Chapter 7: Not The Imps
I followed Lena to the (supposedly) Official Third Eye server on Discord.
Ten minutes ago I couldn’t stand the thought of touching it, but that was when it meant an attempt to wrap my brain around Third Eye’s mysteries.
Now it meant rescuing Third Eye’s chat admin from my roommate.
Amazing what anger could do for her, and worry for me.
The server started me off in Preview mode, which I only remembered from official ones. Could just anyone set things up this way? I didn’t remember doing it with our household server. Regardless, I clicked to join and got a boilerplate set of server rules to agree to. No promotion, no pornography, no hate speech, treat the staff and each other with respect.
“Be careful,” I said to Lena. Not about following the rules. She’d never met one she wanted to abide by. I’d need tactics to sway her. “You don’t want to let the whole server know what tier you backed at, do you?”
“All I gotta do is find out who the admin is and DM ‘em.”
“Who they are,” I said, “is some poor bastard low enough on the totem pole to have to interact with the playerbase.”
I got a shudder out of her. We’d both worked our share of customer service jobs. I’d even adminned an official Skype for a game once, back when enough gamers used Skype to bother with one. Never again, but it gave me a certain sympathy for whoever got stuck with the job at Third Eye.
“Low,” Lena said, “but they’re still gonna be on the totem pole. Game hasn’t been out long enough to get volunteers.”
“Unless,” I said, “this isn’t a real official server.”
Wrong thing to say. I could feel her wicked grin from across the room.
“I find that out,” Lena said, “and some cheeky little shit’s gonna be very sorry.”
“If it’s really not official,” I said, “you have my blessing.”
Wrong again. “Since when do you think I need that?”
“Fine!” I raised my hands in case she glared my way. “Just, try not to savage a poor intern. For your own sake, too. Save your rockets for the cyberdemons, not the imps.”
“Cyberdemons in Doom Eternal ain’t shit,” Lena said, “and rockets are for crowd control.”
“You can argue Doom strategy with me when you win a deathmatch,” I said.
The oldest kind of games, pre-digital, started out competitive. Player Versus Player. Plenty still used that gameplay model. Lena and I both liked competition. I because it forced me to engage more intensely. Her, in part, because she lapped me in like ninety percent of the games we played against each other.
She wouldn’t try me in strategy titles unless she’d drunk enough to use as an excuse. So, First-Person Shooters like Doom represented my only bright spots in intra-apartment PVP.
Thing about Lena, though, thing I admired even though I didn’t really understand it: she loved to win, but not as much as she respected winning. In that moment, it didn’t matter if she kicked my ass in every other game. It didn’t matter who’d picked the metaphor. From the moment she chose to fire back on the same wavelength, she’d accepted it mattered who won more FPS matches.
She didn’t respond. I thought I could hear her jaw clamp shut. I could definitely hear her fingers stab at her mechanical keyboard.
At the bottom of the Third Eye Official Discord, a message from Ashbird read, ‘@Admin Can I ask customer service questions here?’ By including the @ symbol she’d pinged anyone with an account tagged as administrator.
Instantly – I mean it, blink and I missed the notification someone was typing – an answer appeared.
AlephLambda: I’ll help out if I can, but you should use the form on our website. :)
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Not the imps,” Lena muttered. Her keyboard clacked but I didn’t see what she typed. She must have sent a direct message to AlephLambda.
While I waited to see if her metaphorical shotgun work had developed – or if, due to reasonable philosophical differences over how much threat an imp represented to Doomguy, she scaled all the way down to the text version of pistol and fist – I scanned the server.
AlephLambda and another poster, VisibleFromSpace, were listed on the sidebar as Developers. If the server really had the backing of Third Eye Productions, we’d found proper Imps! Interns, in my opinion, counted as Lost Souls. (Source: personal experience.)
The second handle, with a profile picture of a beaver in an astronaut’s helmet, made me grin. Taken together, they worked as a reference to the beaver dam in Canada that showed up in satellite images.
Lots of posts from players about the crazy graphics. A few about the signup bonuses. Even fewer about the store. Almost none about the game.
AlephLambda handled all the responses, which I considered a shame on two levels.
First, the deep cut reference in VisibleFromSpace’s profile made me want to interact with them. Let’s be honest. Made me want to challenge them. Which of us would first invoke something esoteric enough the other had to look it up? May the best meme win!
Second, AlephLambda answered like a goddamn chatbot, and not one of those new, impressive ones. They offered to help everybody and couldn’t help anybody, and their non-service always came with a smile. I saw so many colon close parentheses, offered to so many dissatisfied customers, I started to entertain the notion AlephLambda might not actually be smiling when they used the emoticon.
“Fuck this guy. I really wanna use the rockets,” Lena said. “He’s listed as a dev, he deserves it.”
“How bad is his explanation?” Absent evidence to the contrary, I chose to roll with Lena’s calling AlephLambda a dude.
“It’s pretty good, tbh. He says they’re trying different totals during beta.”
“Interesting,” I said. “He hasn’t given a straight answer to anybody in general chat.”
“Probably another perk I didn’t ask for.”
“Or he answers questions better in DM where he can concentrate on them. He’ll probably compile a FAQ later.”
“Or he’s bullshitting me,” Lena said.
“The explanation fits, though. Why are you pissed about it?”
“Because he can’t say a line without that damn smiley. It makes him come across like a smug prick. Fine, whatever. Problem is, it makes me think he’s lying, too.”
“He’s probably just trying to put you at ease.”
“How’s that working out for him?”
I chuckled. Not like I disagreed with her. “In case you are getting unasked-for perks, maybe you should ask about the weird shit.”
“The only perks I want are the ones I paid for,” Lena snapped.
“Fine. Actually, this makes for a good test. Let’s see what I get out of them.” I shot AlephLambda a DM.
OldCampaigner: Can you explain some of the game stats to me?
AlephLambda: Sure, which would you like to know about? :)
I tried to edit their (his?) emoticons out of my perception. Just couldn’t deal with them anymore. They kept coming, though. So did the responses, damn fast.
What did I want, indeed?
A question bubbled up. I hadn’t meant to ask it but as soon as it occurred to me, I felt like nothing would make sense without squaring it away.
OldCampaigner: Back up a step. Why do we have stats in the first place?
AlephLambda: Gosh, that’s a deep question! :)
AlephLambda: Do you want the historical explanation, or the design one? I’m not a lead dev, so I’m afraid there’s only so much I can tell you. :’)
A new emoticon! Smile with a tear. Sad smile.
OldCampaigner: I guess I don’t quite get what the gameplay of Third Eye is going to be.
OldCampaigner: I was expecting an ARG, something where we work together to find clues online, and in this case, in AR overlaid on the outside world.
AlephLambda: That will be a huge part of your Third Eye experience. :)
OldCampaigner: Okay, cool, but, none of that fits with us having avatars. I guess to identify us in the world, and just to be a fun feature? I like it but it’s weird. But none of it has anything to do with this laundry list of role-playing game stats and an inventory full of resources and a huge cash shop.
AlephLambda: Oh.
Without even a smile! An actual pause, then another line came through.
AlephLambda: Please understand. I’m not allowed to give you a detailed breakdown because we want testers to provide feedback on our onboarding process. :)
I provided some.
OldCampaigner: No offense, but it hasn’t been the best so far. If the game's systems aren’t part of the whole mystery box setup, you may need to rework tutorialization from the ground up.
AlephLambda: No offense taken! We appreciate all beta participation and feedback so, so much. Yours is very well formatted. :)
At least the smiley fit.
OldCampaigner: Thanks. I’ve done the beta cycle before.
AlephLambda: I don’t think you need to worry, though. :)
Despite their omnipresent smile, I worried.
Rightly, as their next line proved.
AlephLambda: You’ll learn what all your resources are for as you begin exploring features and engaging in PVP. :)