I’m back using my first-person camera perspective. I can walk, run, and jump around so smoothly in this game that it feels so nice. I’ve been doing this for about a minute now, while circling around Fate who is supposed to be an NPC character. But I don’t think they are actually an NPC. It would be too technologically amazing for there to be AI that is this capable of responding to a player’s microphone chat so easily. They still haven’t responded to me. Beforehand, for a moment Fate would’ve freely talked to me, but after asking my question Fate has stopped moving or saying anything. Frozen and silent.

So, I think I’ve caused some sort of effect because maybe there is actually someone controlling Fate in the background. Maybe this stage is just bugged out. Or whoever is controlling Fate right now is currently preparing to punish me for some reason. Maybe because I broke game immersion, but if they punished me for that, it would be mega bullshit! There shouldn’t be any rule in this game that prohibits stuff like that. I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing right now anyways, there is no clear exit or quest marker around to lead me anywhere. I guess I’ll just continue talking to Fate and see if anything else happens.

MC: “You know, I still don’t exactly know if you are some sort of advanced NPC or a real person controlling the character, but I just want to say that I really love Fate’s design and voice. I immediately fell in love with her style too, such a balanced character! I guess you can call me as the first fanboy for Fate!"

I bet I sounded like such a weirdo just now. Whoever is controlling Fate right now has probably just dropped their controller out of disgust!

Anyways, the whole beginning of this game is probably ruined for me. I guess I need to restart. And I haven’t even actually properly played the game yet… because I’m still at the literal beginning of the game!

You know, I actually would definitely prefer if this game wasn't correctly working. Because what I’ve just said right now, is so embarrassing, that I’d rather there not be anyone possibly controlling Fate. If someone is controlling Fate right now, I’d wager you are a man and expressing my love towards a man isn’t something I want to do the first time I play this game because I am personally not into loving men!

Sigh…what to do, what to do. WAIT a second! If there is someone controlling Fate, then how come there were specific voice lines directed towards me? Was it just my imagination? I swear I didn’t see any text dialogue appear when Fate talked to me.”

A timid voice suddenly appears after a moment of silence.

Fate: “Y-yes. There is, um…someone controlling Fate…that would be me by the way.”

I just felt something pierce my soul. It hurts. It really hurts. This is beyond embarrassing! How unlucky am I? A grown 30-year-old man has been caught ranting like an idiot, randomly expressing their adoration to a person they know nothing about! Also, they sounded like a woman, no, they definitely are a woman and not the man I imagined.

Never mind! I’d rather have expressed my love to a random man instead, since that would've been less personal for me!

At least on the bright side, I’m glad that I am not going crazy thinking that I was talking to an NPC this whole time. They would’ve sounded too sophisticated for an AI, that it honestly started to scare me. But who is this person? Oh no, I can’t forget about all the embarrassing stuff I was proudly blurting out to them just now! They are quiet all the sudden again…I need to say something, quickly!

MC: “I am so sorry! As you've just heard, I wasn’t sure whether you were a real person or not! Please don’t pay too much attention to the weird stuff I've said!”

Fate: “That’s alright…I should have spoken up sooner, sorry for misleading you.”

I’ll change the subject by asking them a more game related questions!

MC: “Are you a gamemaster? Is that why you are controlling Fate? But isn’t Fate not supposed to be controlled by gamemasters? In lore she is more like an integral symbolic part of the story, instead of a lesser deity. But if you're a gamemaster, aren't there a lot of other people playing the game right now who are also at this stage, so isn’t it unmanageable to manually control Fate for everyone? And are you actually voicing Fate yourself?

Oops, perhaps I asked too many questions at once. But I’m talking to a gamemaster! This is a rare opportunity, so I’m not going to miss it.

Now that I look at Fate in third person more closely, it feels like the elegance of the model is not there anymore. Compared to the first time I saw her before I started creating my character. The model’s body stature is more slouched than before. Fate was standing straight, like how you’d imagine any goddess would do in a video game. Proudly and mighty sort of thing. But now, it looks to me that this person who is controlling Fate right now is also using a VR headset and controllers! So, her game model is slightly responding to her physical body, a bit like how my character is responding to the way I am standing and moving around right now.

Fate: “How did you figure out that someone else is playing Fate? I didn’t even mess anything up while I was reading my script!”

MC: “Because I think you got the lore wrong! For the past week I’ve been studying this game as much as I could learn about it, because I’ve been so excited to play it. And as far as I know, each player’s character isn’t someone who is supposed to ascend to divinity but rather they descend to mortality. Maybe you were wrong because you gamemasters don’t interact much with the game developers, so you wouldn't know this?"

Fate: “Darn, I thought I understood the story already! …This is a bit embarrassing. I think you are right about the lore. You’re also right in saying that gamemasters don’t interact much with developers."

Fate: "But you are wrong about the gamemasters, since for their job, they are specifically trained to interact with the community instead of worrying about how the game is built. They also know the lore better than some of the developers because for their job they also need to be in charge of understanding and influencing this game's world. But I, uhm, I’m not actually a gamemaster. I’m one of the developers for this game."

Woah! I’m talking to one of the devs right now!

MC: “Wait, so what is a developer doing playing as Fate? Like I said before, aren’t there other people instanced here in the character creation area just like I am? Shouldn’t this be an automatic process for everyone?”

Fate: “You see, it’s like this. I’ve already finished my main assignments as one of the level designers. Since the game has already released, there aren’t any major projects for me to work on currently. So, I’m temporarily working as a sort of server investigator. I’m looking for any issues in the game, particularly at this start area. I try to make sure there aren’t any problems which could ruin the beginning experience for anyone, which is a lot of people right now. Of course, normally Fate is indeed automated as a regular NPC you can interact with at the beginning of the game. She doesn’t really have a large role in the actual gameplay later on, so she primarily just introduces players to the world and appears every now and again like our game’s mascot. I’m sure you know some of this already since you seem pretty knowledgeable about our game. Also thank you for correcting my mistake…you see I didn’t really pay enough attention to her story. So, I don’t know a lot of the details about her or about the lore in general. And to think that I tried to have fun just now by pretending to be Fate, but it looks like I instead just made a fool out of myself! I thought I could have some extra fun by pretending as Fate. While I did manage to convince a couple of Players, I then stumbled upon you, and you instantly found me out.”

I love the developers of this game! They are so chill and interactive. Hearing this insight is awesome.

MC: “But I didn’t know that one of the developers for this game is also the voice actress for Fate! You are her voice actress, right? To be honest, I really did consider at one short moment that I was actually somehow inside of the game. I haven’t even started fully playing this game yet and I’m already feeling super immersed just by the way it looks, sounds, and feels (via my headset and controllers).”

Fate: “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself so far Amulet! Even though you haven’t gotten passed the first level like you just said. Sorry about that, it’s my fault. And yup! You’re right, I do voice the dialogue for Fate, so it’s easy for me to talk directly to you in voice chat without feeling out of character. The reason why I voice Fate is because we actually didn’t bother hiring a lot of different voice actors, so we (the developers) voiced some characters ourselves…of course it doesn’t sound the best, but we think it works. My colleagues tell me that I have a good voice, so it seems to have worked out well enough in the end.”

MC: “No, it’s great! I enjoy your voice; it fits the image of Fate perfectly. I remember watching the release trailer cinematic and I can now distinctly hear it from my memory.”

Fate: “Aw jeez, thanks for the compliments”

Only a short moment has passed, and I’ve already forgotten about almost all the other questions I wanted to ask her, but I at least managed to remember one of them.

MC: “Ah, so miss developer? You said you are level designer who is temporarily working as a server investigator. If that means you can visit other people in character as Fate, how do you decide on who to check on?”

Fate: “I don’t actually need to go in character as Fate since I can observe players from a bird’s eye view while using a computer instead of having to play the game in VR like you. But because I’m allowed to, I want to have some fun, so I sometimes do join the game in virtual reality like this and play as a test character or specifically Fate. I guess I won’t be doing that anymore since I’ve messed up now, and even interrupted you while you were creating your character…sorry once again.”

MC: “No no no! Don’t apologize, I really like this moment because it’s so cool talking directly to a goddess in this game, even though you aren’t a gamemaster. Especially since it’s one of Divine Mortality’s mascot characters. And I’ve also messed up by ranting directly to you like an idiot just recently, so you shouldn’t feel sorry!”

She’s smiling!

Fate: “Thanks, that makes me happy! But I’ll still avoid doing this at the character customization area, I might be overstepping my boundaries as a developer, and I cannot afford to break any rules myself. Oh, and yeah, the reason why I checked on you is because I saw that you’ve spent almost two hours at this place. I thought that maybe there was some sort of problem between the player and the game. Maybe your connection was bad or something glitched out. Yet, it turns out everything was fine, and you correctly reminded me that some players simply spend a lot of time customizing their appearance, after all it’s difficult to change some of it later on.”

Wait, how difficult is it to change your appearance? How many characters can I create?

MC: “Is it impossible to change my character’s appearance later on?! I’m also certain it’s possible to make multiple characters, right?”

Fate: “Don’t worry. It’s always possible to change some parts of your character’s appearance in the game, like your hair style or hair color. But the more fundamental features of your character are more permanent, so you cannot change stuff like the race which you chose your character to be. That’s reasonable, no? And each individual account in the game is able to create 3 characters at once, at least for now. By the way, you created a cute little character there!”

Yeah, that’s right, I just realized our height difference. Not only am I short in this game, but it seems deities like Fate are extra tall compared to almost all mortals. Basically, I look super tiny next to her! I am a Dwelf after all, the part dwarf of me is what makes me short, I guess.

MC: “Well…I don’t know if you could call Amulet Pond cute, he is an old sage after all!”

Fate, I mean the developer, just chuckled! Oh, I don’t know if the developer herself is like this in real life, but one thing is for certain and it’s that I think Fate is a lot cuter than my character. The beauty power of a goddess is unmatched, for sure!

MC: “Umm, miss developer it has been an utmost pleasure talking to you!”

Wait how do I emote a bow? Oh, right I need to physically bow in real life. Wow this has turned into a very polite conversation if I say so myself. This is game is really immersing me, it feels like I am turning into the actual Amulet Pond. A Dwelf sage in front of the goddess Fate. I would slap myself if I didn’t have my headset in the way because of how strange or surreal this experience is. In front of a computer screen, this wouldn’t be so effective. But because this is a VR game where I am actually saying and moving around like this in real life, then how could someone not get immersed into this world?

Fate: “For me too. Thank you again for seeing and correcting me when I messed up Fate’s character by incorrectly talking about the lore. And also, thank you for reminding me that some players might take a while creating their characters, it seems so obvious so how could I have forgotten this? I’ll also now stop controlling Fate in this type of instance, but if you won’t mind, we can add each other as friends. You seem pretty knowledgeable about our game and maybe you can help us out by reporting anything you notice. And just continue learning the game more as you play, you could then give us a different perspective of seeing our game from your individual viewpoint. Sort of like an unofficial game tester, would you like to do that?”

Maybe I was fanboying this game too much earlier. I have barely played it and now I’ve received this type of offer? It’s amazing! My answer is easily going to be a “YES!” Even if it means I’ll become a super biased player, who might not even see the game objectively for what it is. However, with this level of immersion and this level of interaction in the game, even if it’s just been with one person, it has allowed me to confirm that I’ve made the right choice in buying this game!

MC: “YES! I’ll gladly add you to my friends list and let you know if I see anything interesting!”

Fate: “Great! I’ll send you a message right now… “

While Fate is adding me…

MC: “So when did you take control of Fate? Was it when I finished creating my character? I notice that Fate’s voice started to sound a lot less scripted.”

Fate: “Yup, that’s right. I started watching just before you pressed the completion button, I was thinking “how much longer are they going to take”, or you maybe weren’t actually playing the game. So, I gave you a time limit before automatically logging you off since there are currently so many people queued up waiting to play this game right now. But now I think about it, the game would’ve automatically log you out anyways if you weren’t performing any actions. So now I feel like I haven’t been doing a good job as a server inspector so far.”

MC: “So it’s because of specifically you that I had to rush-finish customizing my character!”

Fate: “Yup, sorry about that! Anyways, I’ve finished sending you a friend request message.”

MC: “Awesome. But uh, how do I open up the user interface?”