Prologue : A troublesome new player
A bright light shone into eyes filed with excitement, *come on, come on!* was the only thing passing through Eric’s head as the body scan was reaching its final stages.
“97 percent” a mechanical voice announced, “98 percent” it added after a little while, “99 percent”.
“100 percent, congratulation and welcome to Royal Road” it said as everything went black.
*A flash of white light*
Eric was now facing endless plains of whiteness from all directions; “Welcome” a voice of a young woman said.
Eric didn’t answer, he was still in awe, it was his dream to play Royal Road for a long time, unfortunately he lived in an underdeveloped country, he had to wait for a long time to get the capsule as well as pay an abnormally huge sum, he didn’t care for the money he had more than enough.
“… Excuse me mister player, we may be facing technical difficulties as you seem unable to answer”
“diagnostical scan in progress”
“showed no problems”
“Select the name of your avatar” it asked for the tenth time
Eric finally snapped back from his day dreaming, in time to wonder if he just imagined the annoyed tone of the voice as it said the last sentence.
“Yes, well… call me…”
he said as he hesitated, Eric realized that in spite of all the time he game thinking about his class, race and other things, he didn’t think about the name at all..
“Yes?” the voice asked.
“Call me… Eric”
he reluctantly answered as he couldn’t find anything better..
“Do you wish to be called Eric?”
“Yes” Eric answered
“Please select your gender, male, female or neutral”
“Male!” he answered swiftly as he was sure of that at least.
“Royal Road has forty-nine races. You may select your race from the primary twenty-nine”
Eric waited for that, his race was something he gave a huge chunk of time thinking about, he calculated all possibilities in order to get all he wanted.
“I would like to create a race of my own” he said confident.
“That is not possible”
the voice coldly answered.
Eric was ready for that and so he quickly answered back
“Then let me talk to a GM or an admin” he said while thinking “this is going as planned”
“You are” was the replay.
Eric was dumbfounded.
“What do you mean I am talking to one? Don’t try to pull one on me you crappy system! It is common knowledge that the creation is handled by the system and not by human beings!”
He snapped at it, “This is not going as planned…”
“Yes, it is usually like that, however you didn’t replay to the system for half an hour so it automatically switched to me. A game administrator, the executive one for your country”
the voice or rather the woman (who was the only admin for the country as it had less than three hundred players) said coldly, adding “jerk” in the end quietly.
Eric grinned, “Well at least I am talking to someone with power” he thought
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“I would like to create a race of my own” he said again
“As I said that is not possible” the woman answered.
Eric decided to pull out the big guns so he asked
“Why?”
He asked with a tone of someone who couldn’t find the reason even if it hit him in the face.
“In order to keep the order in the game , if every player created a race for himself then the game will soon be filled with many odd characters, that in itself isn’t bad, however in order for player interactions such a creating parties, duels as well as other acts it is important that players will be able to recognize the basic attributes of most races, if not an abnormal amount of time will be needed to get to know the each new player racial strengths and weaknesses… in addition creating your own race will block you from racial quests, equipping armor and using weapons that are not in your right body type…”
she went on sounding more and more arrogant the more (and more) she talked, till Eric couldn’t bare hearing her anymore.
Eric had a devastated look on his face, but on the inside, oh on the inside he had the evilest of smiles.
“I understand”
He said with an apologetic voice.
“It is alright, I am here to hear out all concerns and problems that players are willing to voice out”
“so please chose a race” she added
the evil smile inside Eric got even wider revealing his fangs, they were ready to strike and so he did.
“If I can’t create a race of my own… then I want to be…” he dragged it on enjoying it,
“race-less” he finally said with a smile
*silence* *a voice of a hand hitting one’s forehead*
“you… can’t do that either” the woman said holding herself back from cussing
and so the time came for Eric to sink his fangs into her neck (metaphorically of course)
“why?”
*silence*
“why can’t I?” he asked again
“why you ask…” the woman said carefully
“because by not having a race you are banned from taking racial quests as well as all advantages of all races… effectively crippling your avatar” she said as if she is talking to a kid
the answer she was a definite “I don’t care”
“but…” the woman said with a tiny voice
“yes?” Eric asked
“Why would you do that?” she answered
“Because I want to create my own race” he answered letting his evil smile out finally
“BUT! You won’t get your own race by being race-less!” she finally snapped
“oh really? Then how are you going to create my avatar? What set body configuration are you going to use? How I look in the real world? Why that would make me a human!” he said as he thought “GOT HER!”
*long silence * *crying**the sound of the line cut off*
“hello dear player I am the administrator of the Asia continent as well as one of the creators of the game, I hear you have a problem with our race system?”
“FU***************” was everything Eric could think of.