Awesome

[Seer]

This game rocks so hard that I have trouble computing exactly how much it rocks. I'll tell y'all a little bit about my first impressions, sans breathless fanboyism.

It started out rough with the lag issue, I was getting booted before logging in, but eventually I made it in. I'll eliminate the parts where I was disconnected--it's a beta. I managed to get into VR training after pulling up my jaw at the scale of everything happening in the sanctuary. I was so stunned, in fact, that I didn't notice the galaxy about the land on me. Fortunately it missed by a narrow margin. I headed to both VRs and tried out various weapons and vehicles, making it to BR2 in short order. I went out to the hart building and certed in Medium Assault and Reinforced Armor with my 5 certs, and spent some time arranging my inventory so that there was no wasted space--take the time, you'll get another medkit or grenade out of it. I grabbed a pulsar, 6 ammo boxes, a sweeper shotgun with 2 ap boxes, an REK, 4 frag grenades and three medkits and waited for the hart.

I decided to get the hang of my character before joining an squad and dropped into Hossin at a Vanu base near the back. As I walked towards it, it changed to TR colors and I could see one of the dirty reds goose stepping around in the courtyard. Enraged, I fired at him, he fired at me, and I happened to win, albeit damaged. I hit my medkit to regain health. I then saw twin lasers tracking the wall next to me and started taking more damage and flipped my pulsar to AP mode. I had no chance, and the TR max sacrificed me to his dark god at a comfortable distance. I was presented with a respawn screen and chose to spawn in a nearby Vanu tower.

As I completed my equipment loadout, the tower changed over to TR. I ran up the stairs and ended the life of a TR stealther. A Vanu showed up and started to rehack the console while I stood guard. Two or three were at the bottom of the steps and I threw three grenades before giving pursuit. As I rounded the corner, I fell quickly before the force of their combined arms and the tower was theirs shortly after.

I respawned at a larger Vanu base in the north and had a look at the layout. I was invited to join a squad and decided I was sufficiently familiar with the weapons to do them justice. The VS was going after a continental lock on Hossin and we set about putting out fires. These were no stealth hackers we were running into--they were half-squads and more of TR. I'm not sure how they managed to get their maxes there--probably by equipment terminals--but there were quite a few of them. Fortunately my squad had its own maxes, which proved to be enough of a match. Hossin is just a jump away from the VS sanctuary, so throughout the night the VS outnumbered its opponents exponentially, but they did put up a fight. Several towers fell only after harsh fighting.

One particularly memorable assault happened after I had reached BR 5 (mostly caps and assists) and picked up the lancer to complement my pulsar. I don't know how much damage I was doing with the lancer, since nothing much seemed to explode unless it was already damaged, but I did get quite a bit of attention. I was about 100 yards out from the tower and an equal distance from the AMS we were spawning from. There were 2 TR AI maxes outside the tower and a small number of support infantry firing on the attacking VS, who were approaching from 3 sides. I zoomed in and lined up a few shots on the TR AI max--the lancers charge-up made it difficult to hit and the small effect made it difficult to tell whether you hit, but I got the TR MAX's attention with one of them. He turned towards me and let loose a hail of bullets. I was crouched and didn't seek cover in time, and I was again destroyed.

I respawned at the AMS and returned to my position, firing again at the AI max. He fell to his knees, and I decided to focus on the gunner manning the Phalanx turret that was attacking us. I don't know how many Lancers I sunk into that thing, but I eventually gave up and started attacking it with my AP pulsar ammo. It blew up, and the tr manning it bailed out. I switched to the normal mode and pegged her with a few shots. After she retreated I approached the tower. The TR were coming out in standard armor at that point, and it was a little bit like lambs to the slaughter. I killed two of them and hugged the west wall of the tower as I reloaded. I could hear a MAX coming out of the north wall and knew I was in for trouble if he caught me--my squad was on my left flank, approaching from the south. Thankfully, he was distracted and killed by vanu maxes on that side of the building. I threw a few grenades into the south wall door, but the TR pouring out of the basement overwhelmed me. I was back at the AMS.

The next death was embarassing. I walked all the way back up and laid down suppressive fire to the TR on the ground floor, and they retreated into the basement. I rounded the corner and was instantly killed by two side by side, locked down AI maxes. After respawning, I decided going into the basement would be a bad idea. I re-equipped and headed back up. The TR held the ground floor still, but I knew it was tenous at best. When I arrived there were two TR grunts guarding the ground floor. I forget what they were wearing or wielding, but I killed them and proceeded up the stairs. Vanu filed in behind and kept the TR down, and I discovered a TR standard armor facing the console. He was easy prey, and fell in couple seconds without turning around. My squad's infil hacker came up the stairs and requested that we guard her while she hacked. A squadmate and I stood vigil while the tower was hacked, and went into the basement afterwords. Coffins were everywhere.

I took a stroll around the tower and found there was one enemy left--a TR cloaker ran headlong into me and disappeared around the corner before I could shoot him. I knew he was heading to hack the console and went to the landing where it was located only a floor below. I figured he was there and lying in wait--I should have shot at the walls, but I didn't think of that. I decided to leave the landing for a bit, as a bluff. While he was the cloaker, he saw through me and started shooting at me with an amp. I turned around to find him in back of me and discharged a few rounds into him, but he escaped to the roof. My squad was convinced I wasn't hallucinating and decided to look for him. We scoured the roof, but it wasn't until they left when he started shooting at me with his amp or repeater or what have you. I spun around, getting pretty low on health--I couldn't see him. I saw him on the roof and fired a few shots , but I was forced to retreat, using a medkit around the corner.

I went back out, hoping he would try to shoot me again. I had no other way of finding out his position. He did, and I scanned around until I saw his flashing outline. Either because he was stupid or because he didn't expect me to look, he was in the same place on the top of the roof. I crouched and fired, and he crumpled. The tower was ours! Many more things happened than that, of course. I played for hours and that was just the highlight.

The TR definitely fought tooth and nail against vastly superior Vanu numbers. They were hard to dislodge from towers sometimes, but they couldn't really fill a base at all.

[Duffman]

good times man good times...

cept the Vanu suck ass GO TR

[Khronos]

nice summary of your adventure on Auraxis so far.

sounds like you had a blast.

[tmax]

jesus...write a full novel next time bud

[Seer]

Huh. I guess that is 1400 words. I didn't realize I wrote that much. :o

[JonnyK]

the max's own too much i've killed a tr max one time, then i've been killed like 30 times by vanu/tr maxes. damn they're tough

[Jakal]

Thanks for the nice story seer, helps alleviate the fact that i didnt get in. Hope youll write some more stuff if u can pry yourself away from the beta.

[CDaws]

A few shots with a decimator and a MAX will go down very easily. You just have to know which weapons are better for the task at hand. That's what the VR training is for, so you get to know what the different weapons do, how much damage they do to different targets, and what weapons work the best on what targets.

[Jimbo]

Good story Seer! I love to hear that kind of stuff. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to join ya in game.

[BUGGER]

Seer, you should write alot. Seer shall be the journalist from Vanu that fills in us nonbeta peeps.

Now we need a TR journalist.....somethings good happening with the TR......since all I see (with videos and stuff) is TR gettin wooped.....or acting like they got the IQ of a orange (sabotage vid ).

[Lanizer]

Wow...nice story dude , about time we got a rather positive entertaining story.

[thegame109]

GREAT STORY it eased the pain of not getting in thus far.Write some more as it's great to hear people's beta storys!!

[Sindustry]

My first experience was awesome as well. I am thoroughly enjoying this.

When I remembered I had the starting certs, I went straight to a terminal and bought Med Assault and Infil armor. Started with infil. Man, so fun. Nothing like killing a lone VS attempting to hack a tower. Or freezing like a deer in headlights when faced with a MAX (those VS MAX are intimidating).

First real battle was in Cyssor near the base next to Searhus WG (forgot it's name). I was cloaked and my squad was in a firefight with a couple of VS med inf. Took out my mag-scatter and fired upon one soldier in standard armor. I awaited to see him fall, instead, I see a VS stealther stumble to the ground at the hands of my pistol. He was just standing between us doing nothing.

I had no idea he was there, he had no idea I was there. Good stuff.

[thegame109]

AHAHAH yeah i like the bit about being caught in the headlights of a car like a deer hehe

[DarkDragon]

Good story