Tales from Game Time

Kendrik

Moderator
Staff member
So! I had a pretty awesome Far Cry 4 experience last night that I want to share. This made me think of a new thread idea for CGA, too. A thread for sharing our various stories of game experiences. Could be things that happened in-game, around the game, or whatever else you consider a "tale from game time."

In comes my first story to share!


Last night, I tried to go to bed too early. Didn't work. And, at about the same time, our internet misfired.
So I couldn't even Netflix myself to sleep. So, at one point, I got back up and played Far Cry 4 because I could play it without internets. Got a couple cheevos from it, too. Yay!

Now comes the fun!

I had to take over an outpost in the game, right? At this outpost, they had a caged elephant (..."ain't no rest for the wicked"...). There were benefits to taking over the camp without getting detected. So, I threw bait to bring in a predator that would distract, maybe kill, a couple of the baddies outside the gate holding the elephant. While they were dealing with said predator, I snuck around behind the elephant, got close enough to guarantee I'd hit my mark, and shot the lock with my arrow, freeing the elephant. After that, I went up to take cover behind a cliff. All the while I was still able to see where all of the enemies are because, prior to striking, I scoped out the camp and marked them all.
1f600.png


So, the elephant is going mad and killing its captors. One of the baddies actually runs into where the elephant had been and locked himself in there for protection...from the elephant. From cover, I loose another arrow, and down he goes.

By the time the elephant's rampage concludes, I have fully claimed the outpost without even slight detection.

Far Cry is legitimately a phenomenal game.
 
Well who am I to ignore the elephant in the forum room Kendrick :p .

I believe I told my Silkroad Online Story, some years ago on the forums somewhere, but it probably won't hurt to tell the legend again :p.

To begin with you need to understand that Silkroad Online was one of "those" dime a dozen Asian F2P games. I think we've all tried at least one at some point. You get fast early game progression and the later levels turn into an impossible grind where the only relief, or way to be competitive to others, is sign over your firstborn to the cash shop. In short it's free because you can technically get everything, after about 100 years of grinding, realistically it's pay to win.

In SRO this particular grind took three forms. Firstly you needed not only exp but skill points, sp, to buy skills. You could level up relatively quick but without skills you were a Mustang without an engine, very nice but it can't do much. The best way to get sp was to de-level by dying, repeatedly, as you could grind it faster at lower levels, albeit still taking forever. Secondly you needed a class specific weapon and 6 (I think it was 6?) pieces of armor, 4 of your chosen weight and 2 rings. The best gear only dropping during an eclipse of the full moon when leprechauns elect an honest politician. Thirdly you needed "elixer" lots and lots of elixer, so much elixer, which in itself was an unusual drop. One elixer could, I stress could, give a single piece of gear a +1, or past +3 it could drop to 0, or past +5 your incredibly rare gear could be destroyed, unless of course you partook of the unholy sacraments of the cash shop. So all the kids with Mommy wallet access would run around with +9 weapons. Did I mention all gear was level specific so you could enjoy doing it all over again when they raised the level cap?

...and now a word on the environment, bots, so many bots. You would go out to grind only to find a conga line of bots engaged in a delicate ballet of mob deforestation. There were bans, or at least they announced bans, but it never lasted and the weeds of the internet would be back in a few days.

As bad as that all sounds it was fairly typical of the genre and at lower levels the game wasn't that bad. It had an ok trading mechanic with 3 factions, trader, hunter and thief, although it really wasn't worth it gold wise. It also had player killing which anyone could do but was balanced by exp penalties if you ganked a player of a much lower level. They also had Chinese and European (added later) style classes because "Silkroad" don'tcha know.

This is were I shall begin the tale of how I ascended to become "The Lord of the Newbs". In my humble beginnings I honed my skills on a couple characters until I could grind while watching anime and not pay attention. One day in the dead of night, because I keep weird hours, I noticed a large amount of elixer repeatedly being sold, rather cheap, in the mid tier town. Obviously it was a bot account and SRO had already proved inept at banning them. So I took to buying elixir... and reselling it at triple if not quadruple the price in the higher tier town ke ke ke. I had millions, no I had hundreds of millions (a good income at max level but not anywhere close lower levels). I never leveled a character past 30-ish and in fact my main character farmed sp at levels between 10-20~ and it was glorious (90 was max level) . See the shops never sold rare high level gear but rare low level gear people actually put up, though at prices only a Newb King could afford tee hee. Rarity wise gear went from regular to Seal of Star, to Seal of Moon, and finally the ultra impossibly rare "Seal of Sun" cue angelic chorus. I basically had a full set of Seal of Moon +3 armor and then I found it. I saw you in a stall late one night, if you had been for any other class they would never have passed you by. A Seal of Sun weapon but for Cleric, who plays Cleric? Cleric is probably the weakest least played class in the game. Who would want to spend millions on a low level Cleric wand?... I was a Cleric, tee hee.

Thus I became a level 14 Cleric who could 2 shot level 30 mobs and could easily take down level 30 party (meant for 4 players at level 30) bosses solo. Sure I could kill higher, I think I think my limit was 45ish mobs, but they took too long and were too dangerous for the sp. I could grind 30s for hours without danger. Oh yes remember I mentioned that player killing thing? You all know I'd never PK but a poor weak level 14 Cleric is a tasty looking morsel for trolls and, with the exception of your weapon, rare gear looks identical to normal tee hee. Oh woe and ruin upon the poor fool who attempted to PK me. I think most realized something was desperately wrong after I hit them the first time, at least if the running was any indication. It was also fun to go over to newb town, as the only class who could res by the way. Can you say "power leveling" kids? Unfortunately I was a bit too good at that and they'd quickly be beyond my low level, meaning I would suck up all the exp, all too soon.

Sometimes I wish I had finished grinding all the sp just to see the max level, and actually have more than one skill, but it was taking too much time so I quit. I don't think it would have been as much fun at upper levels anyway. It's true what they say it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond. Even with Mmos never having an end I think I can still say I beat SRO and never payed a cent.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top