Chapter 1 “Arthur Rain”[/b]

What was the first creation that people called a game? No one will ever know and that is because there is no simple definition of a word “game”, and even if someone managed to define this word, how could someone point out what was the first game in history. Its similar question to ‘how human kind came to be?’ or ‘what is the meaning of life?’. Because we cannot see what happened in the past we can only speculate about this question. Even if something like time machine appeared, there is just no way to find the answer for sure. What was the first game in history? In the first place, it doesn’t really matter what the first game was. New games and new ideas are definitely much more interesting than something that could be called the first game. That is at least my hope.

-so you are saying that this is different from all others games that are out right now?

-yes.

-a confident answer but you should know that every developer says the same thing but the games they release are still not much different from any others. Nowadays it’s hard to come up with anything original so we rarely see anything unique. Sure, the new Virtual Reality Gear created by your company was a mile stone in VR development but still, new games that came out for this platform just had better graphic. In the end however, they followed the same pattern.

-if you already mentioned this subject then, let me just say that the development of our VR technology was indeed a great success. Still it wasn’t my final goal but rather just a first step in it. As for the games that come out for it, I would say that even though some of them were really good, they still didn’t reach the full potential of what VR game con be.

-hold on a second. If that wasn’t your final goal then what was it and how it makes your new game different from others?

-first of all, I should correct you and all the viewers. What we made is not a game. If we were to do that, the game would probably turn out just as you said. There would be one or two new original aspects in it but the core of the game would be something that we all already know. That’s why we did not create a game, what we created was an artificial intelligence.

-an AI is fairly common nowadays. I don’t see your point.

-wait and listen to the end then. The artificial intelligence that we made was incredibly complicated in its creation and for that we needed a lot of money. That was the main reason that we had to release our VR gear that early.

-so you are saying that all this money that you earned was just a side effect? You become one of top five richest people of the world.

-yes, our capsules made me rich, but being rich, as much as appealing it is, had never been my main objective. Some people say that there are many things that are more important than money. Some people say otherwise. My opinion is that in the end, if you have money it’s easier to get those other things. And even if there are things that you can’t get with money, it’s always better to have them, right?

-yes but let’s return to the topic. Tell us something about that AI and how is it related to the game you will release.

-our AI has the skills of the greatest people in our company, as well as my vision of creation.

-‘vision of creation’? What do you mean by that?

-it’s that this AI is like a copy of me. Both ideas and abilities. Well it’s probably better than me as it’s not just my abilities. The important thing is that it doesn’t have human limitations.

-so it is not the company, but AI that created this game?

-you can think like that but only half of your statement is correct. Our AI can create incredible things in matter of seconds. Typical game with 100 hours gameplay normally takes it a week. But image what would happen if we gave it a year. The AI has been working on this project for two years already and even now it is still developing the game as we speak, adding new stuff. That’s why second half of you statement is incorrect, AI did not simply created the game, it created a new world.

While reviewing an old interview with ‘creator of VR’, Arthur Rain was waiting for his own VR platform. Even though it was two years since release of ‘new world’ Arthur didn’t try it before. It was not because he didn’t have money, or because he was not convinced of this new technology. It was nothing like that. The reason was slightly more complicated. Even though he was only 19, many things already happen in his life that changed him.

Arthur used to be a normal boy who was going to school, played with friends and enjoyed his everyday life. His father was a surgeon in a local hospital and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. He had, what some might call, an easy, normal life. He would go to the collage, get a stable job, and live without greater concerns. That was the general plan at least, but that was not to be. One day before Christmas when he was 14, his family went to meet his grandfather who lived in small village in the Eastern Mountains.

It was already pitch black outside. The snow was falling from the sky, and the temperature was way below zero. His father was driving the car. It was his hometown, so he knew the road like the back of his hand, and also he rode this way many times. But he couldn’t know that the road sign, which should help in driving those hills was broken. Because he couldn’t see it, he didn’t manage to stay on the road on the corner, and car fell off the cliff. It was a five meter fall to the ground from the road.

Arthur’s mother died the instant car hit the ground. Still she managed to soften Arthur’s damage, as she held him in arms and shielded him from the impact. His father, while greatly wounded, survived the impact. In his last moments he took Arthur out of the car, and called his father, Arthur’s grandfather, to whom they were driving.

-hey son, where are you now? It’s dangerous to talk while driving a car. Here is not your petty city.

In his last moment Arthur’s father managed to say two things.

-cliff…save Arthur.

And those were the last words of Arthur’s father.

At that time, Arthur thought that he will die as well. No, he even thought that he should die, together with his parents. But that did not happen.

Two hours after the accident, still lying in the snow, Arthur watched his parents’ dead bodies. For someone his age, it was the most terrible sight that anyone could think off. He was covered in snow, and freezing, already unable to move. But then suddenly ‘something’ fell from the same cliff that the car fell from. It was then that Arthur’s grandfather arrived.

-Son! Are you here?...

After he saw the burned car, he knew what has happen. He recalled his son last words, and then yelled.

-Arthur!!

At that moment Arthur was already buried in snow, but the moment he heard the voice, he put strength in his arm and tried to move. It wasn’t much. He barely moved some snow that covered him but that was enough for his grandfather. The moment he heard a small sound of moving snow, he knew where Arthur was and after that he saved him.

After the accident Arthur started to live with his grandfather, but he was not the same as before, he didn’t talk much, and stayed in his room for most of the time. His grandfather was sad as well. His only son just died, and the closest member of his family he had left, was left in deep grief.

The grandfather didn’t have idea of what to do. He was a martial artist. He spend most of his time training himself in order become strong. With the old logic, man must always seek to become stronger than he was before. Once he signed up to take part in sports competition in various martial arts, he didn’t care about rewards, but he wanted to fight against strong opponents. Long story short, it all ended up with him winning many gold medals in all categories he chosen. After that he began to train others. He met his wife, had a child, but still he never forgotten about his training. But in a situation like this he didn’t know what to do to help his grandson.

One day his grandson come and asked.

-grandpa, why do you always train yourself, isn’t it tiring for you?

-you see Arthur, man always need to train himself, you never know when you will need to be strong.

-this, is stupid! Dad also trained himself, but it didn’t matter when… when we fell from the cliff! He died, just like mom!

-you may look at it this way, but you could look at it another way.

-…?

-your father managed to take you out of the car before the fire started and he even managed to call me, that is more than enough for a person who was on death bed. Also if I didn’t train myself how could I find and save you there. Roads were impassable. The only thing I could do was run on my foot.

-but he died and I still live. How fair is that?

Grandfather was sad upon hearing those words, but still he continued.

-that’s normal for a little kid like you. You trembled in fear unable to do anything, against the hardest opponent that you can find, life. But remember this Arthur, you have strength within you. You are my grandson after all. As you said, you are the only one that was saved, the only one that survived, make use of this life that was given to you. Repay in the fullest everything that you think is in your debt and if you ever find someone to save, save them.

Strong words, which shouldn’t be told to the child, but that was the words that he thought Arthur needed.

The time went on. For a five year Arthur was living with his grandfather. He was going to school, but he didn’t make friends. He could talk with anyone, but at the same time, he couldn’t open his heart to anyone. People in his class were his classmates and acquaintances, but they were not his friends.

Most of his free time, Arthur spent on training. His grandfather taught him many things, hand to hand combat, white weapon combat and ways to be strong. Arthur thought that it may help him in repeating his debt that he always felt he had.

His grandfather also taught him numberless useless things, but people learn so many useless things in their life, that few more doesn’t make a difference.

Five years have passed and Arthur finished his high school. At that time his grandfather said.

-it is time that you start your new life.

-what do you mean by that grandpa?

-you know, start living on your own. Find some meaning in life. Well, that may be a little too hard for you right now. In any case, for now just do what you want and enjoy yourself.

-enjoy myself, hmm…

Strange as it may be Arthur Rain didn’t have many things he enjoyed or anything that made him really happy. He couldn’t feel any excitement from normal things, or enjoy his everyday life anymore.

-how I am supposed to find this joy of life? For a note, I don’t want to hear another useless theory of yours.

-everyone needs to find it on their own, as for everyone it’s a different thing. Still I will try to point you in the right direction. Think about what brought you joy before you know, you started living here?

-before?…

Arthur thought for a moment then answered.

-well, it wasn’t anything big but as far as I can remember I used to play one game called Light in the Citadel.

-a game, ha? So what was so good about it?

-that game was an MMORPG. It was a game where you controlled your avatar and did many things. There were endless numbers of quests, dungeons, events and battlegrounds, and many others. There also were many people that were playing it. The interaction with them was the best. I was in guild and even though I was young, I could speak with other people no matter what age they had, and they still respected me. Now, it’s all about VR and stuff, but back then, Light in the Citadel was best game that was out there, and we, I mean me and my guild were the first one to complete the last content the titled Citadel itself, it was great!

-oh, it’s rare for you to be so enthusiastic about anything.

-it is just a child’s memory nothing more.

-wrong! Holding the child within you is very important in life, thanks to that you can become happy. I always follow the rule ‘do the things that younger me wouldn’t be ashamed of’.

-yes, you and your endless number of rules, do you really keep track of them?

-they are all in my head. I don’t need to write them down, but back to the topic. You should use that that last reminder of your happy childhood. You know Arthur, recently I somehow heard about game or what it was called, not a game, they said it was a new world. Well whatever, it at least sounded appealing, and it was even one of my students that recommended it. Not even one but few. I think you should try it as well.

Arthur was familiar with the so called new world. Back in the day while playing with his guildmates they often talked about this topic. VR was in its day zero but everyone knew that at some point MMORPGs like Light in the Citadel would be replaced with new genre VRMMORPG. There already were some of them out back them. Although they were lacking in many aspects, they showed a great potential. Then the capsule was released, made by a Kristopher Horvitz and his company Space Electronics, it was the breakthrough of VR. The capsule they invented provided ‘full immersion’ where it was like you were took out from your body and was transported to completely different world. At the beginning, there were only few, small productions that came out for that platform, but everyone who tried it, recognized that the holy grail of gaming is finally here. Then the Christmas came. Arthur didn’t keep good track about it afterwards. Still it was impossible no not hear few news here and there, and in the end VR developed just like he once imagined.

Following grandfather suggestion, Arthur started to life on his own. He went back to his old house where he once lived with his parents. Previously, his plan was to sign up to collage but he didn’t really know what he wanted to do in the future. In the end, he decided to take a break from studying for a year and try to do something with his life. He had a lot of money left by his parents so at least that wasn’t a problem. Still, even though he had money, he didn’t plan to spend it in vain. In the first place there wasn’t anything that he really wanted so he would have no idea on what he should spend it on.

“I might as well try it. It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

Arthur thought to himself.

First however he tried login to his old account in Light of the Citadel. Even though he did not exactly remember the password when he saw the login screen his fingers moved on the keyboard on their own. The moment Arthur saw his character he said out loudly.

-long time no see, Arata.

Arata was the name of his game character. Naturally Arata did not reply. Surprised that it was still there, Arthur clicked on a guild icon and checked if there is anything worth reading in it. In there, there was only one message from Guild Leader.

[To all members of WhiteSuns. It was a great time to play with all of you. In the end, we did end up as the best guild in the game after all. Those who thought that we couldn’t do it (Zaky noob) were wrong. As it is my last message to you as a Guild Leader, I must say that it was an honor to play with you guys. Especially you core members that were with us from the beginning to the end. Now, new adventures await us, I hope that we find ourselves and play together again in the new world.

Guild Leader

WolfStark ]

“Good old Wolf, I miss his long speeches, he was excellent guild leader and the most reliable tank ever.”

Arthur though after seeing this message and then he ordered the VR capsule.

While he was waiting for it, he decided to look up informations about new world. He typed the name of the game in google, but the number of sites that pop up was abnormal.

“It really is popular.”

He thought and checked first website where he opened link described as basic information. There was an article.

[Basic information.

Hello there, although it is impossible that you don’t know anything about the games, I will write as if you didn’t have any gaming experience at all.

First of all and the most important thing, it’s not the game it’s a new world, watch this interview if you think differently [LINK].

Now that this is out of hand, let’s start.

Kristopher Horvitz is a genius who created VR capsules and artificial copy of himself which can work at great speed. Thanks to that the new world was created. Its main focus is just like in old MMOs gather level, become stronger, do adventures. The best thing about it is that VR capsules are using ‘full immersion’ which takes us the players to another world.

I think there are 3 main reasons as to why people enter new world.

First one, the original reason, for the sake of the game. Which is awesome, but about it in other section. Second reason would be just to explore and see things. It may be simple, but just walking around inside new world is in itself worth every penny. And lastly, keep in mind that in-game time works different, one hour equals five that inside of the game, nothing else have a feature like this. At first it was created as a feature for the sake of people that didn’t have much time to play, so anyone could enjoy the game, but what came up as side effect? Think about it, five hours equals one. It means you have 5x more time at no cost. Some even says thanks to that, the human lifespan has become five times longer than it was before. I personally think that they are not entirely wrong in this statement. It turned out that studying or working in capsule is fairly common. Mr. Horvitz made special place for those who wanted to do things unrelated to the game. If you only want to use capsule for extra 5x hours you can create a special character. More technical information can be found on official website of Space Electronics. There is also a tutorial as how to make that special character because normally that option does not appear. Here is the link to the tutorial. [LINK]

The last thing to add would be that the game is always developed by AI, so there is always new content to do. You don’t need to download anything, everything take place on their server.

That is all for technical information if you are interested about more technical information click this [LINK].

Now let’s talk about the game.

1. Creating your character

a) Races.

When the game was released, there were only three races to choose from. Human, Elves, Dwarfs. The most standard set that is found in almost every fantasy setting that was ever created. Right now however thanks to hard effort of players, after two years, there are additional two races that were unlocked to choose from.

Each race has a different starting location and different advantages and disadvantages, but they are all balanced. I also heard about unique races which one can unlock just for himself, during for example unique quests, but as always you can’t truly confirm it, nor can you deny it.

b) Gender

Male/Female, you can’t choose one, it’s has to be the same as you are in real life. Personally I am happy that it’s this way, at least you can be sure that if female say she is female it’s true. Stats are the same for both genders.

c) Look and nicknames

There are two ways to decide how your character will look like.

First one is, ‘just like in real life option’. It is what it says. You look the same as in real life. This option is only available for Human race though. The other option is the character look will be decided as you enter the game ‘randomly’. Advice, it’s not randomly at all. As the character is created you brain is scanned and the appearance that will fit your character will be bestowed upon you. It’s very common that even in this option, your avatar will turn out to look similar to you. But here is an advice, if you manage to have a strong image of how you would want to look like there is a high chance that it will be just that. Just focus on the image in the last stage of character creation.

Also later in game there are things that change your look, so don’t be disheartened. Another important thing, there is only one character per person, people can’t have multiple characters.

Nickname can be chosen the way you want as long as it’s something normal. For example nicknames like Superflyingfiredchicken2039 will not be available. Nickname will serve as your name in the new world, so for your own good, system doesn’t allow you to choose anything stupid. You are also unable to use any vulgarism. Also know that repeating nicknames are allowed, so yes, it means that you can be that hundredth ‘Legolas’.

d) Class

If you are familiar with MMORPG genre you think that there should be information about classes now. Well the new world is different in this aspect.

Let me just inform you that as the present there are about 2000 different known classes, they are similar to each other but there are about 2000 the last time I checked. Many classes are not publicly known so it may be even more, I’m sure there is. Also as always not every class was discovered so far. The saying ‘something is not yet unlocked/discovered/known is fairly common’, so get used to it.

Everyone get their classes assigned by system depending on your first month of play. There are also special items or circumstances that let you change the class later on but you probably won’t ever see it as it’s extremely rare. Don’t count on that.

2. First Month of play.

First Month of play is very important, if possible I advise that you prepare 6 days of free time and play nonstop. Thanks to that you will be able to fully experience the first 30 days of play and get a good class for yourself. In the first month you will be exploring one large city of your race. You can’t go outside that city, but no worries, the process of exploring should take much more than a month so it’s not a problem, you will find things to do. Advice, don’t sightsee but get on with adventure. If you want to know what to do to get which class, you can find information for it on this website. But here is a warning. If you have information about the class and way to get it, the class will be locked for you, so it is much better to try your chances, use your luck and go as green headed as possible. People say that class is a gamble and it’s quite random. It may seem that way but if you use your head and try to come up with something you won’t regret it. It’s definitely better than looking for tutorials as they will just make it impossible to get.

3. Communication, interaction with NPC and interface:

To enter interface menu you need to cross two fingers in one hand. That’s all, menu is fairly accessible and has many instruction on first usage so will easily understand it when you see it.

Interaction with NPC is verbal one, meaning you just talk with them. You will get surprised at how well developed NPCs are. NPCs are often more humanlike than normal players. You will have problem with distinguishing them. To check if person is an NPC summon menu, NPC will have a small green dot above their head when menu is open.

Other than verbal communication, you can also send letters from towns cities and castles, but there is no in game chat, ‘whispers’ or guild channels. You can only speak with those you can see.

With this you should have a basic knowledge about the game. The rest is up to you.

Basic information was created by Marti]

“So much and he didn’t really touch anything.”

Arthur thought to himself, and that was just basic information. At least the technical information had all he needed.

“Five hours equals one hmm…”

That was the most important thing Arthur found out. But how much can something like that affect human life?

Four days have passed and VR capsule finally arrived.

“Maybe it will change something.”

Arthur Rain thought to himself and entered the capsule. The game started.

Arthur found himself flying in the sky, underneath him there was endless, enormous world, which he was going to explore. He could not see the end of it. And then a big sign appeared right before him and what was written on it was.

[Welcome to the eye of Adventure]

http://www.royalroadl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=333&t=2978

(If anyone have problems with the dialogue (which doesn't follow usual standard then here is a helpful link)

EOA dialogue explanation.