Community Update 163

Over the weekend, Rustafied held their annual charity stream, Charitable Rust. The 12 hours of games, building, role-playing, and more has so far earned in the region of $30k for Direct Relief, which is something everyone involved should be very proud of. Have a look. The skin sales are still ongoing, so you can continue to contribute to that total and get yourself a snazzy Charitable Rust 2017 Hoodie and the Charitable Rust 2017 Relief Crate.

For various reasons that I won't be getting into (partly because I've only been a casual observer), it seemed like Rust Factions--a Rust server built on land claims, war declarations, and more rules than I can list here--was about to die. The reddit had been abandoned for a forum, and that place slowly dwindled. But the subreddit has now returned to life, and the Factions are feuding once again. Rejoice. I hope it takes hold, because it's a place that just endlessly fascinates me. The rules are a good primer on what to expect.

RUST FACTIONS CHARTER

"This isn't your typical rust server. We expect people to maintain a certain level of roleplay (RP) on the server. That means participating in game play that adheres to the established community and not as if you were playing on a battlefield server. Keep to RP and you'll do fine. That doesn't mean there is not wars, raiding and violence, it simply means that there is more structure behind it and a reason behind you and your peoples actions." All that tends to lead to a nosy web person's dream: content. They do city tours: They do newspaper style write ups, as well as war reporting.

The OCH-SALM Raid

And, best of all, there's the map. Things will probably take time to settle and, hopefully, grow. I really hope it does. I love it when servers take note of their history, and Rust Factions does it with a style and silliness that draws me in. Good luck.

As a big fan of both bases and servers that keep track of the creative output of the community, Corrosion Hour's monthly base post is a nice read. "This month, we had our largest engagement of players in the history of the server, once again. One thing that took our attention was the amount of bases that were either built on or inside of rock faces and cliff sides. We’re not sure if this is for a defensive purposes or camouflage techniques. Many solo and first time players were running around, we’re associating this with the Steam sales of RUST due to the Thanksgiving sales. Clans were few this time." A few bases from the near 200 on that page. On reddit, The_Uncredible_Helk showed off their shop. If you're a server owner who tracks what occurs on your server, please feel free to let me know. Finally Malonik has started an interview series where he talks to clans about the game, their work, their base, and more. It's fascinating: the story of the guy idling with his speakers up is great. Big fan of this already. Lots more, please!

Time for art! Xmas has come early for me, as Veys dropped three pieces of art on the Steam Community. On reddit, Arrietty_The_Goat came up with some fine art. Also on reddit, dallehi did that twisty, bendy screenshot thing. That was the art.

Something a little bit different. Frost's videos generally have a little bit of cinematic flair--even the thumbnails are awesome--and he's put together some tips and tricks he uses in making them. Want to know how? Here: I love that he recreates what he's captured, all the way down to tree placement. I actually have keybinds set to enable easy access to the timescale stuff, which is how I generally make the devblog header.

Two updates from our resident skin expert, Xtab. First up, he's got another Xmas skin competition in the works, so prepare for Rustmas! There's plenty of prizes and rules over on the announcement. Take a look. And then there's the usual skin updates. As you'd expect, this week's has lots of new Python skins. I knew we'd see a snake themed one. I'm very psychic.

I am never not tickled by speculative grenade throws that take out people. Here's IAmSp00n doing just that.

I'm beginning to like @playrust more and more every day... pic.twitter.com/4K0NmidFnT

— Samuel (@IAmSp00n) December 5, 2017

*nods and chuckles*

Think you're working on something awesome? Tell me all about it. Share your base designs, show off a game-mode from your server, or have you done a cool thing with Code Locks and Vending Machines? There's a dedicated forum, or you can fish for upvotes in the sub reddit. I also shuffle around the the Steam Community, so feel free to show me to things from there. You can follow and respond to Rust on Twitter, and I'm on there as well