“Jeremy! Come on! I wanna play already!” Said a young girl wearing an oversized hoodie that went to her knees, the sleeves are too big, but she just leaves them so her hands are almost always covered. “Do we have to strategize all the character creation? Can’t we just play?” She said with a pout as she look up to him as her excitement to play was overwhelming, she’d been waiting to play since her big brother had been a beta tester.

“Yes we have to strategically prepare, this game can be brutal so we need to find what you’re best at.” He said. With his two months of beta testing, he felt he had a good grasp of the game’s difficulty “and you need to have at least two weapons, every weapon type has a hoard of monsters that are immune to it, so if you pick fire magic, you’ll find that fire spirits are immune to it, or if you try using a bow and arrow, you’ll find that tortoise monsters deflect them. You might be tempted to go with one expensive trait, but that’s a failed character waiting to happen.” He said as he crawled into his pod. “Now Jessica, remember once you make your character, go to the southern town of Fort Halfbrick, it’s not the best starting area, in fact it’s the second worst, but that means few other players will be there so we won’t have to worry about a lack of monsters to fight.”

“If we are looking for as few other players, why not go to the area that you think is the worst?” Jessica asked, her brown eyes looking up at him curiously, she is new to mmorpgs, but wants to learn as much as she can “I mean, then barely anyone would show up, right?”

“Well yes, but the worst place to start is the Undercoon, you spawn in a random part of a dungeon that has zero light sources, and if you make your own light, monsters will come at you in droves, meaning the night vision trait is necessary, but it’s so expensive that it’s not worth it. Also, it’s the biggest dungeon in the game, at the center sits an entire city, with multiple smaller dungeons hidden inside” He explained, to him, traits were a make or brake for your character, and from his knowledge of the beta, getting new traits was so difficult that it was just easier to train the ones you start with.

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“I wanna focus on long range attacks, so I should pick up a bow and one of the magic types, right?” Jessica asked, “I’m thinking wind magic! Maybe I can combine them and be like a sniper! Shooting my arrows super duper far!” She said as she mimicked holding a bow and arrow, then releasing the arrow while making a “pewww” sound.

with a small chuckle, Jeremy replied “Okay, in that case I’ll play as a tank. Now climb into your pod already, the game starts soon!” he said as he closed the pod and turned on the game, as he real body fell asleep and his consciousness went inside the game, quickly copying his build from the beta test, and choosing the traits and , he didn’t take any de-buff’s as while you can gain new traits through playing the game, there wasn’t any way to remove them. He did want another trait, , but he’ll have to take on a certain quest, which is the real reason he wanted to start at Fort Halfbrick. He new his sister enough to know that if he said that he wanted to start here for a trait, she would have asked to go to the starting area that would help her gain traits she wanted, and he was feeling a little selfish. After all, he had more experience so his character needs to get stronger as soon as possible.

Soon, he opened his eyes and was in the middle of what appeared to be a cathedral, the spawn point for players who decide to spawn at this town “Adventurer sent by the gods, please tell us your name” said a young woman, who was tasked with granting the adventurers names. For some reason, the dev’s decided this was a better way, or maybe it was to be more immersive? He didn’t know, but what he did know is that players can’t choose the same name.

“Gabriel” He said, using the same name he chose from back when he was a beta tester.

“Yuka!” said a young girls voice as he turned to see someone much shorter than him wielding a bow, and while she looked completely different everything from her emerald eyes to the blonde hair, he new it was his sister from her voice.