Out of Bounds, Into the Volcano

Last weekend was another one of those rare occasions when I got to join the New Outriders on Star Forge for some social fun. We killed world bosses, did some dynamic encounters together and generally had a good laugh. However, the most memorable part of the evening (for me at least) was the final activity of the day, which Intisar had advertised as "breaking reality".

To facilitate this, the attendees were whisked away to Ord Mantell, where we assembled at the southern end of Fort Garnik and were instructed to look west. "What do you see?" Int asked, and after various to-be-expected smartarse responses, we were told that the thing to look at was the mountain. We were going to climb the volcano.

Climbing walls you're not meant to climb, in order to discover terrain that players are not normally meant to see, is a time-honoured tradition in many MMOs, SWTOR included, and you can find plenty of YouTube videos out there of players breaking out of the map-imposed boundaries. I think developers are usually not very fond of this, as it can lead to all kinds of exploits, but on its most basic level, players being curious about what's beyond the visible horizon is understandable and not a bad thing.

I've never really been into that particular type of exploration as I'm no good at jumping and climbing walls, but the nice thing about undertaking something like that as a group is that people can help each other out with pulls and summons, so it didn't take us too long to get close to the visible top of the mountain.

We could tell that we were getting into an area we weren't really meant to be in when "reality broke" as Int had promised, which is to say our view of the terrain started to become glitchy, and depending on the direction in which you faced your camera, you either saw the mountain in its normal form, or an alternate reality where it was somewhat smaller, everything was orange, and player characters and mounts started to disappear. This was very disorienting and it became a lot harder to make progress, but someone managed to make it all the way to the lip of the volcano regardless and summoned the rest of us to their position.

Looking into the big... vent/caldera (?) the view was slightly strange, presenting a smooth, mirrored surface that looked almost like some sort of lake. After a bit of dancing and taking screenshots, we decided to finish the evening by hurling ourselves into the volcano.

Surprisingly, not everyone died immediately - instead, we actually found ourselves on some rocks above the separatist base built into the volcano, where troopers and smugglers deal with the final stages of their story missions on Ord Mantell. It was interesting to see that the base could actually be accessed that way, even if it clearly wasn't meant to be and wasn't visible from the top.

Another summon from someone who'd landed in a good spot gave everyone an additional screenshot opportunity with better views and allowed for another round of communal dancing. Then we hurled ourselves to our deaths for good and said our goodbyes.

It was a silly little adventure that didn't achieve anything in terms of in-game progression but provided a great sense of joy and wonder for me personally. I always admire the creative ideas that Intisar & Co. come up with for these social events.