Age of Champions, the game for which He waited so long is finally here. It came out two months ago and turned upside down whole gaming world. Age of champions wasn’t first virtual reality game but it had something which other didn’t, the most advanced AI on earth. AI created the game from scratch, made everything from maps to monsters designs, quests and managed everything within the game . This allowed to create the biggest world ever presented in game, it size was forty times bigger than Earth. What made greatest impression was the level of NPC intelligence and system of unique quests. It meant that some quests were impossible to repeat. At first people though that only firsts players will benefit from that system but it soon turn out they were wrong. AI generated quests all the time and thanks to ever changing world game was much more exiting. All this made Age of champions the most popular game ever. In three months it had 4 million players and number of users rose faster with each passing day.
Today Bart’s capsule finally arrived. To him it looked as the most incredible futuristic sculpture. Everything except lid and setup panel was matte black. While technician were installing capsule His father walked to him.
“Bart I hope that you are happy for your present”
“Yes, thank you father “
“Only remember what you promised me”
“Of course I remember”
The promise had two parts one he would pass his middle school exams with at least 90% of points secondly he had to find part time job during summer and return half of the sum his father paid for the capsule and 3 year subscription. This was not small sum roughly 3000$. Bart still thought that Age of Champions was worth it and what more he already fulfilled the first part of his promise and had 3 years to return money to his dad before graduation from high school.
Soon after the technicians setup whole capsule he jumped inside and closed the lid. Inside was quiet comfy and after closing the glassy cover started to darken till it didn’t let even ray of light.
“Do you won’t to connect to Age of Champions” Female voice came from darkness
“Of course” He didn’t asked his father for 3 months to buy capsule to say now no
“Scan of your body detected you are new player would you like to create new account.”
“Yes”
“Select the name of your champion.”
“Hetman”
“Select your gender from male or female.”
“Male”
“Currently are available three races. You can chose from human race, elven race or dwarf race.”
“I want to be half elf”
“Sorry this option isn’t available, you can chose only one of three …”
“Alright I chose human” Bart didn’t want to risk and choose elf or dwarf. It was risky because he didn’t have any information about races. Users who chose other races didn’t share information about pros and cons of each race. So human was the safest choice as in most games it had well balanced stats and could become master in any field.
"Please alter your appearance."
Before him appeared young boy around sixteen years old with average appearance. He exceeded little over 170 cm, not fat but you couldn’t say he was especially sporty, had brown hair and grey eyes.
“I want to be older around twenty, have white hair, red radiating eyes also bigger mussels.”
Warning!To have white hair and red eyes you will get feature “albinism” it will decrease your fire resistance and longer activities under sun whiteout proper protection will decrees your health.
Do you want to continue anyway?
„no”
“do you wish to continue changing your appearance”
“no it’s ok”
“Human race starting city is Windport capital of Aerian empire you will appear there after tutorial.”
"Welcome to Age of champions"
*Flash*
He appeared in the middle of small camp. Camp was enclosed by palisade. It didn’t look like big structure, no more than 50 meters in radius. Inside were some tents, small chapel and training ground you could also see some players in their beginners clothing while they were treated by priests or appearing inside the camp.
TutorialWelcome on the “Plains” where you will be introduced to the basic of control system and fights.
To start proper game you need to either complete tutorial or resign from it. Please take in notice that after executing task given to you on the plains you will be granted with small bonus. If you wish to cancel tutorial despite that please say “skip tutorial”. This option is available during entire time.
To pass tutorial you need to end quest “baptism of fire”. Deaths on the “Plains” don’t give any negative or positive effects so killing other players don’t give any EXP or PK mark. Only place where you aren’t allowed to attack players is camp. Satiety bar is turned down also you won’t be able to acquire any skills or stats points for entire tutorial. You also will be given two pieces of basic equipment or spell books of your choice. To state what item do you want say it loudly
and chosen items will appear in your inventory.
“Baptism of fire”The “Plains” is dimension outside of world, it’s place which gods created to punish the ones which didn’t respect them. After appearance of adventures is also used to test them at the beginning of their adventure. To show you are worth to be given a chance to rule over the Northeilm continent defeat ten others players. Be aware that if you die while executing this quest your defeated players counter will be reset.
Reward: Title
Hetman knew from the beginning what items he wanted. His thoughts were simple. He wanted to be cool, be half elf with white hair, red eyes and fight using two Katana . Because he couldn’t become half elf and withe hair and red eyes gave negative effect, he need to abandon this part of his plans. So all he had left was fighting using two swords and didn’t plan to abandon this part of his plan.
“Two swords”
After that he picked up two medieval like iron swords from his inventory and went to the nearest exit from the camp ignoring popping out window.
Hetman was rather mesmerized by the view he seen just before camp gate. Scenery outside the camp was rather monotonous but it was vast.
Tremendous empty green space without even one hill wherever you would look. In the distance could be seen small battles and closer some groups of players but nowhere could be seen animals. Hetman came to conclusion that on plains didn’t live any animals or were very rare. It didn’t bother him too much, bigger problem were players waiting near the gates. They probably waited for someone who would leave the camp alone and kill him. It was logically thinking the easiest way to complete tutorial. After thinking what to do next hetman decided that he firstly need to know his own capabilities. He was quiet sure that he will be able to take one or two other players and if situation became dangerous he would be fast enough to run to the city. With that thoughts he started to run in direction of the four player waiting near the gate.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Seeing someone was running in their direction they quickly got up and prepare theirs weapons. Even before Hetman was able to get near to them archer already fired arrow. Hetman heard whistling sound and missile hit ground one meter from him then he spotted that in his direction flew fireball. It’s speed wasn’t great but still fear of getting hurt paralyzed him. Only thanks to awful aiming of the mage spell didn’t roasted him only grazing his arm. But there is where his luck ended the next arrow hit his leg and he fell on the ground. Before he could get up two melees were few steps away from him . From the look you could guess they didn’t have peaceful intentions. One carried bastard sword other two handed axe. As soon as Hetman was in their reach axeman attacked taking big swing. It was quiet easy to read where the blow would land and Hetman decided to block first attack with the sword in left hand while to pierce enemy with the one in right. Unfortunately it not exactly went as expected. The block was easily blown away by axe and only by luck Hetman wasn’t decapitated but it only postponed his death as the axe hit his shoulder, crumbled bone, made bleed and left him with only with fourth Hp left. What’s more his movements felled unnatural while fighting and his body reacted slower and clumsier then he imagined. Despite that he was still able to execute thrust with second sword. It seemed that at least one of aggressors will die with him. His hopes shattered when the sword hit corpus of the axeman giving the metallic sound, it looked like he wore some kind of chainmail under his clothes. This gave swordman chance to end fight which he did by decapitating Bart.
“sh*t”
Hetman almost at the same time appeared again in the middle of the camp. His first death made him mad. He hoped that at least one of his enemies would die but he wasn’t even able to make threat to one of them. After a while he calmed down a little and though what went wrong. Even if he wasn't too old his gaming experience was quiet big. He learned few thing while playing other MMO games. One of them was, It didn't matter how many time you died but what you learned from deaths and Hetman was fast learner.
The first problem ware ranged attacks. Even if his enemies shot awfully one arrow was enough to make him immobile and not able to dodge any attack like the one he received in his leg. Secondly blocks, it seemed that his left hand is too weak and guard will simply flew with any little bit stronger strike. But the most important is number advantage. His abilities didn’t allowed him to fight more than one person at the time without a plan.
Hetman started plotting his next actions. His plan to prevent ranged attacks was simple. During night mages and archers will not see him and the cannot attack what they don’t see. Secondly his fighting style was horribly ineffective and he needed to do something about it. He decided to visit training ground and at least use this few hours before sunset to get used to swordfighting and make controlling the swords more natural to him. Lastly to deal with number advantage he needed to either join other team or separate enemies and deal with one at time.
Training ground was big space with around fifty dummies. Hetman chose one and started hitting it with his swords. It looked pitiful. Each hit seamed without any strength behind it, speed was also terribly slow but the worst was coordination between two swords. Left sword didn’t keep up with the right and while concentrating on hands he didn’t controlled his legs and stood in place like log which made him easy target.
After fifteen minutes passed Hetman was depressed. His form didn’t looked like he imaged it would. He wanted to almost dance with the blades but he had problems even with controlling his swords not to mention smooth foot work. While he was sitting sulking behind his back appeared big bear like man and without any ceremony clapped his back and laugh with laud voice.
“It not so easy young one HAHAha… sword fighting I mean HAHAHa”
Giant without sweet lifted Bart from the ground and put him on feet.
“You looked like dancing chicken young one HAHAha, this even didn’t resembled sword fighting. I seen many adventures trying fight with two swords most gave up but none looked so hilarious. So why did you choose two swords when you don’t look like you can even fight with one lad HAHAHa?”
“I wanted to fight double wielding swords because that looked cool and allows to attack with both hands “
“HAHAHA That answer is so irrational, If you think that what you did was cool you should check your head HAHAHA. Beside from what I have seen your right hand is dominant and to dual wield you should be able to use left as easily as right, or at your case as bad as right HAHAHA”
“ If you are only going to laugh then please don’t bother me while I’m training “ Hetman was quiet angry. This bear man came to him and is making fun of him.
“HAHAHA I see you are hot heeded lad it’s not bad but it’s hard to call training what you were doing. From my point of view you were only swinging swords without reason.”
“If you don’t have anything constructive to say please leave me alone”
“Don’t be so grumpy lad, if You want some advice for now leave one sword and learn to use one sword in each hand then try dual wielding. It won’t be fast and will take few months but still will be more effective training method than your chicken dance HAHAHa”
“I don’t have time to let the things go slowly, I want to leave this place as fast as I can” He didn’t want to spend months in place where he couldn’t achieve anything except completing tutorial.
Bear man suddenly got more serious, it seemed that last answer made him little irritated.
“Everyone of you, young ones is so hot headed. Why do you think gods sent you all adventures here not straight to Northeilm. Right now most of you are worse at fighting than 10 years old kid. Despite that no more than 20 of you came here to train. Most chose to gang up on lone adventures. I don’t say it ineffective, but that way they won’t become any better and that is the main reason why you are here in first place. So lad I think you should use time you will spend here to find your way of fighting and not go easy way.”
Hetman was surprised by sudden change in bear man but understood that if he have hard time against players, where most of them barely knew how to take the swing not talking about techniques and stances, he didn’t stand a chance against well programmed NPC’s and monsters. What’s more here deaths didn’t have any negative effects but when he will start real game it won’t be so nice. E.N.E.C. company which made age of champions made death repercussions quiet serve. You didn't lose only experience and some items but also was banned from game for 2 RR days and with 1 to 3 time ratio it keep you out of the game for almost week in game time. So if he wanted to experiment with different strategies and tactics Plains where the best place.