It’s a simple log-in screen, showcasing a long, cloudy sky expanding on to a large mountain. All there is on the screen is the log in info, patch notes tab, and the neural link info, which is connected and ready to interrupt Clark’s regular consciousness the second he logs in.

His heartbeat picks up; this is it. The moment he’s been waiting four years for. He remembers when it was first announced, a VRMMO that’s more than just a bunch of naked furry custom avatars grinding for meaningless levels.

From the day it was announced in its trailer video, DSO became synonymous with “true contact” combat, where personal skill and ingenuity will give even the lowest-leveled players a massive advantage. A state of the art “real musculature” system defines a player avatar to move precisely the way the player would in real life, but flaw free.

Clark rubs his now-bandaged forehead as he prepares savors the moment before logging in on the first time. This is going to be a day he’ll remember for the rest of his life.

After just a moment’s silence as he listens to the serene breeze playing in the log-in screen, he puts in his info, and taps “log-in”.

The transition process of older VRs were a little scarier. Most early adopters were horrified by the empty feeling of being fully disembodied in but an instant. The newer models and programs make that process a good deal smoother.

At first Clark steadily loses his sense of touch, working from the outside in. Suddenly that injury on his forehead doesn’t seem quite so bothersome, and a moment after that, he can’t even feel it. Next to go is his sense of smell, which isn’t so amazing, considering his room is the only well-scented one in the house. After that he can no longer taste his bloodied saliva, and then the whirring sound of his computer dies out. Finally, he blanks out. He’s not worried, as the headset allows his subconscious mind to deliver just enough information to breathe and move as necessary. For that reason, it’s recommended to use these headsets in very comfortable positions, or lying down, as hours can pass without any outside stimuli- a murderer could break into your house and you’d have no idea until you were literally dead.

Of course there’s countermeasures put in place for most of this stuff, like an in-console clock that always accurately reports the time, and a sound measurer that gives the user a notice if the ambiance around them is being disturbed in any serious way. Is the house on fire? Is someone screaming in your ear? You’ll figure it out, so long as your headset’s working properly.

All around Clark is blackness, he is just a mind, the only present proof of his existence.

And then, the world is rendered before him.

His senses are all engaged as he takes a breath upon the character selection screen.

“Interesting design choice,” he thinks, considering most VRMMOs remove any semblance of oxygen from the game, considering the big upset about three years ago when Your World Online caused a person to hyperventilate their brain even though their body was just resting on the bed. Risky choice, but great for immersion.

He scrolls to the second out of three character slots. He usually doesn’t choose the first so he doesn’t accidentally select and delete it one day. Call him paranoid, but it happened to him a couple times before in the earlier days of thought-selection-based U.I..

He selects “Create New” and begins designing his avatar.

The races available are pretty generic fare, as he saw from all the interviews. You have Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and some shitty original one called Faefolk which he can only assume is like fairies but are human-sized and have stupid glowy symbols floating over their heads. So original.

Clark considers himself a fairly vanilla dude when it comes to avatar expression, so he goes for a Human male. He picked a female once in another online game, but stopped in an hour after a high level player solicited him for more than just a party invitation - weird.

He designs his face, which is automatically templated off of his own facial features thanks to his headset’s camera, which can track facial structure as well as expressions and mouth movements. He decides to make his hair a little darker, and his skin a tad paler for artistic contrast, and increase the age a little so he’ll look more badass.

Last step is his name. A wry smirk crosses his virtual face as he puts it in: the true reflection of his online personality.

Name: 5L4Y

Satisfied with his nom de guerre, he cursors over the start button and he enters the game.