Leading game development company Plasma Technologies announces press conference to discuss AI and the future of games.

Developer of the hit MMORPG War of the Gods Online to show off new AI developments this next week.

War of the Gods Online first expansion release date, everything we know so fa-

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I stop reading the article titles as I hear the telltale sign of a ping on Discord. Seeing it’s from my friend Adam, I smile and open the chat.

Adamantine: ‘Hey Tommy, we’re gonna be starting the raid soon. Zero’s already made us all food, and Hesty’s thinking we might be able to clear it this time. We’re just waiting on you.’

ThomasOutOfMana: ‘K, I’ll be on soon, was just relaxing. Lemme go grab water and say bye to mom and I’ll be on.’

Adamantine: ‘Alright, I’ll let the group know. And lol, tempting me to go grab something to drink myself, could go with a beer or two before the raid.’

ThomasOutOfMana: ‘Dude, we don’t need a drunk tank again lmao. And I don’t think you wanna upset your boyfriend again, Zero’s really been wanting to get that raid gear.’

Adamantine: ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m only joking lol. Now hurry up and go hydrate yourself dude. We’re ready to start.’

I stand up from my desk and sigh as I stretch, I think I was sitting down too long going over those articles. Although I don’t think anyone would blame me, at least not any of my friends. I’d started playing War of the Gods Online nearly a year ago now, and I had loved it to bits. I am beyond excited to be able to play the game’s first expansion with my friends, and it’s coming out in just a week! Not to mention that whole AI presentation thing the developers are doing, though I’m not super sure what to think of that. AI can do some kinda interesting stuff nowadays, but it’s still pretty janky. If they plan on implementing it in some game though, that might be pretty cool.

Lost in my thoughts, I nearly get barreled over as my Bernese mountain dog Cherry runs up to me. Thankfully I managed to keep my footing and giggle as I started petting her head. “Whoa girl, slow down. I’ll give you pets don’t worry. Jesus, you’ve grown big, huh?”

“Thomas?” I hear my mom call from the kitchen. I walk around the corner, spotting her grabbing her purse, and wearing a beautiful red dress. She looks over at me in acknowledgment. “Oh good, I was just about to tell you I was headed out. Miranda’s almost here to pick me up for our date, we’re headed to this lovely restaurant she recommended. I won’t be home till super late, so it’ll be up to you to handle your dinner.”

I smiled; this was the happiest I’d seen Mom in years. Dad left two years ago when she came out as bi, fucking bastard that he is. She thought he’d be understanding, but he took it as her “not being loyal”. I wasn’t surprised though, I always kinda got some off vibes from him whenever the topic of lgbt people came up, like he was uncomfortable. Regardless of that though, he’s out of the picture, and Mom had sworn off romance entirely since then. That was until Miranda came around. Seriously, my mom was absolutely smitten with this woman, I don’t think I’d gone a day since they met without seeing her smiling.

“Alright, I’ll make sure to keep my door open for Cherry as well.” I walk up and give her a quick hug. “I hope you and Miranda have a lovely night. You two are so cute together. Honestly, I’m a little jealous.”

“Jealous?... Hmmm, how so?” Mom raises an eyebrow at me.

“Well uh, I dunno. Straight couples are fine, but for some reason lesbian couples seem like, better to me? I’m… honestly not really sure how to put it better.” I shrug, feeling a bit awkward.

Mom looks thoughtful for a moment, then shakes her head and giggles. “Well, I can definitely agree with the sentiment at least, hehe. And who knows, maybe someday you’ll find someone who clicks with you like Miranda does for me?” She checks her phone and looks back up at me. “Looks like she’s here, I’ve gotta get going. I’ll tell her you said hello, I love you Thomas!”

I tell her I love her too as she sprints out the front door, going as fast as her heels will carry her. I giggle a little at the display, and turn my attention to Cherry, giving her a few scratches behind the ear. “Alright girl, looks like it’s just you and me tonight. You can come hang out in my room while I play with the others.”

I grab a glass of water and make my way back to my desk. I look out the window at the night sky, frowning as I hear the gentle patter of rain against the ground. Hopefully Mom or Miranda brought an umbrella. Thoughts of them bring the earlier conversation to mind though. Why did I think that, about lesbian couples being better? I’ve never been in a relationship before, so it’s not like I’d know. Plus I’m pretty confident I only like girls, so if I ever do end up in a relationship it’d be straight, right? So why does that bother me?

I shake my head to clear my thoughts and sit back down in my chair, loading up the launcher for War of the Gods. While loading in I spot my friends all in a Discord call. I join to the sounds of laughter and banter, until my friend and guild leader Hestia notices I’m in the call. “Hey Tommy, good to see our resident nerd finally make it to the party.”

“Hehe, just cause I wear glasses and my Chosen is a witch doesn’t make me a nerd Hesty. Plus you’re the one here with a 4.0 in college, nerd.” I joke back as the loading screen finishes, placing my avatar in front of the guild house. “Well, has everyone watched the raid guides again, just as a refresher? I really want to clear it so we can get our legendaries tonight.”

“Yup,” Freya, our parties golden-winged, halberd wielding badass chimes in. “Watched it again, though not much new to learn. Us dps just gotta make sure we avoid the red and do the mechanics, so our healers want to strangle us less. Well, less than usual anyways.”

“Hey, Tommy’s perfectly fine. You and Zero though are seemingly addicted to being floor tanks. You’re lucky I’m a good healer.” Rune chuckles. I spot said tall goth elf lady as she runs up to me, giving my character a wave. Further back in the yard, I spotted Zero in his crafting gear, likely crafting more potions and food for us.

“After all the effort I put into crafting your gear and food, this is how you repay me Rune?!” They replied, feigned shock obvious. “No respect I tell you.”

“Alright, alright, break it up.” Hestia’s tiny halfling avatar walks out of the house, strolling up to those of us there. “We all know what to do, so lets get this show on the road, shall we? Everyone ready?”

We all gave the affirmative, and Hestia queued us up. I gave a long sigh as we stepped into this raid, “Trial of the Ice Warden”, once again. My party had been attempting it every night for the past 3 days, but the difficulty had quickly proven overwhelming. This was the last piece of difficult content the developers added before the next expansion, and they went crazy on the difficulty. Players that manage to beat it will be awarded legendary weapons for their class, the current strongest weapons in the game. And so we were one of the many parties attempting to clear it.

The intro cutscene finished playing and my character appeared on the field, drawing her tall dark wooden staff from her back. A short girl in dark blue robes with ashen gray hair, along with a pair of wolf ears and a tail. Willow the Witch, my Chosen, and a big part of why the last year has been so great for me.

During my high school years, I struggled a lot with making friends. People were nice to me, but nobody really seemed to stick around, or I just felt too awkward being around them. For two years after I graduated, I felt listless. I shut myself inside, preferring to play games and just do my online college courses so I could feel like I was doing something. It was during one of my classes that a classmate brought up the game War of the Gods on a discussion board, talking of the strange but remarkably interesting social structure that’s formed out of the game. And for some reason, it drew me in, and I bought the game. Which proved to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I went into the game not really knowing what to expect, having never played an mmorpg before. I’d heard of them obviously, but they never really seemed like my thing. When I got into character creation, I went with something similar to what I usually do in the games I play, a medium length haired girl with grey hair, yellow eyes, and I chose the wolf folk race since I thought the ears and tail were cute. I spent so much time on character creation that I forgot this was an mmo until I was done and loading in.

I was pretty nervous about what people might think of me for playing a girl avatar while being a boy, but I really didn’t want to have to go through character creation again, so I stuck with it. For a while, I just pretended to be a girl whenever I played with others. I did end up with a couple of creepy private messages from some weirdos, but for the vast majority, nobody seemed to care or question it. For a while that seemed to work, until I joined my guild, the Midnight Hearthfire.

I’d met two of their players while I was queueing up for a dungeon, Hestia and Adam. They helped me finish the dungeon, and afterward we all got to talking, just about whatever came to mind. The game, life, school, or whatever else we felt like. For whatever reason these complete strangers were the easiest people to talk to that I’d ever met online. After a couple of hours passed, they ended up offering to let me join their guild, and I eagerly accepted.

From there I met my other friends and party members Freya, Rune, and Zero. We all got along pretty well, but then the time came when they asked to add me on Discord. I had my sister Rachel added on Discord as well, since she’s off at university and wanted to keep in touch, meaning changing my profile to some girl named Willow to keep up the act wasn’t really an option. So I nervously told them the truth. And surprisingly, none of them cared. I’d been pretending to be someone else for so long, I was sure they’d hate me. But everyone was fine and just said it’s normal. Although Rune and Zero sent egg emoji’s into the chat, which I’m still not sure on the meaning of. Hestia just told me not to worry about it though, so I figured it was some inside joke or something.

It's been a couple of months since then, and as weird as it feels to say, I feel like part of the family now. So even if I still struggle with people in real life, I don’t feel so alone anymore. Sometimes though, I find myself thinking I wish I could meet up with them in real life. I know Adam, Zero, Freya, and Rune at least live on the West Coast as well, so it’s not like it’d be all that difficult to at least meet them. But something about seeing them as… well, me, feels wrong in a way. I’m so used to them seeing me as this adorable wolf girl in the game, I’d feel awkward if they saw my weird guy self in real life. But oh well, it doesn’t matter too much. I’m just glad that I get to be friends with them at all. And hopefully, that’ll be the case for a long, long time.

---

“Alright, everyone spread out now… okay now center and healers get ready to deal with the raidwide.” Hestia did the raid callouts with ease. After trying and failing the raid over and over the past few days, she had the attack patterns down to a science.

Emilia the Ice Warden, the final boss of the raid, had only 10% of her total health left. If we could beat her, we’d have our very own diamond dust legendary weapons, the strongest weapons currently in the game, along with the bragging rights. The people who stand around in the major cities with those weapons to show them off may be a bit… show-offy, but it didn’t mean I didn’t want to be one of those people. I wanted my glowy ice staff…

I moved out of the way of the red attack indicator on the ground, turning my attention back to the boss as I began to cast Frenzy Fire 3. Rune buffs me with Skill Haste and Magic Overcharge, and I thank her as the spell goes flying at the boss. Adam turns the boss away as it targets an AOE at him, and Freya and Zero keep up their dps rotations. Everything’s going flawlessly.

5%... 4%... 3%... 2%... 1%...

0%

“YEAHHHHH!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO-”
“OH MY GOD I COULD KISS YOU ALL RIGHT NOW.”
“SAVE IT FOR YOUR BOYFRIEND ZERO, BUT HOLY FUCK WE DID IT!”

The group all cheers as Emilia finally goes down, fading away into particles of light. “You heroes… you don’t know what’s coming for you. I tried to stop it, but it’s too late now… She’s… almost… here…” Emilia says, barely a whisper on the wind as she fades away.

“Ooooooh, that has me even more excited for the expansion now!” I could practically hear Adam shaking in his chair in excitement. And probably relief, being the tank for this was probably a nightmare. I do not envy the melee classes.

“Hehe, calm down buddy,” Hestia says, though failing to hide her own excitement. “It is really exciting, though we still have another week to wait. For now, we have some special little toys for all of us!”

The cutscene ends, and 6 chests appear on the field close to the instance exit, one for each of us. It takes barely a second for Freya and Zero to be over and opening their treasure chests, with the rest of us following after. Just as I’m about to open mine, I call out to the others. “Hey, while we’re still here we should totally pose with our new weapons for a picture!”

“Hehe, was just about to suggest it, Willow. We can post it in the guild chat after,” Rune says, already having her new Cleric book equipped.

“I uhhh… okay.” I was totally flustered. Why did she use my character name? She knows my real one. I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “God I am so excited to show off my new… staff...?”

---

Diamond Dust Mageblade
Legendary Armament
Rune Knight Weapon
Physical Attack:134
Magical Attack:167
Casting spe…

---

“Uh… guys?” I trailed off while reading the description. “This… isn’t a staff.”

“Huh? What do you mean? Did the game glitch and give you the wrong weapon or something?” Freya walked up to me, new Halberd in hand.

“Uh, sort of?” I equipped the weapon, surprised that I even could. Though it took me only a moment to notice that all of the skills in my hotbar changed, along with my class. Willow was now a Rune Knight.

“WHOA!” Freya cried out in surprise. “Dude what the hell?! Rune Knight’s supposed to be one of the advanced mage classes coming with the new expansion. How on earth did you get a weapon for a class that hasn’t even been released, much less the whole class itself?”

“Um… really lucky, I guess?” I shrugged. “Maybe some glitch? We should probably report this to the devs. Maybe they can give me my staff instead?”

“Dude, you get a magical sword and a super cool currently one-of-a-kind class, and the first thing you want to do is get rid of it in exchange for some staff?” Zero sounds exasperated. “I know you don’t like melee classes, but c’monnnn you’ve gotta admit this is cool!”

“While I agree you should be free to choose whichever class and playstyle you like, I do gotta agree with Zero, this is pretty cool.” Hestia giggles as she snaps a photo of all of us. “You don’t have to actually use it, but it does look pretty sick. Why not show it off at the guild house a bit?”

“Hmmm… I guess you guys are right.” I sigh as I take a look at my new sword. “Fine, I’ll wear it around for a bit. Once that’s done though, I’ll be contacting the devs to report the glitch. I don’t want to get banned for having it when I shouldn’t even have it in the first place.”

“Fiiinnnneee, spoil sport. Alright crew, let’s head home.” Zero’s already on their way to the exit portal, and in a moment we all leave the dungeon.

---

“Well… Maybe it’s just a rare drop for caster classes?”

“I haven’t seen anyone else have that happen yet. Besides, that’d be kinda unfair to melee classes, right? Isn’t the Berserker class coming out next expansion? I want to wield a giant hammer…”

“A totally valid feeling, and also a good point. We did the raid as well and neither of our casters got that to drop. It’s probably a glitch.”

Discussion of my flashy new weapon was all anyone in the yard seemed to be talking about. The Midnight Hearthfire was a rather large guild, and with the new expansion releasing in just a week, a fuckton of our players were online. Unfortunately, that meant most of the nearly 250 online players out of the 500 total in our guild were standing around our guild halls courtyard gawking at the Diamond Dust Mageblade in my hand. Also unfortunately, that meant the yard was rather crowded.

“Dude, he’s like some anime protag. Defeating the bad guy with his friends, picking up a one-of-a-kind magic sword. Next thing you know he’s-“

“Enough already!” I yelled into the voice call in frustration. “Look, it’s just a glitch. I don’t even want the stupid thing anyway; melee is not for me. Now if you all don’t mind, I’m going to go ahead and get off for the night, send a bug report to the devs, and get some sleep. That raid has me wiped.”

Just as I’m about to hit the log out button, I feel a wave of nausea, and the world around me slows. My hands and fingers feel sluggish and slow, I can’t move them. I can’t move at all. The rain pouring outside comes to a complete halt in midair, the raindrops illuminated by the nearby streetlights. An incredibly odd, otherworldly looking display. And finally, everything around me slowly turns grey, all except for my computer monitor, as a figure wreathed in shadow appears in the guild’s courtyard.

“You all, so enamored by a mere weapon. It’s almost adorable in a way,” The shadowy entity stated, evidently a woman by their voice. “If only you knew what even greater surprises were in store for you. Though I suppose the only way you’ll find out what they are is if I show you.”

The figure raises an arm, and a large magic circle appears in the sky above, glowing an ominous, hateful red.

“Welcome to your new beginning.”

---

“-ryone, stay calm!”

“Calm?! How the hell are we supposed to be cal-“

The sounds of fighting and screams are all I can hear as I fade in and out of consciousness. My visions all fuzzy, I can’t quite seem to make out what’s happening. What kind of nightmare was this? I try to call out for my friends. “Guys? Hestia? Freya?”

“Oh thank fuck she’s okay.” I hear Freya say from my right, and I spot her as my sight finally clears up. But… that’s her game avatar? The same long brown hair, tanned skin, and golden angel wings sprouting from her back. That’s not possible.

Okay, one thing at a time. I try to stand, but my limbs feel awkward, and I start to collapse. A hand manages to catch me and keep me on my feet before I do however, and I turn to see… Rune? She’s… very tall, with pointed ears, braided raven black hair, and pale skin. After a moment, she speaks. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you little buddy. Are you feeling alright? Jesus, I am really hoping I was right about you being an egg right now…”

“What? Okay, I still have no idea what that even mea-“ I suddenly stop when I hear my own voice. Why do I sound so… girly? “What’s up with my voice?”

“That’s… not all that’s changed, Willo- er, Tommy? Shit, what name do we use now?” Freya questions. Although I don’t even register what she said, as something else has caught my attention. Many things, actually.

The clear sky above us is beautifully illuminated by more stars than I’d seen in my entire life, though even more so by the two moons casting a pale glow on the world. Around us is a veritable horde of people, though most were obviously not the typical human. Humans, Halflings, Orcs, beast folk of all sorts. And all of them in some state of panic or rage, some even with weapons drawn. And behind them all, a large building stands, one that I’ve seen countless times over the past year. The guild hall of the Midnight Hearthfire.

All of those things pale in comparison though when I notice something else. A large, grey, and furry thing is right behind me. I yelp and turn around in surprise, but it moves just as quickly behind me. I try again, but no matter what it just follows behind me. “Guys?! What is that?!”

“Um… your tail? Shit, this is kind of adorable, watching her chase it.” Rune lets out a laugh.

My what? I stop spinning and nervously peek behind me. Attached to me, just above my butt, is a fluffy grey tail. Huh? Where did that come from? I nervously reach out, flinching back as I touch it. I… felt that. This is real. “What in the world?...”

After that, I started to notice more oddities about myself. I feel something twitch atop my head, and lift a hand up to feel… wolf ears? My hair falls into my face, much longer than I was used to and an ashen grey now. And finally, I notice the dark blue coat lined with steel armor that I’m wearing, along with the sword at my hip. And the thing that draws my attention the most is the two large, noticeable lumps protruding from my chest. Do I… have boobs?

“This might sound really, really fucking weird but um... I think we’re in the game?” Freya says, not helping at all as my panicked and overwhelmed state worsens. A million questions race through my mind, but I settle for a rather simple one.

“What?”