The screen flashes a cyan blue and text appears on the screen in front of my eyes. A timer is in the corner indicating the servers becoming open in one hour, but the game allows character creation to begin.

(Welcome to Hero’s Gear Online! Retinal scan initiating)

Oh wow nice, I guess characters are designated by retinal scans so then characters and accounts are harder to steal. A light flashes over my eyes.

(Retinal scan complete, Full body scan initiating)

Gah, fuck! A shock runs throughout my body, I guess it's checking the proportions of my body? Man, you’d think it could just scan me, like, with my eyes rather than shocking me.

(Full body scan complete. Please fill out the following personality test honestly.)

Personality test? That's pretty weird, the other VR games didn’t have anything like this. Maybe it has something to do with account recovery?

The personality test is rather uneventful, the usual kind of questions you would get, Would you usually initiate conversations with others?, Do you struggle with social situations?, When you play, do you prefer solo play or team play? Things along those lines. Maybe the questions have something to do with the starting area and initial quests? Man it's hard to determine the start of a game that’s had so little released about it.

(Personality test complete, Race and class are being generated based on previous data. Please wait.)

WAIT, WHAT?! This isn't how this goes! Don’t you choose race and pick from some starter classes!? Why would the developers add something like this? That must be from the personality quiz! Fuck I’m not going to be able to make my solo paladin! WHAT IF I GET A SHIT CLASS! Well the Game should have balancing, so I should have a high aptitude towards to the class I get.

(Character creation completed. Proceeding to customization screen, a basic appearance has already been generated based on the physical research data; however, simple alterations can be made; please select a username)

Well, I already had a name picked out. Something simple but concise: Tome. I said it out loud to assign it as my username to the system. Now for the problem of my character page, well, nothing I can do about it now, it's not like they gave me a choice in the matter, first things first... What is my character sheet, my class, my race and starting stats?

Username:

Tome

Class:

Runic Spellsword

Race:

Lizard Demi-Human

Subspecies:

Venomous Lizard

Subclass:

Enchanter

Currency:

0g 0s 10c

Strength:

5 (-2)

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Intelligence

5 (+1)

Dexterity:

5 (+2)

Constitution

5 (-1)

Vitality:

5 (+1)

Luck:

6

Charisma:

7

Wisdom:

5 (-1)

Skill List:

Racial Skills:

Enchant Attack  (lvl1. 0%)

Minor Enchant Weapon *Unique* (lvl1 0%)

Minor poison resistance (lvl1. 0%)

Minor regeneration (lvl1. 0%)

Retractable Elbow claws - Poisoned (lvl1 0%)

Enhanced senses (lvl1. 0%)

Not too bad for a start, a bit of a shame with the starting stats. I'm still annoyed about not being able to choose the class I want to but I’ll admit that this could work too. Although I’ve noticed that it's going to have really bad survivability and will struggle for soloing. But, I’ll make it work. I always do.

(Additional skills and abilities can be unlocked through actions within the game in accordance to class and race. The character sheet will also automatically correct stats in the future to reduce clutter. The luck and charisma stat are also generated randomly. You now can make simple changes to your appearance)

A familiar looking guy is standing with a blank expression with Rusty brown coloured hair, sharp features and thin eyebrows. Green lizard-like eyes. I also get the character to open his mouth and it has a surprisingly long tongue, I'm not really sure what it’s purpose is ,but if nothing else it could intimidate some people (women). That’s about all I changed from my original appearance.

The skin is the same somewhat pale tone as my own but my arms, hands, chin/cheek area and shins are covered in dark green scales, probably corresponding to the fact I'm some kind of poisonous lizard humanoid. I stand at around 6’0” in real life but it had scaled down to 5’10” in order to give me a smaller hitbox. Gotta get as many advantages as I can.

(Would you like to save this appearance?) (Y/N)

Yes

(Are you satisfied with your Class and Race that have been selected?) (Y/N)

Yes, not like I can change it anyway.

(Character creation is now over, the game will launch in 15 minutes and 42 seconds)

Well, this is it. My new ‘life’ in the game. I’ll start in 15 minutes. I should get something quick to eat and sort out anything that will distract me from the game for now.

I log out of the console so that I can wait until the timer will end and find out how the others have reacted to the game picking their race and classes for them. I made a rice dish from the ready made ones I have stored up and check online.

Its pretty much as I imagined, most people are pretty pissed that they couldn’t make characters they like or pick their racial preferences. After looking around I notice that everyone has been given normal races and classes, I guess the chances of getting a secret or unique class and race are extremely low.

There's still 5 minutes left until the game launches so I decided to call up Ray and Rae to see if they have entered the game yet and warn them about it.

“Yeah watch out for that personality quiz if you want to get a class you want then answer the questions to fit that class.” I warn

“Oh shit, Really? Rae is already in the game and I don’t want to disconnect her cause it might cause problems cause the console is new. Ah well. Thanks for telling me man. At least I got a higher chance of getting a character I want. Oh yeah what's your ingame name so I can add you when we get in?”

“It's Tome, like the magical book.”

“Hahahahaha nice name, I’m surprised it wasn’t already taken! Alright I’ll remember to add you.”

“Alright what are you gonna choose for your name?”

“SocksAreForYourFeetSilly, at least it guarantees its not going to be taken.”

“That is actually the best name I’ve ever heard and I would steal it if I had known it before. What about Rae, what name did she take?”

“To be perfectly honest, I have no idea, she didn’t say much, only that she will tell me after she decides what to pick for her character, probably something cute like “kittykat” or something.”

“Alright, I should get ready to enter the game see you when we go in.”

I hung up the phone and logged back on the console.

The timer is on 1 minute and 9 seconds until it starts I watch it count down to 40 seconds, 20, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, ….

The screen flashes and the text

(Welcome to Hero’s Gear Online)

appears on the screen.