New Addiction: NoPixel

Welp, I think Hubby and I are officially addicted to NoPixel. It started by following streamer Sykkuno, and then Valkyrae, and from there Ray_C. Now Hubby is following about a dozen streamers all because of the various characters we routinely see on NoPixel. 

NoPixel official logo

I talked a bit about it last week, but for ease of reference, how about a quick refresher on what NP is?

I'm sure just about all of you are familiar with the Rockstar game franchise Grand Theft Auto, but for those who are not, the games mostly follow characters as they climb their way to the top of the criminal underworld of various cities. The most recent game - Grand Theft Auto V - takes place within the fictional city of Los Santos; based on Los Angeles. GTA V was released all the way back in 2013! Later that year, GTA Online was launched; a way to run around GTA V's Los Santos outside of story mode, and while interacting with other players online. 

I'm not sure if it's exclusive for people who play GTA Online on their computers, but people can set up private game servers. That way the players can better curate their gaming experience. Most MMORPGs do this. I can't find info of when exactly it was created, but the server NoPixel started to at least get some real viewership and traction back in 2019. While a lot of servers are for things like player vs player (pvp) gameplay, NoPixel was one of many servers created specifically for roleplaying. You could be a criminal, or work a normal 9-5 job, or both. You could be a cop or EMT or doctor or mechanic or reporter, etc. The world these players created is so vast and immersive. 

Addictively immersive.

NoPixel became the #1 GTA RP server to watch via Twitch. It's now extremely exclusive to get onto this server. I'll get into that more in a little bit.

So, anyway, I talked last week about how Sykkuno's character Yuno is renowned throughout Los Santos as one of - if not THE - top hackers. Not too shabby a feat when Sykkuno only joined the server and created Yuno back in, like, February, and only successfully hacked his first bank in April or something! Beyond the hacking prowess, however, the shenanigans Yuno gets into are hilarious. That alone is enough to get Hubby and I checking in on his multi-hour-long Twitch streams. Especially when those shenanigans include things like this daredevil stunt:

I think the best part is that the other three bikers ended up wiping out on the mountain. The girl with the purple hair Oki Doki, and the girl in the pink hair Leyla, both fell off the downed tower before actually jumping, and the other guy, Sasuke, ended up crash landing right about where Oki did. Yuno was the only one who managed to safely make it down the mountain and back into town. Hubby and I didn't bring up Sasuke's player's stream, but Oki's and Leyla's chats, as well as Sykkuno's, were all screaming that Yuno is clearly NoPixel's main character/protagonist, because of the apparent plot armor the character has. Especially since this isn't the first time Yuno has been in a seemingly life-or-death situation and got out more-or-less unscathed. Granted, the character did get beaten up enough to have to go to the hospital before; many times, actually, but when it's crucial that he stays safe or completes a task, he somehow miraculously gets away clean. Especially if he's the ONLY one who does. Please see his freakout about getting "the last chance" at both hacking and blowing up thermite during his Vault solo-hacking run last Monday for further proof of his "plot armor".

Now, to be clear, there is no actual protagonist or main character of this server. There are big names that just about everyone knows, sure, but that doesn't mean the lesser known characters are any less important or entertaining to watch. I think too many players and their audience members get too cranky when their character isn't considered a "main" character, but the fact that just about every streamer you watch has compelling content is amazing. The developers aren't trying to set anything up so everyone focuses on just one character; it is entirely up to that player's roleplaying to make compelling and enticing content. And, boy, do so many deliver!

I mean, again, Hubby started watching so many new streamers specifically because their characters interacted with Yuno, and we loved how the character was being played. We wanted to know more about them, so Hubby went over to their player's stream to see things from their perspective. That's the beauty of this complex game!

Anyway, the long and short is that there are, I think, over 3000 players that all have characters on this server! It's a living environment. You can watch one streamer's gameplay, then switch to someone else's for a different perspective. Some of the streamers Hubby has started watching are players who have cop characters, just so Hubby can see their reactions to all the crime going on in Los Santos.

Mostly, this whole practice started on Thursday, when Yuno and three of his friends achieved a milestone not before seen on the server; what Yuno dubbed the Rainbow Road. I'm not sure if it's part of GTA Online, or specifically the NoPixel server, but there are three branches of banks: Fleeca, Paleto, and The Vault. I mentioned last week that The Vault is like the Fort Knox of the city: the largest and most protected bank. The main goalpost for bank robbers. Fleeca is the most simple to rob; Paleto the middle ground. Along with the difficulty ratings of these banks, they are each given a color designation. Fleeca are green banks, Paleto are blue, and Vault is red. You have to get specific gear in order to hack into each bank; you can't use the same equipment to hack into Fleeca as you do the Vault, for instance. I won't get into the nitty-gritty here, but suffice to say it takes a lot of planning to hit up even one bank.

Well, the crew called Team Rocket - a revival of an alliance the players had in the game Rust - plus their Rust - and now GTA - ally Yuno, decided to attempt to rob one of each bank color back-to-back-to-back. Normally, people don't hit up more than one type of bank per day, or, if they do, they at least take a beat to get clean from the cops and hide the loot before trying again. Prior to this Rainbow Road Heist - so named because of hitting up the various colored banks - Yuno was excited about hitting a bank, dropping off the loot at his apartment, and then INSTANTLY hitting another bank. So, going straight from a Fleeca heist to a Paleto one to The Vault without first ditching the cops or dropping off their loot was a feat no one seemingly attempted before.

Guys, this whole thing - from planning to execution - took HOURS; DAYS! But I was sooooooo invested. Then, after the insane getaway that Yuno pulled off post-Vault, Hubby had to see the other three streamers to see how the Team Rocket members - Jean Paul "X", Mickey S, and Lang Buddha - made out with their own getaways. Then Hubby tracked down a couple of cops' streams to see their point of view of everything; how they reacted when they realized the same four guys were hitting up bank after bank after bank. As well as watching the cops trying to figure out the getaway plan. Then jumping over to the main reporter in Los Santos: Ron Otterman. His coverage of the high speed chases and plane getaway was amazing, and it was hilarious to watch him fixate on how the cops missed the robbers "obviously" meeting up in a black helicopter at a fishing dock. He even followed said helicopter MILES from where Yuno actually was. Ron was convinced the robbers were in there and they had managed to ditch him when he had to refuel his helicopter. That helicopter was just being flown by an NPC (called "local" on the server to keep the RPG immersive), and just coincidentally took off shortly after Yuno's crash landing. (Again; because Yuno has Plot Armor, apparently)

Hubby and I must have gone through about a dozen streamers' videos to try to get as many angles on this heist as we could. Like I said, we were invested!

This was such good content! It's violent content with a lot of cursing, so there's that, but it's still such ENGAGING content. We're definitely addicted. Especially when you add in the actual roleplay and character interactions.

For instance, Sykkuno seems to be the type of person who wants to befriend everyone, and that transitioned into his character. So Yuno is friends with just about everyone he meets; criminals, cops, and hostages alike. It's nearly to the point where Yuno is essentially untouchable since there are so many characters that would kill for this man. Case and point, he had to actually hold back a load of characters the other day.

Yuno finished robbing The Vault again, had his cut on him - about $106,000 - and had gotten away from the cops. He switched to a car the cops didn't see him in. All he had to do was change out of the clothes he wore during the robbery and he'd be home free. He works just about everywhere in Los Santos, which means he could access just about any employee locker room to change. Usually this is so characters can change into and out of their work uniforms, but a lot of people also use this feature to just change in general. Yuno goes to one of his jobs - the casino - gets changed, and is instantly jumped by the leader of a major gang (gang family?) on the server: The Block Gang. The gang had kidnapped the news team and had followed the bank robbers via news chopper. One of the gang members - Yuno's contact within the Blocks, no less - saw Yuno switch cars and where he went, and alerted his boss Mike, who then jumped Yuno for the cash.

Good Guy Yuno offered a deal with Mike Block. The guy never bothers with banks because none of the crew are particularly good with the crucial task of hacking the bank. Yuno offered to be his bank hacker on retainer if the guy returned Yuno's loot. "This is just a cut from the bank. If I hit it with you I won't even ask for a cut, which means you get more money than what you just got off of me." Mike is supposed to let Yuno know tomorrow if he'll accept the offer and give Yuno his money back. He did return some of Yuno's stuff as a show of good faith, so there's that. 

In the meantime, though, Yuno had to talk down a BUNCH of people who wanted to just kill Mike. Or, at least, rough him up for daring to mess with Yuno. "Guys, shooting him won't do anything but spiral violence. No one wins. I won't get my money back, and the Blocks will just want blood too. If I offer to be his hacker, I get my money back, I get to do a job with the Blocks, and I might have inspired more bank robbers. Plus, they get even MORE money. Everyone wins!" Yuno stated to both the other characters as well as Sykkuno's chat.

Remember at the top of this post when I commented that one of the streamers Hubby now follows is Ray_C? Well, his character Raymond Romanov already has beef with the Blocks. They had kidnapped Raymond's in-game girlfriend Kitty, robbed her, then left her for dead in the desert. Raymond had told Yuno countless times how he plans on burning every member of the Blocks to the ground. Now that they also messed with Yuno, he was ready to put that plan in motion. Yuno really had to talk him down, but Raymond assured him that he WILL take down the Blocks if they dare to hurt Yuno at this meet-up/possible exchange.

**UPDATE: As of his stream the evening of 5/18, Raymond was still plotting ways to kill Mike Block, and had a few of Yuno's many allies in on the plot, despite Yuno's insistence that no one needs to harm Mike for the hold-up.**

And that's just ONE TEENY TINY SCRAP of all the in-character drama going on in this game!

How does all of this relate to my writing though? I know, I know, lately I tend to go on these long rants and take forever to get to the point.

The point is how bonding with Hubby over this new form of entertainment has also got us daydreaming about what our NoPixel characters would be.

It's kind of a moot point, honestly, because the likelihood of either of us actually GETTING NP characters is so slim.

First of all, I've never played even a minute of any Grand Theft Auto games, to my recollection. So I'd be going in completely cold on how to even play. Hubby is the same way, but at least he splurged on GTA V when it was on a Steam sale last week. So he's at least started playing the storyline game to get a feel for it. Granted, a lot of the mechanics are specific to the NoPixel server, but because of that, the server-exclusive minigames are available online for people to try out and improve their skills. So there's that. Point, being, though, I've never even played the game and I'm still daydreaming about running a character on this exclusive server.

Which brings me to point two. So many people wanted to join this server. In part, because it's just a fun place to roleplay, but mostly because it's where you can get the most exposure as a streamer. Once more I'll point out how many streamers Hubby discovered simply because they were on the same server as Sykkuno's roleplay. The streamer Whippy, who runs the character Dundee, even noted this. Dundee was literally the first player to significantly interact with Yuno, and the two became fast-friends as Dundee took Yuno under his wing and taught him how to live a life of crime. Because of these interactions, so many of Sykkuno's fans sought out Dundee's player to watch his streams. That's what Hubby and I did. Whippy is just a masterful improv actor and roleplayer. We enjoyed every moment he interacted with Yuno, and wanted to see the non-Yuno moments as well. Of his own volition, Whippy stated that he had a decent amount of followers before, but after teaming up with Sykkuno - and add in Sykkuno's kindness to really promote Whippy - his follower count skyrocketed. He started making enough off of streaming that he could finally put a down payment on a house. On a stream, Whippy literally credited Sykkuno for his ability to have the new home he was playing from.

The popularity of the NoPixel server was so massive the developers had to start requesting applications from potential players. After screening the applicants, some of them get whitelisted and they can join the server. The process is long, and you have to wait FOREEEEEVER for a slot to open up so the devs will take a new request. It seems like MONTHS before they open their free-to-apply queue. More often than not, it seems you have to pay to apply. By that, I mean you have to join one of their donation tiers, starting at $15/month. Considering the amount of time and money that must be put in to this server, I get the charge, and I'm tempted to just jump aboard with that $15/month charge. No different than paying it to Netflix, right? I mean, aside from NoPixel at least giving the opportunity to ADD TO THE CONTENT at some point for that amount. Anyway, if you're in one of their donation tiers, you are allowed to apply to join the server more frequently, and your application is reviewed faster. You also get priority over non-donors when free-to-apply queues open.

All well and good, but it still requires $15/month just to APPLY to join, and hope for the best. So, that adds a layer of "not very likely" on my end.

The next hiccup is the fact that this is a popular server for STREAMERS. There doesn't seem to be a rule that you HAVE to stream your gameplay somewhere, but it also seems like a waste to not stream? And neither Hubby nor I have ANY of the equipment needed to stream. Heck, I don't even have a computer that likes to use Zoom properly! We also don't really have the space to stream semi-professionally, so there's also that. We both have been dreaming about starting up our own gaming streams for the past year or so though, so.... maybe one day????

On top of all of that, there IS that long queue to get onto the server. Without any sort of platform and clout, even if we were donors and applied, who knows how quickly we would actually get approval, or if we even would? You're only allowed to apply up to five times with the donor applications, and five times with the non-donor applications. Ten times, tops, and half of those are with the epic wait times. If you can't get in then, you're not getting in.

The whole thing of joining NoPixel is achievable, but it also feels a bit like a pipedream. Still, dream Hubby and I do.

I instantly thought that Los Santos would be an excellent spot to let Trish loose. Let her wreak havoc all over the city; killing, cursing, and burning everything in sight. She'd be perfect. That is, until I remember it's an RP where people have to have an active mic on to interact with everyone. And I cannot control Trish's mouth. I have a hard enough time letting lose and letting myself TYPE her foul language, but to actually SAY it? Almost nonstop? I- I don't know if that's really the first image of myself I really want to put out in the world via streaming. Especially when so many viewers can't separate the characters from the players.

Okay, so Trish is out. Lia is too sweet and naïve to fit, so she's out. Maybe Willow? She could be fun, but she's also too much of a "good guy" I think. Maybe though... in X-Future Hubby and I did have Chayse learn thievery from his father, join the Thieves Guild, and had Willow join as well as Chayse started teaching her. They could be bank robbers and cat burglars that avoid hurting people if they can; much like how Sykkuno plays Yuno. I've even seen Willow's signature asymmetrical bob, silver hair, and blue dyed hair tips (not streaks, but close enough) all on NoPixel characters, so I know I could do a great job at actually building the Willow I see in my head.

So that's a possibility. I was also thinking Jolene could work: sex worker by day and cat burglar by night. I could do the same plan I had for Willow, more-or-less. I don't know how comfortable I'd be with pretending to be a prostitute with a bunch of random other players though. If it was exclusively my friends, that would be one thing, but strangers? Eeeeeeeeeeeh. I could scratch the self-employed prostitution off of Jolene's resume for NoPixel, but I'd have to figure out how to tweak that.

Next up would be Amara as a bounty hunter maybe? She's pretty standoffish though, and I don't know if I could be that cold. She also has a lot of traumas, and I don't know if I know enough to properly roleplay surviving what she did. She's also on the back burner.

Mara is from Blades in the Dark, a game about being a fledgling criminal in a crime-ridden city. Hubby might revive his character Ashlyn if he ever made it onto NoPixel, so... maybe? Her backstory is that she was a cop that saw how much more lucrative a life of crime could be, jumped ship, and became muscle that used her connections with the local PD to help keep heat off of her and her crew. Plus, she's a sharpshooter. I've never played the game, so I don't know how good of a marksman I'd actually be, and I don't know how I could roleplay a former-cop-turned-criminal... so she's probably also a no-go.

That's when I started building a new character. I keep trying to shake it and come up with something else, but the name Maggie keeps popping into my head whenever I think of this character, so I guess she's just Maggie.

Maggie would, yet again, play very similarly to Yuno. She'd purposefully befriend EVERYONE to the point that no one dares touch her because she has so many friends that would defend her with their lives. She'd befriend criminals and cops alike. She may even work everywhere she can in order to get a decent amount of legal funds and build a network. The key with Maggie, though, is that she'd be a criminal organizer and information broker. She's like the mafia's lawyer: she doesn't exactly take part in the crime, but she knows everything to help it go off without anyone staying in jail too long.

She could coordinate when banks are hit so someone isn't trying to hit a bank that someone else just robbed; wasting time and resources for nothing, along with chancing jail time for no money. She could help set up "baby criminal" training: apprenticeships, as it were, for people that want to learn how to become bank robbers or street racers. She could also broker information between the criminals and PD, as well as be a neutral party between warring criminal factions - such as the situation with Yuno and the Block Gang. She'd be a stash house while keeping herself clean so there's no reason for the PD to raid her home.

Again, Yuno already kind of fills this role unintentionally, but it would be fun to make a character who is doing so purposefully. Sweetness and sunshine so everyone will love her, but then dead seriousness when it's time to get to business. I even thought about always keeping extra food and water on her so that if she gets kidnapped as a hostage for bank robberies she can leave some previsions for the robbers to make sure they're well taken care of before their getaway, and therefore will take good care of her as well, should she need it.

She'd be the Mom of the server, protectively watching over her allies. Much like Pops from the Luke Cage Netflix series/comic books, she could be an untouchable Switzerland that everyone parleys through.

The more I think of Maggie, the more I like her and wish I could make her happen. Maybe I'll have to try her out as an NPC over on Scum and Villainy in the meantime. Really playtest her personality while scratching that itch since who knows if she'll ever see the light of day otherwise. Especially because, who am *I* to create a character that has so much pull and weight in a game with so many big-name streamers??????

Okay, so this blog is again long, and my laptop is dying. I was going to talk a bit about my progress in combining Scum and Villainy with Gravity RIP, but that will have to wait.

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