The TV flashed the commercial I had seen more times than I could count. Various scenes of a fantasy world flitted across the screen while a slightly overdramatic voiceover played up pretty much every trope imaginable.
“Imagine a world with infinite possibilities…”
A nomadic trading caravan traveled through a desert sandstorm with their wares packed on the backs of strange beasts.
“A world of unending adventures…”
A group of large, muscular people wearing leather and fur armors with rough looking weapons stood off against a very aggressive looking mammoth-like beast in the middle of a snow covered forest.
“A world of mysteries and wonders…”
A dwarven miner chipping away some rock in an underground cave, revealing a strange, glowing crystal. Awe and greed clearly showed on his bearded face.
“All these things and beyond are out there, waiting for-”
The logo for Sundered World Online, the new virtual reality MMORPG, flashed across the screen as I reached for the remote and turned off the TV. I had seen that commercial more times than I care to count, and every time I feel almost mesmerized by the beautiful fantasy world of the game. And tonight at midnight the servers would finally be going live. I just had to live with the anticipation for a while longer. Well that and go to work. As much as I would rather stay here and read everything I can find about the game online, I do still need to earn a living.
Ah right, introductions. I’m Nathan. Nathan Freeman, 25, single, a software engineer employed at a small development company specializing in embedded control systems. Think the computer in your car that makes everything work in unison, that type of thing. Not that any of that really matters. It pays the bills, and that’s the important part. About a year and a half ago, I packed up and moved across the country for this job, so at this point I’m pretty settled into it. Unfortunately, I’m not really the most social person, so while I still keep in contact with my close friends back home and get on well with my coworkers, I don’t have many acquaintances here outside of those. However, since most of my coworkers have similar interests we get along pretty well, and most of us were anticipating the release of SWO.
“Morning Nathan. Ready for what will probably be the longest Friday at the office in a while?”
As I walked into the office I was greeted by my coworker, Erik. He, like me, was clearly already mentally ready for the weekend and playing the game judging by the fact that the SWO website was up on his computer rather than any work. Luckily it was a holiday weekend, so the boss honestly wasn’t expecting much from us today. Additionally, a lot of us had put in a few extra vacation days as well to get as much playtime in as possible. I actually had all of the next week off, since I had a lot of vacation time banked up and rarely actually use any of it.
“Hey Erik, let’s grab some coffee and get this day over with.”
We chuckled and headed to the break room, mugs in hand. This was something like a morning ritual for us. We’d go get some coffee, chat for a bit, then get to work. Today the chatting inevitably ended up on SWO.
“So, you gonna go random, or design your character?”
“I’ll most likely go random. It’s worth it to try, after all. And no matter what you end up with, the game should be fun.”
SWO’s character creation was one of the things that had received a lot of discussion. In addition to a large number of races to choose from, players would also be given the option of randomizing their character. The player would only be able to choose their name and make a few minor alterations to their appearance rather than completely designing their character, but the benefit of going random was the small possibility of getting assigned a race not usually available for selection, referred to simply as a rare race. These races could range from being uncommon but occurring enough to form a small village if they banded together, to being unique to that character alone. It was important to note that the developers of the game, PassCom, and beta testers all agreed that while these races were rare, they were still balanced with the others and would not give the player an unfair advantage. That said, unless they already had their character complete planned out, most people intended to give the random setup a try at least. Also, while the details weren’t available, there were supposedly systems in place to prevent a player from repeatedly generating random characters to get a rare.
Throughout the day, any time we took a break, I and my coworkers would end up talking about the game and our plans. We talked a bit about meeting up eventually, but with beginning areas depending on race and most of us planning to randomize our characters, there was no way to plan that ahead of time.
---
After work, I ate a quick dinner and chatted online with Joseph, who I can only really describe as my closest friend in the world. Seriously, I’m pretty sure he knows me better than I know myself. He was still living and working in the town I left when I moved here, but we talk almost every day. Just like with my coworkers, we were talking about SWO and our plans for the game. However, unlike with my coworkers who I would just find in game whenever it was convenient, meeting with Joseph and playing together with him would be a top priority for both of us. Well, priority number two for him. His girlfriend was also going to play, so he had to find her too. Not that I minded, she was a good friend of mine as well. I was actually a bit surprised she was going to play right away, as she was usually more of a casual gamer if anything.
“Well, since our cell phones are synced to the VR pods, I’ll just send you a text with my character name so you can add me to your friend list in game and we can figure things out from there. I gotta figure out how to find Ashley, too. She may need some help, so I’m gonna try to get to her quickly. It might be a bit before all three of us can meet up.”
The VR pods allowed cell phones to be accessed from in game so players could stay in communication with the outside world while playing. While you could make and answer calls, due to the games time acceleration your consciousness would be moved out of your character while you talked and your character would go comatose during that time, so most people planned to use text to communicate while in game instead.
“That’s fine, I can take care of myself for a while. I’m really looking forward to this, it’s been awhile since we were really able to muck about freely in a game.”
“Tell me about it, I’m already afraid to see where we end up. I’ve been telling Ashley some of our past ‘exploits’. She’s both excited and a bit concerned with how often we find ourselves in trouble.”
“Well, that’s not our fault. Trouble comes looking for us, not the other way around… usually.”
“Mmhmm, like the time you incited the kobold tribes to unite and attempt to overthrow the main trading hub?”
“Hey, that was a misunderstanding. I just traded them some wyvern meat as an exchange for some materials they had, and happened to slip that I had gotten it in that town. How was I supposed to know it was addictive to kobolds, and that they would decide to invade in order to secure the supply. It’s not like they were actually able to take the city anyway. And no one but you knows that I was the cause of that mess, anyway.”
"Most people don't try to trade with monsters, you know?"
While we still played together regularly, lately it had been more strategy games so we weren’t able to really mess about as much as we did when playing RPGs. In a few hours we would be set loose on the world of SWO to do whatever we pleased, for better or worse. Probably worse, knowing the hijinks we’ve gotten into in the past. The kobold incident was just one of many, after all.
“Anyway, I’m gonna go try to get some sleep before the game goes live. While being in the pod is more restful than being fully awake, I want to maximize how much time I can go before I need to logout and go to bed.”
“Yeah, probably a good idea. I’ll talk to you in game later.”
We both disconnected and I set my alarm to wake me up about half an hour before the game started, and closed my eyes in an effort to will myself to sleep.
---
BZZT… BZZT… BZZT… BZZT…
I groggily switched the alarm on my phone off, and glanced at the time.
11:30… Why would I have set an alarm for this early? Or late? Whatever, why am I awake?
My eyes wandered the room as my brain tried desperately to wake up enough to remember my reasoning for interrupting my sleep after only a few hours. Then the VR pod entered my vision, and my faculties jolted awake.
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Ah, right!
I dragged my sluggish body out of bed and headed to the kitchen to brew a quick cup of coffee. A dose of caffeine should be just the thing to get me going for the long haul to come. Honestly, the caffeine itself did very little to me, due to the resistance I had built up, but it still helped me focus thanks to the placebo effect.
After tricking myself into waking up, I made my way back to my room and the VR pod and climbed inside. Specifically designed for the player to be in it for hours at a time, the lounging chair in the pod forced the body to remain in a neutral position to minimize the discomfort and strains. In fact, some people even sleep in the pod, even when not using it because it’s more comfortable than their beds. Of course, the developers of the pod recommended getting out and stretching for a bit every 6 hours or so, but very few people took that recommendation seriously.
I went ahead and started up the game ahead of time so I would be connected immediately when things got started. Players were allowed to make their accounts starting a week ago to reduce strain on the registration servers. Of course, that would just increase the strain on login and character creation, but the developers promised that was already accounted for. After signing in, I was presented with a small library in order to not have to stare into empty space during the wait. Especially since time was accelerate to around 3x real time while in game, so the wait was considerably longer than it would have been outside of the pod.
The books were all the backstory of the world in which the game took place. Most of this information was already available online, but I still skimmed the books while waiting for character creation to begin. Basically, the world was once connected with two other worlds, the celestial world and the infernal world, via several gateways found in various places. Fairly typical setup, really. Eventually, war broke out between the celestials and infernals, and this world, called Ariloth, was caught in the middle of it all. To protect the world the gods, who usually acted more as spectators than participants in worldly affairs, opted to take the rather extreme action of destroying the gateways, isolating Ariloth. This ensured no celestials or infernals could enter this world, but also trapped the few that were already here. Enraged at being trapped the Remnants, as they were called, vowed to destroy the world the gods had protected in revenge. However they currently did not have the strength to do so, and so they fled to the uncivilized parts of the world, ruling over the monsters in those regions through force.
Since the war, the races of this world have prospered in relative peace. Because of the existence of monsters and the looming threat of the Remnants, very few wars have been fought amongst the inhabitants of the world. Each race has internal quarrels, but few of those have ever amounted to anything beyond a major nuisance. Some races are split between the reasoning members, and the feral ones. As an example, while elementals are welcome in towns, feral elementals are considered dangerous and attacked on sight. Also, extra-planar beings such as angels and demons (not to be confused with celestials and infernals, very different beings) are extremely rare as they must be summoned to Ariloth using rituals that require tremendous resources. Their acceptance is usually handled on a case by case basis, with demons much less likely to be accepted by the other races than angels.
In spite of the lasting peace with each other, the civilized peoples of the world have not been able to expand their territories far either. Any attempt to cultivate new lands brings the risk of accidentally invading the lands the Remnants have claimed as their own. Coming too close to those lands will bring the wrath of the Remnants, leading to conflicts with the monsters under their control.
I had just finished going through the history books and was about to read a book titled Atlas of Ariloth, which admittedly I should probably have looked at first, when a notification popped up in front of me.
Character creation has been unlocked. Would you like to begin?
Yes
No
Geography was important, but play time was more so. I immediately selected “Yes” and was transferred to a black space. You would expect it to be dark, but I could clearly see myself and the other occupant in the room. She was dressed in an elegant silver gown, with blond hair tied in a loose ponytail that was pulled to the front over her left shoulder. In a word, she would be described as “beautiful” by nine people out of ten. And the tenth’s opinion doesn’t count since they clearly have questionable taste.
“Greetings, and welcome to Sundered World Online. My name is Kara, and I am tasked with guiding you through character creation, amongst a number of other duties. Shall we begin?”
Really PassCom? Kara the character creation assistant? Well, I’m not much better at naming things, so I can’t really say anything. Also, ‘other duties’? I suddenly have a slight suspicion she may be one of the gods responsible for isolating this world from the others.
“Sure, where do we start?”
“To begin with, you have two options. First, you may choose from among the common races of the world and create your character as you see fit. The other option is to accept a randomized character. This has the possibility of unlocking a rare race, however this race will not be any more powerful than the common races. If it does have particularly strong abilities, it will have equally strong drawbacks. Also, if you choose to randomize and are unhappy with the results, you will not be eligible to receive a rare race again for at least 90 days. This means you will have to play with either a common race or the result of your first randomization for approximately three months in real time before you can possibly get another rare race. Any questions so far?”
Wow, three months invested in a character would be hard to throw away. I can see how that would discourage rerolling for a rare race. Which brings up a question I saw asked in a forum about a week ago.
“Is character creation the only way to obtain a rare race, or can your character's race change in the game?”
Kara nodded.
“While hard to come by, there are ways in the game to change your race to some of those not available at character creation, and even some that cannot be generated randomly. However other races are only available through random character generation. Any other questions?”
I see, so basically races are classified in four groups. The common races available to everyone, the rare races that can be generated at character creation or obtained through gameplay, rare races only available through gameplay, and finally the rare races only obtainable through character randomization.
“Nope, that’s all for now. Let’s get started.”
“Alright. First, will you be designing your character, or will you take a randomized character?”
“I’m going to go random.”
“Very good, you are allowed to bias the randomization toward a particular play style. For example, you can choose to bias the randomization toward warrior type races, giving you a higher chance of obtaining a race specializing in physical combat stats like strength and endurance. Note this does not guarantee you will get a race like you chose, only increases your odds. Would you like to add a bias?”
Oh, a bias. That was something I hadn’t heard about. I thought a bit about it, and decided to go ahead and give it a try. I would probably force whatever race I ended up with into my preferred play style anyway, may as well try to get one that was good at it.
“Can I bias it toward being a magic user?”
“Certainly, now then one moment while your race is generated.”
Kara closed her eyes and stopped moving for a moment. The she opened them again and smiled at me.
“Congratulations, you have generated a rare race.”
Before I could even wonder what it was, a new window popped up in front of me.
Congratulations on your randomly generated race. The race you have been assigned is:
Succubus
“... huh?”
I was honestly shocked. I had been prepared for a lot of things, but discovering I would be playing the game as a seductive demon who drained men of their essence through sex was not on that list. First of all judging by the ratings it’s received, I’m fairly sure sex isn’t even possible in this game, so how would that work?
“Um Kara, can I ask you a question about this race. I’m fairly certain one of the more major features of traditional succubi isn’t possible in SWO. How is this going to even work?”
Kara pondered my question a moment before responding.
“I’m sorry, I’m not able to answer your question on my own. Please wait a moment while I summon one of the PassCom character creation support staff to help.”
After waiting for roughly fifteen seconds, there was a flash of light and next to Kara stood a young man in a professional looking suit. He stepped forward and began to introduce himself with a well practiced smile for dealing with customers on his face.
“Hello, I’m David with Sundered World Online character creation support. Kara tells me you have a question about your race that she was unable to answer. Give me just a moment to pull up your information and replay your discussion with her.”
A few windows opened in front of him and he stared intently at one of them for a minute before it vanished. He then glanced at the other window before nodding.
“I think I see where your confusion is. First off, let me congratulate you as well on your rare race. It seems you are confused by the discrepancy between succubi in traditional mythologies and SWO, correct?”
“Yeah, that’s about it. Succubi are traditionally a race specialized in… shall we say ‘adult activities’. I’m pretty sure those aren’t an option in SWO, right?”
It’s not that I’m particularly hesitant to say ‘sex’, it just felt strange discussing it so frankly with a man in an immaculate business suit and a beautiful, elegant woman who may or may not be considered a goddess, so I ended up censoring myself.
“That is right, you cannot perform, as you put it, ‘adult activities’ in SWO.” David grinned slightly before continuing, “The race’s abilities have been designed to emulate tradition as closely as possible within the confines of the game, all while still maintaining game balance. As an example, the signature draining of males by succubi has been altered. You will have the ability to drain health from someone through physical contact to fill your satiety. Because of the toned down requirements, this also allows anyone to be drained, rather than just men. However, the restriction requiring the succubus to be a woman does still exist. Also, should later updates allow sexual activities, you will be given the option to convert the character to be more in line with traditions if you would like. Does this clear up your confusion?”
Ok, so not only will sex not be required (good since it’s not possible), but even the restriction to men is also lifted. This should be quite doable then. I don’t mind playing a female character. It can be fun, and opens the door to really mess with some people. But needing to sleep with other guys would take a lot of the fun out of it. I have no problems if other people want to do it, but that’s just not how I swing personally.
“Yeah, that settles my questions. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you enjoy SWO.”
David flashed his perfect business smile again, then with a flash of light, the room was back to two occupants. There was a short pause, then the goddess (verification pending) Kara, who had been standing to the side through my exchange with David, took a step forward.
“Are you ready to finish the character creation process now?”
Oh, right. We were doing that, weren't we.