[g]<TALiSON> I like it already.
[g]<Wraith> The place is crawling with sentry-bots, but they’re push-overs. The players are all 90% cyborg, and either super-dope spy-thief types, or bounty hunters trying to catch the thieves. You can do anything. I flew a car into a building, and got away by running to the roof and jumping off. I’ve already got three guns, but there’s bigger targets that I’ll need a group for. Only bad thing is everyone’s a noodle.
"A noodle?" I said out loud, while two other guildies said the same thing in chat.
Sprocket-Wraith grinned, producing an expression far too young for his character’s grim features.
[g]<Wraith> Neutrals. Straight up and down and no t –
He paused, and glanced at Amelia, whose expression was closer to mild entertainment than grandmotherly disapproval.
[g]<Amelia Beerheart> We get the idea. Any other recommendations? You were saying something about a magic school Challenge, TALiSON?
[g]<TALiSON> Veil. But it’s not group-focused. Magic school on an island, where wizards and guild leaders and so forth send their kids. Heavy on the roleplaying: forming alliances, making friends, not getting pushed off a cliff, all while there’s some kind of ancient evil being unlocked in the background.
[g]<Lady Sirah> Harry Potter rip-off dating sim, in other words.
[g]<TALiSON> Closer to Utena. We’re all wearing swords and capes, and I love it SO MUCH. I only managed to tear myself away because my character was sent to bed.
[g]<Klinnia> I need a group for a mech academy Challenge. It’s one of those where you need to cooperate to run the mechs.
[g]<voidMaster> Pacific Rim or Voltron cooperation?
[g]<Klinnia> Voltron. But the tone looks Evangelion. Dark.
[g]<Malazan> I’ve signed up for Proving Ground. It’s a variant battle royale on an enormous scale, no squads, though you can cooperate if you want. Fantasy kingdom chooses its ruler every fifty years by sending candidates into this massive ancient magic testing ground. You have to sign up before a certain date to participate. Limited to a hundred thousand players. The top prestige non-lan Challenge available at this stage, apparently.
[g]<Vasharda> Decision paralysis increasing.
[g]<Leveret> There’s just so much. Any one of these games sounds like it will take weeks to get through. And they’re all…my Cycog called them filler.
[g]<Silent> Yep. These are the sidequests. The main quest line’s the one that gets you the ship, and gets you off-planet. And out of the…we’re still in the starter zone. Can you believe that?
[g]<Far Cryinggame> Hey all. What have I missed?
[g]<Vasharda> Deciding where to start. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives playing this game.
[g]<TALiSON> Don’t say that! In MMO stories, that’s always a heavy hint that people dying in-game will die in real life, or that someone won’t be able to log out. Has anyone confirmed that people can log out?
[g]<Wraith> Yeah, Driver9 did to post the start of his Let’s Play. And to confirm how this five hour shutout thing works. And Best Result, there.
[g]<Tornin> The five hours can be broken into segments?
[g]<Wraith> Yup. Play for an hour, log out for an hour, play for hour, and it works out the same as playing for five hours, then logging out for five hours. So if you have to go do something, you’re not locked out.
[g]<voidMaster> Best of all, if you want to advance in the lan Challenges, it’s a way to skip the delay between lan training. The ten game hour wait counts whether you’re logged in or not.
This was of immediate and strong interest to me. All the possible sidequests sounded fabulous, but I still wanted my own spaceship above anything else.
Achievement
First to reach Rank Two
[Nina Stella]
Awarded Custom Modal
"Awesome!" Sprocket said, to my surprise, and shot to his feet. "Quick, everyone, watch the crowd."
He rushed to the balcony, and leaned forward, looking along the vast sweep of the terraces, and we followed suit with an air of mild bewilderment. I moved last, not over-keen to remind myself how many people surrounded me.
The tiers directly below us were large and particularly packed, but before their weight could try to crumble me, the whole of my attention was taken by a sudden metallic blooming, as if great silvery flowers had suddenly sprung up all across the terraces.
But these were not flowers. They were cages. Streetlight-tall poles, each with a dangling cage occupied by a seated, coverall-clad person, their legs dangling between the bars.
"They’re…they’re suspended," I said. "I thought that was a joke."
[g]<Wraith> It’s because they sent Nina Stella hate mail! It happened the first time she ranked, too, but there were less people around.
He burst into uproarious laughter, and waved at the nearest suspended player, who gestured back appropriately.
"This game is so scuffed," someone from the tier below said loudly. "We can try and kill people, but don’t call each other names."
[g]<Klinnia> The mods are actually going to enforce the harassment policy? Holy Hell.
[g]<TALiSON> But Nina Stella still gets all the hate mail?
[g]<Tornin> Messages that breach the courtesy rules don’t go through to her, apparently. Which is cheering on one level, but an indicator that messaging here isn’t private. Frankly, I’m not even sure our thoughts are private.
[g]<TALiSON> That should bother me more. I know it should. It’s just…this game, guys. This GAME.
[g]<Wraith> I don’t care what they read. And I’m not doing anything that might get me kicked out.
This produced a murmur of agreement, with an undercurrent of discomfort as we looked out at people who had just discovered that in-game email wasn’t private. I by no means objected to the clear demonstration that the harassment rules were serious business, but the implications of their enforcement were no small thing.
I was in the game, and the game was in me, even if the link was virtual. My thoughts became words, and the Cycogs, real or not, vetted our interactions. And yet I—almost all players—would likely just accept that because the game was so brilliantly beyond everything we hoped for.
But if Ryzonart could read our thoughts along with our mail, the question of the how, the who and the why of Dream Speed became more important than ever.
I don’t think I’d stop playing.
Maybe.
Probably not.
16
slowly and surely drew their plans
Spectacular as Vessa Major was, most of my guild were just as interested as I was in spaceships and sidequests, and soon started heading out. This was a handy development for me, and I used Silent, Far and voidMaster as a combination shield and distraction to get back up to the pod station. It wasn’t easy, because even the ramps were choked with people and noise, and I only got through them by walking in voidMaster’s wake, with my eyes focused on his feet.
"Well past two million concurrent players now," Far commented, as we lined up for a pod. He had turned out to be a slender white man, golden-haired and porcelain delicate, and not at all what I’d expected from his voice.