*tak tak tak tak*
Fingers danced along the keyboard as the gaunt man hunched over his desk. For someone in a suit, his posture exuded not a drop of the expected elegance. The lights in the office were out, the minimalist furniture only lit by the glow of a few monitors. Rather than overdue business reports the man’s attention was instead captivated by online forums for the MMORPG he had sunk a sickly amount of time into.
Rogue Tale hit the market out of the blue one year and absolutely consumed the reigning giants in the same sphere. Though companies attempted to emulate the success of the rising MMO, the level of care and quality simply couldn’t compete, players were also content with the communities they had built as Rogues and weren’t enticed enough to jump ship. It was the case for the man seated anyway, he was the vice leader of [Zodiac], a top ten guild in the game. Scouring the boards for anything interesting, the scrolling stops as the mouse hovers over a post complaining about pvp at the duellists' arena.
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>>0008762139 alphaNox21:
Hey guys, I was grinding the pvp arena in the lower levelled brackets for the vanity sets but I kept running into the same player in the Lv70 tier. I have to wait an hour for matches only to run into this crap?
arena.mp4
arena2.mp4
wtf.mp4
The other low level brackets didn’t have many players either but this is ridiculous. I’ve done a few endgame raids and those were nothing compared to this matchmaking demon.
Anyone on the Baal server who is willing to pvp in the 70s tier please shoot me a dm.
ign: Alpha Nox - Lv94 Paladin
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>>0008762157 fall3nkn1ght:
>>>arena.mp4
lmao deserved, why potion after you bowed back to the opponent at the start? :))
>>>arena2.mp4
yeah you just got rolled here, normally this should be an easy matchup
>>>wtf.mp4
im crying bruh hahahahahha
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>>0008762172 yuki_best_girl:
@alphaNox21>>0008762139(OP)
skill issue
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>>0008762188 x_WhisperOak_x:
>>>wtf.mp4
That seems like way too much damage, what the hell is that weapon?
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>>0008762201 bighatbarry1:
>>>arena2.mp4
spell at 0:13?? pls anyone know?
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>>0008762215 crystal-crusader:
@alphaNox21>>0008762139(OP)
You met the gatekeeper of Lv70 arena, don’t worry it happens to the best of us. I know many players missing that helmet from the pvp set. ; v ;
@x_WhisperOak_x>>0008762188
It’s a quest reward from an obscure monster tribe quest in the third zone, a cheese weapon at the cost of being so heavy that armour isn’t an option, quite unusable in normal content.
@bighatbarry1>>0008762201
That’s not one spell, that's like four or five spells going off at the same time, I don’t play mage though.
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>>0008762227 john331451:
@alphaNox21>>0008762139(OP)
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL git gud
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The man snorted, knowing who the player in question was before even opening the video files, though he clicked anyway as it was always interesting watching them fight. His guild had even attempted to recruit the player in the past with no success, big contracts that put his own to shame rejected without as much as a glance. It wasn’t just his guild, every guild that asked was immediately turned down. It wasn’t that the offers were bad, technically the player couldn’t join any guilds, their playstyle and stubbornness just didn’t integrate with group play at all.
>>arena.mp4
A sweeping view of an ornate marbled arena is shown as the camera floats in the air behind a shining silver knight, a massive greatsword plunged into the soft ground at his side. Rogue Tale’s automated 3rd person action camera allows players to record their adventures, with some obvious exceptions, and even broadcast them online in real-time. Spectators line the seats behind a thin tinted magical barrier, some player names can be seen through the crowd although the seats are filled mostly by NPCs from the game world.
At the other end of the arena stood a slim figure adorned in a combination of armour and leathers. A darkened full helm obscured their face with a single narrow slit at the eye line, the only other metal worn appearing to be their gauntlets of the same material. Each hand wielded exotic daggers that were rarely used due to difficulty, one side of the daggers being a sharp blade and the other looking like spaced-out hooked teeth. Swordbreakers they were known as, though they wouldn’t have much of an effect on larger weapons. The camera zooms to focus on the opponent's nameplate hovering above their head.
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[ Rival Encounter - Lv70 ]
The knight chuckled at the text, some players liked to use realistic names for their characters while others enjoyed themed and joke names. His opponent stepped forward and bowed deeply, signalling cheers from the crowd. Healing items were allowed in the arena however the arena featured a limited inventory, enabling only a handful of different item slots with hard caps on quantity. The gestured bow had a hidden meaning in Rogue’s community, since there was no communication available between combatants certain emote actions had donned new definitions, it was a request for an honour duel without healing.
After a short consideration the bow was returned, the knight held the gear advantage after all. Half the players that bowed broke their promise and drank potions regardless, it’s not like the honour duel was enforced by the game in any way. Level scaling for higher levelled players worked well with their base attributes but scaled-down endgame gear still performed consistently better than their lower tier counterparts, often thanks to unique effects or simply much better base stats due to higher quality materials. The countdown timer had reached 5 seconds as the knight was finishing up with his pre-combat buffs.
Upon reaching 0 the knight took off, large sprinting strides made quick work of the distance, his opponent on the other hand walked leisurely. Booming steps and dust clouds followed the fleeting tank before he leapt forward. The Rival stopped walking and just stared at the incoming human missile. Airborne attacks inflicted powerful guard break properties, as well as being immune to parries in most cases. A short moment passes as the Rival takes a few steps to the side, never once taking their eyes off him.
An explosion of earth and dust ripples out from the space occupied seconds before as Nox slams down with his blade. Turning to follow up the attack, the greatsword cuts cleanly through the dust but unfortunately meets no resistance. Before even getting a chance to turn he screams in agony as two daggers simultaneously puncture through his exposed flanks. A foot is planted on his back kicking him face-first into the ground while the hooked teeth of the daggers exit his ribs in the least passive way possible.
More than half his health was gone in an instant, a disgusting characteristic of daggers, showing the true worth of those bonus critical hit damage ratios. Without time to spare Nox forces himself up lest he takes more attacks undefended, the Rival instead is waiting for him to stand at a fixed distance, perhaps allowing him to stand would be a more apt description. At neither player's signal, the fight resumed. Nox attempted to make use of his weapon's reach by making wide swings, while Rival patiently avoided and sliced at any opportunity.
Losing the war of attrition from his original blunder frustrated the knight. Although he had managed to nick the opponent a few times, he had taken many hits in return. His health reaching 20% the knight couldn’t take it any more, popping the cork of a red vial he began to chug one of the healing potions he brought along. Back to around 70% health, a relieved Nox squared off on the opponent, though the Rival wasn’t in a battle stance any longer. Both palms faced the sky as the dagger wielder chained together ‘shrug’ gestures, occasionally with a finger pointed in his direction.
Potions weren’t against arena rules, though they did drag fights on longer. Growing annoyed, the knight dashed forward with blade in tow, slicing in an arc at the opponent still emoting. The Rival rolled backwards twice, creating more distance, only to resume the shrugs and points. Like a dance they slashed and rolled throughout the field, the knight's aggravation growing more and more apparent, all leading to a single moment.
Nox dashed forward into a light stab, as the Rival rolled backwards he himself rolled forward and used that momentum for a powerful overhead swing. Even if the opponent rolled again he would still be in range to hit, though rather than the panic roll he expected the Rival took their first stance in minutes.
An exposed hand reached out instead of a dagger, it swung sideways and slammed into the knight's hands that were on their way down. A heavy sound rang out as Nox’s body locked up and their blade knocked off course. Parrying greatswords was indeed possible, though most users knew of the few moves in their kit that were unsafe and used them sparingly.
Trapped in his stunned state Nox could only watch helplessly as his front plate was cleanly torn through with the follow-up strike. Even as he fell to the ground the Rival did not relent, pulling out their second dagger and going to town. Hitting the HP threshold shortly after, Nox glowed in crystalline fashion and was forcibly removed from the area, the final thing he saw being one last ‘shrug’ from the enemy.
[Zodiac]’s vice leader was impressed as always with the video, a calculated bait by tormenting the opponent, the other clips only grew more ridiculous. The second video featured Rival playing a mage class, and after not getting a bow in return proceeded to bombard Nox with seemingly endless spells as they blinked around the arena. The final clip was the shortest of the three, though was easily the most eye-catching. The vice leader suppressed his laughter as the semi-naked woman with an oversized hammer turned Nox into paste with a single leaping strike.
Rival Encounter was a notorious player, a demon to be facing in any activity, but had a very strange playstyle. Rogue Tale was a subscription-based game with a monthly fee, it wasn’t even that expensive, but it did offer a generous free trial to users. The current level cap was Lv100, though it was lower in the past, free trial users could currently play as much of the game as they liked until Lv70. There were many other restrictions in place of course, the biggest being no trading with other players and how much money they could carry personally, otherwise the content accessible was just a few major expansions behind.
For whatever reason Rival was a free trial user, refusing to pay the monthly fee or even allow others to pay it for them. They just made their way through the game on their own, completing the quest log and levelling each available class. Friendly but distant, taking joy in some of the most mundane and grindy content the game had to offer. The man at the desk shook his head, everyone had their own reasons to play, you could lose your leading damage dealer for a raid because they were stolen by the role-playing community to do dress up.
Right now he needed serious players, all the major guilds were at each other's throats competing in the final dungeons and raids. It had been a few years since the last expansion and everything went to hell a week ago when the developers announced an upcoming overhaul, a shift to virtual reality. A beta would soon be available to chosen players, as well as the equipment required to run it. Never before had the highscores seen such constant updates, thousands of cries for attention wanting to secure their spot.
Initially, the hype was moderate; only to explode on the release trailer. It wasn’t just that the world was in a VR space, it had been rebuilt from the ground up, stunning environments populated by realistic NPCs. Many even called the trailer fake, it was too lifelike, instead of being a next-generation game it was as if they had skipped to the generation after that.
“I suppose it's almost time.”
Sighing as he slumped back into his chair, the vice leader closed the page and logged into the awaiting Rogue client. A bustling encampment filled with dozens of players is shown, overshadowed by a towering demonic castle. The cooldown for challenging it had almost expired, it would be their third clear today. The vice leader, a hulking red oni covered in darksteel plates, made his way towards the foot of the castle to meet their guildmaster.