“This song is gonna conclude my set for the night. You guys have been incredible, and it was an honor to perform for you tonight.” DJ Wolfcannon began spinning his last track, which was a lot mellower in contrast to all of his prior upbeat and hard-hitting music.

Andrew looked around at the crowd in awe as he saw they were still all incredibly energetic, despite it being close to 1:30 AM. He was expecting more people to be like him: Impatient, tired of standing, and ready to sleep. But instead, everyone was acting as if it were the middle of the afternoon after getting a full night’s sleep.

Camille, who danced enthusiastically through the entire set, swayed softly with the chill music as she caught her breath. Sweat dripped from the back of her neck and arms, which glistened in the neon greens and pinks from the lights strobing with the music overhead.

The music finally faded away, and the crowd cheered energetically.

“Wolf Cannon! Wolf Cannon! Wolf Cannon!”

DJ Wolfcannon exited his music station and addressed the crowd. “Thank you all so much for being here! I’m so glad I got to celebrate the launch of Final Conquest Fire Skies with you all tonight. You were an incredible crowd. I wish you all the best in your upcoming adventures!”

The DJ walked off the stage to loud applause, and at the same time the neon lights, lasers, and all other performance equipment turned off reverting the shopping center back to its original lighting situation.

Standing on the balls of his feet, Andrew looked over the crowd, trying to get a better view of the line situation in front of him. To his surprise, he found that throughout the set, more than a third of the line had been ushered through to One Up Games, and he saw several people exiting from it in a neat single file line wrapping behind the stage. Everyone one of them wore an excited grin as they looked at the contents inside their bags – no doubt ready to rush home and play the long-awaited release.

A feeling of envy passed through Andrew as he continued to watch people exit the store in total bliss. It was rational for him to feel this way, seeing as they were able to go home hours before he would even be able to enter the store. But that wasn’t what caused him this feeling – would he feel that way when he got his copy of the game? Or would he feel the pressure of his task at hand, rather than the enjoyment of getting the game?

He had just allowed himself to start having fun – which he was totally willing to do, but he couldn’t get over the fact that, again, work was going to take priority over fun. Sure, he was going to get a video game and play it, but it was all for the sake of saving Body Gear and Black Lotus Studio… which would save over a billion people’s favorite hobby in the process. Would he be able to have fun with that kind of pressure bearing on him?

“Man! That was awesome – I didn’t expect DJ WolfCannon to be the mystery performer tonight. I love him!”

Andrew looked at Camille, who was smiling ear to ear as she tried to cool down by fanning herself with her hands. She grinned. “Looks like I ended up getting a workout tonight after all!”

Andrew chuckled. “Looks like you did!”

“Thanks again for letting me stand in front of you, I’ll take my spot back now if you want.”

The two shuffled past one another and got into their original spots in line. Camille grinned. “As a thank you for letting me in front of you – I’ll answer any questions that you have about the game.”

Andrew couldn’t help but smile at the generosity that Camille was showing towards him, but he didn’t want to bother her with all his questions… which there were a lot of. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to spoil your experience by bombarding you with questions.”

Camille dismissed his statement with a wave of her hand. “It’s no problem at all. It would be an honor to help out a noob such as yourself. Besides, there’s really nothing better to do while we wait.”

He stared at her blankly. Did she just call him a… Noob? Was that an insult? Or was that what they called new people… like, a newbie? Satisfied with his reasoning, Andrew smiled and pulled out his phone. During the performance, he had written down several questions about that game that popped into his mind that he was going to research after the performance.

“Thank you,” Andrew said while scrolling through the detailed list on his phone, “I guess if you could give me a brief explanation as to what the game is – that would be a good start.”

“Starting from the top… alright,” Camille said. “Alright – Final Conquest is a Fantasy SCMMORPG –“ she stopped herself. “Do you know what a SCMMORPG is?”

Andrew nodded. “Split-Conscious massive multiplayer online role-playing game, correct?”

“Good, just wanted to make sure you knew what that was.” She said. “The game takes place on Melartus, a fantasy world full of magic and wonder. Here, players can play solo or alongside one another in PvE, PvP, and –“ Camille stopped as she saw Andrew with a raised hand. She grinned. “Yes?”

“What is PvE and PvP?” Andrew asked.

“Have you ever played a game before?” Camille asked through a stunned expression.

“I did for a while when I was a kid, but not much after that.” He replied truthfully. The last time he played a video game was around fifth grade at Vladimir’s house. It was some sort of army simulation game where they would complete missions together by defeating enemies.

Camille nodded and thumbed her chin. “Alright… I’ll have to get super basic with my descriptions. Got it.” She cleared her throat. “PvE stands for ‘Player versus Environment.’ This would be like following the game’s main storyline, which is filled with quests, bounties, side quests, dungeons, raids, and a bunch of other tasks complete pertaining to the game’s environment. Quests are like, tasks that NPC’s – Non-Player Characters, give you to complete for them. Once completed, they will give you money, items, and experience which is used to level up in the game. Dungeons are areas in the game where up to five players can get together to take on a tough area filled with hard monsters where the strongest monster in the dungeon – the ‘boss’ waits for them at the end. A raid is like a dungeon, but harder. Up to fifty people can participate in a raid, and there are several boss monsters throughout the raid instead of just one boss like a dungeon… Are you following? I know it’s a lot of information to take in at once.”

Andrew nodded. “I’m following. What’s PvP?”

“PvP stands for ‘Player versus Player.’” Camille grinned. “This is where I spend most of my time in the game. It’s exactly what it sounds like; players fight one another in various settings. It can be as simple as a one versus one battle, where two players fight each other depending on their own skills to defeat their opponent, team battles where teams of five get together to defeat another team of five, claiming victory through teamwork and objective games like capture the flag – where you try to take the other teams flag and bring it back to your base. You also gain experience from participating in PvP events and such, which allows you to level up with this method, though it takes a bit longer to level up this way compared to PvE.”

This was a lot of information to take it, but Camille was making it very easy to understand. She continued.

“There is also PvEC, which is ‘Player Versus Economy.’ This is where people level up by working on their professions. There are several professions in the game ranging from blacksmiths to fishermen. These players level up by doing well in their professions, as well as getting bonus experience from engaging with NPC’s and stimulating the economy.”

This caught Andrew by surprise. Stimulating the economy? Was there a dynamic economy in the game depending on how players treat it? Did that mean there could be inflations, depressions, and so on? Rather than asking her, he felt fairly confident that that was the case. Still, he was very impressed something like that existed inside of Final Conquest.

“Wow, that’s incredible.”

Camille smiled in agreement. “Right? There’s so much to do. I would go into more specifics about the main story of the game, but I’m ashamed to admit that I really haven't gotten that far into it. When I started the game I immediately went to the PvP arena and grinded levels through that.”

“That’s fine. I actually have another question. You had said something earlier about me looking like a warrior. What was that about?”

“Oh, that!” She exclaimed. “Well, Final Conquest has a feature that no other game has, which makes it incredibly unique. Basically, the Splicer has the ability to perform several tests on individuals calculating strength, reflexes, endurance, IQ, speech, and several others. Based on the results of those tests, Final Conquest assigns a class to you. You have the option to play other classes, but if it isn’t the one you were assigned you take permanent stat penalties which hurt you in the long run. But just because you were assigned a class doesn’t mean you are stuck with it. You can promote into other classes.

“Interesting… how do you promote into other classes? By increasing your test results?”

Camille winked. “Bingo. People who start the game are often disappointed with the class assigned to them due to their poor test results. Wanting to get better classes, Final Conquest offers training regimens tailored towards people’s classes to help them improve their personal ‘stats.’ For example…”

She waved her arms over her body and spun around, showing off her physic. “When I first started Final Conquest three years ago, I was clinically obese.”

Andrew’s eyes widened in shock. “No way! Camille, you look incredible!” He would have never imagined that she was ever obese with how incredible her physique was. She looked like an athlete who trained her whole life.

Blushing slightly, Camille turned her body away from Andrew. “Thank you. When I first started, I was discouraged by the class I got and all of the penalties I was given. Though I was still very excited to play the game! After some time playing and seeing how classes which I could promote to performed, it motivated me to get off my ass and work for it. Two years later I had promoted three times, and this year I –“ She stopped herself and smiled sheepishly. “And this year I promoted again. There are many people with stories like mine.”

Feeling inclined to do so, Andrew took another look around the room and was surprised by what he found. He hadn’t noticed it before, but almost every single person waiting in line at the event was in fantastic shape. He had always had the idea that people who played videogames for hours on end were out-of-shape slobs who consumed nothing but junk food. Well, that used to be the case, but it looks like that vision has changed thanks to the Splicer and Final Conquest.

The more he learned about how impactful Final Conquest was to the world, the more guilt he felt. Not only did Final Conquest bring people together for events like tonight, but it also helped millions of people improve themselves physically. Yeah, they were only improving themselves to do better in a videogame, but what did that matter? They were still benefiting in the real world, which countered his biggest gripe with videogames which was that people were wasting hours upon hours to improve a character that didn’t exist when they could be improving themselves somehow.

“Hey… You alright?”

Without him noticing, Camille had gotten close and was looking up at him with concern. “You zoned out there.”

Startled by how close she was, Andrew took a step backward and stammered. “Y-yeah, I was just lost in thought, that’s all.”

“It’s okay, I know there is a lot to take in. But, to get back to your question, I said I thought you were a warrior because you have a fairly large build, solid muscle mass, and have a serious look to you.” Camille giggled. “The community likes to guess what classes people are based upon their physique and personality. It’s a fun game to play when meeting new people who play.”

“So…” Andrew started, trying to gather his thoughts. “What is a warrior class? Are there a lot of classes?”

Camille let out a long, drawn-out sigh. She cracked her neck followed by her knuckles and loosened her shoulders. “Alright, here’s the basic explanation for all the classes…”

“And that’s pretty much all you need to know about the classes! I could get into more detail, but I feel like it would be better for you to see the details for yourself. You holding up alright?” Camille asked while stretching her arms over her head.

“Yeah! Thank you, that information was very helpful. I feel like I have a better idea of what I’m getting myself into when I start the game for the first time.” Andrew said while typing some notes into his phone.

“You’re very diligent, aren’t you?” Camille grinned. “There will be a pop quiz in twenty minutes, so you better memorize those notes!”

Before Andrew could answer, an excited murmur filled their line catching his attention. He looked behind him to see a staff member approaching their line. He felt his heart rate quicken as the staff member stopped at the front of their line.

“Alright, you guys are next! Please get ready to follow behind me as I take you to One Up Games!” The staff member exclaimed.