by Kevin Murphy
“Sounds like you’ve got yourself a plan,” remarked Cline. “To be honest with you I haven’t fiddled with my own settings all that much, but there are too many options. I’m a little anxious to get started.”
Dakkon could relate to the sentiment of the tall interjector. He, too, really wanted to get started after missing so much time. Still, though, a quick look at some settings could prove fruitful. “All right. Thanks for the tip,” Dakkon nodded slightly in Cline’s direction, turned, and set off towards a bench on the side of the road.
“Hey!” Cline exclaimed. “You open up the menu by giving it a hard thinking about. Or yell out the word if you have to.”
Dakkon continued to walk towards the bench but extended his right arm out and offered a lazily upturned thumb, indicating he’d received Cline’s message loud and clear.
After seating himself on the empty bench, Dakkon thought about opening the main menu with no results. Reflecting upon Cline’s words, he decided to make an effort focusing on the word ‘menu’ instead of yelling it out loud. Dakkon shouted, in his mind, “Menu!” A translucent screen opened and Dakkon thanked the developers that he wouldn’t always have to resort to the other option.
The first thing Dakkon noticed was the prominently displayed ‘Game Time’ and ‘True Time’ clocks. In game, it was an early 8:10 whereas in the real world, or true time, it was already 10:22. Next to the two clocks there were tabs which allowed players to set up messages designed to alert them when a condition had been met, such as reaching a certain time or after an amount of time had passed.
“That’ll be useful,” Dakkon thought to himself. He supposed that option was a necessity. He doubted that anyone would be particularly comfortable transitioning between multiple clock speeds.
Dakkon found the menu to be superbly crafted. He could manipulate tabs, scroll through options, and modify settings with relative ease—all without requiring hands or verbal cues. A mere willingness to navigate into a different page or make a change was all that the system required.
While Dakkon browsed his translucent menu windows, seated on the public bench, a few other characters dressed in shoddy cloth garments appeared rather unceremoniously from almost exactly the spot where he had entered Chronicle for the first time. Though the spectacle was odd enough to him, passing denizens of the city didn’t seem to pay the newcomers any attention. Perhaps it was simply business as usual for them. Before getting back to his menus, Dakkon overheard a bit of conversation which caught his attention between a new arrival and someone who had been waiting to greet him.
After having been properly teased for his threadbare appearance, the newest arrival asked, “What’s with the luck stat? Why can’t I put any points into it?” He stood a full head shorter and seemed even younger than the well-armored teenager who greeted him.
“Mercy of the devs if you ask me,” replied the armored man. They both had blue names floating over their heads, but trying to make them out through Dakkon’s opened, translucent windows was difficult and Dakkon didn’t care enough to completely stop what he was doing.
“Huh? The devs?” asked the recent arrival.
“Christ, Terry, the devs. You know, the people who made Chronicle,” replied the older boy, chastising as he exaggerated the motion of rubbing his palm against his forehead. “Luck’s trash. What we really need is a healer. You should be dumping your points into INT.”
The younger boy looked like he didn’t understand. “But isn’t it better to be lucky than smart?” he asked, using the old adage.
“Terry, this is a game world. Trust me here. Luck is bad. If you put points into strength, you get stronger. You can hit harder and lift heavy objects. With agility, you can feel yourself moving faster. With INT, I assume you must get a lot smarter as well. It’s a really popular stat. But with luck…” he trailed off, trying to evoke a sense of anticipation from the younger boy. “It doesn’t do anything. You don’t get stronger, faster, or smarter. You get nothing-er. It’s garbage in basically every game.” The older, armored boy turned and waved the new arrival along. “Now come on, we’ve got to go meet up with Dad.”
As the two walked away, the last thing Dakkon heard of the conversation was a new question from the younger boy. “If luck’s so bad then why is it even in the game?”
Dakkon could relate to the boy’s sentiment at least. If it was so bad, why, indeed, have it listed as a major statistic? Still though, he’d have to cede the point to the older brother. Luck was generally useless in the other games he had played, so it wasn’t too farfetched for that to hold true in this game, too. Dakkon tweaked a few settings, allowing him to see the game time when he looked at his health, endurance, and mana bars, and then exited the menu to take in what was around him.
It was a good idea to take a look at the map, Dakkon figured. “Map!” he exclaimed inwardly, with no effect. Again, he tried, more forcefully and again he failed. After a dozen attempts—each with greater intensity than the one preceding it—Dakkon’s patience was tested, broke, and he yelled out, “Map! Map! Damn it, Map!”
A passing body of townsfolk stopped their conversations and stared at him, dumbfounded. One mother grabbed her young, gaping son by his once freely-swinging arm and tugged him far away from the adult dressed as a pauper yelling about maps from a public bench.
“Odd,” Dakkon thought, feeling little shame for the scene he’d created. “Perhaps the map is an item I have to activate.” Then, by thinking the word ‘inventory’ he pulled up a menu displaying his items along with a miniature version of his own avatar designed to let the player see what they looked like from any angle, while striking any pose. He found that thinking the word ‘character’ allowed him to view his statistics as well.
His equipment was all very lackluster, but that was to be expected. His shirt, pants, shoes, and bag were all made of some sort of tattered cloth which provided no real protection. He had no weapon, no map, two canteens, and twenty of some foodstuff called “Traveler’s Tack.” Before he could inspect the dubious tack, Dakkon noticed something he thought strange. His stats looked wrong.
|————
|Statistics
|————
|Strength: 10 ( ? )
|Stamina: 10
|Agility: 10
|Dexterity: 10
|Intellect: 10
|Luck:0 ( X )
|Free Stat Points: 0
|
|Hit Points: 50/50
|Endurance: 50/50
|Mana Points: 50/50
|Level: 1
|EXP Until Next Level: [ 0/300 ]
“Where the hell are my stat bonuses?” Dakkon wondered, dejectedly. He knew from his periodic research while longing for the game that his base statistics would be 10s across the board, except for the luck stat, but he should have been awarded a large bonus of automatically allocated stat points for choosing not to customize his character. The bonus was introduced only a few days after the game was released, supposedly in an effort to curb the hordes of perfectly attractive people parading about.
Noticing the question mark to the side of his statistics, Dakkon clicked on it and a more detailed, yet still unspecific, explanation of statistics was presented in the form of a floating window of text:
-Strength: Increasing Strength allows an individual to make more powerful attacks and increases their carrying capacity. This statistic is recommended for close quarter fighters. Please Note: Players with high strength will have noticeably larger muscles.
-Stamina: Increasing Stamina gives an individual more hit points, slightly reduces incoming damage, and increases one’s amount of endurance. With more hit points, an individual can withstand more damage before they are killed. With more endurance, one can perform physically demanding activities for a longer period of time. This statistic is recommended for everyone.
-Agility: Increasing Agility improves how well an individual can move their body, and slightly increases the overall speed at which they
can travel. This statistic is recommended for classes that require quick and agile movements.
-Dexterity: Increasing Dexterity improves the steadiness of an individual’s hands. Dexterity is vitally important for trade skills that require the use of one’s hands and improves one’s ability to aim. This statistic is recommended for craftsmen and those who wish to attack from a distance.
-Intellect: Increasing Intellect increases the number of mana points an individual has, how quickly those points regenerate, and the potency of effect and duration a spell has. With more mana points, an individual can cast more spells or maintain spell-based effects for a longer period of time. Intellect also factors into the innovation of trade skills. This statistic is recommended for spellcasters and innovative craftsmen.
-Luck: Increasing Luck makes an individual more fortunate. This statistic has a small impact on everything. Players may not distribute free stat points into the Luck stat.
“Typical,” thought Dakkon. “Intellect does a bit more than the other stats because of how it pigeonholes you into certain roles.”
While looking into information on the game, Corbin had read up on characters trying to stack stat points to improve their builds. Having a high score in any stat seemed to be pretty useful, but no one could increase their luck except through the use of magical items and temporary buffs. Not being able to pour a player’s stat points into luck made it hard to have a high luck score, and because of that exclusivity many players had gone well out of their way to document the effects of the statistic.
The players who spent large sums of money to temporarily increase their luck reported little to no change. Maybe an extra copper or silver from a monster, every once in a while, but nothing significantly outside of chance—and definitely nowhere near enough to justify buffing up one’s luck over any other statistic. It was even hypothesized that luck may affect a character’s chance to deal a critical strike, inflicting several times the damage of a normal attack, but players found that after parsing thousands of attacks the tests were inconclusive. Dakkon supposed that if luck was as useless as everyone seemed to think, then perhaps that older brother was right. Maybe the devs did everyone a favor by not allowing new players to distribute their points into it.
“Where are my extra stat points?” Dakkon wondered again with renewed fervor. Next, he tried clicking on the box with an X on it.
A light chiming noise sounded: *Bhnnn*
[You have created your character without customizing it.]
[You have been awarded stat points!]
[Due to the player being under the prerequisite level of 20, you will be unable to view how these stat points have been allocated.]
“Aha,” Dakkon mused. “So that’s it. But, if the stats are already allocated, couldn’t I just compare how I perform against another beginning player to have a rough idea of how they’re divided?”
Dakkon closed out of the menu and looked at his arms. “Damn. They don’t seem particularly muscly. Of course the devs would have thought about that. But then, have the points really been allocated?”
Dakkon decided it was better not to worry about it. He’d already received a message clarifying that he did, in fact, create his character in the method required to get the large stat point bonus. Come level 20, if he couldn’t see the stats, he’d just contact some form of administrator and get the problem taken care of. Maybe, if that happened, he’d even get a chance to pick where the stat points went as some form of compensation. “Nice,” Dakkon thought, and nodded his head twice.
He had no weapon, and no idea what was around him. He’d have to see where he could find a map, or at least figure out where he was. Dakkon stood up from the bench and, ignoring the remaining few NPCs that were still snickering over his outburst, walked up to a city guardsman, who was easily identifiable thanks to his uniform plated armor, upright pose, and generally bored expression.
“Yes, vagrant, what do you want?” the guard asked, pointedly.
Dakkon was taken aback slightly by his aggressive reception, but still sought answers the guard should be able to supply. “Where are we now?” he asked.
The guard’s eyes widened. “Ya don’t know where you are? Seriously? Hah!” The guard smirked. “How does one just wander into the capital city without knowing?”
“Be more detailed and specific,” Dakkon attempted to order of the guard.
“You’ve got some cheek on you, huh, lad?” The guardsman spat. “How about I give you a detailed account of your own arse whooping and show you to a specific jail cell where you can rot with other simpletons?”
Realizing guards did not, as it turned out, have to give him the information that he sought, Dakkon quickly changed his method of approach. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to seem so bossy. It’s just that I’m rather confused at the moment. I was… jumped by a group of hoodlums, you see, and wound up in an alley without a coin to my name.”
“Hoodlums?” The guard pried. Despite his sour tone before, he seemed to perk up at the mention of muggers.
“It all happened so fast. Three men in green cloaks,” Dakkon fabricated, “…one with a gold tooth.” The details didn’t make for particularly good lies, Dakkon knew, but he didn’t care. It was an exhilarating experience to make up an on-the-fly story in the face of an authority figure. “Except for that, and my name, I really can’t remember anything else. I’m just glad to have been left with these rags for clothes and some food. It would really, truly, help me out if you could jog my memory. Where are we? I can’t remember a thing.”
“Ah? That’s…” Despite the poor quality of Dakkon’s fib, the guard’s attitude changed from indignant to pitying. “That’s too bad. We’ve been having a rough time with cutpurses lately. All right. I’ll try and help you how I can. You now stand in Correndin, the capital city of Denmas. This here’s Griffin Square, one of the spots merchants and adventurers like to gather for trade. A fair bit of coin changes hands here, and poor blokes—not unlike yourself—get swindled every day…” The guard looked pensive. “Although an outright mugging is uncommon in this part of town.”
“Ah, Correndin,” Dakkon repeated the name of the city while trying to conjure any information he had read about the location over the last few months. “Thank you, sir. My memory is still a bit jostled. Is Denmas part of a larger state?”
“Larger state?” The guard chuckled. “No larger state. The kingdom of Denmas has no greater power to answer to.”
“I see,” Dakkon said. “Where can I get a map around here?”
“If you want a map, you can buy one off of any third street peddler. Just talk to a few and you’ll find plenty of maps. There’s a cartographer’s guild here in Correndin as well, but I wouldn’t count on you being able to afford one of their maps any time soon.” The guard gave Dakkon’s clothes a meaningful eye.
Before asking for more information, the realization that he could pull up a web browser from within the game struck Dakkon. He had access to the collective information of the internet at his virtual fingertips and should be able to look up any location information he’d need in a starting area. He was in a game, after all.
“Right. Thanks again. I’ll be on my way.”
“Watch out for Hoodlums. Then again, maybe the next set can smack the wits back into ya,” The guard chided as Dakkon walked off.
Dakkon acknowledged the guard with a sour grimace and trod along. Dakkon pondered, “Now where should I start? The basics have to be getting some food, some gear, some money, and a map. I’ve got 20 Traveler’s Tack to eat and I’ll assume I’ve started with similar portions of water. I don’t feel hungry so I suppose that’s a problem for a different day. Since I can probably get everything I need with money, that’s where I’ll start.”
Dakkon leaned back against a wall and decided to try out a new command. “Help!” Dakkon thought.
A loud, warning bell chimed:
*Bonnn*
Yellow text and the original, dispassionate
, female voice from character creation said the same thing: “Warning. Your game cannot be paused. You will not receive this message again.” Then the yellow text disappeared and was replaced by a menu screen.
“What would you like help with?” The placid voice asked.
“How do I browse the internet?” Dakkon posed.
The AI controlling the female voice answered him in a voice as clear as crystal, “As long as you are not in a location which prohibits such features, you may browse the internet at any time by invoking the media console. To invoke the media console, think or say, ‘planeshift.’”
“Odd choice of command words. Fine then. Planeshift!” Dakkon said aloud, forgetting himself.
Unlike each other menu he had used until then which had created a floating screen that moved along with the center of his vision, invoking ‘planeshift’ caused a fixed point in front of Dakkon to shimmer briefly then glow white. A blue splotch appeared at the white patch’s epicenter then swirled into the white, like mixing paint. The swirl expanded violently and moved away from Dakkon, revealing a large, stationary obelisk as though veiled under a thin sheet of the blue and white light. When the light receded, the stone obelisk looked much like a computer terminal. This terminal had several default, quick access options for easy navigation to commonly used services.
The sober, and increasingly familiar, voice of the systems AI explained, “This is the media console. The media console provides players with access to the real world. Here, they can browse the internet in its fullest capacity. Users can watch movies, monitor current events, and contact others outside of Chronicle. Please be aware that due to the time difference between worlds there may be delays in communication to the game world”
“Ouch,” thought Dakkon, “I see how communicating back and forth could be problematic.”
