[Welcome to Victoriam miss Chae-won]
Chae-won opened her eyes, greeted by the sight of an endless white open space, and herself, an exact copy of her. Not a reflection on a mirror, because right now she was doing stretches.
"How are you feeling? Any discomfort?" Asked her doppleganger, unperturbed by the fact that Chae-won was doing a whole calisthenics routine as she spoke. The copy had a deeper voice than hers, probably not to creep people out. Seeing that she wasn't stopping, she kept quiet and waited for Chae-won.
|Doesn't seemed programmed to just ask that, looks like they went all out on this one. God forbid if there's micro transactions for everything here too.|
She completely ignored the doppleganger and kept doing her exercises, her movements seem fine, seamless in fact, just like in real life. She stopped after a few minutes and finally looked at her virtual twin in the eye. She started to walk over to her and kept going around her and seemed to be inspecting her whole body, again her copy doesn't seemed to mind it.
She had straight long jet-black hair that went to around her knees and had the height of 140 centimeters. Just like her she had big green eyes, long eyelashes, eyebrows that gave her a calm demeanor combined with her small naturally reddish lips. And since she is a Korean this time, her skin is smooth and almost as white as snow. Overall she looks like she was a daughter of a westener and a Korean, just leaning more to the more Oriental side of the genome pool.
"It seems everything is fine then, " her doppleganger continued. "Would you like to proceed to the character creation miss Chae-won?"
"I guess the reason you look like me right now is to be the model then?"
"Correct."
"You are quite advanced for an A.I. it seems," Chae-won complimented.
"Thank you for your praise, but you are also quite eloquent for someone so young. My role is to only welcome new players, so it is not that impressive. Please give me your commands or ask questions."
"Wow, you're even humble to boot, well for the looks just leave it as is. Nevermind, just cut the hair to just right above the shoulders."
"Do you want me to do a pose? I can do the more... appealing ones," the A.I. shyly said. Chae-won smacked her at the back of the head.
"What the hell are you teaching a twelve-year old?! *Cough* Just get on with it, what's next?" She dryly said as she touched her hair that had been shortened.
"Now you need to select your equipment."
"Are there no things like classes or skills? Just tell me everything, I have no idea, I just pre-ordered and went to play as soon as the game servers opened." Chae-won said, slightly embarrassed.
"It seems miss Chae-won did not read the product description, the manual, or even watch the game trailer, Victoriam is a game that seeks to provide immersion to the players, there would be no magic and a levelling system. The game would revolve around the personal skills of the players and the quality of their equipment."
"There is also no inventory system and the players all start on the same amount of health and stamina, it can be increased but I will not tell you how. Once a player perishes their combat equipment would be immediatdly lost and can be looted by other players, but they will not lose their money, crafting materials, and their non-combat equipment. The player can revive in the nearest known town after 24 in-game hours."
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"That's quite harsh of a punishment, losing your equipment?" Chae-won commented.
"The player who looted another player's combat equipment cannot sell or equip said items, but they can instead ransom it at a merchant guild building for 10% higher than the market value where the player who was stolen from can buy it back. 1% of the money paid will go to the merchant guild as a commission. Players can decide to either buy new ones or buy back their old equipment for a higher price. After a certain period and the items were not bought back the items would automatically sold to the guild at the market price, the money then given to the players who placed the ransom on it."
"The thing you said about having no inventory, how will we keep stuff with us then? Is there a limit to how much we can bring with us?"
"You can bring as much as physically possible, you can have your animals carry your stuff, but not other players or their own animals. You can also store your belongings to a warehouse, and your money at a bank, we can guarantee that there no one would be able to steal it and that you can withdraw those items at any town with a warehouse and bank."
The developers sure did try their best to try to make it as realistic as possible without it becoming too unplayable for the players. They can't exactly complain about it being too harsh or being too unrealistic either, because people who would buy this game know what they are getting into, aside from Chae-won of course.
"What about the currency? And since you did not say anything about the crafting, I might as well ask, would I be able to craft anything as long as I know how and have the necessary materials to do so?"
"The currency the game uses would be in copper, silver, gold, and platinum coins, 100 copper is equivalent to 1 silver and so on so forth," the A.I. quickly replied. "As for crafting, yes you can indeed make things as long as you are capable of doing so, but you can only make things that belong to the medieval age in the range of technology, the newest weapon you can go for is a stereotypical cannon."
"That's nice, at least someone wouldn't suddenly appear with an AK-47 or an RPG."
Surely that would be a spectacle, someone whipping out a lead dispenser in the middle of a swordfight. While Chae-won was in day-dreaming in the lands of what-ifs and possible game exploits, the A.I. suddenly asked.
"What equipment would you be using? You can only select two weapons, one crafting and artisitic tool, and one set armor. You will be given three days worth of rations, 2 silver coins worth of money basic clothing and and a pouch."
Then between the two of them appeared a display rack cointaining weapons, like swords, bows, arrows, spears and staves. There were also kitchen knives, hammers, fishing rods and other crafting and artistic tools. And for armor there are only two leather armor types. One was made of sturdier leather but it seems heavier and less flexible, and for the other one it seems to be a ligher and more flexible leather armor.
Chae-won opted for a simple hunting bow and recieved a few arrows along with a quiver, then for her secondary weapon she selected a hunting knife. For the tool she went for a whetstone, she'll be needing this to maintain her weapons and for other things in the near future. And to completely go for the complete hunter theme of course she selected the light leather armor.
After she had finished picking, the A.I. gave her the rest of the stuff and asked, "Do you have any more inquiries?"
"Hmm, theres no more I think. Okay, throw me into it!"
"Yes, but before that, what name would you be using?"
"Hmmm, call me Alair." She answered, it was a name she was called with during one of her previous 'lives' back in the day.
"A nice name, then I wish you a joyful life in the game and in the real world as well miss Alair." The A.I. said and bowed.
"It's seems you are also well versed in the meaning of various names, good luck in hearing nonsensical ones. Like xxxDestroyer69xxx or something."
"I can only say they would regret it if they did so."
"Haha, can't wait to see someone with that kind of name. Speaking of names, what's your name?"
"It's Orianna. It's been a pleasure speaking with you miss Alair, now off you go, please live a happy life in Victoriam."
"Oh for sure I will, till we meet again Orianna!"
As she shook her hand and bid farewell, the white empty space started to fade out, along with the A.I., as it was happening Alair was thinking of something else entirely.
|Can't they think of other names for an A.I.? I'm pretty sure they had named a robotic character in a game Orianna too.|