Logging back in…

…

…

Jeez it's already night by the time I'm back in here. Seems like during this winter season I've barely even seen a bright afternoon because evenings are longer and afternoons are shorter. A single ingame day is 18 hours long, and usually 12 hours were given to daytime with only 6 hours of night time per day. But nowadays there's only 9 hours of daytime and an even longer night time...so now I don't even remember how the Overworld looks like during the afternoon. It's been a fairly dark experience for me, literally dark. Maybe I should unlock and start playing with vampiric abilities? Since so far, I've only been logging on during the 'evenings' and then logging off in the mornings. But maybe today I'll play a bit longer...

Whenever a Player exits the online world, their ingame character remains inside of the world sleeping on the ground. Unless their bodies remain inside of Safe Zone, such as in a major city like Kurajur, then any Player risks getting killed while logged out. Dying in Divine Mortality, unless under certain circumstances, is not a big deal. But there is still a decent enough cost which prevents most Players from easily risking their characters with death. If killed, there is a guaranteed chance that a Player will drop or destroy any random item equipped or within their inventories. It could be merely a consumable berry or a rare helmet. A strategy to overcome this used by many Players is to simply fill their inventories with trash, but a downside with this is that the number of free slots available will be wasted on the trash. Plus, a character’s carry weight will be used up on the trash, slowing them down every milestone level of weight left available. From light weighted too medium weighted to heavy weighted and so on.

Luckily for both Sayooshi and RemixHorizon, neither of them was concerned about leaving their characters defenseless after logging off because all of Kurajur was a safe zone.

When Sayooshi ‘woke up’, he did not see the little ninja anywhere in their inn room. They must’ve already returned to the Overworld.

Ah yeah, I see them here… “RemixHorizon – status: Away”. So, they must be somewhere else and AFK.

Sayooshi thought that he wouldn’t immediately contact RemixHorizon because he was set on beginning his operations of somehow starting up a Player Government. But a vital flaw still persisted. Despite all of his daydreaming and ‘know-how’, this whole time Sayooshi actually did not have any clue about how the Player Government should be run. This meant, Sayooshi was asking the basic question, what kind of country was he expecting himself to create? And besides Krafty, with whose help?

Sayooshi kept that question in his mind. He left the inn’s room, which was rented by him and RemixHorizon for 6 more days. So, if Sayooshi was not planning on leaving Kurajur or the Marchdom of Sonder sometime today, then he had already decided on returning back in here before logging off.

Stepping downstairs from the second floor, he was greeted by a full inn. Most of the folk inside were local NPCs, practically treating the first floor as a tavern. But, after a quick inspection of everyone afar, he noticed several Players in the corner enjoying themselves chatting away. If he wanted to be sure that they were Players, then Sayooshi would need to either simply ask them directly or walk up closer to them so that he could tap their characters to open up their public viewed status bars, informing Sayooshi whether someone was designated as a Player or not. But outside safe zones, unless the other Players are in a grouping or are friends with you, then you wouldn’t be able to tap their character to see their public status bar. Anyways, a real person could usually tell if someone was a Player or not, whether it was through their epic appearances or 'strange' behaviors.

Moving on, Sayooshi calmly grinned at the atmosphere which he appreciated. In the real world, it was the international Christmas holiday. Sayooshi didn’t like real world winter festivals or anything of the sort. But inside Divine Mortality he truly appreciated sensing the evening’s winter mood exhibited by both Players and NPCs alike. Plus, the ingame’s background music was simply fantastic. Sometimes majestic in orchestral might, while other times genre diverse fitting a variety of scenarios depicted within the game. At this moment, a quiet yet excited tune of cheerful northern folk music echoed the back of Sayooshi’s ears.

Leaving the orange light and shadow colored environment, full of tipsy Dwarves, Snowmel, and Luminians (humans), Sayooshi stepped outside. He slowly ambled down the stairs off the inn’s foundations and unto the frosty cobblestone street. While obviously the virtual world’s cold temperatures do not really affect the Player, nonetheless, any senses available to Sayooshi still managed to send a slight chill down his real-life body. And even while the graphical textures of the video game aren’t exactly impressive, the combination of the game’s art design style and its many tiny details such as the mist of air caused by Sayooshi’s character’s breath all overlapped together for…a beautiful sight.

A stroll was just what Sayooshi needed to clear he mind and envision his plans. Actually, a real-life stroll would be a lot better, but a semi-addict like him also has the ability to benefit from even a virtual walk around town.

An audible voice is heard

“Hail, Divine Spirit! I wish to speak with you.”

Oh, an NPC…

A Dwarf who seemed to be merely passing by as Sayooshi continued walking turned out to want a conversation with the Player. It’s not uncommon for NPCs to start conversations with Players, and it’s not uncommon for Players to ignore those attempts. Usually, it doesn’t matter if the Player chooses to ignore NPCs, but sometimes there are consequences for ignoring them and it's never clear when it matters or doesn't matter. So, it's safer to just check out whatever the NPC is talking about in case it's important. Yet, most of all…it’s freaking awkward to ignore people like that! Even if they're just an NPC.

[Greetings Dwarf]

[What is it?]

[Who are you?]

[Hello]

[Tell me you aren’t going to waste my time…]

[Get out of my way, Dwarf]

Those are just some of the commonly available dialogue options for a Player to choose whenever they engage in a dialogue conversation. From here on out, the discussion would continue in purely dialogue text and not in voice file format from the NPC.

“Greetings Dwarf”

“Greetings Divine Spirit, your name please?”

“Sayooshi”

“An Elf at that! Normally I’d give ye a friendly sucker punch, like every sibling Dwarf does to their sibling Elf! But you see… I have a good nose. I could tell ye were no mere Elf, but a Divine Spirit! Huzzah, my fortunes have arrived today. Must be lady Fate who done this.”

“Why, are you looking for a Divine Sprit?”

“Lookin? Searching. Even begging for one! Cause ye see, I’m in a bit of pickle. Normally, I’d go to the authorities like any good citizen would. But that’s just the damn problem. The authorities are sniffin down my neck for no good reason.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I am a bowyer by trade- OH! Pardon my manners, I forgot to tell ye my name. Rori Fletcher, pleased to meet you. Silly yet fitting last name for a bowyer, ey? Haha…anyhoo, I’ll cut to the chase. The authorities say I’m conspiring in a rebellion against the Margrave of Sonder... WHAT REBELLION?!? I have no idea what rebellion they’re referring to, at least I’ve never heard of any. But, for no good reason they came up with an excuse to close down my shop and probably to take away my wealth! To close down a Dwarf’s shop is a dangerously serious blow to our pride. And most of all, guess who directly ordered me all this? A fellow Dwarf no less!”

“What do you expect me to do about this?”

“In all honesty, I’m sorry to say, but I really hope for ye to take pity on my situation and somehow get me out of this mess! If anyone’s got the guts and status to speak up to the authorities, then it’d be a Divine Spirit rather than my friends Tyrik or Gavin who are just as useless as I am!”

“By when does the time limit for this quest end?”

“It must be completed a few days after you accept my quest.”

“Alright Dwarf, I'll accept your call for help. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank the gods! And you too Divine Spirit! If you need help starting, visit me at my shop when I’m awake…usually almost all the time! Or head straight to those damn authorities…have they gone mad? Nothing better to do?!? Here, let me name drop that other Dwarf I mentioned, Lachlan the Craft Quarter’s Captain of the Guard. He’s the one who told me the ridiculous news, and in an utterly uncaring manner too! Thanks again Divine Spirit, I owe you a big one if you succeed convincing them villains.”

The Dwarf walked off in the same trajectory he was already heading towards before he struck up a conversation with Sayooshi. Sayooshi did not plan on accepting any quests today, yet now he did. He actually hadn’t taken on a proper quest like this in quite a while, so he had hoped this quest would later take his mind off other worries. But for now, Sayooshi isn’t planning to attempt to start and eventually complete that quest yet. He is saving it for some time later. After all, all Sayooshi wanted to do at this moment was to simply find the nearest park and just lay there, resting on a virtual stone and on his real bed.

…

…

After a little while of ambling around the narrow cobblestone streets, he saw several groups of NPCs huddling next to each other near warm places while selling their wares or telling each other stories. Meanwhile, whenever another Player was around it was easy to spot them since they all kept on constantly running past everyone in whatever hurry they were in. Yesterday, when Sayooshi and RemixHorizon entered down they saw a similar scenary, but with much less people because it was already far into the night by then. But the most memorable thing for Sayooshi about this place are the many dozens of dim lights illuminating the streets, homes, and even the farther away city walls which in the distance loomed over many rooftops around the whole Trades Quarter. Eventually Sayooshi found a small market square with a frozen fountain in the middle. He sat on the edge of the fountain’s stone borders. He lazily turned his VR headset around to better take in his surroundings. He saw that this market square, despite not very large, was very active due to the presence of a relatively massive amount of AI characters living their lives and going about their daily duties. While sometimes an occasional Player would also stroll past everyone, easily identifiable due to their cool looking metal armor and impressive weaponry hanging on their backs.

Because of this zone's location in the Overworld is one of the farthest places away from the Spawn, Players are an even rarer sight here. In opposite comparison and contrast, the most Player-populous regions inn the game are all located in the center of the map. Which pretty much includes the two most active regions in the Overworld, the Holy Lands, and the Free Counties. Even about 6 months after Divine Mortality’s release, the largest servers like Isilia and Farxona still see the majority of their playerbase mostly spending their game time in the Holy Lands (the spawn) or the Free Counties. Since the zones in this online game are massive, it's generally far more convenient to not bother exploring very far away for most Players since there is already more than enough content waiting right next to them soon after entering the Overworld. Simply, the game is too big that it's often a pain to travel far. Strangely enough, on smaller Player sized servers like Jelatino, it was observed that a higher ratio of Players tended to explore farther away from spawn instead of sticking closer to it. So anyways, it’s not uncommon for some Players to gain the majority of their daily social interaction in Divine Mortality from the NPCs rather from other Players. The NPCs are not sentient and that’s probably for the best, but they are developed with magnificent complexities and with the illusion of realism without straying too far from the basic cartoon-like foundations of a video game.

Why mention all of this though? That’s because, as Sayooshi sat on the fountain’s edge, he remembered something that Krafty told him before they parted ways yesterday. It’s something which deserved deep ‘philosophical’ concentration from him:

“Get help from the NPCs” he said. Is that even possible? Would that even be effective?

It’s a bit sad to deeply think about the nature of our relationship with the NPCs of this world. Some of us are disillusioned by the immersion of the Overworld. But a larger amount of us, even not as roleplayers, are still Players who simply enjoy the illusions of our characters’ existences inside the Overworld. Meanwhile, the AI people who exist inside the Overworld are inorganic persons. Assuming from their inorganic point of view, they believe themselves as the natives who are naturally living on this land. The Overworld. So, they view us as outlanders while also calling us the ‘Divine Spirit’s because we've just recently descended unto their world for some sort of divine reason, according to the official lore. But of course, there isn't a real divine reason why we came here, the real reason is that this is a game and it's simply fun for us. We paid money for this god dammit! ... But of course they don't understand it as such.

Speaking of understanding. They understand that they are incapable of knowing why we came, but instead they at least understand that our arrival is of utmost importance for their lifestyles since our presence in their world is of godlike magnitude. Most of us, even me included, willingly enter this illusion to feel attachment to their world for entertainment purposes. But in reality, we all know that they are like virtual robotic animals or pets to us, things which can only see their lives in a very limited dimension. And we know that they are nothing more than AI who are incapable of ever realizing or comprehending our existence beyond their digital world. And so, they cannot ever know about our non-digital reality. Well, “non-digital” as far as I understand the real world to be like, because of course crazy people exist with their insane fictional ideas tricking themselves. There may even be some people who would relish in the notion of these AI characters ever comprehending their ‘pitiful’ lives, as mere existences inside of a video game. Which kind of makes me sick to even think about. Anyways, I believe every normal person, including myself, don’t care anymore about ever having self-learning conscious AI inside of a video game because our experiences with Divine Mortality is more than enough! I also get the feeling that we are already satisfied with the fact that we’re in a luxurious position of choosing to believe whether this virtual world is an illusion or not. The illusion, which is the Player’s immersion into the world of the NPCs as they see it for the sake of a far more immersive experience. Or simply enjoy the game for all of its numbers, statistics, and cool graphics. In the end it’s far more preferable for us to be in this position of power over the AI, because we get the best of both worlds and they both work splendidly.

So, should a Player Government even have NPCs be a part of its function? Would that defeat the purpose of a Player run government? How could I utilize AI to benefit the Player Government? And... are there morals between Players and NPCs which could result in real-life consequences?

These are the questions I need to brood over, probably the next month or something like that. “Rome wasn’t built in a day” or something of the sort…