Any Subnautica players actually fear the ocean or have issues with it?
Lonnehart
Guam Join Date: 2016-06-20 Member: 218816Members
Guam Join Date: 2016-06-20 Member: 218816Members
I've lived on an island almost all my life. However, I can't swim. Can't say I have a fear of the ocean, though. I'm happy sitting in it on the shore. Just don't push me over the side of the boat in deep water. Huge chance I'll never make it back to the surface. Either I'll panic so much that I'll drown, or I'll be pecked and eaten to death by hordes of peepers...
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Yep. Took me hours before I timidly found my way into the dark, claustrophobic depths of the kelp forest. But nothing is more terrifying than the deep blue abyss that is the grand reef.
*shiver*
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Driving around with the seamoth is scary enough in the deeper biomes^^
And in real life, i fear all the venemous, almost invisible creatures like certain jellyfish...
Surprisingly enough, i have little problems with diving. Actually sticking my head underwater and going down, also being in a group overrides those feelings and gives me a positive excitement. Im still reluctant diving from a boat in deep water, but swimming is much worse.
Maybe that's why I like Subnautica so much; it's like a virtual swimming/diving simulator without any fear of actually experiencing it.
I'm a bit unnerved by seas where I can't see the bottom, and even with Subnautica I feel wary with the really deep biomes.
Subnautica has completely changed how I see underwater environments, even in unrelated games. I realized it swimming in Lake Ilinalta in Skyrim (when you're in a rush and running away, slaughterfish look an awful lot like stalkers). Whereas there was just a body of water before I can see and notice things that had never crossed my mind before playing Subnautica. Topography, rocks and outcroppings, possibly useful plants... etc. I really want games to put resources in underwater areas now.
He also went in search of the North West passage, discovered Frobisher Bay, and the Frobisher Trading Company, brought back tonnes of fool's gold to England and ripped off investors.
He was generally a rogue and a privateer, and I'm pretty proud to be a direct descendent of such fine piratical genes.
He was also very little known, until my Great Grandfather spent the last 20 years of his life researching most of what is now known about him. I have a lot of his research in my keeping and it's fascinating stuff, especially the bits about the Frobisher Company and the Hudson Bay Company basically fighting a private war in Northern Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Frobisher
I know most people won't care about some random guy on the internet and his family history, but there you have it.
Anyway, ever since the early days of the Royal Navy my family has been there on the waves. My generation is the very first where none of the boys in the family signed up. I guess it's a sign of how things have changed in modern life.
I do often regret not signing up myself, however, as I think it would have been a good career for me. I feel a very real pull towards the open sea and I spend a lot of holidays and spare time in fishing boats.
If I ever get enough money, I'll move somewhere next to the ocean and retire to a life of strong drinks and fishing.
Personally, I have enough fear of the dark depths and whatever unknown horrors dwell in them, that I've never even seen an ocean in my life. I haven't been on a boat, I can't swim either. I can walk along the beach and let the waves lick my feet, but that's about as close as I've ever got to a sea.
That said, playing SN is, in a way, a good training for that fear. More often than not I can persuade myself that it's just a game and nothing bad is going to happen to the real me, so I am able to swim around and even watch a reaper from a distance. Still, my first trip to Aurora was a very, VERY scary experience.
I have to ask, can you people who are afraid explain more what exactly it is you are afraid of? I can't really understand why you'd be afraid of any fauna, unless you happen to be in shark filled waters where attacks happen comparatively regularly.
If it's the idea of drowning, or your boat sinking, I can get behind that. When I'm out there I sometimes think about being on a bigger vessel in the middle of the Atlantic and it goes down, and you're trapped below decks. Or at the bottom of the ocean on a submarine. Drowning seems like a terrible and painful way to go, but I tend to imagine acceptance comes pretty quickly in that situation. You're about to die, better get used to it, happens to the best of us.
I understand people being afraid for whatever reason, but I also feel bad for you missing out.
This may sound like flowery rhetoric to most, but there's absolutely no feeling as thrilling as bouncing along big waves in a 35 foot boat in rough seas. It's akin to being on an amazing roller-coaster, but far less contrived and far more primal. For some, it simply feels like being home.
I love the sea. I have a fascination with its vastness. And at the same time, I suffer from vertigo so looking down into the black abyss is a heart wrenching experience for me. And I also dislike being touched by the "pretties" in the ocean, hehehee.
In Subnautica, sometimes even Peepers coming fast at me make me jump in my chair. At the beginning I was not able to stay out of the Lifepod at night.
Great thread!!
But you paid for Subnautica... so you paid to get into the ocean?
Anyways, I'm happy to have made this thread. I figured quite a few people who play this game have some fear of the ocean. But It's nice to see there are others who have love and respect for it.
My fear of the ocean is really the fear of the unkown. It's like when you're getting ready to dive into the water, but are scared because who knows what's waiting down there, in that dark blue sea?
For me it's two things. What really gets me is the vast emptiness. It's all dark and deep. Also stuff in the water just looks scary. I remember a giant rock I saw once, it was a really deep lake but you could just barely see the top of the rock. I almost fell out of my kayak when I looked down and saw that. I used to be able to have fun in lakes and I was a great swimmer but something changed when I got older and now I can't go past my waist in water, and don't even think about putting me in a boat.
First time I had heard about Reapers I remember I was paranoid of getting lost and running into one; First time I went to the Aurora, about a year ago, I went in a Cyclops and was scared to swim the last 2 dozen yards... When they blocked the generator room entrance in new versions, my first trip through the front (with seaglide) required a few shots of Whiskey to do it.
After I play for a few hours, usually whatever is upsetting no longer does so, unless I take a multi-month break from the game and come back. About a week ago I went Reaper hunting in my PRAWN suit, for example...
A Kirby Morgan 18B band mask, by the look of it. Commercial gear. If you don't mind me asking, salvage operator or rig diver?
Former SCUBA diver and equipment service tech here. Love the ocean and miss diving like you wouldn't believe.
For all those who have no fear, let me try to explain what playing this game for the first 20 hours was like by sharing the moment in the game that made me have an actual panic attack.
First time exploring the grand reef. I'm in my Seamoth and slowly descending while hugging as closely to the shelf as possible. Inch down a few meters at a time.. slowly.. steadily. At Crush depth.
Curiosity overrides fear and I exit the Seamoth(which I hated to do) and continue descending under my own power. Inch a little further.. Further...
OHGODWHY am I taking damage!?1 Crabsquid had snuck up behind me and knocked me around. Now the reality of the situation sinks in.
I'm hundreds of meters down.
It's completely dark.
Up, down, left right, behind. Everything's an abyss.
I flail wildly back to the Seamoth, breathing heavily IRL. Honestly didnt even get a good look at the crabsquid.
Point Seamoth straight up and mash 'W' as hard as my finger will let me. I'm already mildly panicking. Even ascending is horrible. It's just an inky void above, but slowly the water turns a lighter shade of blue.
Finally getting to the top!... Except.. What is that?
Now a MASSIVE, unidentified mass was materializing above and in front of me. Of course any seasoned vet of the game would shrug and say. "Yeah, it's the floating island." I didn't know about the floating island. For all I knew it was some island-sized creature that was going to swallow me.
Now I'm completely frozen. Can't ascend, descend.. Can't move.. Breathing hard.
Solar Eclipse starts to happen right at that moment. I didn't recognize it as that and instead just noticed that the water was turning dark. Was the giant thing above me moving? Casting a shadow? Was the immeasurable mass of some other unseen force about to envelope me?
Well regardless I immediately pushed back from my computer desk, put my face into my hands and hyperventilated for about 10 seconds with my eyes shut.
After about a minute I managed to go back to the game, by which time the eclipse had ended. IIRC I just turned toward the escape pod beacon and hit the throttle without looking back.
Damn grand reef still gives me the creeps 90+ hours later.
I won't soak in a bath because all I can think of is that I'm actually soaking in my own dirt and dead skin cells. Same with the oceans, seas and lakes. The fish live there, poop there, die there. Millions of tourists soak their bodies there, pee and leave their own skin cells in the water. There is sewage dumped there. Toxic waste. Wrecks of countless ships, planes. Gods only know how many human corpses... I could go on. My brain happily dumps all that into on me the moment I get close to the water and it either triggers me into a full-feature panic attack, or into severe nausea. Most of the time it's both. I don't think it's officially recognized as an actual phobia, but it does give me a crippling fear and forces me to take an uncomfortable, 40-50 minutes long shower in too hot water if someone so much as splashes sea water on me. I am perfectly okay sitting on the beach, away from the water edge, and admiring the waves, but that's about it.
That said, this is why I love Subnautica so much. This game, thanks to depicting underwater in such a realistic way, allows me to experience the ocean for the very first time in my life - I know that it's all pixels, it's not really filthy or toxic, so I can persuade myself to play it, and once I do, I enjoy myself immensely.
Wow... That sounds like some kind of phobia to me. I hope it doesn't extend to drinking water... that would NOT be good. If I'm reading my internet right you could have a form of automysophobia (the fear of being dirty)...
Hopefully Subnautica is helping you fight that fear. Or at least giving you a sense of what an ocean is like without being soaked in it.
Subnautica does indeed help a lot here. Maybe not so much in battling my fear - it can't do anything to make the real life waters any cleaner for my brain - but it really lets me see the possible beauty of the ocean and how awesome it would be to dive and explore it, allows me to do something I will probably never be able to do in real life, and for that I will be forever grateful to the devs.