…on public servers. There were a few reasons for the switch. The first was that in one session I ran into two other players who shot at me for no good reason, albeit it was in the PvE zone. This of course is S.O.P. for PvP games and even if I can’t be harmed by other players outside of the Deep Desert, I have a visceral reaction to getting shot at in games and I’d rather not deal with it. Second was because of a brief convo I had with @CompilerBreak on Gamepad, talking about having to pay taxes on our homes. AFAIK taxes are a way to ensure that lapsed players aren’t littering the desert with abandoned bases. After a period of skipping out on one’s responsibilities, the bases can be destroyed by Sardaukar or sandstorms or whatever other deus ex machina that Funcom wants to deploy to explain why a neighbor’s shack suddenly went A.W.O.L. Earning solari and regularly spending them on taxes is not something I want to participate in; I have enough of that shit in the real world. Of course, paying real money for a private server is another kind of tax, but at least I can turn off the virtual tax in it’s place and that is somehow preferable to me.

The good news is that my survivalbox buddy @CakedCrusader picked up the game this morning, so I was trying to help him get his footing without being the Overbearing Gamer Friend who explained every step of the tutorial as it happened. Unfortunately I think his modus operandi is to immediately start building a base which, if you know this game, means being way back in the lower 40 of the map, far, far from anywhere the tutorial or missions will want you to be. I’ll maybe have to explain why he should move up a bit, and then help him out especially since I have the trike now and can quickly hit up the granite deposits to help out.

I of course had to roll a new character and me being me, dreaded having to start over. The good news is that this time, I not only knew what to do, but also what not to do. I once again went with the Bene Gesserit because I really like the ability to get melee characters to come to me so I can stab them on my terms. I also went with the “BP unlocked” option this time, and was able to get several pieces of gear crafted right out of the gate. This allowed me to start harvesting blood much sooner than I did last time.

The one thing I really wanted to do right this time was Lab 2, so I hit up Griffon Station for the missions to collect the vials, and also talked with Derek the Planetologist so I could knock out his grocery list as well. I’ll probably go back in to Lab 2 with @CakedCrusader, but otherwise good riddance to that place.

I did notice a bunch of weirdness, though. When crafting items at the fabricator, and also using the personal crafting system, sometimes jobs would just red-out and not progress, and the count-down timer would jump from, say, 3 seconds up to 50 seconds for a single item. Cancelling the process didn’t waste resources and starting the job again worked just fine, but this happened to every other item crafted and forced me to babysit each piece, one at a time. Also, @CakedCrusader was complaining about not being able to heal himself using bandages. The image above is an NPC intel camp right above where @CakedCrusader set up his sub-fief, so while he was doing stuff at home I was scoping the place out. Figuring that my eagle’s nest was safe from those mf’n sheilded asshats I started sniping enemies. Not wanting to miss out, I guess @CakedCrusader jumped into the fray, but was quickly overwhelmed and apparently unable to heal himself. He wasn’t screen-sharing so I couldn’t say if there was any PEBCAK or if he was experiencing some kind of technical issue. He also couldn’t respawn at his sub-fief, maybe because he hadn’t completed the tutorial segment about building his house? He had a console placed but the building was not “watersafe” so maybe it didn’t count as a respawn point? Questions abound.

The only downside to the private server business is that I’m stuck here now forever. I don’t think I’ll go back to my public server character, meaning her property will fall prey to reclamation and all of her stuff will be up for grabs. I can’t even imagine progressing deep into this game and then being forced to take a sabbatical for whatever reason, only to return to having absolutely nothing except what’s on your person. Recovering from that would be a monumental task unless there was significant help to be had. I guess it could be mitigated by hoarding your best stuff on your person and parking somewhere safe before you go offline, but considering the Speed of Life, that might not always be an option. Should I someday decide I no longer want to pay for the private server, I won’t be able to migrate my server files away, either, so I’m now truly a prisoner of the desert.