Deep Insight into Buddy stories

[mandru]

Edit additional:
Xianyong Bai Profile added http://openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?topic=1051.msg16354#msg16354

Sorry if I'm covering old news.

I've not come across this tip anywhere yet here in the forums and this thread seemed the best place for it as a suggestion for your continuing game enjoyment.

Each of your characters have additional back story beyond the skimpy stat sheet provided in the buddy menu. Your best buddy or other buddies will reveal more to you throughout the game.

Getting Buddy missions at Mike's and subverted missions at a safe house gives you a peek at your buddies, information that they let you see.

Frank for instance is a heroin addict and asks if your packing "Gear" then says "Don't have the habit? Good on ya" and quickly changes the subject back to the mission. This makes me wonder if Frank's Polytech buddy mission is actually blowing up an ex partner's stock and maybe UBI decided it was too obvious if we stole it for Frank instead of destroying it.

Poor Xiyian Bai (he did say don't try to say it you'll just get it wrong) always seems to be hungry and asks for food.

Warren Clyde traffics porno mags "reading material" is what he calls it.

Paul's paranoid because he deserted some branch of an Israeli Paramilitary organization.

And so on for each of the other buddies.

Then there is additional information provided about your best buddy when you lose or retire a rescue buddy and you meet the new rescue buddy at a safe house. Great news! Each new rescue buddy has something different to say about every other character when they are your best buddy.

Flora warned me about best buddy Michelle "You watch out for her, she likes to surround herself with big strong men".  In retrospect from my play, if a female makes it to the LZ it's usually Michelle and I wonder if Flora's words are a foreshadowing of that part of the game. Hmm...  :-\

Flora also at another time told me "Quarbani thinks very highly of you, well he didn't say so in so many words but you can tell when he speaks of you", which gave me a warm glow for a bit.  ( 8) + :-[ )

I groove on this aspect of the game.

Even the comments you get when you rescue you buddy in the torture cell there at the prison where you first wipe out the prison guards that were watching from above and who were no doubt hurling jeers, taunts and offering suggestions to the guards delivering the beating. Xiyian Bai's "You're a good man" his inflection on those 4 words say much more than their face value and unfortunately really softens my heart towards that character even though I know what's coming.  :'(

One of these trips through I'm going to have to try going after my buddy first before taking out the trash.

Good luck, have fun and experiment. This game was built for it and there's lots of hidden gems just waiting to be panned out.   :-X

[PZ]

The content of your post is news to me - thanks for posting.  How did you discover this information?  (I feel like I'm missing out on some undiscovered resource!)

[mandru]

Undiscovered resource?  No, as far as FC2 is concerned I've only ever been to UBI board and here.

With my trips through the game I became aware I was seeing more about the characters from the other character's eyes.

I just realized I skipped an additional situation for best buddy info.

When a best buddy dies the rescue buddy steps up and a new rescue buddy steps in and gives a comment in commiseration about the former best buddy.

Lots of info there for the filtering. 

[RedRaven]

nice one Mandru, had noticed little bits of character development but have only ever taken Andre beyond the first map / half of the game. If you ask me they are all dodgy as hell and need putting down!

[mandru]

Think about it, at the prison the Jackal says "They're my diamonds. Mine! And your friends have got them" (or something very like that).

But when we get to the LZ who's laying there dead? It's the guy running the gun shops and armories. It looks to me like we've been buying our guns, bullets and "Whoo boy good stuff" directly from the Jackal all along and it's only disclosed if we stop and look at a dead body along the way.

What else are we missing?

So if I see something I point it out here just as all you guys have done for me during all the hours I've spent digging through the threads trying to catch up to you.  ;D

I think I'm getting the better end of the deal as I'm carting new ideas away by the wheelbarrow load.

:-X  :-X  :-X

Thanks RedRaven.  If I could, if the option was there, instead of treating my buddies as an exercise in materials handling I'd save every last one and give them my 500 or so surplus diamonds in trade for the Jackal's briefcase with that pitiful handful that we see when he opens it there at the final cabin.

My buddies are scum but I love Em.  :-*

[RedRaven]

your probably correct about the weapons origins as somewhere near the very start of the game it says something about the Jackal flooding the area with cheap AK's etc. the more we discover and share the better the game and story arcs get i  reckon, as the subtleties and intricacies are uncovered. :-X

[Art Blade]

Great stories and insight. I didn't pay any attention to those details, but reading all this here, I am even more stunned at how great the game is. Thanks for your insight, mandru, and please go on, tell us more. I know you have many playthroughs to refer to, so I am glad to learn more :)

[mandru]

Thanks Art, PZ, RedRaven.

This is just my read and it's always open for discussion but here's an simple one.

Josif's need to fight, become a warrior, may have started in his home town if he fought in the underground or there would have been mandatory armed service requirements in his country but did he launch his career as a merc from there or was his family missing when he tried to go home after his hitch and found nowhere to return to? I'm still digging for info for this storyline.


We know that Josif has a soft real spot for kids, watch his face when he talks about the buddy mission to the fuel plant. "There's kids just across that border. They don't care about kids but I DO!" It appears that somewhere along the line he's lost kids or been unable to help as well as he would have liked.

We know he's a big goofy guy ("Is for to kick a$$, Cowboy!" he says as he assumes the roll of rescue buddy I was playing Warren at the time). He appears to start out too trusting putting himself at risk but when crossed has developed a hardened spot that is exposed when he asks us to kill someone who sold him a junk car many years ago.

Pure postulation here but maybe the junk car was purchased in an emergency to move kids to a safe place. Car failed, kids died. Just one possible explanation for Josif's vengeance being that extreme and an anger carried for that long. Again I'm still digging.

I don't have any whole pictures, just scattered bits and pieces and it's only been recently that I started to become aware of the additional back story hints.

Anyone with tidbits to help fill in buddy profiles, please, feel free to toss them in because it would take me another 61 or so plays through just to hit all of the possible buddy combinations by myself.  :P

[Art Blade]

excellent. Now I know what to look for when interacting with my buddies :)

[PZ]

This article regarding buddy dossiers is an excellent idea.  It allows for greater immersion into the story line the next time you encounter those individuals in the game.  I'll be sure to look for details and record them as I encounter those tidbits.  I have noticed that depending on who my best buddy is, the dialog changes when they issue the side buddy missions.

[fragger]

 :) :-X Great character insights there, mandru!
Geez, some of you guys are observant, I feel like I've only got one eye. ;D

[JRD]

Hi there mandru...
Great post that one... really digging into FC2...
I found a post by TheFishlord with some random facts about FC2 characters and world I think can be useful in your insights. (if you already didn`t find it for yourself, that is  ;) )
Read it here
Keep up the great w@&k... I love to know a bit more about the story, its a shame they didn`t put more into making the FC2 more deep as to their characters and story.
Cheers

Edit: inserting this quote here so we can see the important stuff at once / Art Blade

So here's a list of random things you pick up from dialog that a lot of people might not know or remember or have even heard before. Just random interesting bits that add some depth.

-The SF team that came to capture "an APR bigshot" is from Israel.
-Frank Bilders has malaria.
-Marty Alencar has an STD that causes a rash...uh...down there...
-You can hear a merc talking about crappy new ammunition from Moldova, which comes from your dealer's competetor that he mentions earlier on.
-Mbantuwe likes it when people are angry.
-The "Seko" country makes its own type of beer: the Seko Pilsner, brewed at Mbantuwe's mansion.
-Your predecessor speaks with a tough American accent, but he's black - and no offense, but African Americans have different voices than that. Developer screwup!
-The Jackal is regarded as a sort of pseudo-god by the native soldiers.
-The Jackal uses an M249 and Desert Eagle.
-The Desert Eagle in the game is the .50 caliber Action Express, which holds 7 rounds; only the .44 caliber holds 8 rounds. In the game, however, the AE still holds 8.
-FarCryDude loads the MP5 incorrectly; doing it the way shown in the game will cause it to jam.
-Mercs do prefer the AK47 - they say so.
-Cigarettes do not light fires.
-Flora Guillen is lying-the correspondent in Private Property really is from the Belgian press.
-Even on the Mk19 and the M249, the box of ammo that holds the belts still says it's a .50 caliber round.
-Oliver Tambossa owns a gold-plated AK47, with a stock.
-Your buddies never use ironsights.
-The buses have a license plate that says "FC2".
-You and your predecessor are the only ones who use clean weapons.
-The APR actually controls Goka Falls, no matter which faction boss is there.
-Mbantuwe wears a Rolex.
-Nasreen Davar is from Iran.
-Reuben drives a Datsun.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll add more later if I come up with any.

[mandru]

Thanks JRD.  ;D

TheFishlord was getting right after it! And I'm sorry TheFishlord if I'm stepping on your toes here, it was not intentional.

That is a really good list of information just the kind of stuff I'm looking for and if I had come across that first I would have added my observations onto the TheFishlord's thread instead of posting this in "Funny Tips and Tactics".  Art Blade spun this off as a new thread to keep better track of it and I think to try to keep that thread a little better organized.

The First UFLL assignment we meet Dr Marron Gakumba (lost his eye trying to remove an unexploded grenade from a merc who freaked out and tried to bolt - extracted from merc chatter). We are assigned to stop the special forces team coming in to grab an APR official.

This is the one spot in the game story line I am cautious about taking at face value. Every one of your best buddies will claim that "They" are the one the SF team is there to grab and each alter minor story details to make that w@&k.

Paul does paint it as if they (the SF team and threatens to kill you if your part of them) are Israeli but Quarbani Singh says it's because he's been stealing medical supplies and so on...

Is Flora lying ((from TheFishlord thread see link just above in JRD's post) as each of your best buddies spin this one differently ) or is this a continuity error put in to the script by UBI?

Depending on how you play it, this is the first faction assignment. It may have also been an early scripted and programmed portion of the game created at a time before the rest of the assignment's story lines were forced to conform to a single back story.

Digging deeper into the details and discussing them (Please discuss not debate  8) ) will allow us to determine the surrounding back story.

[JRD]

Digging deeper into the details and discussing them (Please discuss not debate  8) ) will allow us to determine the surrounding back story.

Thats cool...
One thing is always itching... In the J-tapes and P-tapes it is clear that the Jackal just don`t care who is dying and who is killing, he`s just getting his share out of it.
So why does he changes his mind towards the end of the story?
Is he really a good soul deep down inside?
Can it be just a phony, a fake suicide, to bail out of that country without so many bounty hunters after him?
Can it be the start of a FarCry 3?  ???

[mandru]

Ah Jackal.

Ruben, talking about his tapes at first says Jackal's become a phantom and in a later conversation has come to believe the Jackal's died.

Jackal started out running covert weapons deliveries and saw a chance for greater profit by going free lance. But there comes a point where where access to surplus wealth, more money than you could ever spend, leads to a decision between wealth or power. For some wealth is just a tool to access more power.

Jackal spent a year in Black Beach prison (Jackal tape "Rat Catcher") so he's seen the very bottom and climbed out of that with an understanding that an arrest could put him right back there, or dead, no matter how much money he's got in a Swiss account. (Edit additional: We Know from Hakim, who is very wealthy and that one of the factions want to get their hands on that wealth, there is no international access to bank funds available.)

Someone's coming to kill him. So what else is new?

If they are good at what they do let them prove it. Plant the concept of "Will to Power" in their heads, let them walk in your shadow just long enough. Keep an eye on them of course and shepherd them along with "Targets of Opportunity" and make them wealthy enough to buy all the tools they need and that you provide, through your agent at the gun shop, so they can better pursue you and they'll start to gain a sense of their own power.

Let them find and listen to your tapes. Your assassin will mull over your words and find some degree of sense and points of commonality with you, their target, and when they see the total senselessness of their surroundings...

You can turn them to your to your ends.

At least that's part of my interpretation of what I can see of his character.

I think Jackal's reached a point where he no longer sees the individual, individual towns, individual countries and has come to focus on Means and Ends.

The kid he described pulling off the dead man's boots was representative of every kid he saw. And he knows that  "A kid shouldn't look like that."

[Art Blade]

I've inserted TheFishLord's list into JRD's post

Like this we can see at once all the important things TheFishlord discovered. I decided to do that rather than merging both topics because this topic here is more consistent and has new information. The old topic went off topic with stray comments, so now we can keep the good stuff in a packed form :)

[JRD]

mandru... that`s some deep thoughts about the Jackal... great, great throughts btw...

I always had a feeling that he is in command, the whole situation is in his hands and he can foresee and control events in Seko as no one else...
Your ideas would do a great sequel, a great book or movie even!
Outstanding w@&k mate...  :-X

Am I wrong or in the end they say his body was never found?

[mandru]

*** Spoiler Alert Do not read if you do not wish to know***


Thanks JRD, it does say in the text at the end that Jackal's body is never found.

Examining the ending, Reuben sees the ranking officer at the border crossing step out of the processing center and you or the Jackal behind him, there's a massive explosion which causes Reuben to turn and and he sees the collapse of the overhang.

When Reuben turns back, the officer has opened the briefcase he is carrying and admires the quality of a gem selected at random (the officer had not wanted to inspect the transaction in front of his subordinates). Pleased the officer returns the gem to its case and strides away.

Eyes locked with Reuben, you or the Jackal, raise your "good piece" that "never jams" to your head as he raises his camera. He's a reporter, it's pure reflex, he's staring in morbid fascination and I don't think he's even aware that he's shooting a picture. About half of the time there's a woman that crosses directly in front of the shot as the camera clicks other times he gets the picture right before the shot. I can never tell if that's intentional or not.

If jackals body was never found it was because Reuben, a reporter no less, the only person there who could have made an identification didn't come forward and say "I know this man."

A reporter not reporting? How odd.

At times I amuse myself that the shot was me shooting the officer, grabbing the diamond case and hightailing it for the high country but I Know better. The people that created the game wanted to drive home some ethics lesson surrounding the wrongness of war.

I think if there was going to be a sequel UBI would have been a bit more responsive towards working bugs out of their multiplayer servers and some of the customer service issues that I see come up on their home forums.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game but I'm not sure UBI does.

[Art Blade]

There will be a FC3 though.

I've been playing a bit in Leboa after having "unlocked" Bowa. I got wounded and then rescued by my Bowa buddy. She must have returned to Bowa though, because three randomly picked safehouses, each farther away from the accident, were empty. No reactivation of my rescue buddy in Leboa, which surprised me a little.

[mandru]

There's going to be an FC3? Cool!

I guess I've been too busy playing to keep an ear out for news.



Buddy not responding when you go back up north after unlocking southern half of game?

Have you tried sleeping in one of those safe houses. I read somewhere that sometimes sleeping will force a buddy to appear but I don't know if it's true or not.

My experience of returning to the north is limited to seeing the north mercs don't respect your restored reputation levels.

[Art Blade]

Sleeping in a safehouse makes a buddy appear if the safehouse is too close to the incident. One hour of sleep suffices. Or, go to a safehouse more distant where your buddy will be waiting for you already. So I didn't sleep but checked safehouses farther and farther away.

The reputation is not restored. Unfortunately, your loss of reputation on going south remains when returning north, I am on rep 3 in Leboa while I was on 4 when I left.

PS, will retry and sleep ;)

PPS, did sleep, no buddy there.

[PZ]

...My experience of returning to the north is limited to seeing the north mercs don't respect your restored reputation levels.

Teach those cheeky chaps manners by going into town in God mode using your trusty lawnmower blade as the lesson of the day  ;D

[Art Blade]

I've hardened myself and do that without godmode these days. Lawnmower blade? Use Art Blade instead  ;D ;D ;D

[PZ]

... Lawnmower blade? Use Art Blade instead  ;D ;D ;D

I considered that but I thought I'd give your brother the opportunity ;D

[mandru]

I've been working on assembling a profile of Xianyong Bai from his words and the eyes of the other buddies. I've started with him since he was the first full best buddy in the rotation after I started this thread.

I will attempt to gather any additional info on Xianyong as I play on in subsequent games and at this point Frank Bilders has been the only uncooperative buddy that no matter how I tried I could not get him positioned as the rescue buddy to extract any comment on Xianyong's being killed.

Any future info updates for this character, whether from me or provided by another OWG member, will be added to this post in a different color text and the word "Edited" to high light it in an effort to get all of the collective info gathered into a single place so that it can be viewed in one comprehensive post.

For space I'm going to omit mission briefings and conclusions that do not add to back story.

APR Missions:

* Destroy Nitrous Truck- At Safe House "Finally have something to eat"

* Weelego Radio Smash- At Safe House "Hi buddy!" (lol not much there)

* Destroy Pipeline- At Safe House he comments on working for days no pay and no food and then standard speech about being security at the diamond mine and will need help after as he'll get the blame for the missing dynamite.

Conclusion- "You and me unbeatable team, nobody stop us. I stay, clean up here. I meet up with you later.

(At this point I killed Xianyong for the first of many times to make Nasreen step up as BB. She commented "I never got to w@&k with him, but I'm sorry you had to bear the burden of that.")

UFLL Missions

*Destroy Dogon Village Kilns- At Safe House "Want to help me make some trouble" and chuckles (He's a prankster and thinks this will be funny)

(Andre as 2nd BB upon being restored to rescue ready comments "Before you go, Xianyong was my friend too. It was good you were there by his side in the end. Sometimes in our profession that's the best we can hope for.)

(Nasreen stepping in to 2nd BB after Andre's demise comments "I hope you are not being too reckless with Xianyong. He's young and has talent but he needs to survive to develop it.)

*Polytech Assassination- At Safe House "You don't speak Mandarin do you?" and then something along the lines of -with my bad English it would be much easier to say- or something like that.

(Hakim Echebbi Stepping in as 2nd BB comments "You did a good job protecting that boy Xianyong. He probably doesn't realize how close he came to getting his a$$ shot off.")

(Hakim Echebbi stepping in as BB "I just heard about Omar, you knew him as Xianyong. I'm sure it was a comfort that you were near by. He was young but that's who dies in war." Which really raises the question of why would Hakim know Xianyong as Omar? Middle name Omar? And did Xianyong have to flee China for religious reasons? The game notes do say he's dressed like he had to leave somewhere quickly)

*Rail Crossing to Assassinate Yabek- "Ah! You made it. Got any food? Man, I'm starving.

Conclusion- "I know you and me kill all these guys. We unbeatable team. You go ahead, I look around here."

Both of Xianyong's buddy side missions were against the UFLL even though he worked for the UFLL at the Garage in the Nitrous truck mission and again at the diamond mine as security in the Pipeline mission. And again he sends you into the UFLL held resort to kill the censor for the D.J. and Radio Station smash and requests your assistance escaping from the UFLL CP after that because he is a
driver for the UFLL's visiting official.

Edit Additional: At the truce announcement where you mission is to retrieve the case of diamonds as you are leaving the faction head quarters Xianyong says "This truce is bad for everyone, especially guys like me.  You in danger!"

(I may have this next part out of order and will add missing dialog later as I'd already played through all of the buddy side missions before I remembered I needed to track dialog)

Xianyong's Buddy side missions:

1st buddy side mission Recover Artifacts from desert North of Sepoko, Xianyong opens up "Vorhees big fat pig". (Note Vorhees is UFLL but the artifacts are in the dunes just North of Sepoko which is a APR holding so are the men out wandering around in the sand UFLL or APR? They are not out in the sand at any other time and supposedly it's Vorhees that's trying to get ahold of the artifacts not Greaves. Why aren't Sepoko staff attacking them?)

2nd buddy side mission Destroy Passports. I know the line "Good money in passports" is part of the opening briefing and "I love to screw guy over like this" is in the closing comments during debriefing and again note this is once again out on UFLL turf who is Xianyong's principal employer.


OK, sorry it's still a bit spotty as I only got one comment from Andre who very likely has more to say in the right circumstances and none at all from Mr. helpful Frank Bilders but that's what I currently have. I am really looking forward to meeting Frank at the LZ for the tussle he's given me.  :-*