i started playing Rust and it's really fun, if a bit stressful. ive been playing solo and its pretty fucking hard to survive against entire warring clans as a single person with some wood spears. it's fun though.
most of my first playthrough was just me starving to death and getting chased through the forest by dudes with guns like im some kind of animal they're trying to poach. then i ate a naked corpse out of desperation and died of food poisoning shortly thereafter
after a few surprise maulings by both bears and naked savages, i eventually started learning the ropes of the game and made a farm near a river. the community that lived there was pretty chill for the most part, but i soon realized that the people who played early in the day and those who play at night are radically different types of players.
it all really went to hell when a supply drop fell right near our village. this supply drop was full of endgame valuables that the server big-dogs would kill over, and that is absolutely what they did. i soon found my hometown filled with undesirables, travelling in from every corner of Hapis Island, all for those sweet endgame goods. huge bases were erected with giant "FUCK OFF" signs to scare off any strangers. the River, which was once a communal source of food and water for the village, was separated and guarded by the clans that occupied the area, leaving none for the native residents. the once plentiful forests were quickly cut down to fuel the end-game raider war machine. you could always hear the clans waging war in the distance over that stupid box. it went on for (ingame) days.
my little riverside community had turned into a hellhole overnight, and i needed to move out for my own safety (well, really i just didn't want my good shit evicted by the gangs). so i grabbed all the wood, stone, and tools i had, ate all the food i could steal from the river, and headed up the nearby mountain for some much needed protection. i left at sunrise, and made it almost to the very top by sunset. the snow stung my bare feet, and after a while i was pretty sure my nipples could cut glass. living high up in the mountains was a tremendously retarded idea for many reasons. with no resources of any kind growing around, you'd be fucked if you didn't prepare properly. so naturally i made it up there naked with no food. as much as i had suffered travelling up the mountains, that is exactly how i want my peers to feel if they were ever dumb enough to try exploring my domain.
it was getting dark, and the already frigid air was getting worse. i had to make a camp fast if i were to survive the night. i lit a campfire to at least thaw out my ass before building my new house. by the time sunrise came, i had constructed possibly the most pathetic base ever built in the game. it looked like a retarded mushroom that got ran over by a car, and then inexplicably caught syphilis and died. it wasn't exactly a sight for sore eyes, but it was home. it didn't have to be fort knox, the environment did plenty to keep out any unwelcome visitors. the cold and lack of useful resources in the area were an excellent deterrent, and the only reason for them to brave the elements was if they knew i had something that was worth the effort. luckily, i keep my only clothes locked away in my house to keep me warm while i'm inside it, and most of my valuables are hidden in secret areas. when i leave, i am left with only the standard rock and birthday suit. there is nothing that would mark me as anything more than a useless player just starting out.
i made a few trips up and down the mountain to move in my other items, while being extra careful not to draw any attention to my mountain home. people would start thinking something is up if a naked newbie with a rock was travelling straight up and down the mountain-side for resources regularly. i made sure to come up with multiple travelling routes and never used the same route twice for one trip.
this system worked out pretty well, for a while. the areas i would climb down to for resources were getting increasingly dangerous as more clans started logging on at a time. packs of travelling players were not uncommon, but i usually could sneak around them for the resources i wanted. unfortunately, as time went on, there was a point where all i could safely grab were saplings, tree stumps, and undefended rocks. everything else was claimed, and the troops of players that guarded these resources reacted violently to trespassers. it was not uncommon for me to get shot at while trying to pick some pumpkins by the old Riverside, but i did it anyway out of desperation.
by this point, i could mostly get by through foraging and sneaking my way out of any nasty fights, but while i was logging in a nearby forest, i was faced with my first real fight. sure, i fought npc animals and got shot at by well-equipped raiders. i was no stranger to violence in this game, but this encounter was different. it caught me off guard, and it was initiated by a single player of my own skill level. the only problem was that i had only a wooden spear, and it wasn't equipped to my hotbar. my adversary had the jump on me and pelted the surrounding area with a seemingly endless supply of arrows. luckily, he was a shit shot and his only hit was from his initial ambush, when i was standing still. but the action was happening so fast i had no time to equip my weapon. i instead ran away like a bitch in a serpentine maneuver through the dense forest, not unlike when i was dodging bullets when stealing food. try as i might, i cannot shake this guy! he's on my ass like a greasy shit, and i cant wipe him off!!! wait a minute, i need to focus. cogs turn in my adrenaline-fueled brain. a plan emerges. i can't kill him, but i know quite a few people who will.
i dart back towards the riverside, now completely occupied by armed pieces of shit. i guide my attacker towards the base of a particularly violent raider camping up in his sniping tower, hoping he would end up killing the bow-wielding lunatic first. just keep chasing me, faggot. see what happens.
unfortunately for me this could not be a dumber idea, as i was dropped instantly by a mere single headshot. however, i have reason to believe that my attacker also didn't make it out alive, so eat a bag of dicks, whoever you were.
i respawned in my creaking mess of a home, still safe and sound as i expected. i decided to jump out my second story window (the only floor with windows) like a badass to give resource gathering another go. i stopped and realized i wanted a stone axe from inside... but my front door won't open. is it locked? how?! i check my inventory for my house key and remembered that i died. its on my corpse near the camping raider dick.
shit.
i decided that was it for today and i'll try to fix my little house situation on my next play session. i was playing for a few hours, anyway. i needed a break. in the end it was a tense, stressful and crazy game. but i learned a ton, and it was really fun. even if i was mostly on my own