After the initial blowout in which I was joined by free stalker Petrushka in my hiding zone, I made my way back to Cordon to see Sid. Petrushka didn't follow me and instead died to Colonel Vodka's team. As soon as I arrived, the town was attacked by two waves of mercs! Managed to fight them off and yoink their gear, but Sid was no longer opening his door to me so selling stuff was going to be tricky since not many people here had money (and half of them were dead). Decided to forge my way North again, killing a large bandit group at the farmstead and fortunately finding a pair of veteran free stalkers I could sell stuff too.

Had to eliminate a smaller military team at the tracks crossing (one of whom had invis armor), and found one of the downed soldiers was just wounded. Decided to give him a medkit, and he changed alliance quickly to a free stalker. This was a good call as he had quite a bit of money to buy more gear. Left my new friend and continued on my journey, finding Fox's group under attack by dogs as usual. They had it under control before I arrived, losing only one member. The rest of the road was relatively clear. Also nice to note that "the Collector" difficulty is far easier than "Master" which I was playing before in that there are now 80% less anomalies. Where as before I had to navigate a tight maze in a sea of death, now I can actually just walk down the road which is kind of refreshing. :)