Emergent Gameplay Experience

Ok, so this has so far only happened to me once and it has been several weeks of playing since without another similar experience but I just wanted to share my favorite moment so far in Odyssey.

A few weeks back there was a GC that involved ground combat. I was in one of the high…danger? difficulty? I forgot how they are rated but the harder ground conflict zone. I had done a couple and was enjoying the fairly relaxing pace of it all and then as I'm jumping up onto a staircase I see it, a man with a hat. None of the NPCs I had seen have hats and so upon closer inspection I realize that this is in fact a real human player in the same conflict zone as me and even better he is fighting for the same side. So I start jumping and crouching and dancing all around to get his attention and eventually it was reciprocated.

Contact had been established.

So now that he is paying attention I send him a message asking if he wants to party up and he agrees so we join a team and as we are finishing the fight we spot ANOTHER commander fighting for the same side and after dancing around to get his attention too he joins the team as well. As it happened I had a Krait II in the station where I had flown into the conflict zone on a drop ship so after we win the fight we all meet back up at the station, collect our bounties and jump in the old Krait. Fucking sweet. We decide to fly back to the same conflict zone but this time in the ship with an SRV and a ship.

So we are flying back over to the planet with the conflict zone and I see two players in FDLs near its orbit. Kinda assume they're doing some ganking and as we near the planet one of them starts an interdiction… now I know the standard protocol is to submit and jump to another system but I also have two new friends onboard and we all want to be on that planet, so I decide I'm gonna play the interdiction game.

As the interdiction is happening I'm thinking…oh man this may have been the wrong move but, with the encouragement from the boys in the ship I manage to win. We escape the interdiction and continue boldly towards our destination. Fuck yes, we bad motherfuckers.

But then the other FDL goes for an interdiction attempt. I think, I won before I can win again. So instead of submitting I again decide to play but this time we are so close to the planet that we both end up "hitting" the planet and are no longer in supercuise. The Krait I fly is armed and well shielded but it's no match for a well outfitted PVP FDL so immediately its pips to engines and systems FA off and we start running. The Krait is fast (dirty drags and all that) but probably not faster than the FDL but we have no choice but to try. As soon as we start getting hit I pop chaff, probably not that helpful since he isn't likely using gimballed weapons but why not? Then as his lasers have us heating way into the red we dump a heat sink and I get a different star system selected to jump to as soon as the FSD cooldown is over. He gets through the shields at about the time the FSD cooldown is complete and my krait has pretty light hull so its gonna be close. Pop another heat sink and more chaff and the damage drops off while we are at about 50% and the FSD is charging. However it happened he wasn't keeping up well, or lost lock or something and after a couple more shots hit us we jump to a new random system at 13% hull. We dock at some little planetary base and shuttle back to the fight and do a few more conflict zones via drop ship.

Anyway, this was for me an extremely fun way to "lose". I mean, we didn't accomplish the goal of taking three men in a ship down to our intended destination but we also managed to not die to what I assume are more dangerous players than myself AND I met a couple pals who are on my friends list now and I'm sure we will get another chance in the future.

It wasn't efficent, it wasn't min maxed, it wasn't the most money or the best ship that made that such a fun series of events. It was the other people, the goodguys and the "badguys". The adventure is where this game is at its absolute best and I hope to put myself in more dangerous and silly situations with total strangers as soon as I can.

Fly safe boys o7.