Community Update #2

Last week's community post was an interesting experience. From the response I got after asking for content, I learned that Rust players have created a huge amount of fun things, and like an urban legend they're slipping from our screens and into the real world. Rust cosplay has happened and I have seen it, but I'm saving it for a future post. Because of Panic Room, I'm a sucker for things like impossibly large logos appearing on landscapes. It's a thing. So when I spotted KongoBoom's wallpaper, I just had to use it for the header image. There's an HD version here.

Rust is like Deadwood, but with a bit more swearing and lot more violence. The right people with the right tools can thrive together on the frontier, living in accordance with their own set of laws, and protecting one another from hostility. Redditor "IIEarlGreyII" attempted to do that by building a small shack on the side of the main road and naming it RustMart. As is the way of Rust, the shop was robbed. A lot. But it also became a haven for night-time wanderers, who hid from the wolves and nudey murderers, who eventually decided life was better huddled around the glow of the campfire in the company of friends. That's how it starts: the hiding turns into staying, the shacks expand, and the sharp defensive walls become inexplicably cosy. Then the spaces between buildings start to feel like streets and the place takes on a life of its own. According to Earl: "We built a city hall, a church, a court. We had public meetings, trials, and services most nights." See? Just like Deadwood. Here's a gallery of the server's slow-build. I really want to hear about server-based societies that you've been part of. How did it start? What did you build? What laws were enacted? If it's still standing, take me on a tour.

I'm not sure if this arena is still standing. I found it on a wander through the Steam Community, but the net connect command isn't finding anything (net.connect 173.208.82.235:28065). It might have moved to another server, but it's probably lost forever. I'm posting it because I like the notion of there being more to Rust than the obvious elements. Well-functioning societies often don't have much room for a place for spectators to watch people kill each other (not even Glasgow), and it often happens in the wild in Rust. What sort of place legitimises it as a spectator sport? This sort of place. It's excellent, but it's not enough. I'd quite like to see a server with multiple arenas, turning one world into a home for deathmatches. I like the idea of moving from place to place, taking up a position in the stand as a spectator. It'd be like living in a server browser, but one where stray bullets can take you out. Spectating being potentially deadly is very Rust.

One of the delights of the open development process of Rust is the community's immediate reaction to the things that don't exist. Rust's concept art is one of the highlights of the Friday Update, but the translation from artist's pen to something that you can see in action is occasionally too slow for some of the community. Take a look at this trap idea Megan put up on the Rust Art Trello. It's excellent, but it's also static. But it was enough for Redditor lluckymou to knock together an animated prototype in Blender. It's a bit rough and ready, but it's also awesome to see the community respond creatively. There are a few things like this around, and I've seen everything from interactive 3D models to real-world recreations. I'll be highlighting more in the coming weeks, but if you've spotted something or made something and want to share it, I've always got room for more. The internet is never full.

I love Rust, but I'm not sure you could convince me to strip my clothes and run around in a field shooting guns in the name of fandom. That's pretty much terrorism. Anyway, Patrick Mazzolo and his friends have no such worries, and crafted this little slice of real-world Rust a couple of months ago. That's good terrorism. Exceptionally good terrorism. Good enough for a poster. I already have a couple of other fan-films in my files, but I've not found any machinima that's up to standard. If you've spotted anything impressive, drop a link below.

The experimental servers are getting busier and busier, which means more and more people are finding the bugs easter eggs. My favourite is the discovery that you can stack campfires. The appropriately named Lord McWankerson delivered news of his discovery, as well a formula for having fun with it:

1. Kill nakeds and steal their wood and campfires
2. Start crafting campfires with the wood you stole
3. Once your inventory is full of campfires, start building your very own campfire tower
4. Repeat previous steps and eventually you should end up with something like this.

It's a feature, right? Does it look like the trail of rocket to anyone else? Anyway, keep breaking experimental so we can post about it and fix things. And if you break something and it looks spectacular, show me.

For every naked, rock-clutching new-spawn that enters the game, there's a question that's everyone asks: what do we call them? Most of the responses that came to your mind are probably unprintable, which is why it'd be handy to have a neat phrase that people can use without accidentally turning Rust into an obscene publication. It's by no means official, but Reddit asked and answered that query and came up with an incredibly fitting moniker: Newman. I've heard "Jimmies" being used a lot on servers, but I can't get over how apt Newman is. I'll probably be using it forever, or until Garry starts pointing out how weird it actually is.

If you've already sent me something, I'll have seen it and saved it on my list, so there's no need to resend it. But if you think you have something new that I must see, there's a number of ways to share it. There's a forum thread, there's the Twitter account, there's a thread on Reddit, and there's the comment system. I check them all.