Vehicle Early Release: Fill & Download for Free

Mary Vincent was a 15-year-old girl hitchhiking in California to get home back in 1978. Hitchhiking was relatively common back then.Larry Singleton was a 50-year-old monster.Mary was waiting at the side of the road with two others as they waited for a passing vehicle to take them closer to their desired destinations.A vehicle pulled up that was big enough for the three of them, but he insisted that there was only room for one. The other two warned her that it seemed shady, but she was tired and didn't want to wait any longer. She got in with him, alone.She felt something was off so when he got out to pee, she tried to escape, but he saw her and hit her on the back of the head.He raped her and cut off both of her arms before throwing her down a 30-foot cliff off the interstate.He left her to die, but Mary was quick thinking.It had recently rained, and she used the mud to pack her wounds to slow the bleeding. She felt tired, but she knew that she would die if she stayed down there so she tried for hours to get to the top.Naked and covered in blood, she walked three miles along the highway hoping someone would drive by and help her.A car slowed, passed her, and she felt hopeful, but they continued on.A second car passed and picked her up. They were a couple on their honeymoon and took her to the hospital where she was quickly airlifted to a bigger hospital where her life was saved.Mary is the strongest person I've ever read about.Many have requested that I include the legal result: he was caught and imprisoned, but let out on early release for good behavior. Protests erupted whenever a city was notified that he would be settled there. This happened several times. After settling in Florida, he murdered a mother of three and was sentenced again to prison. He died of cancer four years later in Florida in 2001.

In case you don’t really follow music, I’ll give you a little background on Ed Sheeran’s unconventional release process. He started by releasing two singles (Shape of You, Castle on the Hill) about three months before the full album was released, another single on his birthday a month later (How Would You Feel (Paean)), and quick on the tale of that, two new remixes of Shape of You, by Major Lazer and Galantis. Those weeks were also peppered with music videos for some of the aforementioned songs. And now of course we have the full album.This is a pretty cool way to release an album for two main reasons.This method elongates the pop shelf life of the songs  —  usually an album and it’s popular songs are on the charts for a few weeks or whatever, but then they all disappear. However, by releasing some of the best songs of the album early, they gain popularity, and just as people start to stop listening to them, the rest of the songs on the album hit the charts, “re-exciting” people about the old songs and making them even more excited about the new ones.Releasing parts of the album early pumps people up about the album. It’s arguably the best form of marketing and hugely boosts the actual success and reach of the full album overall.So the key thing about the execution of this new release method is song selection — you can’t pre-release the best 1–2 songs but that you’ve gotta release some of the better songs that will get people pumped and will gain consistent popularity. You also really can’t release bad songs early on because on there own they aren’t able to hide in the overall large album.I’ll be honest and say that his song choice was a little rough. I think that Shape of You was a great choice because of how it’s an obvious instant pop hit that is also open to great remixes. However, Castle on the Hill is mediocre and How Would You Feel (Paean) is easily one of the most forgettable songs on the album.This is actually a pretty bad mistake to release How Would You Feel (Paean) early. To build on the bad songs point — I think I’ve vocalized this opinion once or twice in the past — I think that albums are, in the vast majority of situations, an unnecessarily long vehicle for 1–4 great songs and maybe a few additional pretty good ones. Look, the truth is that on an album most of the songs are pretty boring and, well, unneeded. Standing on its own, How Would You Feel (Paean) looks really bad and sets a bad precedent for the album. It doesn’t really stimulate energy around it, and takes away a valuable spot that could stimulate higher success for the album in the ways I described above if it was a better choice.The other issue is that the three early releases as a whole paint a very bad (and inaccurate!) picture of the new album. My perception before the album came out derived from the three early releases was that the album would have a few catchy hits and then a bunch of uninspired boring crap. But the reality was so far from that! Divide had some super authentic songs (New Man), great new slow songs (Perfect, Happier), and awesome upbeat hits (Galway Girl, Barcelona).Overall, this release method was a great press and hype decision and a fun, unique, new take on releasing, even though I dislike the selection of the early releases.

To compliment the answer by Mack James, the same company that produced Mount and Blade recently just released another game as an Early Release type deal: “Freeman, Guerilla Warfare”.The setting is in a fictional world that resembles Eastern Europe following that fall of the USSR. You start out as the fighting commander of a free roaming squad sized force with the sole objective of usurping the current squabbling factions and taking over the entire countryside.Which really makes you feel like a dick, because early on, all but one faction are constantly giving you jobs: Kill or capture roving bandit groups, to collect goods for a nearby town, to train soldiers for the city, etc. You can also gamble, but with the current state of the game…well, the house always wins in the end, right?And the last, if done successfully (given the constant dying of your soldiers early on, this is easier said than done) is the equivalent of winning a small time lottery in game, if you understand the economy. You know how our government will pay billions of dollars for a private company to train thousands of people? Same ratios apply here.And this game is so detailed that you can control pretty much every item that any one member of your band is carrying, all with (somewhat) unique stats. You also need to make sure people are fed, that you and your people get regular medical attention, that salaries are paid (didn’t think that everyone was fighting for freedom and democracy, did you?) and that morale is maintained either by giving gifts or paying bonuses. If morale isn’t maintained…your squads may walk off the battlefield when it’s not so convenient for your Army, but oh so convenient for them.However, following the RPG mentality of the game…a Saiga .223, with its 22″ barrel, does significantly less damage than an M4, with its 14.5″ barrel, despite both being chambered in 5.56mm NATO, just because the M4 costs significantly more. While I appreciate the wide variety of weapons, weapon types, and the skills that you are forced to develop through grinding before you can wield most of them, the disparity in performance is…annoying to me as a shooter and gun nut myself.And soon, they will be adding combat vehicles.So the game has a lot going for it. Hopefully, it will turn out to be the success that “Mount and Blade” was.