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*Please Enter Username*

B>i>g>>J>o>h>n>->s>a>n

     *Would You Like to Confirm Username 'Big John-san'?*

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     It was the year 2063 and the newest and most anticipated Full Immersion Virtual Reality (FIVR) game, "Fantasy Lyfe" had just been released.

     John had been saving his money up for the past three years to make sure he could afford the new Immersion Pod that the game required, in order to play it.

      The 'Trystal Pod,' as it was called, was the most cutting edge Immersion Pod on the market. Both the Trystal Pod and Fantasy Lyfe had launched on the same day and were developed by the same company. 

     Unity Triune were the development team behind this new game and the only Immersion Pod capable of running it. They had smartly done loads of marketing for several years in advance, before completing their project. They knew that they wouldn't sell half as many games, if they just dropped an entirely new pod on the market as a requirement to play their game.

     Thus, gamers the world over had been in an uproar over the initial announcement. Many immediately went to their banks and began rearranging their finances to be able to afford the new pod, whenever it was released.

     John, however, had never played a FIVR game before and had actually been saving his money just to buy an older model pod. Whenever he learned about the eventual release of Fantasy Lyfe, his plans changed instantly. He even went so far as to place dietary restrictions on himself and began eating mostly cheap pre-packaged Ramen Noodles, in order to save money.

     As the day of release approached, he had finally saved the amount he needed for the pod but he wasn't in the best of health. He had only started eating properly again about two days ago and now looked a bit less aged than he had previously.

     John was a caucasian Marketing Consultant, about six foot, had green eyes, black hair, and sharp nordic features. He had been anticipating this release for three years and he was finally going to be able to join the FIVR gaming sensation and in the best pod on the market.

     He was absolutely thrilled and had been unable to think of anything else for the past month. The anticipation was killing him, or maybe it was a lack of nutrition, and he was only five minutes away from Fantasy Lyfe's initial launch.

     John confirmed his Username and then his vision went black. A couple of seconds later, he was confronted with a mostly white environment that contained several different males of varying fantasy races.

     *Welcome, User Big John-san, to Fantasy Lyfe!* A soft feminine voice greeted him. *Before you are sent to the starting area of your choice, you must wait four minutes and fifty two seconds before the game is officially launched. During this time, you may choose your starting character's race, appearance, attributes, ability, weapon, and starting location. 

     *Once you have confirmed your choices and the timer has run out, you will immediately be sent to your chosen starting area. Thank you for playing, Fantasy Lyfe, and enjoy!*

     John took a blissful moment to assess all of the options before him. This was the first step on what would surely be a long series of fun-filled adventures in this all new FIVR-verse. He wanted to take his time in sorting through all of the options but, even more than that, he wanted to start the game. He had less than five minutes left and he doubted he would get a thorough read on all of the various races, before that time was up.

     'Let's see? Yep, just as the promotional material had stated, there are no humans in this world. The concept of this world is that of a completely foreign world, where the closest thing to real life humans are Elves, who come in a variety of subspecies.

     'Hmmm...Arcana Elves, Forest Elves, Sea Elves, and a nomadic group of Elves simply known as Merfolk. There's also the Reptilians, the Avians, the Mammalians, and Aquarians. All of which are base humanoid forms that not only have the base characteristics of their heritage but also have the potential to integrate certain bloodlines within their specific heritage. 

     'Then there's the Hybrids, Demons, and Fairies. Demons and Fairies being about what one would expect and Hybrids being races like Minotaurs, Centaurs, and Valkyries.

     'Wow! When they said you could play as any humanoid race, they really weren't kidding! These guys really out did themselves! I can already tell this game is going to be amazing!'

     John continued to look at the options before him, for a minute longer, and then decided that, since this would probably only be his first character, he would simply stick with something simplistic and relatively normal for now. Thinking this he settled on the Forest Elf, placed all his stat points into Intelligence, chose Dual Daggers as his weapons, selected Conjure Lightning as his ability and selected a town called Deresia as his starting village.

     John always had a habit of starting and restarting a game multiple times, before he finally settled on a certain character, whenever getting a new game. He would always play around with different character types and play styles just to get a feel for the game, before dedicating himself to a specific character.

     Fantasy Lyfe was no exception in being able to reset your character, without consequences, and so he saw no reason not to take advantage of that.

     One of the major selling points of Fantasy Lyfe was not only its unprecedented level of player freedom in every aspect of gameplay but also its philosophy of absolute fairness in every aspect of gameplay.

     There had, at one point, been a severe backlash against developers that had attempted to implement 'one and done' character policies. Even more severe backlash, however, had been seen in response to attaching stat boosts and abilities to First Time Achievement Rewards. Despite this backlash, however, developers continued to place these elements into their games along with the ever infamous Microtransactions.

     Rewarding skilled players for demonstrating their skill was one thing but simply handing out stat and ability advantages, just for being lucky enough to be the first skilled player to achieve something, was clearly a slap in the face to all of the other gamers who eventually managed to replicate those deeds. 

     Whenever all of the complexities of modern life were adjusted for, there was simply no way to square the idea of fairness with the idea of someone being the first. At least in regards to the fairness of video games.

     These factors alone had gamers clamoring for both Unity Triune's pods and game. The fact that this game required a never before seen high end pod just to run it, also sent the expectations for its technical performance through the roof.

     John had been lucky enough to get his hands on one of the first shipments of pods that came preinstalled with Fantasy Lyfe. All he needed to do was install the pod and boot it up. He, of course, had done just that and now all he had to do was wait.

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

     The white space filled with various fantasy races turned immediately to black again. John soon felt as though his eyes were closed, despite not having closed them. He suddenly felt as though warm sunlight were settling on his skin as well as the sound of running water clearly audible from behind him and so he slowly opened his eyes.

     The scene before him was absolutely astonishing. He was sitting on the edge of a magnificent water fountain in the middle of what seemed to be a town square. He breathed deeply and could smell scents both familiar and alien but all of them were pleasant and comforting. 

     The midday sun filtered in through a clearing in the trees and a wide variety of flora could be seen, in the forest beyond, through the various structures that lined the streets of this Elven village. A fair number of Elves went about their business, as he sat there taking in all the sensations of this new world. 

     Everything he was experiencing felt like real life. It was nearly indistinguishable. He had heard tales of the wonders of FIVR but they had never mentioned anything like the near perfect simulation that he was currently experiencing. 

     'Of course, I've been obsessively hyped about this game, from the start, and perhaps my bias is influencing my perspective. I'll have to make sure to check the forums later to see what others have to say about this level of realism.

     'For now, though? I've only just arrived and there are so many things I want to do!'

     Looking at his arms and body, while poking himself here and there and looking at his blurred reflection in the fountain, he realized that his skin was a light golden brown color just as the character creator had shown.

     Once he confirmed that nothing was amiss with his appearance, he grasped one of the daggers at his waist and brought it in front of his face. John noticed that it was much heavier that it appeared and he then recalled that he had put all his stat points into Intelligence.

     Thinking upon this he attempted to summon his status menu and looked over his information.

Name: TBD

Level: 1

Race: Forest Elf

Class Titles: Caster

Professional Titles: None

HP: 10/10

MP: 860/860

SP: 20/20

Strength-1

Endurance-1

Vitality-1

Dexterity-1

Perception-1

Intelligence-43

Wisdom-1

Recovery-8

Accolades: [Mad Man] (Unlockable)

Active Abilities: [Conjure Lightning] Lvl 1

Passive Abilities: [Caster Blaster] Lvl 1

     John had already expected most of the information revealed to him due to his extensive scouring for every bit of information obtainable concerning Fantasy Lyfe, during the past three years.

     Fantasy Lyfe possessed a unique leveling, class, and profession system. Instead of standard pre-rolled classes, FL used Class Titles, which could be obtained via a combination of attribute distribution, abilities, play style, and weapon choice. These Class Titles would then function as modifiers for any abilities that a player might obtain.

     For example, a player who possessed the Arcane Title would find abilities belonging to the Power (Physical Strength) Title to be harder to use and less effective. Any player could learn any ability but certain buffs and debuffs would be applied to all learned abilities according to the Class Title system.

     In FL, Class Titles were segregated according to the type of abilities they applied to. Arcane applied generally to the entire field of magic and granted the player two stat points per level up in both Intelligence, Wisdom, and Perception.

     The Class Title Mage, however, was a tier below but not necessarily lesser. It granted two stat points per level in Wisdom and Intelligence. This nerfing continued by way of the debuffs applied to any abilities not falling under the Mage Class Title. The more specific a Class Title the more narrow its scope and therefore variety in abilities. Any ability falling only under the Arcane Title would be debuffed for a Mage, because his Title was too specific, but the debuff for an Arcane using a Mage ability would be lesser, due to Mage being subsumed under Arcane.

     However, abilities for more specific Class Titles tend to be far more powerful than more general abilities. Thus, Arcane grants the lowest damaging abilities but more stat points and a greater variety of abilities. Mage, on the other hand, grants more powerful abilities, less stat points, and a more narrow focus of ability types.

     Lastly, the third resolution of Class Titles, grants even more powerful abilities, an even more narrowed focus on ability types, and only grants stats in one area of specialization. An example of a third resolution magic Class Title would be Sage, which grants two stat points to Perception only.

     Unity Triune had, yet again, gone a step beyond and instead of having a limited number of Class Titles, a player could earn as many titles as his or her skill would allow for. The team had, however, stated that the theoretical limit was three, since a person who did absolutely nothing else but play their game all day would still be hard pressed to consistently maintain four different Class Titles.

     This, of course, came with the revelation that Class Titles could be lost, advanced, or altered depending on the players actions.

     As for Professional Titles, it went without saying that they worked in a similar fashion and what made them relevant was the buffs and debuffs applied to their various abilities.

     After inspecting his status, however, he had noticed a couple of unexpected points of interest.

    For starters, it seemed that this game didn't come standard with audible message alerts. These were defaulted to be inactive, in order to maintain immersion.

     Secondly, it seemed he already had an opportunity to earn an accolade. He was eager to learn what it was about and so he expanded the information for 'Mad Man.'

[Mad Man] (Unlockable)

'You have demonstrated your careless and demented nature, by foregoing every single aspect of existence except for one. Whether or not you realize the perilous predicament you've placed yourself in, by doing so, is beside the point. The question is, can you survive?'

Requirements to unlock:

1.Don't die for seven in game days.

2.During these seven days, complete at least two missions per day.

3.During these seven days, must not stay inside of a village, camp, or residence for more than two hours, unless sleeping.

4.Must defeat at least one opponent above your level, before the seven days are up.

Note: Timer begins upon initial inspection of this accolade.

     'Hmmm...that's an interesting accolade. I bet the reward for fulfilling it must be pretty sweet. It's too bad I can't see what it is, unless I unlock it. Oh, well, it isn't like I was planning on sticking to this character anyways. I'm sure someone else will get it and post it online.'

     Expanding the information on Arcane Grace, he took a look at the effects of his passive ability. 

[Caster Blaster] Lvl 1

All mana abilities cost 1% less mana to cast per number of times damage is dealt to target.

Note: Can be upgraded by increasing players overall level. One level increase per every increase of five levels of player over all level.

     'Nice! Seems like a pretty useful ability! Although, now that I've cleared up that bit of confusion, I've got an entire Elven village and forest just waiting to be explored.' John thought, as he smiled brilliantly, while examining his surroundings and deciding where to head to first.