It isn’t strange for a rock band that had Jim Morrison as the frontman to have conceived, composed and released a song as outrageously strange as “People Are Strange.” My article doesn’t deal with the strangeness of rock bands and Jim Morrison, oh no! But it is a glimpse of the strangest moments I’ve lived or have been forced to live when strange people meet and game online. You meet tons of gamers these days when you play online, some are the serious guys who’d like to plan every move. Some are hard hitters, they are the raw animals that need no leash to hold them back. And some are just pure Jim Morrison kinds, the eccentric showman. Let’s say these people are pure reincarnations of the Jimbo at Whiskey A Go Go, only with a virtual identity to display their strangeness. Let me put it this way:
People are strange when you’re a stranger
Faces look ugly when YOU’RE ALONE
CRYSIS 3
Last March, I was playing Crysis 3’s most competitive offering in the Multiplayer genre called Hunter Mode. I have already explained what Hunter Mode is all about in one of my previous articles, but to summarize, it’s basically about CEPH suited Hunters trying to hunt down the last of the surviving CELL soldiers. It is one of the most fast paced and breath taking multiplayer games that you can ever come across. The tension can actually make or break you if you are the last surviving CELL soldier, as all you’ll hear are the sounds of your teammates dying and a CEPH approaching you.
Luckily I was the last survivor in that round, and around 5 CEPH suited Hunters were trying to hunt me down. I was hiding somewhere inside a Dam, buying time till the stopclock is reversed again. Suddenly I heard one of those CEPH clanking near my perimeters, and in a flash I saw this figure running across the hall room. An arrow zapped passed me and I knew this was it, I had to run. It’s an FPS game so you really can’t see everything, so I kept running while the hunter was continuously drawing arrows at me. After running for like 10 seconds, the arrows stopped coming. I turned back to see whether that douche was still chasing me or not, all I saw were not one but two Hunters! However, they were not interested to kill me, they were doing the merry go round. And my jaw dropped. What sort of tactics was that? Running in circles?! Hindus in my country get married by completing 7 rounds like those, but these dudes were no Hindus!
And suddenly a third Hunter came from nowhere and ground smashed me from a rooftop. Even if this was a preplanned attack style, it was crazy, and strange! Who in the sanest mind does that, man? Top of my mind strangeness!
When you’re strange
FACES COME OUT of the rain.
ASSASSIN’S CREED III
If you think Assassin’s Creed III is bad, imageries from the Abstergo Online story is probably worse. That game is bad on so many levels, and given the fact that we play stuff like Battlefield 3 and Crysis 3 online, wherein it takes the hell out of anyone, ACIII online fails badly. But that’s nothing compared to the next instance I’m going to throw at you. While playing Abstergo story, I was planning to come back and take our wolfpack to the top again. Our wolfpack has a genuine air of brotherhood, and unless we face some masters of the easy game, we are always on top. And that epic day in December we met the legend.
Me and my partner were poaching from the blending crowd in ACIII online, expecting someone to run around so that we can kill that brat easily. Unfortunately, things became super easy. There was a haystack just on my left side, my partner already spotted someone on his radar. The target came running our way, and my partner, like a selfish goat left his blended cover to take him down. He saw my teammate approach him, but he didn’t run away. Instead, he did the most epic thing that you can ever do while getting chased. He ran away from him and hid in the haystack right next to me. I saw his head. All I did was laugh for 3-4 seconds, then approach that haystack and pulled him out and stabbed him in and out. My partner was laughing all over.
Women seem WICKED when you’re unwanted,
Streets are uneven when you’re DOWN.
The Last Of Us is perhaps one of my favourite topics to discuss this season, and if you count the level of eccentricity within the players in The Last Of Us Online, it is minimalist but epic. The entire match time is intense and challenging, leaving you to display your eccentricity only in the end. And that’s when great minds come and create random spectacles.
Usually after an intense match, where the last man of a team hunts off the other last man in a match, the winner feels all the more necessary to brag. The best way to brag is by standing on top of the fallen enemy’s corpse and by pressing crouch-uncrouch-crouch-uncrouch-crouch-uncrouch repeatedly. Like you are f****ing him for real, like he’s your b***ch. While if you come out two men strong against an eliminated team, one does the crouch-uncrouch bang opposite his team mate (who is standing still). It looks like one is BJ-ing the other. While I was collecting my items from my stash I also found my teammate crouch-uncrouching at my back. What a lad!
When you’re STRANGE
No one Everyone REMEMBERS your name
There is no second thought to this statement – The Last Of Us Factions/Online suits the best when you are teamed up with real friends. It’s easy to synchronise your attack and defense, while at the same time you are connected to every move made by the team, thanks to your un/glorified headset. But what happens when the AI of Last Of Us team sorter puts your friend and you in two different teams headed to kill each other? Nothing. You maintain your real friendship and screw the clanship.
You heard that right, after countless hours being trolled, I myself plunged in with my set of trolling tactics. I didn’t tell my friend exactly where my team was heading, because that would be nasty, but I did save his ass when my teammates were blazing at him to down him. I would stand in front of him like a real hero, and the bullets would hit me instead. Team firing does not harm you in TLOU, so no damage taken as such. I did my best to save him, but being from the opposite side I couldn’t heal him, so I waited on his decaying body waiting for his team mate to arrive and heal him. And when the team-mate is done, I’d shoot right through him. My friend didn’t complain because of shooting at his mate, it was a part of our plan. And in times when we would be the last survivors in our group, we would casually walk up to each other, while I would hear my teammates screaming on my headset, greet him like a brother, and sit around while the clock would run out. Fair Fight, no friends turned into foe. True Trolling.
When you’re STRANGE
When you’re STRANGE
RED DEAD REDEMPTION
Being a butt head is fine, but being a butt head in an open online game, such as Red Dead Redemption can actually cost you your time and patience. I met this player last January who would think he is the only one who can troll in these open prairie fields. I would spawn not once, not twice, but thrice, and he would put a trigger through my head for fun. A cowdouche in the form of a cowboy. So this next epic thing happened.
I spawned again; saw that idiot running all around my screen on his bigass horse. Fixed my aim right at the horse’s belly and shot it down with three rounds of my Winchester. In RDR online, you actually have to wait for sometime before you can call up a horse. So I saw that he was running on his feet. Kept shooting at his feet from a distance, he would shoot back. Suddenly he noticed a horse cart just next to where he was. He took the reins, and I took down the horse, again. Winchester FTW. He kept whistling and in came his horse. But before he could mount it, yes you guessed it right, I took it down. Again. I could see the frustration in his eyes, and he could see the sarcasm on my face. Ride gringo why yu no ride? He kept shooting at me, and as the Troll gods had it for him, he accidently popped down a passerby sheriff. I had the loudest laughter ever. But he won’t learn from the mistakes, he downed a sheriff and now wanted to ride away from the wanted radar in the sheriff’s horse. As he mounted, I shot a bullet through the horse. In came some 3-4 sheriffs for that guy. And before he would react he was taken down by their guns. I had a joyride to Tumbleweed. Red Dead Redeemed!
So these were some of the most epic and strange people I met while I was playing an online game, and these are by far the best results of being inside a multiplayer match. You think you remember other Jim Morrisons whom you may have accidentally met in an online world? Head for the comments section and write your story. Would love to read whatever I may have missed out on.
But before that, here’s one of my favourite Trolling video from the Battlefield 3 Online World:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW58SZ8U1y8]
