OldTown 2117

What have I seen and what have I done.I will start off with festival structure and how stuff was organized.

OLDTOWN

First of all OldTown is a LARP\festival event. I see that from a year to year they change the structure a bit to find the optimal way to run the event. In 2015 it was 3 days of LARP, then 3 days of having fun. This year it was 2 days partying, 3 days of LARP and 1 day back to party.

Can’t say for others, but 2 days of hanging out before LARP made me fall out from the festival itself, looking at the lines for the accreditation and all the people wandering around made me miss some activities on the first days, not very getting what’s actually happening around.

Livelihood

Kitchen, bars - are at its best. Yeap, kitchen (or was it called Gastro... I’ve forgot) wasn’t working 24/7, but:

- Couple of different meals to choose from;

- Large portions;

- Low price.

Bars... bars were working 24/7.

The thing I was impressed since my last time at OT was the amount of stuff people build themselves. Only on Czeska Street there were 2 bars. No matter what time you go somewhere

- you would find people hanging out.

Showers, toilets were also pretty good for such festival format. Only heavy rain messed up the location a bit. And it was sometimes scary to have a shower, fall in mud and go back for another round.

Activities

Considering what I’ve mentioned about event structure activities during the first days somehow passed me by. I saw musical bands playing, some minor activities, but it felt a bit messy and many locations like Dome (F*ck sake they’ve built a Dome! Yeah, smaller then from the movie we all know, but it was a Dome) were empty most of the time. And sadly there were no Jugger.

Though jumping way ahead towards the last day - it was awesome! Lots of stuff going on: Musical bands, Prize Fighters, Jelly Fights, Wrestling. The only thing that messed up the atmosphere for the last day is that everyone started deconstructing their camps and festival started looking more and more on construction site.

Organizers

Guys are just the best. No matter what, they do their job and it’s always a pleasure talking with them.

LARP

To begin with LARP I should say that I’m a social guy and I didn’t spend much time in the Wasteland.

So what is OldTown: 100 years into future all the factions roaming the Wasteland gather once a year in a safe heaven, neutral city called OldTown surrounded by dangerous Wasteland.

Fabula

Somehow this year I didn’t feel any global plot happening unlike previous years. Was it intentional or not, it felt different and on the second day I started to get the feeling of the real sandbox. All the factions were running their own shows, chasing their goals and it was really interesting just getting in touch with different factions or even just watching from aside.

Though some story points were so blurry, that I understood what was happening or what has happened, only because I just went to someone and asked what’s going on. Also because of that it felt like Wasteland was separate from the city itself.

Also another “because of that” somehow it felt it will be hard for a total newbie to jump in, but knowing many factions and how friendly they are outside the game, it’s pretty easy to join someone or just tag along at least.

And of course “No Spoilers”... we will talk about everything next year during the LARP gathering the seeds we planted this year.

City

The great thing is how city has grown and changed in past years. People have started building real great stuff. Yeah, maybe many buildings are just covered with blue tents, but some factions have build 2-3 floor building with working upper floors, gates on electronic locks, space shuttles and much more.

There have appeared real streets inside what used to be a concrete circle with several houses. First day living on Czeska was hard, ‘cause it was a piece of cake to get lost. And what I was doing all the time, stopping and thinking am I going the right direction. And the overall atmosphere has boosted a lot.

People have built their own bars, dance floors with pylons with all unique atmosphere. And what you could find during festival days became even more awesome. The only thing - is that now you have to pay with caps and even venue were working specifically for caps.

Alcochemists and Route 69... it was a blast. Pole dancers at both venues, signers at Route 69, Bloody Mary and Kawowka, bars fights. This two places were pretty nice and with very cool people.

And the last, but not least - music. Music was great. At Home you could listen mostly to electronic music, city radio was playing 40-50’s music and different bars had music from Jazz to Rock. That can be the reason why I loved Alcochemists and Route 69 the most. You could easily find something to your taste. And even if not - run your own show.

People

There’s more and more people coming to OT and many of them are doing absolutely incredible gear and stuff. Of course there were people with not the best costumes, etc., but overall the ideas people bring to life are very interesting and it’s going much further than Mad Max\Fallout\Road inspired gear. It’s something really new and fascinating.

The only black spot is melee weapons. Unfortunately the tempo of people doing great outfits is much faster than tempo of people making melee weapons. An awful amount of people in cool outfits with more awful amount of sticks in a silver duct tape.

Igor

Despite messing up my last character I really enjoyed how Orgs moved with character development. First of all they have a database with everyone (who would’ve think of that, right?). Secondly: everyone had a chip on their character card which you could use to access certain terminals around the city (one of them was just in the bar). At first I thought it wouldn’t give me much interesting info, but it was really nice that with your card you can access online base with all your skills, schematics you know and other information you managed to collect: rumors, literature and ingredients for item production, etc.

Everything else about the city AI I believe would be just a story spoiler, so go to OT and learn everything yourself.

Wasteland

And the last I think is endless Wasteland. Honestly with so much happening in the city I went to the Wasteland only once, sat under the tree while my brothers in amrs tried to take over the raider base (were they second that day or third?) and went back home with no loot. Even not a single slave this time.

It was a good challenge and even Power Armor didn’t help well against heavily armed raiders.

***

I could’ve forgotten something. But maybe it’s for a next time.

Overall OldTown is a must go and a good place to get your dose of Jet.

My ultimate Wasteland Armor.

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