Anika pulled down the haptic visor and was confronted with a large green Login button in her view. At first, she didn't know how to press it but then realised that it highlighted itself whenever she focused on it, as opposed to just observing it. She focused on it hard enough so it activated. There was no mouse or pointing device for her to use, and it felt strange that the headgear she was wearing knew what she was trying to do. She wasn't used to this way of controlling a computer screen.

As soon she had logged in she was greeted by a welcome message.

Welcome to Everscape Online. If this is your first time in the game, we recommend that you read through the tutorial messages which will guide you through the character selection process. If you have played before, you are welcome to skip and go straight to the character creation screen.

The first step in the character creation process was race selection. There was a carousel of different fantasy races she could flick through, and a male/female choice icon. Most of the races were familiar to her; there were elves, dwarves and orcs, and several other unusual races. None of them appealed to her. She hadn't joined the game to run around like an elf or an orc, so she was relieved to see that a normal human was also available.

She selected a female human, still trying to get used to applying the right amount of focus so that her choice would highlight and get selected. Once the selection had been made, she was taken to a virtual dressing room with a host of options for customising her new character's appearance. Although her own hair was dark brown, the character staring back at her had a warm red-brown hair colour. She flicked through a few different shades but eventually went back to the red colour she saw at first. Then came the facial features. She didn't spend too long on these because the face of her character was already beautiful. She added a set of gold earrings because they looked nice, and why not have an accessory when it was made available to her.

After this, she zoomed out to see her character from head to toe, and despite the modest clothes she was wearing, she was pleased with how her character looked. She couldn't tell if her character was tall or short, there was nothing to compare with or to use as a reference. However, before finishing and moving onto the next step, she made her character taller. She had always wanted to be tall with long legs in real life.

The next step in the character creation process was to select a class. By the looks of it, there were hundreds of different classes available. Some were magic users, others were warrior types with different fighting styles and then there were classes who seemed boring, to be honest. She could see they all had different class bonuses and there was a helpful page for each type of class explaining what their strengths and weaknesses were and what play style they were best suited for.

How she wished she had spent more time listening to Ted when he had been explaining about all the intricacies of the game. She felt at a loss and had a feeling that the choice she was about to make would influence her ability to find Ted.

She knew he played a fighting class, something with daggers and poisons. When she spotted the Rogue class listing with some of the skills and abilities common to the class, she realised that this was the class he was playing. He had once explained to her at length about how he was making certain types of poisons, and how they enabled him to succeed in his battles and tournaments because he could match the right poison to the right opponent. She considered choosing a Rogue, hoping that it would help her get closer to him. But when she read that the class suited a player keen to get up close and personal with their enemies, striking from behind and dodging lethal blows, she wasn't so thrilled.

She spent the best part of an hour flicking through the different options but still couldn't find a class that appealed to her. Then she noticed one of the tutorial hints in the top right corner of her view. She selected it and found that she could filter the classes in a few different ways. One filter was called Play Style, so she looked through the options that were available. The list wasn't long. She could see that there were several healer classes, then there were tanks who were supposed to protect others and be able to take a lot of damage. She didn't see herself getting into much fighting so taking damage or healing other people seemed pointless. The first one she identified with was the play style: Soloist.

The description read;

A Soloist achieves the perfect balance of survival skills, damage and mobility. They don't bring many benefits to a group in battle, and they are better suited to single player aspects of the game. There was more detail, but this was enough for her to get excited.

Under the list of Soloist play styles, she saw the option of the Hunter class and selected it to see more details. The description read;

Hunters are masters at tracking their prey and killing them from a distance. They receive special bonuses when using ranged weapons, and the most diligent of Hunters will work on their tracking and camouflage skills to get the better of their opponents. The path of the Hunter is a lonely one and patience is key for mastering this class. Some Hunters specialise in ranged weapons and shooting from a distance, others become masters of setting traps and luring their enemies into them. Finally, some Hunters dedicate themselves to taming wild beasts and have them fighting alongside them on their adventures.

Class Stat bonuses:

+5% agility

+5% damage with ranged weapons

Basic skills:

Shoot

Camouflage

Tracking

Talent Trees:

Trapper

Marksman

Beastmaster

There was more to read, but Anika felt she had already made her choice. It was the description of the play style that hooked her and she figured that if she had to do some fighting, she would much rather do so at a distance instead of up close and personal like a Rogue.

Before continuing with her choice she flicked through the other classes in the soloist category just in case she had missed something. None of the options took her fancy which made her more confident in choosing the Hunter as her class. She made her selection and was greeted with a character screen listing items that looked like they were equipped with slots on her avatar and a breakdown of different stats below that. She paid little attention to this but was pleased that the game had provided her with some leather trousers and a leather vest. She could also see what looked like one of those traditional bows on her character screen in the weapon slot. It was all too much to take in, so she focused on the green button in the bottom right corner of her view which said Enter Game.