f13.net

http://www.dark-wind.com/

It's online and has aspirations for a type of persistance. It's Garage Games related and (oh god most importantly) it's motherfucking turn based Car Wars.

So far, I like it. The chance of death needs to be toned down and the current "twenty bucks for three months of the whole game" needs to stay that way instead of be just a pre-order price but it's not too shabby so far. Oh, and the documentation sort of completely blows.

Gas jokes incoming in 4... 3... 2...

Oh good. So I'm not the only one who saw the games name and immediately thought of farts.

That's a good sign, then. You obviously want people thinking of farts when they look your game up.

They really should have called it Car Wars but it was taken.

This could be one of my cheap dreams came true. I am farting in anticipation while downloading...

so are you all revved up to give this game a test drive?  :roll:

It's official. It ROCKS!  (Yeah I played it for the last two hours and I am about to start my second deathrace with an awesomely earned 2nd row starting position).

EDIT: Seriously, you all join. It's huge. As soon as you settle yourself with the UI and the event listing, it's SO on!

There are a few caveats here that I've heard from a friend of mine who used to be pretty into it. One is that the lead developer is apparently borderline insane about not telling people how the game works. It makes for really poor documentation which really stings later in the game (from what I hear). Second is that the community supposedly is pretty bad but, hey, I played Guild Wars so I bet I can manage. Third is that the penalties for death are harsh from what I can tell; a guy dies and you're out of commission for three days or so.

The community part sounds weird to me, as my 4 hours experience has been great EVEN thanks to the people there, very helpful, chatty and entertaining.
I think this game is seriously great. I had a few races, loved it and subscribed right away for 3 months. I am seriously impressed, and yeah it's Car Wars but better. Definitely a 80s dream came true.
The fun part is that I spent 4 hours racing and machinegunning other drivers and having hella fun, and when I was about to logoff and go to sleep I checked the website documentation and the forum and found out there are tons of things more to do over just driving, like exploring the wilderness, looting, managing pilots, resources, traveling... I am seriously impressed and my money are there to prove that.

Angel, what's your name there (Falconeer is mine and Evaporate is my team)? We should make a Gang alliance under the Bat Country banner or simply meet at Somerset Gate and beat the hell out of each other's pilots.

By the way, hank you for showing me this, you can't understand how glad I am.

Man, I was going to try this right up till Falconeer started singing praises for it (Gotta poke some fun at you after the Vanguard thang). Naa, I'll probably check it out soon and look ya up :)

I am (oddly enough) Modern Angel and my team name is Mindphaser. I'm currently really, terribly awful at this game but still enjoying it. I've not subscribed... yet. I expect I'll break down by the end of the day.

I'm surprised Stephen Zepp hasn't talked this game up over here given the hue and cry over Auto Assault not being Car Wars enough.

I played the tutorial last night, it seemed pretty fun but I couldn't figure out how to do anything other than drive (how do you shoot?).

I'll try a real match tonight.

I'm also waiting for something to let me change the temporary password they sent me .. lame!

Name: Viin
Team: Diesels

To change your password log in and go to My Gang. There should be an option to change your password on one of your headings.

To shoot you have to go to manage on your steering wheel tab and assign a gunner (so if you have one dude in your car pulling double duty and want to switch you have to micromanage a bit). Once you have one assigned you right click your target, spend one turn targetting and then let fly.

I just watched you blow up in the Combat League, Angel  :-D

This thing is blowing me away.

Yeah Viin, it's not very intuitive and the tutorial needs work (especially if they want to cater up some more money and attention. But eventually you'll find out and then it'll be war! (I am wondering if we should ally our gangs or just wage war to each other).

That was my first combat arena and it's pretty rough. I did a little better toward the end but my one guy got taken down fast. I at least tasted sweet, sweet revenge on the guy who thought it'd be cute to lose a deathrace yesterday by placing last and blowing my cars up.

I ended up plopping down my twenty bucks for three months since that's half as much as games that hold my interest for half as long. Worth the investment, I think. I'd love to see Stephen drop by and give us some scuttlebutt on the inner workings of the project.

Interesting tidbits from their site...


I'll have to check it out.  Love me some Car Wars.

Though from the screenies, Dark Wind should be called, "Yet More Brown" Wind.

It's the Wasteland baby. What did you expect, neon knights? (they are in Auto Assault by the way)

Well played a bit more tonight, it was pretty fun once I figured out how to get the guns to work.

I was doing a deathrace, doing well in 5th place, when someone shot my engine out. Crap. I was literally 3 (game) seconds from the finish line when my POS stopped in the middle of the track. Grrr.

I like it, but it seems pretty slow. Maybe they should bump it up to 2 seconds a turn instead of 1 - if 1 lap takes 10 minutes that's forever!

While we are waiting for Stephen Zepp to show up and tell us the story behind this gem, I just found out some info about the lead designer/programmer of Dark Wind, an Irish smart guy (http://www.it.nuigalway.ie/~sredfern/) called Sam Redfern (http://www.it.nuigalway.ie/People/StaffDisplay.asp?StaffID=16).

My guys are currently in the hospital. :(

Heh, I had a higly dramatic deathrace yesterday. I was second and third in the first lap (thanks to a perfect trajectory) after starting last, and managed to do very good. Sadly, behing ahead it's not that good when you have no minedropper and everyone who follows has front-mounted heavy machineguns. My lead-driver rear armour got destroyed in lap two and when the co-driver knee exploded by shrapnels I resigned her. My first car was still just behind the race leader and doing very good when the whole pack targeted me and managed to hurt my men so bad that I had to resign mere seconds before the heavy bleeding killed 'em. Now my favourite gunner has a stump in the place of his left leg and my other driver has lost an ear. Forced hospitalization for days (to the point I won't be able to sign up two cars in a race for a few days, lacking the people to form 2 full manned cars).

The race was brutal. Only 6 crossed the finish line of the 16 starters. Once again, it's a very good game, and the emotional relationship it lets you develop for your men and women is definitely something. And yes, as Sam itself pointed out in the above description of the game features, perma-death is definitely the winning move (for this game).


I managed to gather enough money to order and assemble my first car, and do a suicidal trip to the next city. I think it will die, but I had to experiment with travel. Hope my scapegoat driver won't hold a grudge against me.

Yeah, I don't mind it a bit. It's no different than Necromunda or Mordheim or (of course) Car Wars. It's essentially a wargame come to life with all of the quirks that entails.

I am curious as to what happens if your whole team dies and you're broke? Cancel your subscription? Get one new guy and hit the racing circuit?

Gonna try this out tonight - props to the devs for releasing Win, OS X and Linux clients. Choice is good.

Hey Squirrel if you see me up there throw me a /whisper. I am sure you can figure it all out on your own but it'll be easier with some help. Took me three days to get (almost) all what's needed to know.

Sounds interesting and the driving school looks like fun.

But the game itself won't let me play. When I start the game and log in, I enter the lobby and that is as far as I get. "My Crew", "Town" and all the other buttons do nothing for me. What SHOULD happen when I click on them. If it opens a browser window I would think some obscure Popup-Blocker is at work.

it did that to me too twice. Just close the lobby and restart, or try again later. Yes, they should open a browser window, but as I said it happened to me and then it got fixed by itself, so try again.

Anyway, driving school is NOTHING compared to a deathrace. It's hard to believe that a turn based game could be so adrenalinic. Plus, the roleplay part is very well developed. The boards are full of backstories and and topic about dead characters, while in game, during the usual carnage, you'll find yourself really attached to the fragile lives of your characters.

It adds to the whole that the developers are often in the lobby exchanging tips and suggestions with the players, and it adds even more that they have topics in the boards letting players name NPC gangs. The only real turndown of the game is that lots of cool features will be implemented in the future and are not active yet, but I guess you have to cut some slack to a team of just two developers (and well, UI is close to non-existant. This game will SO benefit of a standalone client including the managerial part which is now browser based).
The community is extremely mature and helpful, although small sized. Another nice thing to have.

The game shares a lot with EVE online (you know, with just about 200 developers less...), (building ships/cars, dynamic economy, offline advancement, real time travel and lots more...) to the point that I think CCP could get an incredible game from this. But the combat part, believe it or, is potentially better as movement is more important here than in EVE.
To me, and that says a lot, combat is more addictive in DW than in EVE. And as far as I know characters on foot will be in Dark Wind before EVE (a few months according to Sam), with the meaningful difference that they'll be able to wield handguns and shoot at incoming vehicles or even swing fists at other pedestrians. Sweet.

Oh, just remembered. To answer an earlier question, if all your characters die and you don't have money to hire new ones, you'll get a free new guy every 5 days. Yes, that means if you are unlucky enough, and you are not the beggar type, you could have to wait 5 days before being able to join a race again.

Honestly, I've been so busy I didn't even know this was out--we have so many projects using Torque it's hard to keep track of them, so sorry for not letting you guys know in advance.

I'll make sure to get the comments passed back to the developer, I'm sure he'll be interested!

If you have any sway whatsoever tell them to emphatically NOT increase the sub price. 20 bucks for three months in a game that forces some downtime if you get a bad string of events shouldn't be 10-15 a month.

I actually placed 1-2 in an arena combat match yesterday and it was awesome. Made enough money to recoup my deaths. :)

My favourite driver died yesterday. I was so stupid to sign her up in a race with every car sporting a front mounted micro-missile and without any kind of rear-mounted weapon to portect your ass. And I had the insane idea to get the pole position and a flashing lead start. As soon as the shooting started, I had 13 following cars targeting her. She never had a chance. I virtually killed her myself. Meh :(

Yes - you certainly did.

A turn based driving game? Are you people serious? I downloaded the client, and played it for about 2 minutes before realising that I was entering the land of bird watchers and the National Paint Dehumidification Surveillance Association.

please breathe on a mirror to prove you have a soul

It's a turn based racing/destruction game. It is the digital version of a glorious boardgame by the name of Car Wars and use mechanics found in boardgames the like of Blue Max, Formula Dé and lots more.
If you don't like boardgames or PnP RPGs then you won't like, that's a given. If you consider tabletop boardgaming like bird watching, then I see your point.

Actually, this game and the use it makes of physics and a 3D engine is the proof that you can turn-base everything, with excellent results.

Sounds interesting I'll have to check it out sometime this weekend.

Also feel free to completely ignore Engels, he has no fucking taste whatsoever.

Exhibit A:

That was my first thought as well. But try and forget that it's a computer game, and play it for what it is. A 3D rendered board game about post-apocalyptic car warfare. I only played for about 45 minutes last night, but to be honest I quite enjoyed myself, and I appreciate the dev's making it turn-based because it was obviously a conscious trade-off to deliver a game that they could build with a certain feature set. It's really quite good for what it is.

Would i like a real time car wars on my Xbox? Fuck yeah. That's not this game. This game is what it is and I like it enough to probably keep playing for a bit anyway.

Drivername: squirrel
Gang: Straw Dogs

Ok, that makes more sense. A computerised rendering of a PnP game. I must have skimmed over that part, and of course, with a name like Car Wars, one expects a wiz-bang action game. My apologies to any ruffled plumage.

And Hoax, I'm not exactly the only soul that finds WoW/Warhammer graphics a bit cartoonish for their taste.

No you just have a really shitty way of saying it.  When VG is your proof that something else sucks your logic fails.  I dont care what your trying to prove.

It's not Car Wars. But it is. Honestly, I hope Steve Jackson is in a forgiving mood if he finds out about it because it really is the rules set right down to the velocity to turn ratio per second/turn stuff I remember from way back in the day.

Sam Redfern was saying in lobby chat a few days ago that he talked with Steve Jackson about this. Apparently SJ liked the game but, of course, didn't agree on any kind of connection or direct reference to the Car Wars license, which he's very jelous of. Anyway, I'd say it's a big green light for Dark Wind.

NECROH!

The game is STILL very good and unique.
Countless improvements in the last year and a half, including but definitely not only replays and pedestrians!

You can now leave the car (before it explodes, for instance) and use your handguns and handguns skills to save your arse close and personal, engage in fistfights with other pedestrians or shoot down wilderness creatures in the unlucky event of a breakdown when out hunting. Comes in handy since your characters grow over time but tend to (perma)die a lot, so it's like having a second chance when your car is about to become a screaming ball of fire.

All in all, this game is a miracle. The GUI is the biggest letdown being a mix of standalone client, java crap and web browsing, and the visual and sound department are pure retrogaming, but it's still more than worth it.

Was actually considering checking this out again. I did love it for my three month run last year.

I somehow just heard about this game. Anyone still playing? Thinking about checking it out when I am less zombied (need to get my ass to bed).

It recently had some "oomph" added in.  Few upgrades, some more marketing, etc.  I registered a few weeks ago but havent logged in.  Just like Car Wars, it's fairly in-depth.  If you're not into tabletop strat, I wouldnt recommend it.

The Torque adaptation is really nice though.  I'd like to see more PnP/wargame adaptations of it.  Just not necessarily Car Wars.  And yah, Steve Jackson is a douche.  He's not even relevant in gaming circles these days, so he should've rubber-stamped the game instead of keeping it a generic clone.

Anyone have a referral ID I should use when I sign up?

Signed up as Knights of the Round Tire. Did the tutorial but my car died before I could kill the other guy  :oh_i_see: Am signed up for a Death Race now. We'll see how I do. This has potential to be really entertaining- love the turned based combat!

Let us know if you end up liking it.  I might get vested in it if it's worth it.
I dont plan on being heavy in the RP like some of the folk in there seem to be though.  Hell, most of the lore is player-created.

I used this thread to reinstall it, plus emails telling me my gang was starving and dying of radiations and malnutrition were starting to make me feel like a bad leader. This game was great enough when it was only deathracing. With all the content and the additions of the last two years it's absolutely awesome. I am still sad it's not all working from the client (I hate having gang management in your browser, and racing/chatting in the client), and the learning curve of the MMO part is still steep, but nonetheless a great game. The addition of Tactical Darkwind (which allows you to set up any scenario with any vehicle you like and invite your friends for mindless pvp battles) is such a great bonus.

It still lacks accessibility to me, too many things only work only if you are a dedicated player. With a proper GUI, this would be such a hit. Which is probably what I said two years ago. But seriously, the turn-based game alone is so great. In multi, with some friends, can be exhilarating.

P.S: I have a deathrace coming up n 15 minutes, WayAbvPar is in it too. This is going to be fun...

I am a little lost on what I should be doing. I subscribed, but should I just be running races/accumulating money for now?

Coherently with my previous posting, I am one of those NOT dedicated enough to deal with the whole persistent part of the game. I understand that you can earn money, enlarge your gang, buy own customize and design plenty of cars, partecipate in different events based on where your characters are residing, scout wilderness for random fights and encounters which can grant you loot and rare parts/vehicles, buy, sell and transport good from and to different cities. I think there are missions too now, and you can put bounties on someone else's characters head (the game has permadeath). In a nutshell,  think you can do pretty much everything you can do in similar games, Eve being the closest one I can think of. So yeah grow, expand, get better and kick asses using skilled up chars, powered up cars and so on. As far as I know, you can't buy or own structures, yet.
I am sure I am missing a lot, but the Wiki and the Forums seem to be plenty of info and guides. Scouting (http://www.darkwindwiki.com/index.php?title=Initial_Scout_Guide) seems to be where the money are, even though I never really got into it. Nothing is more enjoyable than a deathrace to me. EDIT: A good primer (http://www.darkwindwiki.com/index.php?title=Procyon's_Guide_to_Character_Management) at what to do with your gang of characters.

That said, Way, you didn't show up in yesterday's death race you were signed up for. I raced against other 3 guys and ended up 4th after botching the LAST corner losing my hard earned second place. Shame on you for chickening out.


EDIT:


Cool.

I think I got stuck doing something work-related and forgot about it.

Still playing and having fun, although last night just about made me put my fist through my monitor. Went out on a scout with my brother and Furiously. We retreat from the 4 incoming cars, turn around and set up to fight, and then all hell breaks loose. I retardedly brought a pickup, and ended up getting targeted by at least 2 of the pirates. I get off one volley, then get hit by rockets and then get turtled. One of the pirates drives around me taking shots while another is filling me full of lead from farther away. I closed the session when my truck caught fire a turn after my gunner lost her leg and both her and the driver were stunned and unable to escape. I learned later that one of them survived but couldn't drive, so Furiously had someone drive what was left of my truck back to town (they even had a return engagement!).

I sold the scraps of the chassis and bought a brand new Mercenary. Hopefully I can keep it rightside up long enough to actually deal some damage before I expire next time.

I lost a truck last night attempting to see how shitty the are.

Major drama regarding a monetary exploit. Even better is that the primary perp is a complete douche who I already hated. Boy do I feel justified now!  :awesome_for_real:

The exploit was people were able to create custom events that gave crazy payouts to drivers other than the first place winners.

One person apparently took about 4 billion dollars and bought everything off the market, then relisted it for 1$. He also paid all the npc corps to hunt down various players he didn't like. Which had the side effect of giving these npcs huge bounties when you kill them. Basically the economy is totally screwed ATM.

Sneaked down to BL to build myself an Apache. Got stuck in a bugged wilderness encounter that required Sam's intervention. He took the map offline to debug it, and I ended up getting to my destination a bit sooner. All in all not a bad deal =)

Can anyone give me in depth info about the skills and how to raise them efficiently? I just discovered that traveling is really good for raising scouting, for instance. Any other hidden gems like that?

Survived a scouting ambush last night in pretty improbable ways. 3 of us v 5 NPCs. I hightail and drag 2, then 4 after me in my fishtailing POS Windsor II, while my teammates thrash the 5th guy. 2 closest to me continued to chase me while the other 2 turned back and demo'ed one of my teammates in short order. Thankfully the MM chasing me ran out of rockets, so I could run a little longer to buy them some time, but they were having all kinds of trouble.

 I was seriously contemplating surrendering to try to save my 3 gangers, but eventually said fuck it. I noticed the Chaser following me was really coming fast as we started down a hill. I slammed on the brakes and spun around to face the MM, and the Chaser went flying on by and was out of the combat for a few turns while I demo'ed the MM. The Chaser came back toward me as I moved his direction to engage him. Got him demo'ed too (and pumped him a few more times for some blue text to try and lower the rest of his buddies' morale), but the MM had been plinking away at my side armor and had slightly scratched one of my gunners. I then hear from my surviving teammate that an Antagonist was headed my way, just as I was thinking we might get out of it.

I turn to start heading back toward the Antagonist, when it turns tail and runs. The MM continued to chase me and shoot when it could turn its side guns on me. I didn't dare turn either side to him (I had a single point of armor on each side), and all my weapons were in the front. I told my teammate to head my direction (we were quite a ways apart most of the fight) as I led the MM back up the hill on the road. When my teammate got within 100m or so I veered off to the side. One well placed volley into his grill and the loot screen popped up.


Only MM was driveable, so we got jobbed on the loot. However, my teammate's gangers lived through the fight (I have no earthly idea how), and we even managed to get his car back safely. If I wasn't hooked before, this did it. It was among my most memorable sessions in MMOGs.

If I've got time tonite I'll finally get through the tut.  I'm tired of the sidelines for this one and at the very least it'll give me some inspiration for a similar game design I had (that I never saw through of course).

It takes a bit of time to get through the kludgy interface and unforgiving nature of combat, but it is worth it. I am having a blast with it. Best part is you can do gang management stuff on the web at work and then play when you get home!

There are definitely some of the most epic things ever to be seen in a MMO accomplishable here. I was reading a thread on the forums about a guy's first scouting mission where his teammates are getting banged up by a truck that's had its engine killed but it's still firing rockets out the front.

So, since he's pointed the opposite direction from him, he *sends his gunner out of the passenger seat* to stroll across the bullet-filled wasteland with his shotgun and put two loads into the driver's face, killing him. He then proceeds to hop in said truck, fire one round of rockets, and flip another car that was laying waste to a squadmate's rear end.

Considering the skill levels of new drivers/gunners, that's the MMO equivalent of being queried who that chick was you left the club with last night and saying, "Oh, some chick with a funky last name... I think it was Kardashian? Some shit like that. It was a good time. She let me stick it in her dumper, too, which was a plus."

This game is just hideously unforgiving (much like EVE, which is probably why I like it). Was running a simple race (no weapons) yesterday with my best mechanic (which is the highest skill I have out of any character). Overpowered cars, so we were really running fast. Went sliding into a hard right turn and skidded into the car next to me (which was doing the same thing). Bang- impact broke my mechanic's neck, and he was paralyzed from the neck down. He will be recovered by 12/13/2010. REAL TIME.

I now have to keep him in my gang that long just for bragging rights. He was also ready to be named (you can nickname characters when they get a skill high enough). My brother suggested "Sip n Puff" or "Numby"...I am thinking about "Wheels". Any other thoughts?  :grin:

Mechaneck.
Fucks sake I have yet to find time to play this btw.

mañana.

Hey, WayAbvPar, you greeted me in the lobby last night, but I didn't see it until a few minutes later, and I guess you were AFK by then.  (My DW player name is "Snidely Carmichael.")  Please excuse me, I didn't mean to be rude.  I'm afraid I find the game client to be a bit ... busy, and I'm still getting used to it.

So, I signed up a couple nights ago, made my gang, and ran the tutorial, which wasn't bad.  Afterwards, I hit the tutorial button again, hoping there was a second stage or something, but it was the same sequence again, so I quit out of it.

Last night I logged in and saw that a Deathrace event was about to start, so with a bit of fumbling around, I managed to join it.  The cars were simple Asp IIs, with one forward-mounted machinegun and an oil dropper in the rear, but it was on a dirt track.  This was a bit of an issue for my first event, as there was a hellacious amount of dust in the air, especially at the start of the race, and the cars didn't handle too well on the dirt (of course, the oil didn't help).

I found the turn result announcements to be confusing, with the big list of drivers and their actions scrolling by.  Some of the gory bits caught my eye, what with all the torn flesh, concussions, toes blown off, and whatnot, but I couldn't easily tell what I was doing or what was being done to me, much less what was going on with the rest of the race.

So I'm oversteering all over the place -- my lap time was about double the race leader's -- and as I was closing in on the finish line, going about 60 or 80 mph, I rear-ended a car that in hindsight was obviously moving much slower than I was, if not stopped.  (If you're not watching a car move from turn to turn, you won't know its speed unless you click on it.)  For all I know, the driver may have even resigned from the race.

After I finished the race, I scrolled back up through the turn results.  One announcement stood out:  "[driver x] suffers a major impact, which snaps his spine! [driver x] is dead!"  I said to myself, "whoa, heavy," closed out of the race window, and went to count my winnings.

It wasn't until this morning that it occurred to me that it was probably me who killed that driver.  I wonder if there's any way I can find out.  If I saw someone kill a resigned driver like that, I would blacklist them, noob or no.  Oh well, I guess I should've run the tutorial again after all.  :uhrr:

I remember greeting you, but missed your response- I go AFK a lot and play Civ or surf while I wait for things to get going. As for killing the other driver- it was most likely a guy from an NPC gang (who are fair game as far as I am concerned). Traditionally PCs signed up for the same event offer a truce to each other and just take overt action against the NPCs. You can tell if there are PCs in your event by the list of gangs in the upper right corner (that shows whether you have finished your turn or not). If anyone but your gang is up there, then it is a PC gang. If not, feel free to murder everyone. Especially those fuckers from Dirge!  :mob:

This list of damage has a small arrow/line leading to the car suffering the damage, so you can track who is getting hit. It is harder to keep up with on the event chat screen.

In an event, push F2-F4 which will toggle different info about the car (like mph, gang name, car name, etc).

I am getting a better feel for things, so let me know if you have any questions.

WAV, I've started to attempt to understand this game (I gotta say, the combat was way more entertaining than I thought it'd be).  Any chance there's some kind of alliance we can join for help?
Also... do you use DW's vent?

Oh, I'm ingame as "Phantom Phreak" (aetherpeeps)

I don't use the Vent, but may in the future. As for alliances, there aren't really enough players to divide them up into alliances are far as I can tell. You can align with one of the NPC factions when your reputation with them gets high enough. Best thing to do is to hire a few gangers, run through a few arena events (to get used to the controls and the physics, as well as earn some money), and then drop a whopping $20 for a 3 month subscription (use  24993 as a reference if you sub an I can get a free month!). That gives you $50k seed money, as well as allows you to buy and sell things on the marketplace and to own cars and equipment. Once that is done, rent a car (I would suggest the Antagonist- definitely stay away from the pickup), keep an eye out in the lobby for a scout starting, and then join up. Warn everyone that you are a n00b and they will cut you a lot of slack, and some of the rich vets might even through a car or something your way.

Once you get scouting, you can sell your loot (or fix it up and drive it or sell it), and get some more money rolling in. DO NOT go scouting alone. I did once (because everyone does, despite the warnings), and I got abused and lost a car and a couple of gangers. I think I could do it now with better cars, better gangers, and a much better idea of what I am doing, but I am afraid to risk my best characters  :ye_gods:

As a side note, I am absolutely against the truce between human players against the NPCs during deathraces. Personally, I think it completely breaks the mood of the game. I, as COE of Evaporate Inc, haven't accepted such truce not even once so far and the results have been, allow me to say this, exhilarating.

Deathraces are almost always just someone trying to skill up a new character. It is tough enough to keep them alive as it is...why add to the hassle?

If someone denied an offered truce, I would do everything I could to red their gangers.

So yah, I like resigned twice with starter gangers and they both ended up dying... in a normal Race also.   One of which was an event I didnt even technically start, but somehow was still listed as playing, so furthermore I couldnt participate in another because it thought I was racing.  :awesome_for_real:

Can you GET OUT of the car and like "run away?"  'Cause there are times when a game is bugged, someone fails to join, have to leave the game, etc. and it's not logically to just simply let a character die.

If you wait until your guy/gal gets seriously injured, there is a good chance they will bleed out while the race resolves itself. Best thing to do is to watch your armor like a hawk and be ready to resign at the first sign of any blue text (or the turn before you are going to be breached, ideally). It doesn't hurt too much when you first start, but losing gangers with decent skill levels is fucking hideous.

I'd also suggest driving out of the path of other cars. Nothing getting breached in the first 10 turns and the waiting 2 more laps resigned to have a car plow into you on the last lap.

So- I got raped all weekend- lost cars, gangers, etc. Just horrible luck (and probably horrible playing, but that is another story). Go out on a scout out of Texan with my brother and another friend of ours. 6 v 3, with one of the NPCs in a Buzzer (like a HMMV, and reasonably rare). We take off an string them out, and lose one of the pickups chasing us. We then blast the first 2 cars that catch up. The Buzzer rolls up with dual Car Cannons ablazing. It chases my brother around a small tar pit- very deep, but hardly big enough for a car to fit in. As it goes by, a few bursts from my dual HMGs and the Buzzer slides down into the hole!

We finish off the rest of the bad guys. The Buzzer still hasn't demo'ed yet, so I creep up to the edge of the pit and can JUST target him. 3 rounds of HMG through his roof convinces him it is time to give up. I shockingly get first pick, and the Buzzer is at 95% chassis, with the car cannons both completely intact! It is being fixed right now, so I will soon have a very nasty platform. Finally some good luck!

So, back in Somerset after that scout. Decide to run one last Death Race before I go to bed to get a bit of cash and some more skillups for my top gunner (who I pair with one of my scouts). Notice that a friend of mine is already in it, and Sutro joins up as well. There is a 4th PC gang in named Feeding Frenzy. Right before the start, Sutro, The Fatalistics (my buddy) and I all agree to a truce. Nothing from FF. Hmm. We get started in the race. I swing out wide left to get behind the NPCs. Sutro does much the same, with TF out front and FF lagging back with us. I take off right behind FF and the rest of the NPCs. Suddenly FF has slammed on his brakes/reversed right in my path. I pull the ebrake and swerve, but still clip him.

 I am now extremely suspicious. A couple of spectators have now joined the race and are watching. FF opens fire on my the next round. "No truce, huh?" I ask. No response. He fires on me again the next round. We are driving paper thin pickups, so he has almost breached my armor. I ask my two companions in the race to make sure that none of FF's gangers live through his betrayal/ambush, and turn my wounded side away from him.

Meanwhile, Sutro has spun around and is getting into position on FF- something he really didn't expect. One of the spectators pipes up and offers $100,000 for the deaths of any/all of FF's crew- apparently he has a reputation for killing PC gangers in combats and death races, even if they resign (and are no longer in the race), so this guy is a total dick. He chews through my armor on my right side, but then Sutro gets into him. I scurry away to present my rear armor (untouched so far) to him , but he finally figures out that he has a bigger problem than chasing me down. Sutro manuevers around, kills his engine, and then kills (who we later learned was) his gang leader and best medic. He managed to escape his other crew member, but our spectator was happy and sent Sutro $100k  :grin:

Nothing like some unexpected PvP to get the ol' ticker racing. I would have been extremely pissed if I lost my gunner...Sutro is my new hero! In the future, I will avoid FF or be prepared to kill him first. Had another guy shoot at me earlier in the weekend (The Crayons), but he didn't bother killing my crew after I resigned and told him to fuck off.

Even this cannot save you from terribads like myself: I accidentally rammed yet another resigned driver last night. (Didn't kill this one, though.)

The only other PC in the race was also a bad driver, and bad drivers that we are, we hit the first turn too hot, overtaking the pack of cars that were already in the turn.

I had the inside line, and the other PC hit me from the outside while one or two NPCs hit him from his outside. Somehow I managed to squeak through, but the other PC was knocked unconscious and lost control of his car (in which order I'm not sure), ending up basically parallel-parked next to the enormous concrete pylon on the inside corner of the turn.

Of course, on the next lap, I ended up T-boning the poor bastard when I misjudged the turn. At least he kept me off the pylon! :thumbs_up:

So, WayAbvPar, I was registered for a race you were in, but I wasn't able to make it, as the baby called. Sorry I missed you again! I must say, though, that I love, love, love the fact that this game allows timeouts and resignations.  I gave up WoW after my son was born, even though my guildies were very supportive, because I just couldn't stand leaving people hanging for random amounts of time at random intervals.

That's the spirit! :)

Seriously, fuck skillup characters. It's a game about killing, go play Farmville if you want to skillup. Here, it's deathrace for a reason.

EDIT: WAP, your PvP story is great and I think it shows once more how cool Darkwind is. Kudos for your team gettin the deserved reward, and kudos to the FF guy, for playing the bad guy and adding the real spice to this game.

I may be hooked.

I was getting awfully frustrated with the lack of improvement in my driving, as I finished last in each of the first dozen events I ran.  (Finishing last was good enough for 3rd place in one event, but only because all my other opponents had obliterated each other.)

But finally the sun broke through the clouds, and last night I finished a race 4th of 12 under my own power -- and I was just aced out of 2nd place because another driver clipped me in the final turn.  The difference?  IT WAS AN ASPHALT TRACK.  I didn't know that clean asphalt tracks even existed in this game; every one of my previous events was on a track that was predominantly, if not entirely, dirt or sand.  Thanks, RNG!   :uhrr:

It's quite a relief to learn that I just don't (yet) know how to drive on dirt and sand, rather than not knowing how to drive in this game, period.  I was starting to think about moving on, but now I'll probably end up subscribing.

I am still struggling with driving at times. There is usually so many other things going on that get distracted, and suddenly I am coming up on a turn going WAY too fast. I have learned that liberal application of the e-brake helps sometimes. Other times it just makes you spin all over hell's half acre.

The e-brake is woefully unrealistic.  Basically the "Easy" button.

Maybe you haven't been doing enough real life racing in ramshackle cars with machine guns mounted to the hoods. Hmm, hmm?

Alright, a week from now, I'm here.

So, a vet offered to give me an SUV for free -- but only if I came to pick it up myself at the Badlands Truck Stop, about 800 miles or so south of Somerset (the starting zone).  I set off with three guys in a Phoenix muscle car with a 4L engine and no real guns, just a few rockets in the back to discourage tailgaters.  I got jumped by a couple cars between Somerset and Gateway, but I was able to floor it and ditch them.  Then, on my way from Gateway to Badlands, I ran into a more serious ambush, with one car in front and three cars behind, in pretty broken terrain.  I tried to drive out of it, but I took a little rise at about 120 mph and went nose-first into the rocks, destroying my engine and setting the car on fire.  Of course, I had to ditch and flee the wreck.

My gangers then had to hump it on foot the rest of the way.  I was attacked by a pair of giant mutated wolves, but I killed them with rifles, and now my guys are supposed to arrive in Badlands sometime this afternoon.  I sure hope the vet comes through with the SUV!   :ye_gods:  I'm not too worried about it; this same guy gave me those rifles, which pull down about $3,000 to $5,000 each in Noobville, for $1 each.  (OR SHOULD I BE EVEN MORE WORRIED??  Nah, this isn't EVE.   :pedobear:)

The vets in DW are almost all pretty good folks, especially when it comes to getting n00bs up and running.

God this game can be punitive. Hired some extra gangers in Texan (where cars are dirt cheap) to drive a new Apache back up to Somerset. Added a spike dropper on the back, a couple of gatling guns in front, and a shitload of ammo, and headed to Shantyville. Since I don't have a scout, I had 3 encounters (which I think is the max for one travel session). The spike dropper did wonders to keep the pirates off of me, and I got to Shantyville with just a few scrapes. Repaired the armor, but there was no spike dropper ammo available at all. FUCK.

Set out toward Badlands Truck Stop anyway- got ambushed at the front gates. Ran back into town, but still had to wait 3 hours for the travel time  :oh_i_see: Tried again later. Got through the exit encounter, but had all 3 of my gangers panic and get demoralized without taking any damage (car was getting shelled pretty good and I was outnumbered 5-1). So the car goes away and those pussies walk home to Shantyville. At least the fuckers could have walked to Badlands!

A few hours later my buddy and I were waiting on my brother to do a scout in Texan, so we joined a combat in SS and ended up on the same team. I was running away in points. Ran out of ammo for both guns, so I started adding points by circling the track. My buddy did the same thing, except he was going the other direction. We were going about the same speed and kept passing each other at the gates. With about 20 turns to go, we were once again coming together. I slid around the corner, but not quite as wide as I should have. My buddy slid out a little farther than he should have. We both realized at the same time that we were going to collide- him into my left side with 1 armor left. He said "This is going to be bad." BANG- driver dead. Not injured and bleeding, not paralyzed, just DEAD. It was actually pretty amusing. She still won the combat on points though  :grin:

So, we go on a scout with my brother. I was out of cars in SS, so I bought a Moose off the marketplace and took it out with 2 new gangers. My brother brought 2 cars, and our buddy one. We ran away from the 6 or 7 bad guys and set up in a little hollow on top of a dune- the plan being to get all 4 cars worth of guns on each pirate as he crested the ridge. Our buddy sneaks up to the ridge before they arrive "just for a few top shots" and all hell breaks loose. I had set up in the back of the hollow, so I was out of the fight for 20 turns as I tried to get forward. 4 or 5 cars ended up catching fire during the fight, including mine (that is pretty rare). I was stopped when it happened, so I bailed my gunner out. The driver was momentarily stunned, so she had to stay in the car until she could move. Literally the turn after it caught fire, the car BLEW UP. The gunner was thrown clear and knocked unconscious, but the driver was killed instantly. We ended up getting raped in the combat and had to walk home.

Fun game, but goddamn can it kick your ass sometimes.

ARISE.

Furiously and I are playing this again. Apparently WoT wasn't frustrating enough. Having fun for now!

Always loved this. I might come back. Also, oddly enough, this is now on Steam.

Yeah, that is what sparked us into checking it out again.