Games nowadays don't just have players: they're part of the larger community that makes things. Fans will often make videos, stream, and set-up sites, and that's what today's update covers. This week isn't about showing you something cool we've spotted, but instead we're sending you in the direction of some regular contributors to the Rust community. I've spent the past few weeks really enjoying the content of the community--some of whom I haven't even linked to here before--and thought I'd gather them all under one post. Everyone here would love it if you watched a video, read an article, or subscribed to a channel.
I covered Vertiigo last week, and probably should have covered him a lot more in the blog. Instead of covering vast eras of game time, Vertiigo simply cuts everything down to a snappy few minutes. The compact vignettes of Rust life are like being allowed into someone's psychosis, because he uses voice chat to talk to the players, then launches into an internal dialogue just for the viewers. It's really funny to hear him be very nice to other players as he plots to kill them. Case in point: he plays on the same server, and has ended up with a few enemies, and in the video below he meets one who's owned him more than once. I love how Vertiigo is fuming at this one guy who doesn't have a clue who he is.
Vert's also been trying out raid cams, and luckily seems to be part of a server where teamwork is the order of the day. This 100 Rockets Raid battle is spectacular.
You can sub to Vertiigo here.
Argyle Alligator
It's been a while since I've covered Argyle, but if you ever played Rust because you spotted a man running in the grass while bravely attempting to interview the typical Rust dwellers, you were watching Argyle. He's Rust's finest newsman, refusing to take up the current free cam trend and sticking to the story on the ground, with the people, always putting himself at risk.
Like Louis Theroux, he becomes part of the story by being there. Once, he accidentally helped a Nazi build a death chamber. Other times, like in the video below, he's a more willing participant in the carnage, where he joins a group in their attempt to reclaim a holiday home and art gallery.
You can sub to Argyle here.
Phaedo82
Phaedo82 started out covering Rust via guides and update reports, and continues to create helpful and mercifully short weekly looks into the game. Here's the latest test, where he tries out last week's additions to the game.
But Phaedo82 is responsible for a new phenomenon in Rust: raid cams. It was he who first started to follow the action, floating anonymously through battles on the servers, commenting on the action he witnessed, his calm voice describing war crimes. And he's always trying out new things: he presented one of his most recent raid cams as a timelapse.
You can sub to Phaedo82 here.
BrySciFi
A surprising inclusion, because I've not actually covered BrySciFi's work before. Youtube recommended him to me: it's a regular series of Lets Plays, which is unusual for Rust, but now he's started a whole new season it's worth watching. Part one is embedded below.
You can sub to BrySciFi here.
This has just started, but I'm very excited about the possibilities: it's a live feed from a Rust server, hooked into a spectator cam. It's also apparently weighted against certain actions, so if something exciting happens then the camera should automatically follow the action. I love the concept of a completely unfiltered and uncontrolled peek in the lives of Rust players. As someone who has access to the developer camera, I've lost hours just watching you all do your thing. It's addictive.
Watch and sub here.
Lirik
For a few nights over the the past few weeks, Lirik has been defending his base in Rust against a number of squeaky sounding attackers, and he's managed to sound cool and relaxed as wave after wave of stream snipers, base raiders, and others beat on his door. Such is the size of his Twitch following, it's been like watching a horde mode. I am only partly including him here because of the Kitty avatars.
Watch and sub here.
Rustafied's been one of our favourite sources of Rust information for a while. He does the legwork in finding out what what we're testing, meaning his readers actually get a good idea about what's going in the Thursday update before we put it out. There's news, guides, and he also runs several servers. We've taken to adding them to the official list in-game, because they're busy and they're well adminned. He even has a Patreon, if you're inclined to help the servers tick along.
Read (almost) all about Rust at Rustafied.
PlayRustHQ
Another news site, but not as intensely updated as Rustafied. Instead PlayRustHQ one of the most useful tools for the community: a website that will show you the top-down view of any Rust seed. All you need are map-size and seed number and you can generate a server map. It's enormously useful. The site also has its own servers, and they're usually very busy.
Visit PlayRustHQ.
PlayRust.io
A sort of out-of-game server browser that gives you a quick snapshot of the community servers. It also has a plug-in that enables server owners to display live maps of their worlds, so you can see the position of radtowns and monuments, and yourself; you can see the server's chat logs; and there's even a death heatmap, showing the most dangerous areas of the server.
Visit PlayRust.io.
Think you're working on something awesome? Tell me all about it. Now's the time to share your art, though I'd ask you to think: does the world really need to see this perfectly painted bumhole? I can assure you, the answer is 'no'.
There's a dedicated forum post, or you can fish for upvotes in the Subreddit. 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. We also have a dedicated site for suggestions and bug reporting.
I can't respond to everything, but I read every comment and take it all in.
