Choose My Adventure: Customizing my V Rising experience (because my other server was closed)

As that title would suggest, the V Rising server that I was originally playing on just decided to go kaput. The people who were running it clearly were not into the game and so elected to shut down their server, it would seem. All of that progress gone in a flash. However, this ended up being something of a blessing in disguise.

It was suggested in the comments from last week’s column that I open up my own server and tweak the game to my preferences, and I had planned on making that a poll choice for this week after romping around on my original character, but the circumstances kind of forced my hand. With spite in my heart and a desire to completely eliminate all of the typical roadblocks that this survival sandbox threw in my way, I effectively made a cheat server: maximum resources, minimal drain, ramped-up damage, no damage in sunlight (and shorter days on top), and a start at level 30 progression (the point I was to begin with).

I even gave my custom ruleset an appropriate save file name.

With everything tweaked precisely the way I wanted, I leaped back in from the very beginning and was almost immediately feeling better about my experience in this game. Being able to whap skeletons in a couple of sword strikes felt good, unleashing my favored set of spells had the impact I expected, and I was able to put together a castle in relatively short order owing to the fact that trees and rocks coughed up huge numbers of reagents.

Of course, I kind of had to start a bit utilitarian in the interim, slapping down the crafting tables and other bits that were necessary to establish a foothold. I tried not to get too annoyed with that requirement, telling myself that this was going to be a temporary – and short – need until I could start having some fun.

And fun was most certainly had. I made sure to circle back around to the copper mine to not only re-defeat Errol (even though I didn’t need to) but also to get the Trippy Shroom and eat it as instructed. Sure enough, things did indeed get very trippy as my viewpoint suddenly caved in and painted everything purple – which is precisely the kind of thing I wanted to see happen when eating the item I’m told not to eat.

In addition to revisiting original fights, I got inspired to engage in a little spite, hunting down Goreswine and slaughtering him to feed my desire for vengeance. Friends, let me tell you, even though I technically didn’t need to take this V Blood down, it was oh so sweet to do so.

Of course, that’s not to suggest that I completely ignored the poll directive. I not only chased down Grayson the Armorer, but I also made sure to attack the putrid rat, which actually ended up being one of the more interesting fights in terms of its setups and mechanics. The fact that I can sneak around like a chunky little vampire rat is a nice bonus; I admit that I was maybe having a bit too much fun trying to stealth around in rat form and unleashing on foes at the right moment.

Eventually, I began to pull together my castle, which is actually kind of ending up being a workshop right now. I’ve got things laid out in a way that makes sense to me even though it’s not particularly pretty, and I’m kind of thinking I’ll be using this little house as a separate wing, building a more customized and cosmetic castle somewhere just nearby.

But first, I had business to take care of. Progression-minded business.

After getting things humming, arranging my materials, and putting together the gear that I wanted to, I elected to unlock the iron tier of weapons, which meant taking out the V Blood target Quincey the Bandit King. First, though, I had to take out another target in the form of Clive the Firestarter in order to learn how to make explosives to blow open the door to Quincey’s hideout. Once again, this was a dawdle owing to my server’s settings, which is a good thing because I’m pretty sure this dude’s bomb throwing nonsense would have been rage-inducing otherwise.

With explosives in tow, I made way for the Bandit King, blasted the door open, and stormed the keep. This probably was meant to be a bigger deal, especially in multiplayer; the culmination of hours of work, farming, gathering, crafting, and coordination. For me, however, it was a delicious sol dungeon romp that saw me cutting down bunches of humans with my powers and weapons. Maybe I was doing it not as V Rising intended, but it felt great regardless.

Maybe sometime I’ll see what this is like with other players at more “normal” settings. I doubt it, though, and frankly I just don’t care right now.

Once again, the progression track of V Rising felt disjointed after unlocking the iron tier, primarily because there were another set of materials and crafting stations I needed to get that involved both traveling to much farther distances and tracking harder V Bloods. I focused primarily on securing iron as I traveled north to the Dunley Farmlands, making sure to have the right tools for the job before I headed along.

I first started out being a little cautious, using my rat form and trying to sneak around whatever patrols appeared on the road or near settlements, but after I got into a fight that I couldn’t escape, I figured now was the time to test my resolve. Thankfully, I had things tuned just right where I was able to more than manage the threats I faced, which included a red health bar enemy. I wasn’t in immediate danger, but it was enough of a fight that it didn’t take a couple of swings and spells, and I even had to be careful about using my abilities and aiming my shots correctly.

With iron in tow, I teleported my way back home (because I made sure to get rid of that stupid teleportation restriction that’s in the base ruleset) and started to craft my shiny new weapons. Sadly, I didn’t have enough iron to make all of the weapons I wanted, but I do have a fancy new mace, an even fancier sword, and a pair of twin dagger things. I can’t wait to use them on some fools.

This rather tidily leads us to our first poll for next week. Yes, I am indeed going to see this through for the remainder of the month, which means that there’s the usual poll choice on offer for this final week of V Rising.

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The next poll on deck is looking ahead to the next month’s game, and while I am indeed enjoying myself now that I’ve modified the server to my spiteful preferences, it is almost time to move along. Let’s plot our next course, shall we? And as you’ll see from these selections, we’re plotting a possibly weird course.

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Polling wraps up at the usual time, 1:00 p.m. EDT this coming Friday, July 22nd. Until then, I’m going to maybe hunt down Goreswine and kill him again. Just because I can.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.