by Jason Cheek
The lines going into the parking lot reminded me of the time Ikea had opened their first store in Florida, except the testing facilities parking lot was twice as big. Once I realized just how overcrowded the facility was due to The World’s popularity, I ended up staying the night. It still ended up taking around twenty-five hours to get through the line, and that was with the facility running 24-hour shifts. I felt sorry for the technicians working such long hours, but if they hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been any way for them to test everyone in time for the game’s release date.
There was one twist I hadn’t been aware of from all of my research on the forums. For those of us taking the P&M exam, our bodies were being scanned and uploaded for our avatar. There would be slight tweaks depending upon our chosen race, and I hoped they at least allowed some tweaking to our bodies during character creation mode when starting the game, but I wouldn’t be able to confirm that until I got home and logged into the virtual training interface for the first time. Either way, I wasn’t going to tell anyone in the guild about it, especially not the girls or I’d get blamed for this somehow.
The virtual training interface of the game was a stand-alone AI that allowed you to create your character ahead of time and get some simulated training in before the game started. If I understood the technician correctly, this trainer was only for players that applied for the ultra-realism mode and P&M exam option, since it would be the only training available to us. Once the game started, we’d be on our own.
On the drive back I was Jonesing to get logged in and get my character created, but it ended up taking me another two hours just to get to I-95 from downtown Miami due to all the traffic from the out of town gamers. The hour and a half drive back nearly put me to sleep, thankfully I’d taken my Ford Ranger instead of my motorcycle, or I’d have been worried about falling asleep laying on top of my tank as I rode.
I’d left the house at seven o’clock on Wednesday morning and didn’t make it back my apartment until after 11 at night on Thursday. By the time I stumbled through the door, I was punch drunk from exhaustion. Dropping the swag that was part of our game package on the nightstand, I collapsed in bed. Before passing out, I took one last look at the print out of my level 0 character’s stats smiling happily. The aggravation and time were well worth all the effort. Instead of starting out with the base ten points like most beginners, my stats would be the following.
Strength: 77
Intelligence: 75
Spirit: 75
Agility: 75
Stamina: 75
Charisma: 76
Friday morning the sun beaming in from the patio’s sliding glass doors and my growling stomach woke me up from the dreamless sleep of the dead. My body ached like I’d fallen into bed and hadn’t move again from that spot for the entire night. Groggily I checked the time on my smartphone. Twelve o’clock on Friday. I was just about to fall back to sleep when I sat bolt upright in bed as my eyes popped open. Was it already Friday? I hadn’t logged into The World’s training simulator yet. What the hell was wrong with me?
Woohoo, I can log in and check out the game! With that thought echoing in my head, I jumped out of bed, showering and brushing my teeth in record time. Grabbing a quick bite to eat, I got my V-MMORPG equipment out and ready to go as I woofed down two sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches, and yogurt. Sometimes, frozen microwave fast-food was the best way to start out the day.
I had that full-fledged gaming addiction pumping adrenaline through my veins as I dragged the VR gear into the computer room. There are few things like getting your hands on an awesome new game you’ve been waiting for seven years to come out and then being the first of your friends to get the chance to play it. I was chortling in my head the whole time I was gearing up.
It had been forever since I’d last felt this way. I’d been playing MMORPGs and first-person shooters since I was eight years old. While I loved playing MMORPGs and their storylines, the lack of actual fighting skill required in the genre and the repetitive action of just clicking your mouse to have your character auto-attack had grown eye-bleeding repetitive for me.
Leveling up characters had lost its challenge since for the most part the regular mobs and normal dungeons were all basically the same rinse and repeat process. Only PVP and coming up with the strategies required to take down the games’ new end bosses held any challenge for me nowadays. At least the story arcs were usually pretty good. Over the years I’d managed to become pretty good at spotting special side and hidden quests that gave out rare loot and special drops which helped to keep things interesting. And hey, it was better than having a regular nine to five job.
Once I got a raid boss down, I loved coming up with new combinations for taking them down again and again. So many people thought you had to use the cookie cutter rolls of tank, dps, and healer that they weren’t open to trying new strategies. Coming up with unique ways to take down those bosses is how I carved my mark on the streaming networks. Things like running Molten Core when it was still a forty person raid and using all Paladins except for two priests. Been there done that. Running Blackhand dungeon with two druid tanks, six heal spec paladins and seventeen mages. Yea, that was me too.
I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I’d heard you couldn’t run a raid with those classes only to prove those naysayers wrong. It’s what kept the players coming back to watch our guild’s video streams again and again.
Ultimately though, the only true requirement for any raid was having good players that knew how to play their class, could work together in a team and had the minimum healing and tanking needed to take down the boss while keeping everyone else alive. How you chose to cover those basics was up to you.
Still, even with these challenges, the end game raid bosses had gotten somewhat stale of late. It wasn’t until after hearing about The World and the full immersion virtual reality the game offered that I’d felt truly excited once again.
While mainstream pundits of the new virtual technology ridiculed the marketing strategy based on customers being willing to pay five-thousand dollars on top of a monthly subscription fee to play a game with realistic pain, even if it was only 25%. The millions of gamers around the world proved those critics wrong as the sales went through the roof. And, while a 25% pain threshold sounded like a lot, in actuality being hit by a sword felt more like being beaten by a plastic bat.
During the decade of the game’s development, I’d been working hard at getting a steady income from our streaming channels. I’d post video after video of the best strategies for taking down raid bosses, the location of rare drops and PVP group strategies with the ultimate goal in the back of my mind to be able to play games full time with my friends. Already, we had enough money from the advertisements on the channel to cover the basic living expenses for myself, AJ, Domenic, Hefe, and Mike. Hopefully, I’d be able to get Jimmy onboard too.
I did not doubt that V-MMORPG would change the entire gaming industry overnight. The Alpha test results had already caused shockwaves. Now, with the release date less than three days away, I expected the game to do better than World of Warcraft did on its initial release. Getting in on opening day would be the ticket to getting the whole guild switched over to the professional gamer side of the house. After this, the traditional style of MMORPGs would never be the same.
For the last decade, gamers had been arguing the question: Were MMORPGs dead? Did World of Warcraft kill the genre? It was a constant theme for online bloggers and uView videos around the world. Players of all ages went back and forth over the topic with the main question being focused around the slow leveling in comparison to fast leveling.
Unfortunately, in the end, fast leveling won out as the MMORPG genre in general changed their games to fit the gaming trend that the younger generation had embraced. The less popular MMORPGs did this to get new players to check out their games and pull subscriptions from World of Warcraft, their main competitor. This naturally caused Blizzard to do the same
thing, thinking that was the best way to get their player base back. In the end, this fast leveling and making everything quickly access within the virtual world is what ended up ruining the entire genre.
This trend allowed players the ability to bypass the majority of the games’ content to advance new players to the end dungeons without experiencing the story arc that made the virtual word so unique. It also had the effect of not allowing players to acquire the skills needed to play their classes effectively or, even more importantly, learn the social aspect of working and playing together online.
This was the first nail in the coffin for the genre. Overnight, these game worlds incredible content were left behind. Years of development that made the games initially popular were left behind. In its place, end game content reigned supreme.
The next nail happened when unskilled new players complained that raid bosses were too hard which forced game developers to dumb down their challenging content in the name of accessibility for all. Unfortunately, once these new players conquered the now easy endgame content, they moved on to the next MMORPGs demanding the same changes to be made. While these changes gave these newbie players access to the top level content, in the end, they were left ultimately feeling dissatisfied and bored because the games were no longer challenging. Finishing the content now took little to no experience or strategic thought, and like a child coming in at the last place of a race, these newbie gamers knew they hadn’t actually earned their victories, and so they never felt the adrenaline rush of that accomplishment.
The World’s forums were filled with these discussions, and the game’s developers had clearly stated that this game would be difficult and take time to level up a class within their virtual world. That a player’s reputation in the world meant something. Leveling wouldn’t be just kill x number of this and receiving x number of that but would require in-depth thought and require players to master their abilities.
Even more importantly, if you couldn’t play your character well enough, you could get stuck at a level until you learned how to play better. On top of that, quick travel options were nixed, except for public transportation like boats and wagon trains. Travel, depending upon the distance, could take up to hours between locations. The only concession the developers did allow was that players could log off if they wanted to while being transported and their character would still travel the distance even while they were logged out.
Best of all, the developers had stated that the game’s focus wasn’t on endgame content, but on its entire world’s story which would play an important part in building a character’s reputation and overall development. After having only mediocre content for so many years, this was music to my ears.
Stripping my clothes off, I slipped on the lumpy, synthetic body suit. The outfit reminded me of my Batman PJ’s from when I was a kid due to the suit having built-in footies and gloves. Climbing into the Egg, I slid the neuro-interface helmet on next. Triggering the unit, the door closed sealing inside like a cocoon. As soon as the Egg started its boot sequence, my vision turned black as text began scrolling in front of my eyes.
Running Pod Diagnostic – Complete
Synchronizing controller units - Complete
Neuro Synchronization - Complete
Initializing virtual environment …
The darkness around me turned into a whirl of brilliant lights that slowly formed into the words, The World. Golden light flared around me before morphing into an explosion of light that turned into a snow-covered plateau at the base of an ice-covered peak. Slowly the world changed from ice and cold into a lush green forest as I found myself standing at the base of massive golden trees. As I watched the world around me kept shifting from one location to the next, each with its own unique and stunning beauty. The most amazing part was that I could feel and smell the world around me using all of my senses. The soft loam of the forest against my bare feet, the feeling of the sun’s warmth beating on my back, the crunch of snow, the smell of an approaching summer shower and the chill cold of the mountain. I just stood there for a moment enjoying the sensations when I jumped in surprise.
“Welcome to The World, Jason.” A strong female voice greeted me as a mirror slowly took shape in the air before me. Within seconds I was looking at a perfect copy of myself.
“Um … hello?”
“I am Morgan, your trainer. Any disorientation you might be feeling will fade shortly. Please tell me when you are ready to proceed, and we will start the character creation process.”
Smiling to myself, I gave a silent WOOT. And now it begins, I thought excitedly. “I’m ready, Morgan.”
“Excellent, then let us begin!” Immediately words took shape in the air above the mirror.
Choose a Race and Gender.
Bellow the decorative script hanging in mid-air above the mirror was the word Human. Focusing on the menu above the word brought a list to the side that offered a rundown of the game’s currently available species. The typical races were there: Light Elves, Dark Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, Half-Elf, and Half-Dwarf, but there were also additional races I was surprised to see – Cat-Folk, Fox-Folk, Wolf-Folk, and Rat-Folk. Each racial name I focused on changed my picture in the mirror as the decorative script above showed the name of the race represented in the image. Each change brought a floating description next to the avatar showing the race’s unique attributes and bonuses.
Light Elf:
Race Ability – Darkvision: Grants ability to see in day-light conditions up to 100 feet in reduced lighting and the ability to see in dim light conditions up to 60 feet in natural darkness.
Passive - Fey Ancestry. +10% resistance against arcane magic.
Racial Modifiers - +1 Charisma and +1 Intelligence per level.
Difficulty - Normal
Checking out the slightly elongated image with the largish pointy anime ears and sharp features, I paused to admire the image. Wow, elves looked freaking cool.
Dark Elf:
Race Ability – Darkvision: Grants ability to see in day-light conditions up to 100 feet in reduced lighting and the ability to see in dim light conditions up to 60 feet in natural darkness.
Passive - Fey Ancestry. +10% resistance against arcane magic.
Racial Modifiers - +1 Charisma and +1 Agility per level.
Difficulty - Normal
Again the sight displayed in the mirror made me study my features. The light golden skin of the Light Elf was replaced with the dark black skin of a Dark Elf. Holy shit, the exoticness caught me by surprise and reminded me of the first pictures of Dark Elves I’d seen in D&D. Smiling at how cool I looked, I switched to the next available race.
Dwarf:
Race Ability – Darkvision: Grants ability to see in day-light conditions up to 100 feet in reduced lighting and the ability to see in dim light conditions up to 60 feet in natural darkness.
Passive - Dwarven Resilience: +10% resistance against poisons.
Racial Modifiers - +1 Strength and +1 Stamina per level.
Difficulty - Normal
Instantly my elegant features shifted into a squat, heavy-ridged face. My shoulders were broad and thick as I smiled stroking the long braided beard hanging down my chest abstractedly. While definitely powerful, all the coarse hair and heavy features were not my thing, next.
Gnome:
Race Ability – Darkvision: Grants ability to see in day-light conditions up to 100 feet in reduced lighting and the ability to see in dim light conditions up to 60 feet in natural darkness.
Passive: Gnome Cunning. +10% resistance against elemental magic.
Racial Modifiers - +1 Intelligence and +1 Agility per level.
Difficulty - Normal
The world around me noticeably shrank as a little man with misshapen features was suddenly looking back at me. Wisps of a stringy beard hung off my tiny chin as I focused on the large bulbous nose and intense crazy eyes that highlighted my face. I laughed out loud as I started doing the gnome dance from World
of Warcraft. Turning around, I lifted my tiny feet in a high-stepped jig and slapped my ass before facing the mirror again and doing the belly grind while howling in laughter the entire time. Just so freaking cool but still not for me. With one last smile, I changed classes again as I grew to my default reflection.
Human:
Race Ability - Diplomatic Reputation: All positive and negative reputation gains are increased by 10%.
Passive – Ambitious: Receive 5% experience bonus when gaining experience.
Racial Modifiers - +2 to two stats of choice per level.
Difficulty - Normal
Except for the lack of vision in the dark, the stats were pretty impressive, but if I were going to be playing a fantasy world, I’d like something at least a little bit more fantasy-like looking. Switching quickly to the next option, I thoughtfully paused as I hit the first animal race. The animal races looked pretty cool, even if I’d never been a fan of male Cat-Folk. I bet the females looked especially cool. Switching again, I was impressed by the Wolf-Folk look. The species looked fierce, but who wanted to deal with all that fur? Not that it particularly mattered, I didn’t feel like starting out in the wild. Animal races always had a low reputation with NPCs in cities and the starting areas probably lacked a lot of the crafting skills that I was planning to focus on. Also, while the additional Strength and Stamina were nice, I really wanted to be able to control what stats I invested in since I wanted to build a multi-class that could both cast spells and be a melee fighter. Still just looking at the options were fun.
There’d been a lot of bitching on the forums that there hadn’t been any Orc, Trolls, Minotaurs or Goblins to choose from which I understood. Playing the Horde on World of Warcraft was a state of mind in many ways and going to the traditional light races was akin to letting the Alliance win. V-MMORPG was already talking about introducing new races in the future, but it wouldn’t be for quite some time. I could easily understand the developer’s decision since within the game those races were currently the monsters everyone would be fighting against. Working that into a storyline that didn’t set up the races to immediately be at war with each other would take a lot of work. Either way, it was no skin off of my back.
