New York End Days: FiveM, Role Playing, Magic, Potions, Spells

[GamingWhileDad]

I Found The Most Underrated Server On GTA’s Fivem Multiplayer Mod

If GTA had a baby with Shadowrun, Day-Z and Dungeons & Dragons, this is probably what it would look like.

Picture this: You’re bored out of your mind. TV isn’t doing it for you and a book won’t hold your attention either. You find yourself booting up random games, playing them for five minutes and then turning them off. You’re experiencing video game fatigue — it’s not a fatal condition, but you’re liable to spend several hours mindlessly staring at your steam library before going to bed.

Your last resort solution to this problem? Booting up a multiplayer game. Actual human interaction is packed with enough random variability that it just might stave off the crushing boredom.

That was the situation I found myself in this Wednesday night. At least until I happened across a server I hadn’t noticed before.

“New York End Days” appeared before me on the server browser as I typed “zombie” into the name filter. Hold on a minute? New York? That’s a nice change of pace. I could only presume they managed to port Liberty City from the previous GTA title into their server and slapped some zombies on top for good measure.

Despite this being a reasonable assumption to make, I was completely wrong.

Spawning In

I boot up the server and the first thing I’m asked is where I’d like my apartment to be based. I don’t remember much about Liberty City… or New York. North Holland it is. I’m immediately smacked with a character creation menu that isn’t broken. This is not necessarily the norm in Fivem.

These are my first indicators that at least one developer actually cares about this server.

I take a moment to admire my mullet before venturing forth

Normally when it looks like some level of thought has gone into the character creator, you can relax a little. Someone, somewhere cares about this server.

I promptly flick through all the options and settle on the glorious blonde mullet you see before you. Long live the 80s.

I take a few cursory glances around my apartment before heading out into the city. Excited for the arguably busier and more interesting map of New York, versus the hillier and somewhat boring Los Angeles.

I’m quickly mobbed by zombies and I take a panicked jump from the roadside down about 8ft to the pier. Luckily it didn’t hurt too bad.

Before long, a man clad in motorcycle attire appears to welcome me to the City. He says his name is Stone, I tell him my name is Danny. He asks me if I’m familiar with the city, and offers me a tour. On many servers, this can often be a trick to troll new players by abandoning them somewhere or killing them, so I cautiously accept.

The Tour

I enjoy the relative safety of my new allies mad max style buggy

I climb into Stone’s vehicle and he starts explaining the situation with the city. We are at least 100 years in the future. The rest of the country is in ruin after a nuclear holocaust. New York only remains in what could be described as a ‘semi-functional’ condition.

This is because, for undisclosed reasons, it was hit primarily with lower yield (neutrino) bombs compared to the conventional thermonuclear weapons used across the country.

It is around this time it is revealed to me, presumably as a result of the nuclear hellfire — that every player character has a randomly selected magic/mutant ability. Stone appears to possess what is effectively a magic missile. I activate my ability which gives me a speed boost. Sweet — I’m the flash.

I’m given the run down on some of the other core mechanics of the server. Conventional money does not exist — it has been completely replaced with a cryptocurrency system. NWC or New World Coin is the preferred method of exchange. This can be obtained by trading and crafting.

Crafting is also super important — you need to craft just about everything you could possibly need on this server.

The power vacuum created as a result of the harsh nuclear winter has resulted in decentralized clusters of authority, ruled by despots known as the “Barons”. These zones are referred to as ‘Villes’ or ‘Baronies’.

My new friend instructs me that he has some business to take care of. He’s going to drop me off with his buddy Dexter to finish my induction.

The atmosphere of the city, combined with the post processing effects and the huge render distance make for an unreasonably cool drive as I soak in a dramatic narrative fitting of a stand alone game.

Meeting Dexter

I link up with a masked gentleman, grinding away in a scrap/recycling centre.

I’m brought to a warehouse further south of spawn. It’s here I meet Dexter. Stone takes the time to brief him on what I’ve learned so far before departing off into the night to go do admin things.

Dexter explains that we’re currently in a recycling centre. This centre can be used to repurpose old materials for crafting and is incredibly useful when it comes to preparing yourself for the chaos in the city.

After having me clock in for work and move some boxes around the warehouse to process the materials inside, Dexter opts to finish my tour.

Dex rummages through his trunk, double checking his inventory before driving me out of the warehouse and into the city.

On our long tour of the city, I learn about all the important locations I’ll need to know about to understand how the server functions. At some point during this trip — all the lights in the city turn out. I’m somewhat confused by this and ask if it’s a visual glitch.

“That’s a power cut” — he explains. “Sometimes the power shuts off and all the crazies come out to attack you.”

This isn’t the only downside to a power cut. Poor lighting can make navigating interiors very tricky. Dex drives us to an area with an interior dedicated to crafting, but the lack of power means we need to use our flashlights.

The lady in the corner did give me a bit of a fright, to be honest.

We cautiously make our way back to the crafting bench and I’m walked through the basics of crafting. I’m then informed of the massive progression system present for just about everything in the game. This one didn’t blind side me completely though, as I had already begun to suspect this when I was getting level up notifications for various attributes whilst fighting zombies on our tour.

Before I leave for the evening I manage to bag a final conversation with Dexter and Stone (who I have now learned is the head admin).

A Farewell Conversation

I take a little bit of time to ask Stone about this hidden gem of a server. It’s pretty obvious that most of the scripts have been created exclusively for this server — including a nifty “pass the joint” script we had a giggle about earlier on in the evening. Surely, creating a server with this level of complexity would’ve been a monumentous task for one man alone.

He reveals that he has help from two other developers whenever something needs to be fixed outside of his purview. But by and large, the secret to the server’s complexity is time. Lots and lots of time.

I’m gobsmacked to find out that this server has been gradually crafted over many months by an incredibly small team. Stone reveals his strategy was to work on a block of the city at a time and explains that some seriously long hours had to be put in daily to get it to where it is right now.

I log off for the evening still somewhat stunned at what I’d just stumbled across.

If you’re interested in joining the server, the discord link is discord.gg/nyed — this should give you all the information you need about joining and will allow you to read the owner’s rendition of the lore (which is much more accurate than my butchered recitation).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 21 by GamingWhileDad

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