Meanwhile, Back in Rust

By Bixyl Shuftan

For the Sunweavers/Angels in Second Life, the adventures in the Rust game continue. Shortly after Jasmine made the base a couple weeks ago in the Player versus Player server we were going about when not in Lost Island (link), that server went offline. Lost Island also went offline briefly, so we checked out other places. One was the "ZZFun US PVE No Sleepers" server. Looking it over, there were a number of builds by players, more metal than I had seen.

One that stood out was a tremendously tall skyscraper, one that looked like it took many, many hours to get the metal ore for, forge, and build.

The second was an odd looking build held up by only a single set of stairs, looking like a big "smiley face."

I ended up talking to CWHughes, co-administrator of the server, after he happened to sign on while I was there. He  told me the server had been up for about two and a half months. He himself had created the smiley-face building and the skyscraper using his admin tools to skip making the metal. Both had doors unlocked for people to climb up and enter. And indeed people could, after asking him first, get a floor on the skyscraper if they wanted too. The top floors, however, were his alone to build in.

Getting up the tower took several minutes of stair climbing.

But once up, the view however was fantastic, with much of the island and a good deal of the road system visible.

At least what could rezz due to the distances involved. And this wasn't even Hughes' tallest build according to him. He told me he had made a 200 story tower before the server was wiped, and had to start over.

CW Hughes showed off a couple of his administrator tooks, such as a sparkling pipe, which he called his "admin hatchet."

He also had a bow that looked ordinary, but fired what he called "fire arrows." As Rust is still in "Alpha," they left a red outline after he fires.

If you're in the server, and find or hear CWHughes about, don't forget to say hello. He just might call down an airdrop just for you, or invite you and one or more others to take part in a contest.

Since then, Rust has had one more big update (link). There have been some visual improvements, such as the moon looking more detailed. But the big thing is "item durability." Tools and weapons degrade as they're used, and unless occasionally repaired become useless. They have to be fixed at a special "Repair bench" (image from the link). This has added to the challenge to the game, though can be disabled by server administrators. A couple friends grumbled weapons seem to degrade too fast in some places.

There's also been a number of Rust videos made of general funnery at the Alpha bugs and all, plus a man successfully defending his home from raiders (caution, one with naked men): (link).

Sadly to say, no new pictures from the Lost Island server. Our old friend Lomgren Smalls joined us on Rust (though is still taking a break from Second Life for personal reasons), and used the "remove" command available on the server (its only in some places) to make a fancy "reverse pyramid" with a one room ground floor, a nine room second floor, and a fifteen room third. Unfortunetly, the server got wiped before the thought came to me to take a picture. So we now have to rebuild.

That's it for now from Rust. Word is it's become one of the more popular games in open alpha development. No doubt there will be more to write on soon as the Angels see what they can do.

Bixyl Shuftan