Barely Playable
He finished typing up the registration form online - name, email and username, the game looked pretty fun - the graphics were cutesy but not cartoony.
The downloaded the game with the speed of a Greek God... assuming the Greek God is on a mobility scooter - the game was almost eighty gigabytes.
He never actually played an MMO before - a good few FPS games, more strategy games than he can count and even a few sandbox games - but never an MMO - that’s partly because up until recently his internet was too shit to handle constant multiplayer - but mostly thanks to his introverted nature.
When the game finally download he filled in the account details and clicked play - a “server select” menu appeared - but there was only one server that wasn’t greyed out - it showed over five-hundred players online.
A message appeared in the centre of the screen, accompanied by an “ok” button, it read: “This is a short tutorial scene to help you understand the controls, you will design your character after completing it!”
He clicked “ok”
Another message window opened - “If you don’t understand something, don’t hesitate to ask the other players in the chat! Use the enter key to enter the chat!”
He clicked “ok” again and after screwing around with the controls for a few seconds he realised they were pretty standard for modern games.
He clicked enter to open the chat box allowing him to type, an icon appeared avatar his avatar’s head, it looked like a chat bubble with three dots inside, when he typed in his message he clicked enter again and in the bottom left my message appeared alongside the dozens of other people typing.
[JohnWillStab: Does anybody know how to play this game?] he wrote, in about three seconds his message got buried under a dozen new messages completely unrelated to his one.
[XPhaxX: Hey, fam - if you need a tutrial - just go into the help menu!] The reply was in a separate window labelled “Private Chats”
Seeing his chance he wrote back - this time no icon appeared above his head, it only appears when he writes on the public chat.
[JohnWillStab: How do I do that?] he asked back ignoring their spelling mistake.
A few seconds later he got the reply [XPhaxX: Hold ‘ALT’ for, then use function keys, I think F4 is the help one?]
[JohnWillStab: Yeah - no... I’m not that gullible.]
[XPhaxX: Shucks...]
[JohnWillStab: So is there an actual guide? Because the tutorial is... a little old fashioned.]
[XPhaxX: There’s a help button on the login screen]
[JohnWillStab: k, thanks.]
He logged out and looked for the button before realising he was lied to...
He logged back in, appearing in the same forested area as before - his character stood on a patch of dirt surrounded by a forest of golden leaves and red, the trees had white logs and the grass was yellowy-green.
[JohnWillStab: What the hell men?!]
[XPhaxX: You’re asking for help in global chat... what did you expect?]
Realising the chat was not on his side ‘JohnWillStab’ or ‘John’ for short decided to try and figure it out by himself - some keyboard tapping revealed the character was controlled by the usual ‘WASD’ keyboard keys, the camera could be moved by holding down the left mouse button and moving it.
On the bottom of the screen was a row of empty squares - he could click on them but a red error message appeared reading: “Missing Spell!“.
After moving his mouse around John came to the realisation that there was a glowing, yellow circle below the feet of a small object near the edge of the dirt patch he stood on, he slowly navigated towards it and climbed atop the object... it was a mailbox,
Suddenly his character fell down onto the ground limply before standing back up seconds later - “Guess this is the ragdoll physics they wrote about on the box...” he thought.
After some trial and error, he right-clicked the mailbox leading to a new interface - boxes like those on the bottom of the screen except for two boxes - one had the picture of a sword, the other a scroll.
He clicked on the sword and another box opened - [From - Admin: Welcome! Before you begin your journey into this world - you must select a race and class - this zone is a tutorial and as a result, anything you do here will have no effect on your final character.]
After reading the message he clicked into the other box - the one with the picture of the scroll, [From - ???: DN’T DELETE ANY OF THIS!!!] Aside from the text there was also an icon below - it looked like a piece of gold [Gold Coin (x9,999,999)] the name and count of the item appeared when he hovered his cursor over it - he clicked it and heard the sound of coins jingling as his character became surrounded by bright lights and various sound effects.
[Achivement unlocked! : First Gold!]
[Achivement unlocked! : Ten Gold!]
[Achivement unlocked! : Hundred Gold!]
[Achivement unlocked! : Thousand Gold!]
[Achivement unlocked! : Ten Thousand Gold!]
[Achivement unlocked! : Hundred Thousand Gold!]
[Achivement unlocked! : Million Gold!]
The messages appeared one after the other before quickly disappearing. “What the hell was that about?!” he thought.
The screen went black as a message appeared on the screen - [Create Character] below it was a button reading “confirm” so he clicked it.
He was taken to a character creation screen - [First, you must select a race! - Each race starts in a different zone and has different perks, so be careful which one you pick!]
There was human wearing generic clothing standing in the middle of the screen, to the left were eight pictures of what looked like faces.
He hovered over the first one [Human]
[Humans are the most generic race - not buffs or debuffs! They start in the dry planes.]
“That sounds like an alright race...” he thought before checking the other ones.
[Ogre]
[The ogres are a race of powerful warriors and shamans, the tough climate made them strong - they are stronger than a human but slower than them - they can go twice as long as a human without food or drink. Orge players start in the stone forest.]
[Wolfkin]
[Wolfkin are a race of feral beastfolk living in the wild glacier mountains - with both speed and strength greater than a human their weakness comes from the low health and inability to handle hot temperatures.
[Seafolk]
[Seafolk are a noble race of mages and healers, they are slower and weaker than humans - however, they can breathe underwater, swim faster and can replenish their stamina by being in the water - potentially allowing them to not eat any food. The major downside of the seafolk is that their stats are halved when they are on land.]
[Undead]
[The undead have a permanently full stamina meter meaning they never eat, drink or sleep - they can also never be poisoned and are immune to many spells - however, an undead is considered a monster and can be killed free of consequences.]
[Harpy]
[The harpy trades health and speed for their ability to fly for a limited time - a harpy is capable of eating raw food products without taking any loss to their health or stamina]
[Demon]
[The demons is a difficult race and is not recommended for new players as they are hostile to every fraction - this means that even fellow demons will be able to attack you if they wish. The demon has greater strength and speed as well as health - however, they must wear a disguise if they have any intention of working with others.]
[Toakin]
[Toakin sometimes called frogkin are a race of traders - capable of the highest non-combat move speed and no debuffs regardless of the terrain. However, they cannot eat cooked food and are inferior in every other way.]
The man was finding it difficult to choose between the human and undead - he knew he wanted to play an assassin like character - jumping off rooftops and tossing poisoned blades at his foes, so he settled on the undead.
The image of the human was replaced by the undead - next, he could select the gender of his character - he selected male.
a ‘decomposition’ slider let him choose how badly rotted the body should be - ‘1’ was basically a vampire - pale and with what looked like eyeliner but otherwise human - ‘10’ was a skeleton, he chose a 1.
The ‘race’ allowed for the undead to be a different type of undead - like an undead seafolk or undead harpy, naturally, they wouldn’t receive any of the given race’s bonuses.
He decided to stick to an undead human.
After fiddling with the hair and facial features he decided on a black ponytail and handlebar moustache and a slight fringe.
There were four sliders - Age, Weight, Muscle and Height, he set them to his desired settings, the undead looked young - like he died in his mid-twenties, with visible muscles and average height.
[Now that you have selected your race - you have to pick your classes!]
The interface shifted to show three icons - a sword, bow and wand.
Since John wanted to be a staby-rogue, he selected the sword.
[The mele class uses close-range weapons and martial arts abilities to defeat their enemies!]
Below appeared a dozen or so icons - various weapon types appeared, axes, maces, long swords, short swords, hammers, dagger, flails, shields and whatnot.
He selected the dagger and tried to click the continue button - [You need to select two sub-classes! Pick another one!]
Looking through the icons he selected the fist icon - “An assassin should know how to fight someone hand-to-hand, right?” the man though.
He clicked continue and the screen faded out to black one last time before it faded into a dull blue forest - like a dark, grey, blue-green forest - the trees had grey bark and the sky was cloudy and stormy.
Below he finally saw the icons - he hovered his mouse over the first one [Slash: deals 1 x (Weapon damage*strength)]
[Shiv: deals 2 x (Weapons damage*strength)+ distance bonus - Note: can’t use in combat.]
[Kick: deals 0.5 strength]
On his top left, he saw a portrait image of his character - as well as his level [Level: 1]
[Tip! : Click ‘c’ to see your character stats!]
John did as instructed and saw his stat page.
[Stamins: 100/100]
[Health: 20/20]
[Magic: 0/0]
[Intelect: 5]
[Strength: 1]
[Speed: 1]
[Acrobatics: 1]
[Agility: 1]
[Dexterity: 1]
[Charisma: -100]
[Karma: 0]
[Weapon skill (Daggers): 1/100]
John closed the stat menu and decided to just head in one direction. After a solid minute of walking a small yellow message appeared in the corner of the screen [Speed +0.01]
He checked his stats page to confirm and his speed has in fact increased.
The next thing happened in a flash - his character burst into flames, he fell to the floor in a ragdoll state as his health drained down to zero in about two seconds.
[Your character has died, you may wait ten minutes to respawn at your place of death or respawn at the nearest town now.] read the message.
He clicked the second option and appeared in a town - the buildings looked tall and gothic in architecture - with black fences and large windows - in perfect unison several NPCs called out “Stay back, undead!” as they charged towards him - John broke into a sprint (not literally, he walked at the normal speed) heading for the gates, he moved his camera to see what’s behind him only to see that he was still chased by ten or so guards - and their speed stat was a lot higher than his.
Suddenly guards appeared from the other side of the gate and attacked John - killing him in a single slash.
[Your character has died, you may wait ten minutes to respawn at your place of death or respawn at the nearest town now.] he chose the second option again - he appeared a few meters away - he didn’t even have a loading screen this time - the guards ran towards him and despite his strategy of “running in another direction” he got killed again.
[JohnWillStab: THIS GAME IS SO F!@KING BROEKN!] he complained in chat.
[WillWillWas: ...you chose undead, didn’t you?]
[JohnWillStab: yeah! Why even have a race if it’s unplayable!?!]
[XxFoxlyxX: Tis why we REAL GAMERS play as the frogkin!]
[WillWillWas: stfu fox...]
[XxFoxlyxX: No i]
[XxFoxlyxX: No u*]
[WillWillWas: ...]
[Oofgod: this fu!@ing chat is cancer...]
[JohnWillStab: ...so... how do I play an undead? Do I have to make a new character?]
[Kilin_: You have to grind a bit - but undead get infinite stamina so you’ll be op eventually.]
[JohnWillStab: ...I’m stuck in a town getting killed by guards...]
[XxFoxlyxX: lol]
[WillWillWas: ...]
[WillWillWas: f]
[Oofgod: wait the ten minutes and keep dying a little closer to the exit until you eventually revive far enough from the guards...]
[JohnWillStab: I’ll try it.]
[A long... LONG time later...]
[JohnWillStab: I did it...]
[XxFoxlyxX: oofgod logged off twenty minutes ago, fam...]
[JohnWillStab: ...]
[XxFoxlyxX: All I’m sayin’ is a frogkin would have made it out of there faster than an undead...]
[JohnWillStab: ...]
[WillWillWas: IF YOU LOVE THE FROGS SO MUCH - GO F*@K ONE!]
[XxFoxlyxX: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ]
[JohnWillStab: ...]
[WillWillWas: ...]
[WillWillWas: the command is /mute XxFoxlyxX]
He typed in the command and received a notification [“XxFoxlyxX” Muted! Use the command /Unmute to hear “XxFoxlyxX” again!]
[Bonifacius: HALT - Traveler!] appeared a message in a separate dialogue box labelled “Local chat”
[Bonifacius: *looks at JohnWillStab*]
[Bonifacius: Thee seemeth sick.]
[JohnWillStab: What?]
[Bonifacius: didst thee not heareth me - I am asking if ’t be true thou art sick]
[JohnWillStab: ...]
[JohnWillStab: What?]
[Bonifacius: *sighs*]
[JohnWillStab: ...]
[Bonifacius: I cannot breaketh charact’r]
[JohnWillStab: ...]
[Bonifacius: doth thee needeth help]
[JohnWillStab: Dude, speak like a f*@king normal person or leave me alone...]
[Bonifacius: *sighs*]
[Bonifacius: t is dang’rous f’r an undead to beest ’round h’re]
JohnWillStab saw the man approach him - it was a human, with pale, almost white hair - the character was dressed in heavy-looking white armour - a massive shield and thick sword on his back.
A short beard clung to the man’s jawline.
[JohnWillStab: Look - I don’t know what the *’s are about - but try asking for help in public chat - I don’t know what you’re saying.]
[Bonifacius: ...]
[JohnWillStab: ?]
[Bonifacius: ...]
[Bonifacius: mine own god, art thee an undead?! I has’t to killeth thee!]
The armoured man drew his shield and sword and approached John - [Bonifacius: *Strikes the enemy*]
While Bonifacius was writing JohnWillStab ran up to him and started spamming the [kick] spell causing Bonifacius to keep replaying the “hit” animation.
[Bonifacius: thou art a stout foe! but I has’t the pow’r of god on mine own side!]
[Bonifacius: *Strikes the enemy*]
JohnWillStab continued kicking the enemy, Bonifacius cast [Shield Bash] killing JohnWillStab instantly and knocking his ragdoll corpse flying through the sky and landing on the stone ground - he used the mouse to move the camera around to see where he was.
JohnWillStab was in the town again...
