Fox Hole:

Not Another Theme-Park MMO

nor Single Skirmish Simulator

Embedded Gonzo Journalism in one of gamings most complex terrestrial MMOs

Page Music: Sound Illusion - WW2 Bomb Shelter War Ambience

Vintage Relaxation - Vintage 1940s Wartime Music Playlist

Breifing:

I don't really play shooters anymore it's for a lot of reasons and I make exceptions for the Half-Life series and my occasional hours long binges of Brutal Doom while I absolutely BLAST Caramelldansen over the crunchy audio of pixilated violence. I can still get down with SOME shooters especially my beloved twin stick shooters and simulation sandbox games with deemphasized weapons mechanics such as Voices of the Void, Half-Life, and even games like Fallout and Red Dead Redemption in large part due to both of them featuring a mode which takes tense stress inducing fire fights and puts them into slow motion.

Fox Hole is a rare beast of a game. It is a war simulation game. It's not first person, it's sort of a 45 degree 3D top-down perspectives like many modern turn-based strategy games only it is not turn-based. It plays out like a Real-Time strategy game where every player is a pawn on the battle field rather than an unseen god-general. Practically each and every bullet, gun, uniform, helmet, tank, boat, tanker, train, healing item windsock, and soon, airplane is created by players with materials gathered by players. Large scale troop movements are handled by guilds of players and wars can last real life months. It's an MMO but no two days are ever the same for any players. Missions are created by the players, goals are managed by leaders from within player created squadrons. It's a beast of a game to play, understand, and learn without rustling feathers. Either a teammates or your own.

I discovered Foxhole about a year or so ago while on a quest for a game that would offer limitless missions for a co-op team working in a flying fortress style bomber. I am a bit of an aviation nut and my grandfather was the navigator on a B-17. At the time Foxhole was only teasing an up and coming feature of Aviation to be added to the game. Now a year later it is tested and rolling out very soon. I don't normally cover new or 3D games and a don't usually play shooter games but Fox Hole is more than any of that and so I would like to take the time over the coming weeks to embed myself with the Swords of Maro faction of the Colonial Army for the end of World Conquest 131 and the entirety of World Conquest 132: The First War that will see planes play a major role in the fighting. I will be staggering my reports by 48 hours in order to stop from giving away troop movements to the enemy, and I will be dating my journals using in-game time. I won't be playing every day it's not the kind of gamer that I am, but I have an end goal of reaching the point where I can give a valid gonzo report on the aviation element soon to be added to the game from whatever angle I am able.

At the time of writing it is Day 277 in the war 131 and the war will continue for 11 days 12 hours and 14 minutes and then the games largest update will be unleashed, this will change everything, including the map, but I will do my best to explain the basics of how the game works before I jump too far into specifics about my activities.

First off the map is broken down into 43 individual hexes, each hex is a server, each server is synched up to the same world-clock and day/night cycle. Servers can become full. You can be forced to wait in a queue to enter a hex. This is the main downside to the games design but a necessary evil for the game to exist at all. The map is then further broken down into two opposing but equal sides (as far as landmass goes) a green side, Colonial and a blue side, Wardens.

When a war begins, as I said, both sides are equal, but each hex is further broken down into areas of control based on landmarks usually towns. On each hex is a land mark town known as a Victory Condition, in order to win the Green side or the Blue side must control a number of these town bases and then upgrade them with provisional garrisons. The number of Victory Conditions I think will likely change with the map update but we will see.

A day in the game is an hour in real life an hour in the game is 2.5 minutes in real life. In World Conquest, the games main mode, the average length of a war in the last era of wars in the game (the period after the naval update, the last large update) is 33 real life days. Longest 70. Shortest 8.

The war itself isn't as simple as two sides in an all out deathmatch every bullet, uniform, gun, tank, weapons emplacement, bunker and foxhole is built by a player using resources gathered by players. So in a war each army relies equally on two massive internal components, a frontline, and a complex series of supply lines each leading to areas where fighting is the heaviest. This info isn't readily available so scouts must bring it back but I have given a rough example of what this might look like. The home regions on the map are just glorified tutorial and lobby queue areas.

So as a player you might find yourself specializing in any number of things, naval combat, supply line running, resource acquisition, recon, or maybe even going behind enemy lines to disrupt their supply lines to give your side the edge in a specific battle. You the player get to decide what you do, as you can imagine it's likely very chaotic. The game makes you blue or green, you decide what to do from there.

A large majority of the player base is in a player-run faction or guild within their sides army. Great pains are taken to keep information here private and free from prying enemy eyes. There is no tool in the game to help you pick a faction, you must put the time and research in yourself, I will only be covering the Colonial side of the conflict (Green) and I will only be covering it from the perspective of a Swords of Maro player as after I put in the time and research I found them to be an accepting faction with many non-chud players. The thing that pushed me over the edge and made me make the call to join is the prevalence of the meme "Swords of Maro is very gay" in the Colonial community. This is used seemingly in a nonderogatory way an is a simple matter of-fact statement that the squadron is itself, very gay. A fact that I am willing to attest to, as I joined it.

I have a moderate amount of experience with the game and I am going to be brushing on gameplay and writing to you in-person from...

Journal 1:

Day 76 0230 Hours - Acrithia - Brinehold

It would appear as though the heavy advances in the current war from the Wardens can potentially be explained by large amounts of Colonial forces switching to the dev branch of the game to test out the new aircraft. I am going to join them, as I would like to earn the trust of the troop and earn an assignment at least near the aircraft in the coming war and get some much needed experience with flying and playing the game in general.

Upon landing the whole place was a mess of runways and planes, the area around the runway was scattered with damaged and destroyed aircraft.

I got in a damaged scout sea plane with someone named Max who flew for a bit but ran out of gas, no ATC, madness all around, found a uniform and jumped into the back of large bombardier. The pilot was DarkVader343 looking to refuel and get me a parachute. I as strapping myself in when the entire hex server crashed. Recovery mode kicked in for several moments. So focused on the parachute I don't get any guns. Plane went up and transferred regions. 9 of us. One didn't make it. Everyone else's chute deployed without fail. After making my way back I spent time waiting in line for bomber seats? Maybe for fighter seats. People are cutting in line but I am waiting because I am part of the well regulated militia.

Got my own sea plane, managed the mess on the tarmac and took off, burned a bit of fuel but made it to the next hex and put the plane down near a base in Shackled Chasm went looking for diesel to refuel with. Made it decently far into the next region after that one before I crashed trying to put the plane down in a water landing with poor visibility that I was going way too fast for.

Signing off for now,

Pvt. SpaceWitch

Journal 2:

Day 392 0400 Hours - Allrod's Bight - Mercy's Wail

What was a chaotic battle has died down, a tank heavy conflict for the Hex of Allrod's Bight and the ability to push into Endless Shore and potentially assist in the taking of Reaver's Pass. Many munitions were employed, I personally gunned down several enemy fighters. We were well equipped and I watched the supply drops come in by truck.

I stayed infantry for the majority of my time in the conflict. I am currently awaiting daybreak so that the troops may push into Endless Shore. The occasional enemy attempts to break our ranks but we quickly outgun them. It's one thing to "capture" a point in a Deathmatch style Arena shooter it's quiet another to slowly push up on enemy lines and cut down their defenses, to watch and follow tanks rolling in from god-knows-where to assist, to get into the rhythms of battle as you sail the tides of conflict. So far nothing I have played can match Foxhole.

The frontlines are a nightmare of violence and a cacophony of artillery my time there is usually spent sniping and holding positions, moving up with the tanks, pure infantry role. In the future I may do a rotation as medic which is as simple as grabbing a uniform.

Signing off again,

Pvt. SpaceWitch

Journal 3:

Reaver's Pass Day 247, 0220 Hours, Dev Branch

There is a great machine, unimaginably massive and complex, it's cogs are greased with the blood of young soldiers, it lumbers across the land leaving a smoldering wake of destruction. I am but a scale on the armor of the great machine, but I can see outward, I can understand little of the big picture, but I can share with you what I am able to see.

I am back on dev branch, there are only 3 days until the war ends and the big wait for Airborn begins. Hopping back and forth between the war and dev branch has been a bit detrimental to all of my goals except getting my footing back in this gamescape. The squadron has been busy preparing their skills for the next war. The greater community has been appealing to the devs to make several changes and as of yesterday it would appear as though the devs have listened and made the late game planes a bit cheaper and lowering their fuel consumption a bit.

The Swords of Maro are experimenting with putting large vehicles on an aircraft carriers, reavers pass is near several of the new South eastern Map hexes, there has not been a lot said about these hexes so far but they might feature new lore locations which could further the story of the game a bit, but these new hexes are a bit of a mystery at the moment and everyone is distracted by the big story of this next war, the triad of 20th century military power; land, sea, and air finally coming together in a massive sustained war simulation. Paratroopers breaking supply lines, bombers taking off from aircraft carriers, infantry crossing the ocean on ships protected by fighter planes. Tanks, planes, boats, and motorcycles crossing an eternal battlefield crisscrossing multiple unmarked supply-lines all in the service of a conflict bigger than any one player could ever comprehend, the chorus of war swelling at the bridge and we are all getting ready to sing our part.

The comradery and banter is a key component of this game, I am looking forward to the Relic War bonfire chats and the LARP that takes place in the big wars. If it isn't clear we are not yet in the full swing of the Airborn update, this war is not a "real" war in the eyes of the community because it's on a timer due to the large update. They are talking about the future war and past wars and I can't wait for it but I am so scared. In a "normal" game like Halo if you mess up and blow up your teams vehicle it means that there is a cool down before another respawns, in this game another vehicle needs to be built by hand. The parts need to be sourced, transported, and refined. In the case of LARGE expensive vehicles like Submarines, Big Tanks, Bombers, Aircraft Carriers and other then you aren't just goofing up and getting your teams vehicle destroyed you are contributing to an invisible tech debt for your side of the conflict. God forbid you make a wrong turn and get a supply drop captured by the enemy. If you have read the Art of War you already know the weight of the mistake, if you haven't you should, it will actually help you in this game.

Due to the open ended nature of the game, it works like a massive sandbox, like a Warhammer 40k tournament but each of the terrane maps are pushed up together and everyone is playing at the same time only they are playing as individuals on the battlefield. This means that REAL LIFE skills and war strategies can be implemented to positive effect during a war. There is a bit of lore and the two sides are asymmetrical with he Colonial forces favoring Aircraft (historically in the lore, planes still haven't hit the official main game) and the Warden forces favoring Naval power. Nuclear weapons can also have a large effect on the war but both sides seem to have equal access to them.

I am unsure of how the next war will go for us but I know I am going to work towards spending my time near the planes in one way or another, although I've got a feeling that will be a lot easier said than done even with the recent fuel and material nerf.

Signing off again,

Pvt. SpaceWitch