Ploppin' Fresh

Absolutely agree, Al.

Much appreciated, kind sir. As for photos, well, they're all going to be taken from a smartphone, so I can't promise excellent quality. This rickshaw is fairly tiny and there are four of us in it, plus our gear stowed on top, so we're having to seriously limit what we bring along. I'm sure we'll get a lot of decent photos, though.

Just watched this junk tonight. Agreed. Awful. The only thing this movie has going for it is the design. While a lot of it is extremely over-the-top or completely unnecessary, they did manage to nail down a lot of things, particularly interior shots. If you're going to watch this, though, protect your eyes. There's a lens flare approximately every 10 seconds.

I apologise in advance for the template-y feel to the following, but it's the best way to get it out there. So, without further ado...

As you may or may not know, on January 1st myself and three friends are embarking on a two-week long, 2500-km motorised rickshaw race, starting in the north of India and (hopefully) ending in the south of the country. This journey will be three-parts frightening and one part awesome, but will most definitely be an experience of a lifetime. Here's our website giving greater detail of the trek, which you'll be able to use to track our progress once the race begins:

http://shawtocurryfavor.tumblr.com/

There will be 70-80 teams participating in the race, with each team having to raise one-thousand pounds for a charity; in this case, the Frank Water Project. This cause is aimed at raising funds to establish sustainable water projects in rural India and Africa.
As there are 4 members on our team, we are each required to raise 250 pounds ($400). If you would like to help me reach my goal, there are a number of ways you can make a donation.

1) You can use the following link to make a donation online using any number of methods, including credit and paypal:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cm...a72c947f193f8fd

You can also go to our donation page, which provides greater detail:
http://shawtocurryfavor.tumblr.com/donate/
(There's a giant DONATE button at the bottom of the page)

Anything you can give would be greatly appreciated, no matter how small (or large!!!), as it goes to a very good cause and helps me reach my goal.

Pat

It was better than Quantum of Shit, but not much better.



I really wanted to like this as well, but just couldn't do it. Apart from being a great Bond film, Casino Royale was actually a good film. Tight in its direction, amazing dialogue (that train scene with Bond and Vesper is probably one of my all-time favourites), brilliant action sequences. I was hoping that there was going to be a return to that after the piece of shit that was QoS, but sadly, it wasn't to be.

A treat that manages to delight both the young and the old. Basically just a cracker... but it looks like a goldfish!

No fear. Election is Obama's. Won the key states, despite being slightly behind in the popular... vote for the moment.

The biggest problem I have is that every single person is a crack shot. I'm fairly certain everyone hits the head now... which seems a bit ridiculous.

I ended up grabbing this as well. Any plans to play in the coming days?

Wow. That Backwater Gospel animation was fantastic. Thanks for that.

I know I should probably drop this in the Star Wars thread, but keeping in line with slick animation:




Just a small, fan-made star wars anime clip, but it's certainly better than anything Lucas and company have done in the past 30 years.

Sorry I didn't make it last night, although probably for the best, if this hacker business persists. Perhaps we can get some play in on Sunday? My day is looking pretty clear, at the moment.

It's rare that I've gone back and played games a second time, but you're right, you definitely can't go back to those games. There is zero chance for things to go down differently. I don't know that I've ever considered the games 'open world', though. Even in the second one, when you're in some city in Cambodia or some such place, despite how massive and sprawling it looks from the rooftops, I knew that I was going to be led through it on a very specific path. They're never going to win anything for innovative and original game play (see: Duck and Cover: Gaming in the 21st Century), but they certainly nail all the other elements, enough so to keep me entertained and purchasing their titles.

I think the one thing that is likely to annoy me in this game is the girl. She's always there, keeping safe in situations of extreme danger. I didn't watch all of the video, but the bits I saw, that feeling surfaced pretty quickly. Just have to wait and see, I guess.

Have you played any of the Uncharted games? Looks very similar to those. I actually quite enjoyed the feel of those games... part cinema, part game. A lot of work went into the characters, story and dialogue, making for a truly enjoyable experience. As well, whoever is "playing" there, is doing so perfectly. Clearly it's been rehearsed and practiced, which probably heightens that feeling of scripted.

Al and Gav... are you guys planning on playing this evening? Let me know and I'll tag along.

Also, I'll be in Ireland from Sept. 24 - Oct. 19 (with a four-day trip to liverpool in the second week). Plans must be made!

Kev and I had a similar experience on CA 16 last night as well. We now have a tent not too far from base camp and we were making our way over there with some loot to stash when we saw a helicopter in a field with dust kicking up all around it. The chopper took off and we decided to go see if anyone had been dropped off, etc... Suddenly, we're both hearing music and then our surroundings change. We now appear to be in some sort of death arena with other players. Kev immediately begins yelling 'disconnect', which we both did. Turns out neither of us was injured, but we were now 10 km away from where we were.

Then, upon learning you had an ATV, I went into the game for an hour or so this morning so I could head to the tent and finally unload all this loot. Run by the house, grab the ATV and drive over to the tent's location. Shut off the ATV, dismount and I'm about to enter my tent when another helicopter is flying right above me. I duck under a tree but the chopper just hovered above me for a couple of minutes. The chopper then disappeared.

I decide to hang out under the tree for a time to make sure no one is coming. After a few minutes of this, I move out from under the tree and notice a coyote backpack laying on the ground where I had been and I had a massive gun in my hands. the bag on ground turns out to be mine (but had an empty coyote pack on my back). I go to the tent and begin the process of stashing the loot. Then I hear footsteps running up the hill towards me. I turn and there's a guy coming towards me, the tent and the ATV and he has his gun drawn. I begin firing immediately and pumped 7 or 8 rounds into him, blood pumping from his body, but he just stands there with his gun drawn. I get up and run away, getting some distance on him, but then he's right behind me again, so I fire three more rounds into him. Nothing. That's when I disconnected.

I hop to a different server, move location to get a better vantage point, and go back into CA 16 again. No sign of the guy. I wait, wait and wait. Still nothing. So I ran to the ATV, hopped on it, and drove it back to base camp, where it awaits you.

Two hacking experiences on CA 16 in less than a day. Not sure I like this rate of occurrence.

Amazing! That I did not know. Hours of wandering the map saved!

You may recognise this location, although the vehicle is slightly different from the last one. Yes, we managed to find a Ute. We were heading into Stary Sobor to hit up the military tents and as we were heading up the hill around the back of town, I spotted this beauty just sitting there waiting for us. Now parked in the wonderful spot you gents had found and agreed to use as our stash point. It should be noted that this is a different server. CA 15 seems to be a perpetually day server, so we've played on that the last couple of times.

We then made our way on foot to the tent city you mentioned previously, hopped over to CA 16, and are now kitted up from there as well. We're done for the evening, but depending on how your adventures go with the truck (if you choose to switch servers), we'll make our way back (again on foot) there tomorrow evening and fill up the truck with more goodies.

At the moment, the truck is home to a bunch of food, 4 rifles, a bunch of ammo, some medical supplies and an empty jerry can. We're back on track for the time being, it seems.

Also, finally got me some NVGs, bitches! Now all I need to do is find the ever-elusive GPS (Kev has had at least one, possibly two) and life will truly be complete.

Happy hunting.

Lies! You broke your leg WHILE I was sitting at the power plant, waiting for you to make your way to the truck. For shame, I say, for shame.

Terrifying, nerve-wracking, spasm-inducing are all words I would use to describe the night. Fun was not one of them. Heh. To be honest, I find it incredibly difficult (frightening) to play at night. I literally have zero visibility while out there, even with gamma and such boosted up. Unfortunately, in order for Kev and I to play together, we have to do it in the evening, which always puts us in the dark. One day I'll find night-vision goggles.

It was a terrible night indeed. Three attempts at meeting up all failed horribly, following a series of unfortunate events and poor judgement. I've actually put together a very crude jpg of the nightmare, but alas, I'm unable to upload a photo. Anyhow, on with the tale.

1) Kev found himself holed up in Mogilievka with little blood and passing out frequently. I had already been in game, making my way to what I thought was the location of the Ural at the very north of the map. Kev comes online and asks for assistance, at which point he tells me I'm likely heading to the wrong co-ordinates. So I begin my trek on foot to meet up with Kev to give him a much-needed transfusion. About 3/4 of the way there, I came across a cow in a field and decided I wanted his tasty meats. Unfortunately, I became a bit turned around in the process and ended up in a westerly direction at the base of the airfield (no compass). Kev, tired of my poor orienteering and having a prior commitment for the evening, logged off in disgust. I ended up just heading for the real location of the truck and then logging off myself. I have to say, though, the hiding spot as perfect... in the middle of a dense forest, hidden snugly behind a non-descript house bearing no loot. The crew had truly outdone themselves.

2) Later that evening, the rescue attempt resumed. I slowly made my way to kevin's location in the Ural, happy to have the headlights in absolute darkness. At this point, kevin has lost so much blood that his vision is nothing but a blur, barely able to distinguish the headlights. I park the truck just north of town and wait for him. On his way, he gets hit by a zombie and begins losing the precious little blood he had remaining, but makes it to the truck and hops in. I turn the truck around and begin heading down a hill, with the zombies in hot pursuit. At this point, our versions will likely diverge, but from my perspective, kev says he needs to bandage up and *apparently* asked me to stop the truck. Without getting any confirmation from me, he proceeded to jump from the truck while it was still moving, which resulted in him being run over by the beautiful Ural. The second failure of the evening.

3) Kev respawns in Kamenka but there's no way I'm going to make it to him with the Ural: a) this truck is a gas-guzzling beast. Basically used up all the fuel on my way to the town. There were no jerry cans in the truck and with so little visibility on foot, I wasn't about to begin searching for one. So Kev says he'll make his way to me and look for a jerry can on the way. We plan a route for him and I take the truck as near to him as I can until it runs out of gas (which wasn't very far at all). Kev is successful looting; not so in his skirmishes with zombies. With Kevin's body now sporting two jerry cans, I proceed on foot for quite some time and eventually find his body, which was beautifully lit up by a chemlight. Jerry cans in hand, I make my way back to the Ural and fill up. Precious lifeblood!

4) During my journey to Kev's previous host, he had respawned in Elektro and began looting the shit out of it, apparently with little care for the lurking dangers, throwing flares and chemlights all about the place. Strangely, in the 30 minutes he'd been doing this, he hadn't seen a single sign of another player. After I've gassed up the Ural, we decide that I will come meet him near the power plant so that we can fuel up again and have a couple of full jerry cans for future need (for the people!). At this time, I posit that it might be best for me to park the Ural at the lake north of Elektro, just in case anyone had been around town. Kevin outright balks at the very suggestion, confidently stating that if there had been a player, he would have encountered them. I hesitate, but choose to defer to his judgement. A decision I would regret later.

5) I make my way to the power plant and park to the rear of the building and kill the engine and headlights. I sat there waiting for what seemed an eternity as Kevin continues to search for loot - perhaps out of greed, maybe overconfidence - before he indicates that he is on his way. To light his path, he is throwing road flares that burn brighter than seven suns and finds himself at a fence. With a simple vault, Kevin lands on the other side and breaks a bone. Now crawling towards me, Kevin gasps in disbelief as he sees another player. I, of course, can see very little from the cabin of the truck and ask kev if should move. Too late, though, it seemed, as the door closes and there's now a player sitting next to me, who messages "Thanks for finding my Ural." Alarm bells were ringing, but it was decided that I would tell him we were waiting for another player. Immediately following that, the player exits the vehicle. Kevin, watching all this, sees the player go into a prone position on the ground, and begins yelling at me to drive. So drive I did.

6) I headed back north out of town, and once I've covered what I believe to be a safe distance, I shut the truck off and start discussing with kevin what our plan is. Initially we both agreed that coming back to town was a bad idea, but after some time had passed, I felt the player had probably bored of the situation and headed back to town. Kev disagreed, urging that the risk was not worth it. With that decided, I head to Staroye, further north still, where I plan to fill up on gas. I spent some time at a gas station but was unable to find a place to fill the cans. I push on to just east of the town and begin filling up there. I made two trips to fill the truck completely up and then a third trip to fill the jerry cans. All is well. Full tank of gas, plenty of spare fuel, making my way back to the hiding spot would be easy, if but a little slow and long. I head north out of Staroye and come to a left turn onto a dirt road at Pass Oreshka and make the turn. At this point I stop the vehicle and kill the engine. I left the headlights on, however, believing that I was WELL clear of any danger. I begin looking at the map to plot my journey to basecamp, when all of a sudden the vehicle is riddled with bullets, resulting in my very quick death and the loss of a vehicle that everyone had put a lot of work into repairing and keeping safe.

So there it is, in all it's glory. My apologies to all for any suffering you have experienced. Bad luck, poor decisions and the resolve of one bastard of a bandit have robbed us of our precious Ural. I pledge, however, to right this wrong and restore us once again to our former glory... but not until at least Monday.

When Kev and I went in today, the ute was nowhere to be found. Did one of you fellers move it? The reason I ask is that I came upon a bus on CA14, which Kevin and I used to ferry a ton of gear back to the truck location. I spent a lot of time bringing gear from CA14 to CA16, but after the third trip, most of what I had brought over was gone, including some of the things you had left in the truck. I then brought another load over, and again, some of what I brought was gone. Note that on both trips I said most stuff was gone, but not all, which brings me back to my original question: is it possible that someone else is using this site to load up on gear and bringing it to another server? Or is saving the vehicle acting wonky? I camped out at the site after my last trip to watch and see if anyone came to the truck to take things, but didn't see anything. Anyhow, as it stands, there's a bus on CA14 in roughly the same location you left that ute. That is, of course, Kevin hasn't gone back to use it.

Kev and I had a similar experience this evening as well. We were just outside Kozlovka, heading to a barn to the northeast of the village, when all of a sudden Kevin is yelling that there's another player running straight at him with an axe. Kevin dispatched him pretty quickly, so no harm (to us) was done, but it was the first time we've encountered someone. Kevin isn't even sure if the guy knew he was running into Kevin, but instinct took over and survivor suffered the consequences of that.

MUST FIND VEHICLE!

Well, our theory was that we were trying to go the chicken-shit route and log on to a server with very few players so we would have minimal trouble at the airfield. However, we'd be unsuccessful logging on to said server, and when we'd go on to something a little more populated, we'd be at the coast. Our solution was to stop being wusses and just log on to servers with a minimum of ten players. This seems to have worked as the last two times we've played, we've been able to start where we left off. Ahhh, the airstrip. We basically made our way through most of it and found lots of loot, although Kevin was most successful stumbling upon a few dead bodies, which were basically kitted out with everything you could ever want (except night-vision goggles, which to Kevin is the Holy Grail). We've since moved on from the airfield and have headed south again, presumably in search of a vehicle. Lots of zombies at that airfield, though. The satisfaction of seeing my player live another day is far more rewarding than it should be. Forgot to mention this last night, but we were checking out a deer stand in the middle of some forest and all of a sudden we could hear a chopper, which within a few seconds was basically right over top of us. It seemed to stick in the area for a couple of minutes but then pushed on south. That was pretty damn cool.

So Kevin and I have been getting pretty into this over the past week. With the exception of one day, we've been putting in sessions ranging from 2-5 hours every day. As a matter of much pride for me, my character has been surviving since last Thursday, living through a number of hairy situations, ranging from a broken leg due to my carelessness on stairs, as well as several chases (one in particular found me running down a road with some other random player, with 10 zombies chasing us... thankfully, he was slower and decided to break away from the road, taking every last one of them zombies with him... I will remember his sacrifice until the day my character dies). At this point, we're pretty well stocked up... lots of food, water, tonnes of other supplies and a healthy cache of weapons. Kevin managed to come across a helicopter that had a giant-ass machine gun with 100 rounds. Anyhow, the goal for us this whole time has been to hit the airstrip in the northwest, where apparently there's a shit-ton of weapons and other great loot. We realise that this is a hotspot for activity... not only for other players, but also the hoardes of zombies that congregate and spawn there, but the draw of tasty treats is too much. Unfortunately, due to choosing servers that have been faulty, we've actually ended up respawning on the coast several times, well away from where we had logged off the previous session (one night found us right at the entrance of the airstrip before logging off, hoping to tackle it the next day in better lighting conditions) forcing us to have to travel the length of the map to hook up again. Anyhow, we think we're about ready to give it a shot and we're once again nice and close.

I know I'm only repeating what's been said several times by others, but I love this game. I can't believe how unbelievably immersive it is. I mean, really, all you do is spend most of your time walking through fields and forests, finding food and watering holes, crawling on your belly, and not trying to kill zombies (I've had this character for five days now and I've killed a total 9 zombies, small beans compared to Kevin, who has killed at least 70-80 in the time we've played, largely due to his overconfidence in his ability to sneak around RIGHT BEHIND AND NEXT TO zombies... that's right Kevin.... your carelessness will be the death of me). Having said that, he's also done his part in stocking my character with vital supplies and medical treatment, so props.

We'll see how this airstrip experiment goes. If we're lucky, we'll be able to sneak out of there with a veritable arsenal. Secondary goal at this point is to find a vehicle and repair it. Kevin came across a bus last night, but two tires were blown and he didn't have a toolkit (since remedied).

It really would be great if we could all meet up in-game at some point. Difficult to organise, obviously, but something that needs to happen at least once, even if it means I have to get up early (stay up really late) so that we can at least enjoy a couple of hours roaming the country side. Any takers?

After meeting up with him, we decided to head back to the field hospital where there were four deer stands so I could do just that. However, while making our way back, I got disconnected from the game. At that point, I decided to head to the airfield, where I was quickly dispatched by two survivors. Sleepy time followed.