Ryzom

I wonder what has happended to the story competition. Are there any results? Did anyone send anything in?

I have no idea, I wasn't finished with mine, so I just awaited the next competition

I saw the last reminder and 1 day left, so i send in the one you can read above. Haven't heard anything yet.

Keep watching over the Christmas period

Oh yes my friends, I'm sure you have seen scary things in Atys, big scary things, but have you ever seen so many cloppers that the whole world seems to move in slow motion as they swarm madly about? But let me tell you how we all came to be recounting you this story.

Clan Omnis got together to impress their fame on Pyr and the Water Breakers. One of our first stops was the Hotheads. They seemed fairly tough but we took them out easily enough, although a few cloppers were lurking about. We went off for various other missions and came back for the returning Hotheads later. The hill behind them seemed to hold a lot of cloppers, and about a dozen came down to harass us as we fought the Hotheads again. With some jumping into the water we dealt them the final blows they would ever receive. But then, twelve cloppers and a hill of 50 behind them was nothing compared to what was to come.

The day continued well with several groups of the Shadow Raiders dispatched. So happy were we that we sat about enjoying their camp fire for some time, telling stories and rumaging about in the soil for any usefull nik-naks. One such story involved giant Yubos, garden sheds and how some Trykers redeemed themselves in the eyes of some locals, but thats another story.

Several times between missions we passed by the Hotheads again. Each time the hill behind them seemed to be ever more crawling with cloppers. Without a lie or word of exageration only half the sand of the entire hillside was visible under the mass of pinchers and clopper limbs.

Finally, we had more Hothead missions to do. The plan unfolded as before, thanks to Alyssah of Matis Clan Omnis, and we approached from the side with an escape route to the water. Well, as the armoured Orbmi raced forward and our Archmage Auq let rip, my view was filled with a mass of yellow dots that took up a quarter of my 50m field of view. Such a mass bearing down the hillside I have never seen. As a healer from the back I shouted 'big add' but the valiant front line supported by Fuchuan our leader held until the last Hothead was down.

By this time however, there were about 20 cloppers upon us and being somewhat battle weary already we jumped into the water. Many of the damn cloppers followed us in but did not attack. Looking around, a fallen comrade, Alyssah I think, lay dead on the waters edge. We needed the first of many brave attempts to lure the cloppers off a comrade and Orbmi leaped out and ran off to the east with a trail of cloppers behind. Luckily our star healer Mieksz managed to get out of the water to the west long enough to get a heal into Alyssah and you may think that she simply jumped in the water, but you wouldn't believe what was happening further up the hill!

Even though there were 15 cloppers following Orbmi our lure and another 10 around the water's edge, another 20 had come down the hill in a second wave. Fuchuan dashed ashore to cover Alyssah's retreat into the water and was instantly sourrounded in all directions. It was impossible to see him as a good 8 cloppers mobbed him from every which way. Luckily he killed one and jumped over the corpse into the water just after Alyssah. He was within an inch of his life.

So thats 45 cloppers down here now, in the water, on the shore, wondering along the edges and making a great noise. Orbmi was standing her ground on the far side trying to make a dent in her 10 lured cloppers. Auq got to her side and starting turning the heat up but the rest of us could not get there in time. Luckily Fuchuan ran off luring some cloppers away and we all returned to the water alive, if badly beaten up. The problem now? Well, the running about on the shore had pulled in more cloppers, now there were 50. I kid you not, for we had time to count them while wading about, for at this time we had no way out of the Oasis; for the cloppers would chase us at every attempt and were swarming from all directions.

With quick thinking a gap opened and Auq and Mieksz managed to flee in the direction of the Water Breakers camp, following south along the line of the cliff. After some time they returned, standing some way off as they could not approach us. We made a faint to the north to lure the cloppers away and made a dash south to Auq and Mieksz who were standing ready. Some 30 metres out of the water we managed to regroup and the first 3 cloppers chasing us died. The next 6 engaged us all and the following horde was overwhelming. Somehow I managed to push past the cloppers and lept back into the water. With such little life left I thought surely I was dead but I managed to swim into safety again. But when I turned about, the horror!

Noone was behind me. They all lay dead 30m from the shore to the south along the cliff line we had thought was a route to safety and the Water Breakers camp. I dragged my wet and sorry behind out of the far side of the oasis. So tired was I that I move incredibly slowly, almost as if stuck in deep goo or something. I doubted I could skirt the cliffs and get back around from the south to rescue my friends. I made my way wearily, sadly, taking the long way around to the Water Breakers camp, along the cliff top where the great Shookis grow. Then an idea pierced the slowness of my murky mind: Could I see my fellows from up here? I went to the edge and saw I sight I shall always remember. The entire group lay dead upon the sands below. As I observed them from on high I realised that if I could heal them from up here then there would be time to save them all.

Joy upon joy when my healing spells rained down and found their targets!

And boy did we run. Our hearts pounded in our chests and we collapsed in the relative safety of the camp. Everything span around our heads and we were exhausted. It was as if the whole world was slowing in its spin to a lazy halt.

Luckily we had survived, but the great clopper swarming is a warning to us all: Always be on your guard, this is a strange world. Be prepared and work together to survive, for we must, and more than that, we will conquer.

Tember
Clan Omnis.


The abridged version:
A huge spawn error on the cloppers caused the server to slow down and we nearly died

nice story lol

Excellent story, Tember! I'm so glad Ryzom, even in its bugs, makes for the most amazing stories and adventures

Lovely sexy mouse mat and T-shirt Nevrax thanks. You should have a shop for these

Tember
Clan Omnis
Fashion guru and Jena fan

trenker wrote:Lovely sexy mouse mat and T-shirt Nevrax thanks. You should have a shop for these

Yeah its like I was saying, they should do the bumber stickers too

As originally posted on the Triangle of Truth forums.

The journal of a young crafter

Early morning - Rise and shine
Getting up in the morning has always been difficult for me. Each morning my mind seems to resist the idea of leaving the comforting warm sleepy state it's in for the harsh realities of facing daily responsibilities. I go through the same routine as always where I lie half awake watching the lake cast playful patterns of light in my appartment. I know I'm just stalling the inevitable ritual of getting ready to go to work. It's even harder on days I've been playing till late the night before. Today is such a day.

Morning - Get going
It's always the same thing. A long queue of people too lazy to enter town, trying to sell stuff to the stable boy. All I want to do is get my mount and head to work! Patience just is not one of my virtues this early in the morning. Contrary to my plan, I have not yet made up my mind on what to make today. I figure I'll make some ammo. The shop gives good value for Ammo. If I'm lucky some of it will be sold and I will earn some commission. Most important thing is that I am getting better at my craft. Hopefully one day people will say they buy all their ranged weapons from me because I deliver good quality stuff. For now, being an apprentice, this is just a dream. One can always dream.

Day - At work
The same old routine at work. Harvest this, harvest that, Craft some stuff, head back to town, sell everything, get back and start all over again. Workdays really give me an aching back. Explosions and gas-clouds are no picnic either, mind you! The fun part is talking among the guys. Some of them are actually interested in the game I play in the evenings. I have yet to convince one of them to play with me, but they still ask me questions about it, and I really don't mind talking about it either.

- So, let me get this straight. You have a character in this game and you can travel around and do stuff.
- Yes, they have mechanical boxlike mounts which break down on colission. I bought one with just a few hitpoints left, which was a bit cheaper. Anyway, there are so many of them that the game lags most of the times you use them. Still everybody wants one.
- Then you shoot everyone you see?
- No, there are games like that, and I've played some of them, but this is not like that.
- Oh, I had a friend who played a game like that where they said funny phrases like, "Hi Johnny, nice Beemer, how fast does it go?" and "The mortgages seem to be lower if you get them from the other bank." So you walk around in that game of yours and say silly stuff like that, and call it role-playing?
- Well some people do, and I sometimes join in, but not all the time. Usually I'm too busy making stuff to earn money.
- You have a job in that game of yours?
- Yes.
- Haha, like you haven't enough crafting to do here! And what is it that you do?
- Well, you could compare it with what we're doing now. I dig for information usually in documents others have crafted, then I craft a document of my own. Only I don't sell it. They have this strange economy in IRL(TM). I give it to some other bloke, who uses it to craft something else with it, which he gives to another bloke and so on. At the end we have collectively crafted a huge thing called a computer system, of which nobody knows how it really works. Next time they want some changes, we start with digging again and the whole thing starts anew.
- And you earn dapper?
- Well something like that. It's called money and the currency changes per spawnpoint. I am busy figuring out how that works. Somehow since I bought myself a mount the bank keeps sending me funny system messages saying I'm "overdrawn". Tonight I'll visit the NPC handling that to find out what happened. There should be a mission or something.
- Sounds complex and confusing to me, mate. Why would you play such a game?
- Well it's quite relaxing after a working day. We have a nice community... at least most of the time.

Afternoon - Back in town
It's always good to collect the last few dapper for my work. Knowing that after collecting some skills with my new skillpoints I can logon and play IRL(TM). It seems there are patches every now and then, but I have not seen any so far. There are many GM's saying different stuff about what the devs are doing, but no consistant news there either. Well, as long as I can play without lag, I don't mind. I log on, get out of my appartement and step into my mount to go to work...

Hours later - Logging off
Phew, this game is really becoming an addiction. I was planning on asking some friends to come hunt some Izams for some ranged XP, but I got stuck in this game too long again. I have to get up in a few hours to go digging. I formed this funny idea, though. I think I'm going to write a small story about this guy who lives in IRL(TM) and in the evenings, he comes home and plays a game where he is someone in Atys. LOL, the guys on the forum will probably tell me to stay off the Yelk dung when they read it!