I awoke screaming in a pool of sweat. I don’t know if you’ve ever woken up a room of working men at two in the morning with bad dreams, but they’re not very sympathetic.
I got cuffed on the head by the nearest, and a couple yelled stuff at me. I didn’t bother trying to catch the words. My heart was still racing.
Would the nightmares ever end?
My body was still a coiled spring. I grabbed my pillow and buried my face in it, biting at it to try and relieve tension. Slowly the energy drained out of my body, leaving me cold and limp. I flipped over, and lay there, staring at the ceiling. Finally my eyes drifted closed again.
And my dream picked up right where it had let off.
I jumped out of bed, shivered once, and then grabbing my shoes I limped out.
Due to me finishing up the Runner, I now have twice as much time to write this story, hence I have a bunch of parts backed up. I'll be posting them a bit faster. Sorry LEGO.
Great, a flood of posts right when I go on vacation. You're lucky I'm a fast reader.
-last edited on Jun 11, 2018 21:24:43 GMT by TheGreatCon
Post by TheGreatCon on Jun 11, 2018 21:24:00 GMT
~<>~
I dragged myself around the city aimlessly for a while, before heading to my roost. I managed to drag myself up, and then booted up my laptop. Sleeping was out of question. I might as well not waste my time.
The game was not my first destination. I wanted to check the web and see about that darn rpg.
Search results brought me to a site which apparently was a dedicated forum to just the weekly challenge. And there were threads all over discussing the elusive rpg.
I found a page of stats, and checked it out. It had lists of the users with the most round wins (some already had 60+), and the record high kill counts. And finally, there was a small list of users who had obtained the rpg. Six users.
Two were suspected hackers. Three were immersion rig users who had a background in professional swimming. The final one was a staff member.
All of them had received initial dumps of XP for just the recovery of the item. The hackers later had there points taken back away, CONfirming that they had, in fact, cheated.
The swimmers had retrieved the gun only seven times together, which was enough to put them both on the “rising users” list for the week.
Next I searched the possibility of creating your own moves on LMB using chatter combat. In a remote forum from two years back, close to the initial game release, there was a thread about that. Initially it looked like it was only about combining moves, but a staff member at the very bottom had responded that there was, in fact, a way you could create your own moves.
There were some instructions, and I quickly moved into the game, first scribbling the text onto my wrist.
Once in the game I pulled up the chatter combat settings. Deep within there was a “create command” option. I clicked on it, and it switched me screens. I caught my breath. It brought up a list of the current moves, starting with the most basic. I realized just how much of a waste of time my notepad had been at that point. It had a type box to drag commands into for combining. It also had another directory where moves I created would be stored. Finally it had a blank minifigure standing over to the side, rotating on an axis like it was on display.
The directory of commands was huge. I had barely discovered a tenth of the moves listed, and while many weren’t very useful, some of them were invaluable. I glanced around for my notepad, but realized I had left it at my bunk. I reverted back to my skin, using the other wrist.
So, basically, per the instructions, all you had to do was choose a couple basic movements, and mash them together to form a move.
I scrolled through the list, and located my starting point, which was a command to bring my arms to my sides. I dragged it over to the bar. I typed in a +, and searched for my next command, and arm rotation. It was labeled exactly that, and I stuck it in the bar. I pasted it in a bunch more times for a full rotation. A little screen to the side showed the combination on a standard minifigure. I watched it play through a couple times. Hmmm, not bad.
I dropped into the game and found a pond. I lowered myself in, tilted myself down, and used my move, titled “front crawl.” I was still minus the kick, and my body was stiff as a board. I got closer than I ever had before, though.
I did it a couple more times, forming an image in my mind of what I wanted to achieve.
Back in the command creator, I first added the kick. The problem was, though, that just putting the command after another + would separate the moves, making the whole process too lengthy. I tried google searching how to make the moves simultaneous, but no luck. I was forging new waters.
I tried just leaving the commands there without anything, but directory then didn’t recognize either. I tried a -, and a bunch of other signs which made no sense, before finally realizing that I was an idiot and typed in /.
It did the trick, and the kick and the arm rotation happened simultaneously. I grinned.
I saved the move under the same name as previously, and dropped back into the game. I maneuvered myself to a pond, and slipped in. I flexed my fingers, and dropped below surface.
TheGreatCon: body tilt body tilt body tilt front crawl front crawl…
And I basically repeated that move over and over again until my minifigure reached the bottom. I suddenly discovered one thing up for me over the immersion rig, though, when I realized just how sore I’d be from swimming for so long.
TheGreatCon: step step pivot step pivot weapon grap jump front crawl front crawl…
Would I make it back up? My oxygen bar was dangerously low already, and I still had a lot to go. My fingers were a blur on the screen, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t make my minifigure’s arms churn any faster. He expired still a good ten feet below surface.
I frowned. I had done everything perfectly.
Maybe, just maybe, the game designers were pushing me to be more elaborate in my command coding.
Who had designed this game? I hadn’t ever really bothered to think about that, but discovering this side of the game had led me to wondering who exactly had coded this much depth into the chatter combat. Even back when this game had come out, there had been hundreds of controllers on the market and immersion rigs were already popular.
Nobody has even bothered giving me that speech yet. I probs need it. They're not quite gold here, maybe copper or something. *wears fans*
Your lucky, I get me age thrown in me face more often then I like. Maybe. It's hot an dry. XD Good, misenterpreted but good.
Most people assume I'm like 22. Today was a scorcher, and I happened to be out in it. It's kind of dangerous, all those spinning blades right next to my body.
I'm surprised, I'm not really used to writing girls. He really is one of my favorite characters of all time. But part of that is because of all the mean stuff I do to him.
Yes but you've chatted enough with them. I can see sweetcrazy peep through somethimes. Wow, now who's the bad guy. XD But yes, off the record it is fun to be mean to characters.
A lot of my best friends online are girls, and practically none of my best friends IRL are girls. It's weird. I was part of a writers group that spent years trying to CONvince me to be mean to my characters, guess it's finally showing through.
Life looks different once you’ve seen it through a rifle scope. After you’ve pulled that sight up, and beaded it in on people. Once you’ve had to choose whom to pull the trigger on.
I was in a tree, high in the branches, a good twenty minutes climb up. And well hidden among the leaves. I wasn’t the only one. I was part of a strike team.
I checked my rifle again. Locked and loaded. But I had heard voices, so I slipped the safety off.
I peeked around the edge of the tree, leaves tickling at my face. My clothes were dripping wet from the dew. I had been up here a looong time. There they were. An advance party. The army was headed here.
We were all so goners. Our lines were weak already. One strong drive, and they’d be through. And the war would be over.
Now I wasn’t entirely opposed to that, but I’d rather it was on better terms than they’d be willing to offer if we were licked.
My arm shook a little as I raised my rifle up. I spotted one of my comrades doing the same, picking a man.
I squinted down my scope, but looked away. I couldn’t do it again. Line it up, and pull that trigger. I was done dealing out judgement. My gun drooped in my hands.
But I had a job to do. My army depended on both me and my fellow snipers. If all of us got squeamish, and just fired in the general direction, we’d lose men.
Rather us than them.
My face hardened. I pulled the gun up, sighted quickly, and with a quick squeeze, I got it done and over with.
I awoke screaming in a pool of sweat. I don’t know if you’ve ever woken up a room of working men at two in the morning with bad dreams, but they’re not very sympathetic.
I got cuffed on the head by the nearest, and a couple yelled stuff at me. I didn’t bother trying to catch the words. My heart was still racing.
Would the nightmares ever end?
My body was still a coiled spring. I grabbed my pillow and buried my face in it, biting at it to try and relieve tension. Slowly the energy drained out of my body, leaving me cold and limp. I flipped over, and lay there, staring at the ceiling. Finally my eyes drifted closed again.
And my dream picked up right where it had let off.
I jumped out of bed, shivered once, and then grabbing my shoes I limped out.
Due to me finishing up the Runner, I now have twice as much time to write this story, hence I have a bunch of parts backed up. I'll be posting them a bit faster. Sorry LEGO.
Great, a flood of posts right when I go on vacation. You're lucky I'm a fast reader.
Heh heh...sorry. Cool, me too. It's almost like a super power.
I rubbed my eyes. The sun was almost up, and my shift at the yard was early today, no school on weekends. I had to finish soon. I dove back into my coding. I had tried all sorts of stuff. At first I was just cramming commands into the box, but as I slowly tested all of it and realized none of it worked, I started refining my commands.
I went so far as to go online and study the swimming of professional athletes. Somewhere around my fifth video I started to get the rhythm, and I watched a couple more for good measure.
Convinced I had it down, I went back and watched my minifigure mimic the moves again. I frowned. I looked like I was floundering. No wonder I wasn’t making it.
I pulled both the game and the videos up at the same time, and set to work trying to get them to match. The hardest part was getting the body movements right. Arms and legs were easy. Trying to rotate a minifigure’s torso to match the stroke was nigh impossible. I found a few commands though, and using them started to work on getting the right form.
I turned the move into a set of three strokes, just so I could get a better idea how it would transition. I continued making slight tweaks. The problem was that most of the moves I was using needed some sort of measuring system. Again, something I’d research later.
I finally got it to the point that I could play the video next to it, and my minifigure would keep stroke with the swimmer, body following the same contortions.
I dropped into the game, and headed immediately for a puddle. I dropped in, got the appropriate tilt, and then started spamming my move.
-last edited on Jun 12, 2018 14:06:36 GMT by TheGreatCon
Post by TheGreatCon on Jun 12, 2018 14:06:27 GMT
I reached the bottom in what felt like no time. I didn’t dare glance at my oxygen meter, though, for fear of jinxing it. I grabbed the weapon, and started for the surface. Twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten. Only five more! This was the closest I had ever come.
My minifigure practically flew out the water by the impetus. I had done it! I was above water with an rpg in my hands!
A number lit up above my head. My eyes bugged. 40000 XP. I had never received even a fourth that much in a single dump.
I took a quick screen shot. VICTORY!
And then somebody shot me from behind, and I dropped out of the game.
Your lucky, I get me age thrown in me face more often then I like. Maybe. It's hot an dry. XD Good, misenterpreted but good.
Most people assume I'm like 22. Today was a scorcher, and I happened to be out in it. It's kind of dangerous, all those spinning blades right next to my body.
It's the hair. Ah, fun. XD Or not. Well, maybe move the fan to a nearby location.
![[derp]](http://storage.proboards.com/6672327/images/YqNTPqyQUocVMYXZgUAI.png)
*Throws confetti*
I probs need it. 
Maybe. 
![[ban]](http://storage.proboards.com/6796573/images/DdvptduTGhuALWytvXqy.png)
We should form a super team of people who are slightly above average in very specific areas. 
