Once he was home and securely locked in his house, Ethan tried as gently as possible to place the box on his living room floor. Designed for a scenario like this one, it crashed with a loud thud but was otherwise, undamaged. No doubt thanks to some factory in China that was responsible for the creation of these gaming rigs. Out of breath and exhausted, Ethan grabbed a glass of water, took a few sips to calm down, and composed himself for the undoubtedly long night ahead. The rig box was about as plain as it got for any product these days. The only thing that was remotely visible, though small as hell, was the Alchemy logo. There was also another logo next to the Alchemy logo, which was probably the company that made the rig, the hardware that made this all possible. Inside the box was also pretty standard and plain. Despite being a three-thousand-dollar product, it was clear that Alchemy didn’t want players investing their time in anything other than their online experience, when balls should be dropping and the world getting drunk. Ethan wheeled the rig out of the box first. A set of joke instructions was behind it, which indicated that one should simply plug the power supply into a wall outlet first, followed by two other plugs that were labeled with pictures and arrows to where they should be inserted into the hardware. Anybody surely could have figured that out. Anyhow, the only other thing the box had is the three chords that power the rig. Ethan simply followed the instructions and the rig powered on in short order. The display, small for now, simply told Ethan that he should not be alarmed; the rig will stay powered on indefinitely from now on. It also said that under no circumstances should the rig be inadvertently or otherwise, unplugged from its current power supply.
On the next screen, Ethan was asked to select a Wireless network. He selected his current home Wi-Fi, entered his password and was inundated with Alchemy policies, rules and other standard information developers want new players to know for connecting to Massively Multi-player games. Finally, after signing that he understood the Perma Player policy, something that he no doubt would have to sign again; the Alchemy account screen displayed. After filling out his basic info and verifying his email, Ethan sighed with relief as he logged in with his account. Now, he was getting somewhere. His character avatar, for now, was just a tiny blob on-screen. Tutorial text along with an arrow to show where this blob was headed displayed on his screen, and Ethan read it internally with interest.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
“Welcome to Galbadia Prime online. This tutorial will guide you through your first steps creating your character, followed by some introductory first steps in the world on Galbadia Prime On line’s capital planet, Galbadia Prime.”
As Ethan scrolled through the text with his hands, the blob which represented his character continued to move to what Ethan assumed was the first room for his avatar’s appearance. It was not; it was race selection. To Ethan’s dismay, races were still “in beta” and would be opened to players later. The game selected Human by colliding with a human face. Now, the game gave Ethan two options to save time. He could either customize every part of his character appearance and waste time not actually playing, or he could select from, according to the game, a “variety of templates” to create his character appearance. The tutorial went on to explain that character appearance is the only thing that really matters in character generation. “All skills that you will acquire can only be found in-game. There are starting bonuses to skills you will gain during the tutorial, but otherwise no veteran player has advantage over someone starting from the ground up.”
Ethan, not one for appearances, selected the quick start option. A variety of options came up for Quick start for each part of the human body. Ethan however was content to select the last one, “Random Appearance.” This resulted in quite frankly, several ugly appearances that Ethan hoped he’d never have to look at in-game or in any life. Despite this, he did come across an average appearance that the computer selected for him, which suited him just fine. He accepted, and the Galbadia Prime spaceport landing pad swirled around him as though he was standing there, the gaming rig forgotten.
A speaker above his character blared to life. “Welcome, Julian Matthews. Please await the next merchant ship coming in for a landing. The ETA is three minutes. One Kimberly Aldrich is on-board; a player who volunteered herself to assist new players of Galbadia Prime Online to get settled.”
Everybody else in the spaceport heard it too. People poked their heads out of nearby shops to look at the newcomer and waved. Ethan, meanwhile, kicked himself for not having the decency to choose a bloody name for his character. “The game chose Julian Matthews for me. It’s as good a name as any,” sighing.