7 weeks of bugs glitches and griefers...

[MisterMyztik 59]

.... but we still love it!

I play sandbox games for the oft fleeting moments of joyous satisfaction, the unexpected, the triumph after the incredible grind and to do wonderful things with the wonderful people we meet along the way. 

 

Yes, we've lost galleons and brigs to what appeared to be bugs, yes we've been stripped of the contents of our small foothold house by glitchers, yes we've faced seemingly unending packs of wolves, spiders, tigers all ganging up to put a complete halt on our building for the evening... but through it all we've made friends, allies and enemies alike... 

Now that we're 6 weeks into the game I want to share some of my favourite times and hope that people can chime in with their own joyous moments.. we know there have been bad times, there are many threads for that, lets focus on things that have been truly memorable.

 

Number 1 for me comes most recently, 2 nights ago;

Having decided to head to our ice claim and establish it for breeding purposes, we took 2 hours to get our freshly launched brigantine ready to depart. We then had to drop and run in a hurry so we left a few things behind, namely enough cannons to efficiently down ships of the damned. No drama we thought, we've got plenty of cannons on the rear and enough repair resources to make it through. FOUR frustratingly slow HOURS into the journey from A9 to G1 thanks to some awful headwinds we finally limped into our new home grid on the back of a weak poseidon's fart.

We spied a ship of the damned, only level 8, and, grumpy at the hand we had been dealt on our journey we decided to vent some of our frustrations at the poor lad, the winds were finally with us after all. The call to man the cannons went out and like any good first mate I readily obliged our captain. Our first volley all hit him square on and our hearts were raised along with our blood, just a couple more volleys and we'd have some more crew, some gold, maybe even a couple blueprints we could use. One more volley was fired away when a red glow crept across my field of view, looking up from the cannons the nameplate was clear, a level 24 had joined in the fray. I immediately raced down the flights to the lower deck and retrieved a couple repair hammers and a bucket just in case.

I heard panic in the voice of my captain as he was calling for repairs, a quick lap around below deck checking the planks, setting the men to work and i popped my head back out to see what the commotion was. No less than 3 more ships had joined the battle and were trailing us, in the other direction a whale was speeding right for us, suddenly our 4 hour journey was looking like it might come to a rapid end so close to our destination. We weaved and dodged cannonballs as best we could but the winds had died down, so we were taking tremendous damage and the whale was not letting us escape in the direction of the wind... things were looking grim. Back down below I went to see if I could get some better repairs going as the cannonballs were raining down on us fairly frequently now, splinters and numbers flying all over the place.

I did the rounds hitting the perfect repair and the planks were starting to look fairly safe, still the tense tone in the captain's voice was concerning, a final volley landed and we instantly sprung a leak, not sure if i had missed the repairs on that plank or they just managed to focus fire on the one spot all at once but the captain's tense tone quickly turned to panic as the whale was on its way back to us again. I ran straight over to the plank with the leak and quickly sured it up and moved to the next one... "Not enough resources on you or in the ship's resource box for repair" ... Uh oh. 

"Captain, we're out of resources, i'm going to run the sails we need to get the hell out of here" I shrill as I run topside and mount the lieutenant's podium.. suddenly what had become eventful had turned into a cluster.. and was highly likely going to sink our ship and ruin our evening's efforts, though it would be a tale to tell, it would be bitterly disappointing.. 

For a good 10 minutes longer we had to sail like our lives depended on it, catching what little wind we could as efficiently as possible and attempting to dodge the numerous ships, hoping beyond home we wouldn't spring another leak as the cannonballs rained down all around us.. When the ships finally broke chase we were alone in the polar region, not a wisp of wind and the sun starting to creep over the horizon... A completely serene moment juxtaposed against the prior 45 heart-racing, nightmarish minutes. We sat there, relieved we had made it and drinking in the sunrise trying to steady our pulse whilst pondering how we could possibly make the final leg with no ability to repair....

 

 

We gained nothing in the fights, only a story to tell and 45 minutes of full edge of the seat excitement.. but that is sandbox games, you get what you give.. sometimes you get a lot less but its the moments like this that I play for. 

What's your story?