~or “Tur Explores a New Verse, on
Foot… (and brings his camera!)”
 |
| "Comfy..." |
I logged into Star Citizen last
night after a bit of trouble with the client. I could not find a reason but the
Launcher would not install the client. Finally used “Run as Admin” and that
solved the issue. This was, essentially, my first real exploration of SC as the
few times I had logged on before I just boofed around the hangar, checking out
my ship, the Aurora MR, that’s me
up there, ol Tur, sittin in my Aurora in the hangar bay… (I highly recommend
you watch the… commercial).
 |
| My Aurora MR "Ignobilium" |
OK, so initially I was boofing
around in the Hangar and checking out my singleship, trying out the camera,
looking for good shots to capture the moment as twere. The First Person
aspects… are definitely in the Win column. Walking around the world, entering
your ship like you would IRL, climbing in through the airlock, taking a seat in
the cockpit or climbing into your bunk. Yes, I said
climbing into your bunk.
 |
| "Feenominal Cosmic Spasship!! itty bitty living space..." |
The Aurora has a by the gods bunk
in the back and you can get in it to ‘sleep’ (IE logoff)… schweet. One thing
I want, I want name my ship. In EVE we can do this as a mechanic in the game,
in ED we can’t and I don’t see a Ship Name option offered in SC… that one goes
in the Boo column.
 |
| The Captain's Quarters, Star Citizen style... |
Anyhoo, so I ended up wandering
around the Hangar Bay and found the door out… Yes Virginia, in Star Citizen before
the game has even been released, the Door works. Ironic huh? So I found that
there is a short corridor, really just a largish airlock, between the Hangar
and… well, a city. Or at least several blocks of a city. I walked through
Customs, with the std non-interactive mannequin NPCs and out into the Area 18
courtyard in ArcCorp City on Stanton III, keeping in mind that ArcCorp City is,
well, the whole damn planet (this is the alpha of the Social Module in SC). It
was… impressive to say the least…
 |
| View from the lobby between the Hangar Bay and Area 18... |
Now here is where the fun begins.
First thing I did was do the tourist thing… you know, wander around with my
head on a swivel and my pie hole open catching alien flies of course until I
saw a stairway leading up to another level. I thought to get a better overall view
from there and started up it… and when I veered a bit to the right to look over
the railing… I fell through a glitch. Yup… fell right through the effin railing
to a ledge I could neither jump or climb up from nor safely jump or climb down
from. Frak. I spent a quite a while there… enjoying the view, wondering if I
was gonna die, and knowing that, in SC, you are NOT immortal… (moar on that
little bit of depressing news later…) So, yup… in my first 10 minutes logged
into SC I had gotten myself stuck onna ledge that… well, watch your feet, cause
that first step is a fukkin doozy…
 |
| Damn computer glitches... |
Anyhoo… I explored both sides of
the ledge and jumped and jumped trying to climb up until my mouse finger, well,
dint bleed actually but you know what I mean… until I gave up. Then I tried,
very carefully, to see if I could jump down to another, lower ledge… you know,
just in case there was another way around or… nope. YYYYYAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa!
Splat.
 |
| Well. That was interesting, and you wake up (respawn) in a hospital... LOL |
Having inadvertently figured out
life and death in the big city, now we get to the fun part… exploring!
 |
| Ye Olde Gunne Shoppe... |
The anticipation I felt when I saw
a gun shop across the courtyard was… well, I’m an American and as so many of my
EU friends have said, “You Americans and your love affair with guns!” (said
with a sneer in a strong British accent) The which always strikes me as very strange
when said in chat in a WAR GAME like EVE or in an FPS… You know, a First Person
SHOOTER game, in which you SHOOT people… a lot of people, with guns and machine
guns and lasers and rocket launchers and tanks FFS… but they have an ‘issue’
with me ‘liking ‘real guns… sheesh.
But yes, I do have a strong
interest in firearms… I have been a hunter all my life, since I was 8, I have
been a target shooter, a registered PI, a gunsmith and a firearms instructor…
so yeah, I have an interest in firearms, virtual or real and a gunshop in a
spaceship game… well hell, of course I’m excited! Until I went inside…
 |
| We are not impressed... |
What is with game Devs vision of
stores in the future? Why do ALL of them have HUGE wide open aisles with a vast
amount of empty floorspace?? No retailer worth his weight in Vaduul ears would
ever allow so much wasted space! I know whereof I speak, I used to be a gunshop
manager FFS!! There were like 17 guns on the rack in this shop… I had in one
shop easlily HALF the floor space of ‘Cubby Blast’ (effin ‘tarded name there
BTW) and 10 times that many guns!! Not to mention aisle racks loaded with holsters,
cleaning kits, knives, hunting kit and gee-gaws and tons of military surplus
gear and ammo shelves!
 |
| Seriously? |
So, disappointed I was and am…
Could not actually buy a gun, could not use the range, couldn’t even find a
door for it and the asshat behind the counter was a mannequin and the counters…
don’t get me started about the counters!!
EMPTY!! Has anyone ever seen store counters as devoid of merchandise,
outside of Russia at the height of the cold war?? I haven’t… so much work needs
to be done here!! But at least the posters were cool.
 |
| Schweet! Long damn time for a meme to last though... =P |
OK, so next up… G~Loc! A swanky-low-brow-spacer
bar. Granted ‘twas the middle of the afternoon, so dead was not the word, but,
if they ever get to where you can really interact with your avatars, the
atmosphere and décor are at least interesting enough… that and I’d love to see
this place IRL. Downsides? Wayyyyyyyyy too few bottles for a real bar… Ever
been in a real bar? Ever seen just 27 bottles on display or ready to pour?
Nope, me neither and what’s with the wall mounted bottle holder/pourer things?
What, bartenders of the future can’t do the flippin bottles thing?
 |
| Ya just gotta love this sign! |
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| Not bad, nice ambiance... |
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| Where's the bottle rack? Beer glasses? Wine glasses? Shot glasses? |
 |
| What in Sam Hell are those bottle holder things?? |
So next up was… a clothing store.
I could not give less of a fuck for how my avatar is dressed up. All the people
who threw such a fit back in Incarna were all on about how “World of Darkness”
was nothing but “Sparkly Barbies”… and while I desperately want FP gameplay in
EVE, the ‘dress-up’ part of avatar based gameplay holds absolutely no interest
for me, whatsoever… So I walked right past Casabas. Besides, who names these
places? Isn’t a Casaba a “…winter seasonal melon of a variety with a wrinkled
yellow rind and sweet flesh?” How is that a good name for a clothing store? I
mean really?
 |
| A wrinkled yellow sweet flesh clothing store... meh. |
Onward… Around the courtyard is a
stairway leading to a flying walkway over… well, I don’t know how far up we are
from the ground or groundfloor of these buildings, but I found I have a fear of
railings now in SC… go figure, but the view is stunning. At the end of the
skyway was the entrance to Astro Armada. At first, after the shitty names of a
few of the business here, I thought the name was a word play on Ramada Inn,
like the, you know, the Ramada of the Stars, IE a hotel. But nope… it was a
high end spaceship firm. I did take some pix inside but…
 |
| First one the name actually means what it says... |
You see I was not alone. I
haven’t talked about the other players who were there because… well, they have
borne out, in full, all of Rixx Javix’s fears about FP avatar gameplay. There
were like 1 or 2 at first then I noticed a few more over time. At one point
there were like 5 or 6 active in the courtyard and surrounding spaces. ALL of
them spent the whole time I was there jumping and jumping and jumping and
running full tilt all over the place. And all they wanted to do was find a way,
any way, to fuck shit up if at all possible. You see there are these carts, like
fancy futuristic golf carts, that spawn now and again in places around Area 18.
Anyway, so you have these golf
carts see… and these, players, see… and all they can think of to do is ram them
into everything… and everyone… and try and get them to go over the railings…
and into the buildings… and so then you get this… see?
 |
| Burning wrecked carts and silly jumping hooligans <facepalm> |
Anyway… so while they are all
doing exactly as Rixx guessed and acting like pure ‘tarded fools… I went so far
as to toggle my avatar to walk mode instead of jog for my leisurely sightseeing
stroll around the city and I have been trying to avoid getting any of those
idiots in my pix. Needless to say, they were jumping ALL over the showroom
model of a schweet single seat fighter on display inside Astro Armada and I
didn’t take any pix in there… simply too silly for me. I know these guys are
all supposed to somewhere in like their 20s and 30s… but TBH it was like being
surrounded by 10 year olds on a serious sugar buzz… I’m 55 and I wanted to
enjoy the immersion of such a highly detailed virtual environment… not feel
like I was at home with my kids at a birthday party.
OK, back outside of Armada there
was an obvious alleyway off to the left of the Armada and stairs leading down
to what felt like the edge of town, you know, the poor side of town… the
beginning of the back alleys and side streets where scantily dressed 5 credit hookers
in eff-me-pumps and men of bad repute live and hang out. At the bottom of the
stairs was “Dumpers Depot.”… OMFG… the names are soooo atrocious. Ima write a
letter to Roberts I am.
 |
| Feels like heading to the poor side of town |
So Dumpers Depot is a junkyard
and salvage operation on the back side of the courtyard. And low and behold,
there is an alleyway leading to the dark, trashy lowrent section of Area 18. I,
of course, haddda go take a look see.
 |
| The corner of Dumpster and Skid Row |
And it was… a full set of back
alleys littered with trash and trashbags busted open everywhere and puddles of
oily looking water, busted open crates, locked fences, keep out signs, poor
lighting, danger, gloom and despair…
 |
| The mean streets of Area 18 |
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| Garbage disposal in the far far future... man still can't keep his home clean. |
But… as dirty and ugly as the
back side was, it was also very human and for a virtuality, real enough. There
is another courtyard accessible back there… with signs proclaiming “Galleria Retail,
Coming Soon!”… and that block of closed off, under construction buildings faces
this view…
Not bad…
Nope… not bad at all at all…
Yeah… I’ll be coming back, oh yes I will.
=]
Fly reckless and see you at
the Bar =/|)=
