World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (25 page)

Diana frowns. "That's
just great," she shakes her head. A hiss of frustration escapes
from her lips as she tries to recall the last trip to the
supermarket; it was almost three weeks ago. "Are you sure you're
not trying to dodge going to the supermarket with by volunteering for
something at work?" her eyebrows narrow in suspicion. That is
the exact sort of thing that Priscilla would do!

Her twin sticks out her
tongue. "Yeah, right! Even though I work for a game developer,
the floor I work on is full of smelly, balding old guys!" She
tilts her head. "I admit that there are also some cute guys
around, but they seem to be in relationships right now. Anyway, if I
don't show up to help out with media relations duties, I would be
blamed if the CEO says something ridiculous while going off script,"
she huffs in annoyance.

Diana chuckles at the
remark. "Well, your bachelor's in political science helped you
land your job, right?"

"True," the
twin admits. "I was hoping to be a speech writer for some big
shot politician, and instead I'm writing speeches and PR material for
an entertainment company. Both do play out to particular audiences,
though; the position is not a total waste of my college degree."
Priscilla shrugs at the way her career has developed differently than
how she originally envisioned while she was attending college. She
tries to change the topic. "Anyway, I should leave you alone
now. You said you need to work on your thesis, right?"

"Yes, you damn
eavesdropper!" Diana throws a pen at her twin sister.

Priscilla quickly
closes the door, and hears a soft "bang" on the other side.
She quietly goes back to her room, to shoot a quick email to her
boss.

Conrad squint his eyes
as the pointer on his virtual reality visor slowly shifts across the
changing landscape in the background. He is currently playing WoE
with a secret, alternate character, an archer specialist, and
participating in a Players-Versus-Players (“PvP”) match in the
new moba that the EDE released earlier this month. His task is to
defend the flag, and prevent the opposing team players from capturing
his team’s red flag.

A few weeks ago, Wesley
mentioned something about play testing a new PvP option in WoE, and
apparently this moba is the result. The retired marine is the obvious
choice for the game developers to approach for assistance, as the old
man has the time to spend in the game. Diana is busy polishing up her
doctoral thesis paper, and Lucious is busy with his Wall Street job.
Conrad pulled his hamstring during a minor league game, and he is
currently on rehab, which means more playing time for him.

Conrad has been keeping
a close eye on the differences between Player Versus Environment
(“PvE”) and PvP options in World of Eternia, along with new
classes that have been released specifically for PvP. The archer
specialist (or “sniper” as gamers call the class) in particular
requires a different style of play compared to his normal Barbarian
class.

Normally, the player
screen view is expansive; this allows the player to see what a normal
person sees and certainly this makes sense since the game seeks to
emulate a real life environment. Whenever Conrad shifts his player
screen over to “kill shot mode,” available only to the archer
class, a semi-transparent white cross appears on his screen. In
addition, his screen view shrinks significantly, to just twenty-five
percent of the normal screen view.

The tradeoff is worth
it, though, because a successful hit with his bow and arrow will
allow Conrad’s avatar to do four times the normal damage.
Additionally, in the event that the target has enough health points
to survive the hit, the opposing player has a high chance of
sustaining a status condition such as blindness, stunned, or
dizziness. Conrad could then add a second hit to finish off the
target player.

The current PvP match
is a three-on-three format, and composed of randomly matched players.
The other two player classes on his team are a berserker and a
defender, another newly introduced class for moba. The Berserker
class is well known to Conrad, as his normal Berserker avatar has
already hit the current level sixty cap. The berserker has extra
strength and health, could do additional damage when equipped with an
axe or a club, plus an ability to enter berserker rage once daily for
every ten levels in the berserker class. The major tradeoff is an
inability to wear metal armor, and a deficit in the character’s
intelligence attribute, rendering the berserker to greater
susceptibility to mental based spells and abilities such as charm and
vertigo.

The Defender class is a
specialized warrior class with greater utilization of a shield. The
class is basically your typical tank, present to soak up damage from
monsters. He has the specialized skills involving his shield, such as
shield bash and impenetrable shield, which blocks all incoming
attacks for a short duration and, even more importantly, negates
their damage. The defender is not as mobile though due to his heavy
armor, and he gets a penalty in using two-handed weapons.

Normally, the Defender
would be the one protecting the flag. But it so happens that the flag
is located on a small hill and Conrad’s bow could pick off any
opposing players long before they could get near the flag. Therefore,
the trio decided to keep Conrad as the flag defender, while the
Defender tries to flush out the other team and the Berserker sneaks
in and goes after the blue flag.

Suddenly, a warrior
comes into Conrad's vision. The archer smiles as he pulls back the
string on his longbow. With a "thwack" he releases the
special, steel tipped arrow and nods in satisfaction when the arrow
connects with the opposing player's head a moment later. The other
player goes down immediately. Conrad immediately scans the
surrounding area to see if anyone else is nearby. He is not concerned
at all about the player on the ground, because the arrow he used is
laced with a poison that paralyzes the player for up to an hour; even
if the player survives the hit, he will be out of commission for the
rest of this PvP match. "I wonder if the other team decided to
split up," Conrad ponders aloud as he finds no sign of the other
players on his screen.

"We did," a
female voice unexpectedly answers his question.

Conrad quickly turns
around and tries to lunge toward the person standing behind him. He
manages to get a glimpse of a woman wearing a black colored robe
before his avatar is wrapped in hot, searing flames. The spell
quickly burns his character's health down to zero. "Damn!"
Conrad swears in anger as his screen turns to shades of gray,
denoting that his low level character, with much fewer health points
than his normal barbarian avatar, has died.

Normally, when a player
character dies in WoE, his avatar is transported back to the church
in Starter Town. However, for PvP matches, the deceased character
stays in the game as a ghost until the match is over. This was
instituted by EDE because some players purposely threw matches by
getting themselves killed quickly, so that they could turn around and
join another match. By making deceased characters stay for the entire
length of the PvP match, players cannot flip matches as easily and
therefore has less incentive to throw the match.

In addition, the game
developer started keeping win-loss records in PvP for each
participant, and players with less stellar records are less likely to
be chosen by other players for PvP matches. Instead, these unwanted
players are matched by the computer to other players with similarly
poor records. WoE also gives players the option to be randomly
matched into teams. These options ensure that all players who desire
to play PvP matches are able to do so.

The victor smiles
broadly. She has curly, auburn hair, with fair complexion and
freckles on her face. "My name is Laura," she introduces
herself with a slight, foreign accent as she dips down in a slight
curtsy. "I hope the feedback loop wasn't too lengthy," she
notes with a slight frown, as she remembers that WoE's feedback for
receiving damage feature is also present for PvP matches.

The lady stares at
Conrad's deceased avatar on the ground. "Hmm . . . your name is
Conrad, but with a gold status in the name," she notes.
"Players' name tags are in black, while WoE Game Masters' tags
are in white. I've never come across gold before. What does that
mean?" she wonders aloud. After a long moment of silence, Laura
snaps her fingers. “Oh right! I forgot that you can't communicate
with me since you're already dead! Let me fix that up in a jiffy!"

Conrad folds his arms.
"Why can't she just grab the damn flag and end this match
already!" he huffs aloud, knowing that this strange woman cannot
hear him. Deceased characters are prevented from communicating with
their conquerors because EDE has been bombarded with complaints of
cursing from the defeated players, and making the dead characters
silent was the simplest solution in the eyes of the game developers.

Laura reaches inside
her robe, and pulls out an animal bone. She closes her eyes and
starts an incantation: "Uzul-mezu-paip-mezu-uzul." She
opens her eyes. "Are you still here, Conrad?" she asks.

"What do you
think?" the ghost replies in a snarky manner.

"What do I think?"
Laura repeats the question sans the snarky tone from the dead player.

"Yeah,"
Conrad starts to quip. Then realization hits him suddenly. "Wait!
You can hear me?" he asks incredulously.

"Yup,"
Conrad's killer smiles mischievously.

"But how?" he
asks flabbergasted.

"There is a
specialty class ability called 'Communicate with the dead,'"
Laura replies.

"Huh?" he
remarks. "What class has this ability?" he asks.

"A Necromancer,"
she grins, showing her pearly white teeth. The necromancer is another
newly released class for moba. It has full access to death magic, and
minor access to the elemental spheres.

"You burn your
opponents to death, and then raise them from the dead to create
undead minions," he observes. “And you sneak around with an
invisibility spell,” he adds.

"That's right,"
Laura replies and claps her hands lightly as the defeated opponent
neatly summarizes her style of play in WoE. "And you are
avoiding my question," she pouts.

"I don't want to
talk about it," Conrad replies. He doesn't want word to reach
the other members of The Strangers that Conrad has been playing WoE
with a side character. He has been playing this archer avatar
exclusively in PvP, in order to avoid the other three members of the
party. None of the others have shown an interest or inclination to
play PvP matches as a group. Wesley’s beta testing is probably
under a side deal with EDE and subject to some sort of a
confidentiality clause; the ex-Marine has been rather mum about his
gaming experience in WoE’s moba. Conrad wants to keep the archer
character a secret, or else they may ask him to use the archer during
The Strangers’ PvE campaigns instead of the barbarian.

Laura sighs
exasperatedly and shakes her head. "I don't understand you would
want to keep your fame a secret, Mr. Conrad-the-Berserker," she
says. "I'm not a groupie, you know," she folds her thin
arms across her chest.

Conrad shoots the
necromancer an angry look for realizing his real in-game identity.

"Oh, and did I
mention that communicate with the dead ability also allows me to see
you as well?" she grins again. Laura pulls up her player menu,
and submits a request.

An "Add Friend"
request pops up on Conrad's screen. He starts to reach with his mouse
to click on the red "Ignore" icon when the necromancer
interrupts.

"If you don't
accept, I will post my encounter with Conrad-the-Archer in the public
forums. I assume that you don't want your teammates to know about
this alternate avatar," she says in a conspiratorial tone and
grins again.

"You're going to
blackmail me," Conrad growls.

"I like to make
friends," she smiles innocently. “And I keep my friends’
secrets,” she adds with a wink.

After a moment of
thought, the ghost signs and clicks "Accept."

"Thank you
kindly," Laura purrs sweetly.

Suddenly, an
announcement flashes across all players' screens: "MATCH OVER.
Red team wins!"

"Damn," the
necromancer says silently and shrugs. She had forgotten to grab the
flag and end the match. However, if the match ends then Laura would
not have been able to add Conrad to her Friends List. In the end, it
was still a good tradeoff as it is more important to make powerful
friends or at least allies in this game. She could get a win easily
in the next PvP match.

Conrad logs out
immediately, knowing that he will hear from this strange player again
very soon.

The bar is typical for
one located in a college town: loud, boisterous, and full of young
looking men and women barely out of their teenage years. Some patrons
are playing drinking games like beer pong at various clusters in this
large sized room, as their chants and laughter compete with the loud
music booming over the speakers. The room is full of youthful
exuberance, an overall level of kinetic energy comparable to that of
a home game for the local college football team.

Tucked away at a corner
is a lanky looking man with short, spiked jet black hair. Wearing
dark sunglasses and older looking, he is out of place compared to the
other patrons. From a distance, his sharp dark navy blue business
casual attire easily stands out compared to the normal tees and
ripped jeans and short skirts worn by the others.

The man is sitting at
the bar by himself, a small shot of scotch left untouched on the
table in front of him. Yet, his strong jaw line and lean build is
reminiscent of a young Keanu Reeves, and the mysterious patron is
gathering furtive looks and whispers from female admirers, none of
whom has gathered the nerve to approach this dark and handsome
stranger. Yet.