For years I have complained about doing escort missions in MMORPGs. They generally involve taking some hapless character along a fixed path as they aggro every single thing in sight. I have long wished I could literally just pick the NPC up and carry them along to the goal to hopefully get it over with quicker. I’ve now played Death Stranding and can without a doubt tell you that having to carry an NPC to the destination is not better, and also apparently humans are really hard to balance on your back. You might be wondering also how in the hell did we get into this situation and I will explain.
One of the things that porters occasionally carry is the bodies of the dead to the nearest incinerator to prevent a “void out” when they go necrotic as they attempt to pass over to the other side. You have to understand that the world of Death Stranding is extremely dangerous and unforgiving, and most of the individuals in this world live in a bunker or vault and have never gone outside for any length of time. So there have been a few cases where some NPC needs to move to another location and asks you to carry them on your back like you would a body. In this case I had to carry a fairly important story NPC effectively the entire length of what was the currently discovered world at the time. It took a good chunk of last night and the entire time I was having to adjust for her listing to one side or the other.
In this case it was an NPC that I have come to really like over the course of our interactions, so as a result I felt like I needed to be super careful as we traversed the landscape. Every time she would shift on my back I felt bad that I was not more careful transporting my “cargo”. Another thing that I love about this game is the random holograms that players have access to, which ultimately break up the wastes. It was really cool to see a Tallneck looming out over the horizon, because it is literally the same size as one in Horizon Zero Dawn making for this massive hologram. I’ve seen a few other HZD cross overs, so I am guessing this is all due to the fact that both games use the same engine, so Kojima more than likely spent a lot of time working with the Guerilla Games team.
If I am correct, I think I am at roughly the halfway point of the game. My goal is to try and finish things up to a reasonable level of satisfaction before the launch of Horizon Zero Dawn on August 7th. That gives me roughly 15 days worth of play time to push across the finish line. I feel like this is a game that I most definitely want to finish, especially given that there is supposedly a 15th chapter that is open ended allowing you to play around in the final state of the world. I always hate it when the continued play option for a game is to effectively “roll back” the world to the moments before the final conflict. Those are the games that I often times never quite finish because I know poking around in the world after that will feel fairly unsatisfying.
On the me front, I am doing better. Taking yesterday off was a pretty good idea even though I hate not actually blogging for a given day. You need to give yourself room to make these decisions every now and then, because in my case it gave me another day to clear my headspace a bit. My wife is healing nicely from the accident, and me… yesterday day was really bad but I am dealing with it. It is like every so often I kinda have to mentally bandage myself up a bit. I have all of today and half a day tomorrow and then it is my weekend which should help a bit. As always thanks for the kind words I received, they do help and they do mean a lot but I mostly share my struggle for anyone out there who might also be struggling.
So I did not get 31 people for the promptapalooza, but I have decided I am going to try and make it work nonetheless. I got pretty close and as a result I will just stub in myself for several days in order to make it work. Tomorrow afternoon since I am off work I will be pulling it all together, creating the list of prompts, the tentative posting calendar, and contacting everyone to try and link topic prompts to people. This is way less lead time than I would have liked, but I should have been more vocal about it. I’ve been in a really bad headspace this month so trying to deal with this has added a lot of stress to my plate as well. For those who have no clue what I am talking about, check out this original post that sorta outlines the idea. There is still time to sign up.
Adding myself to the list of people willing to do extra posts in cycle if needed 🙂
Also, I’m really looking forward to playing Death Stranding myself. The holograms are really cool! And I hate escort missions as well but when you know the person that you’re escorting, then it’s a whole different deal, I’d say. :c
As mentioned in the discord, I’d love to fill in with a few extra posts as well. :c And I totally get you regarding that headspace and all the mental stuff. Please rely on others as well when you’re in need :c virtual hugs are loading!