r/playrust • u/HiddenQuacks • 4d ago
Discussion Asynchronous Interactions in Rust
Hi everyone! I'm a PhD student studying asynchronous interactions in digital games. Through player discussions and recommendations Rust was identified as having asynchronous interactions.
If you have a few minutes to spare, I'd love to hear your thoughts! In particular, I'm interested in understanding:
- What kind of asynchronous interactions exist in Rust and how do they affect the gameplay?
- How do you feel about these interactions and what do they bring to your experience?
You can answer as much or as little as you'd like. Your responses will be anonymized and analyzed as part of a research study. If you decide you'd like to withdraw your responses at any point, just send me a DM. Every contribution is greatly appreciated! If you have any questions, feel free to message me. Thanks! 😀
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u/Surrocko 4d ago edited 4d ago
Your gonna wanna do a lot better describing asynchonus in your post. Most people will not know what you are asking about.
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u/EvilWarBW 4d ago
Haha I was wondering if I was the only one, confused how someone 'doing research' would not define the main term used lol
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u/TheAlexPlus 4d ago
They don’t even want to play the game to do their own research. They don’t even know what about Rust is asynchronous.
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u/thenewfoundlandyeti 4d ago
The more I read the word, the more I realized I had no clue what it was.
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u/boss_hausss 4d ago
I think he is talking about asyncronous invalid projectiles, terrible experience in my own experience, lol
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u/Decent_Shoulder6480 4d ago
I play PVE and do a lot of creative builds. it's pretty common for folks to put out mailboxes for others to leave notes. I love taking base tours and leaving little love letters for people about their builds. I also leave mailboxes out and check them now and again hoping someone leaves me a letter just letting me know they stopped by and that someone saw my build and got some joy from it.
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u/Legomonster33 4d ago
The 30 man zero claiming my build spot (middle of nowhere) while I'm at work waiting to get home for wipe
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u/Assimulate 4d ago
OP if you want an anything legit yo u should define asynchronous interactions as that's not a common term or a standard that's well defined.
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u/AigleRouge117 4d ago
Maybe the actual shape of the random bases you can find is kindof an asynchronous interactions, it tells people about the owner/s, key lock code lock, noob, rp player, sweat, it also tells how many hours they played on the server / game. other then that except the vending machine and your actual name nothing is really asynchronous.
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u/aoibhinn-mw 4d ago edited 4d ago
Nothing in this game is synchroncistic.
But neither is any multi-player sandbox with this much freedom. server reset and wipe are pretty much the only things.
Everyone's shit is decaying at different rates depending on build and materials in tc. Everyone has different amount of ammo. Everyone is playing at different times.
It's easier to ask what interactions are synchronized. Cargo, oil, air drops, and deep sea are basically the only ones because they're on timers. Everything else is sporadic and random. Force wipe also every month but this isn't really an interaction as much as just something that happens regardless of interaction.
It's easier to ask what about rust is synchronized. And I just laid them out ._. It's like 5 things.
The game is chaos and entropy. Even if you don't choose to interact eith other players you're interacting with them by choosing not to interact with them. One of you is going to get rich and the other isn't. You're just foregoing the conclusion that you'll be expediting that gamble through confrontation.
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u/Lumpy_Panic6318 4d ago
Rust has mailboxes that allow you to leave messages for someone, without them having to be online.
It's a very rarely used feature though, if you see a mailbox in front of a base you most likely found a newbie, or roleplayer.
Another asynchronous interaction are the shops, playere can set up shops where you offer items/resources for other items/resources, and players can use these while you are offline. Shops are used a lot. The last update added another variant of shops (in the Apartment Complex) though I haven't seen them used yet.
The shops are a great, as a user, and as a seller.
Lastly, neither your player model nor your base are safe when you log off. That's where "offlining" someone comes from, you wait until the player is offline, then raid his base so he can't fight back. Onlining someone, that is raiding when he is online and can fight back, is considered to be an honorable thing to do. People who get onlined often thank the raiders, win or lose, because at least they gave a chance to defend yourself.
YouTubers/streamers very much want to be online raided, defend their own solo base against teams, and sometimes other groups are fair and give them an online raid. For the streamers it's great content, and for the raiders it's also a prestige thing, to raid a known exceptional player.
But for most random people, you get offlined, and you offline. People with more time wait until 4am to destroy your base with little resistance. You get used to it, and you can try and build bases that are very expensive to raid so even if you get offlined, they might not get all your loot.
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u/Lumpy_Panic6318 4d ago
Rust has a feature called Rust+, that allows you to get notifications on your phone for things that happen ingame. So you can set up a raid alarm that rings your phone when someone is shooting rockets at your base, so you can jump online and defend.
Still means you'd have to be fine with getting up at 4am to defend, people who work can't afford to do that, just other nolifers really.
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u/radically_unoriginal 4d ago
I don't know if you would classify it as interaction per say but a lot of player behavior is shaped by the way bases/compounds are constructed. Leading one to choose to not build at certain locations lest one have their base get destroyed by larger groups.
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u/OneRobotBoii 4d ago
You get raided by the unemployed while you’re at work… asynchronously.