Sitting on the sofa in the living room of my tiny apartment with a bowl of chips to my left and TV remote in my right hand, I flicker through the TV channels gazing at each for merely a few seconds before moving on to the next. There was nothing exciting on television today and the internet was likewise boring with most news being centered on celebrities and idiotic rumors.

I eventually stopped flicking through the channels and eventually settled on a random channel that conveniently happened to be a news report channel. With my dead eyes, I was not all that much concerned about what the reporter on screen was talking about and as such, nothing of what they said was registered on my mind.

‘Nothing again today, already prepared for work tomorrow. Maybe I should find myself a wife? …Not that it’d do anything, I’d probably have to deal with the incessant nagging…’

Sighing at the thought, I flickered through the channels once more only to chance upon a rather intriguing commercial. This commercial was advertising one of those new virtual reality mmorpgs and had apparently booked a 30 minute slot on the channel to do so.

‘Another one of these huh?’

In my room there was a VR helmet connected to my desktop computer but it was a really impractical device as it was only a screen in a helmet with gyroscope sensors. Something the average smart phone can do with processing power to spare. Sighing, I paid attention to the commercial which had two persons discussing the device between them on a stage setting.

“So Roger, this is the new Virtual Reality helmet that your company Solia has partnered with Frag Corp to develop?” said the guy in the shirt and tie to whom I shall refer to as suit guy until his name comes up.

“Yeah, I’m really excited about the release myself” responded the guy in a white lab coat and stylish glasses whose name is apparently Roger.

Suit guy approached the helmet at the center of the stage and examined it at all angles, even picking it up and putting it back down before looking towards Roger and asking the very obvious question, “What’s so special about this helmet that has your company so hyped up for it’s release? It looks like any other VR helmet to me.”

“It does indeed which is the design we were aiming for when we designed this helmet.” responded Roger.

“Oh? Then what makes it so different? I’m not sure if your company is aware of this but there are 100’s of VR helmets in the market these days. Your company isn’t really doing the world of technology any favors by producing yet another one of these.”

“Well Sam, that’s where I’ll have to stop you. See, this isn’t just another VR helmet, it’s an aVR helmet. Quite advancement upon these so called ‘VR helmets’ as you put it.”

“You say it’s quite the advancement but we still haven’t heard what makes it so special? I doubt anyone is interested in the back story of yet another VR helmet or aVR helmet as you put it.” fired off Sam who immediately cut off Roger’s back story.

“Haha, yes I also doubt that.” responded Roger a little shakily before continuing, “To get to the point, this helmet is completely independent of any further attachments. It makes use of the wearer’s brain itself as the controller and whilst in use, the body is completely immobilized so there’s no movement restriction while it is in use.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

It is an interesting twist to the VR helmet but like that, aren’t there risks associated with it? The guy in the suit, Sam, thought so too as he dropped a question on Roger.

“That seems really cool Roger but there’s something bothering me about that and I’m no expert on the brain but isn’t that dangerous? What if someone gets permanently paralyzed using that helmet?”

“Well Sam.” said Roger with a slight chuckle and quickly assuming a serious expression said, “that’s impossible. The helmet itself only stops nerve signals from travelling through the spinal cord. There is no invasive interaction with the body what so ever.”

The two of them continued their question and answer session on the stage before finally arriving at the important part of the program, the game it was designed to be used for.

“Tell me more about this game called World Fragment Roger.”

“Yes, whilst we at Solia Tech worked on the aVR helmet, Frag Corp was the one working on the aVRMMORPG which is expected to be ready for open beta on the 22nd of July.”

‘Let’s see… that’s next week I guess.’

“An aVRMMORPG? I was expecting something along the lines of a single player game given how complex developers generally claim an MMORPG is in its design.”

“Well those developers certainly are right but unlike those developers, we didn’t let complexity hold back our partnered ambition and instead, used it to motivate us to complete this project.”

“Fascinating! So what can you tell us about the game itself?” said Sam who seemed to be putting forward professionalism over the obvious personal excitement.

The program then showed a video of the game and over it, Roger’s voice could be heard.

“The game itself allows you to be the ruler of your own world which is called a shard and is about 1,000 square kilometers. In all shards you’d find a portal connecting to the main shard world, Zera which is 100,000 square kilometers. All shards are initially empty and as such, it is up to the players to use code resources to design their own private shards.”

“Sounds a lot like one of those sandbox games Roger but I’ll hold off on that for now, what’s this code resource that you’d have to collect?”

“To put it quite simply, in World Fragment Online, everything is made up of codes. The more complex something is, the bigger and more complex it’s code is going to be. Take for example, a strain of grass vs a an entire grass plain. The code for the strain of grass is going to be extremely short holding information like texture, length and color whilst the field is going to have that data but repeated and in some cases even varied in some parts depending on the grass strain, where it is located and how it is influenced by the other surrounding grass strains at that particular time the code was taken.”

“That sounds like a lot of work Roger. Is coding expected to be a requirement to be able to play this game?”

“Not at all, as soon as you enter the main shard of the game, Zera, you’ll be given a faerie companion that is able to ‘scan’ this code for you and compile it into a node for you to install in your shard.”

“Faerie, codes and nodes? What kind of a game is this?” asked Sam with a shocked expression.

“The theme is cyberpunk high fantasy, you can find out more on our website.”

The website that popped up on the screen, I immediately memorize it and jump on the internet to find out more about the game.

When the website loaded, information was separated into two tabs; WFO and aVR + Tech. Naturally I chose WFO as the technology behind the game wasn’t that interesting to me.

From there, the tab moved to the left of the screen and several other tabs expanded downwards on the lore behind the game, some skill examples and even a few screenshots which put me in awe. Digging through the site, I was able to find the link to take me to the pre-order screen for the helmet which would allow free access to the game. I quickly put in my purchase information and waited until the helmet’s arrival which was due on the 21st.

As it was late, I went to bed to get ready for the boring task that was work the next day.