Chapter 01 - "Character Creation"

"Finally, it's here!" I shouted unneccesarily with my arms cradling my package.

Now if you were to ask me why I was so excited, it's because today is the day that my newest obsession is officially released.

The newest Virtual Reality MMORPG, "True Experience Online". It was a relatively unknown Indie Title that went almost entirely unnoticed by everyone but myself and 99 others with an abundance of free time and were slightly curious about how they were going to implement an "RPG System without Levels".

The answer to that is that in this game, rather than measuring Players with Levels, the Players are measured by XP. XP would usually be  what you recieve for killing enemies, increasing XP is usually how your avatar would Level up. But in the case of "TEO", XP is a form of currency that you spend to increase your Stats or learn new Skills. 

I went in expecting nothing from the Limited Beta Test, but came back amazed at the game's Intricate System in which NPC's that were lifelike, each and every NPC seemed to have been programmed to be controlled by AI's to be as close to human as possible. The only difference between the NPC's and Players is that NPC's can't manually Spend their XP, but do so unconciously. They don't have access to the broken cheat known as a Player System and thus their Status Menu's act more like a way to measure their growth. However, the most interesting mechanic they added is that if an NPC Dies or is killed, it's gone for good. So if I were to grow strong enough to, say, kill an important tutorial NPC, then new players would then have to go look somewhere else for their Tutorial. Hillarious!

Meanwhile, if a Player Dies they're merely given a Death Penalty: 3 hours before you can log back in, followed by 6 In-Game Hours with a 50% Debuff to All Stats. This was actually much more dire than you'd think, as time in the game run's diferently from in reality. Those three hours are equal to 15 hours in game. The game runs at a 5:1 time ratio.

In the Beta Test, I became obsessed specifically with the Character Creation and Character builds. I ended up spending so much time messing around with the hundreds of options and giving them their own test drives that I barely got to explore any of the map. I'm pretty sure I tried every possible fun combination I could think of before the Test Ended, and as such, am pretty clueless about everything outside of it. In return, I decided exactly how I was going to create my Avatar to bring out the most fun and challenge in the game. I was actually pretty bad at video games in general, but my pseudo masochistic gamer mentality forces me to enjoy challenges just a tad bit too much. 

So I decided that now that the game was officially out, and now that there is a set limit of One Avatar per person, I decided that in spite of my better judgement I was going to load my Avatar with Handicaps to increase the difficulty. I was going to regret it, but oh well.

I removed the game Headset from my desk and open the package to remove the game. I lay down on my bed before plugging it in and Logging into the game. As soon as I do, I feel my surroundings warp before I find myself standing in a gray Box Room with a transparent blue Window floating in front of me. Looking up from behind the window shows me my Avatar, a perfect recreation of my real body. I smirked playfully as I immediately reached for the avatar creation menu and changed my Gender to Female.

The Avatar slowly changed form, becoming a 10 cm shorter and my hair becoming longer, growing to about shoulder length. I marvel at this game's ability to somehow predict a player's ideal genderbent appearance with such perfect accuracy, while optimizing it to look more appealing. 

I use the Creation tool that I had already grown intimately proficient with to tweak around with my Avatar's appearance, making my hair much longer and more straight and neat, altering the shape of my jaws and nose to make my face look younger and more charming. I even alter my eyes, making them bigger and more Sharp, alike to a cat's eyes. After messing around for a few minutes making my Avatar's Boobs larger and her body more toned, I finished it off by making her skin more smooth and removing any imperfections. 

My Avatar was now the perfect representation of a beauty.

After that I moved onto my Character Build.

Every Player starts with 100 XP, and based on the Avatar Appearance and the user's percieved personality and scan data, the game gives you the option to accept a Unique Characteristic. It's not free however. It costs XP just like the rest of the options, but if you refuse you don't get a second roll. After waiting about 30 seconds for the Avatar Scan to end, the Screen gives me my choice of Unique Characteristic.

"Did I make myself too Beautiful?" I question myself, but decide to just pay the cost. It wasn't a bad Characteristic, all things considered. And it would help to offset some of the unfortunate choices I'm about to make later to increase the already hard game's difficulty.

Now for the fun part. Instead of staying as a boring default Human, which costs 0 XP, I immediately skip all of the popular options, opting to instead select one of the ever unpopular Monster Races, the Goblin.

Yep, I chose one of the Demi-Human Races. Goblins, Orcs, Skeletons, Vampires, any Race that is considered a Monster by Humankind.

Goblins are the weakest of them all, with weaker stats than the other races, a race who can't enter Human Towns. A Race that is even less developed than the already underdeveloped society built by the Humans. They lived like literal cavemen. By choosing this race, I can only choose to spawn in the wilderness, as spawning close to a city is just asking to be exterminated and spawning in a goblin village is the same as lowering yourself to caveman status. In return for this demerit, It grants me an extra 120 XP to spend on character creation as compensation. Leaving me with 200 XP Left. 

After choosing this race, I watched as my Avatar's height shrunk way down in height and grew large pointed ears, her skin turning a rough green and eyes more animalistic and yellow. I believe the only reason she still looks reasonably human-like is the effect of her Unique Characteristic: [Beauty]. after confirming my Race Change, I decide it's time to  quickly purchase a bunch of Flaws en masse to increase my XP some more and increase my starting difficulty.

After Is selected this Characteristic, I watched as my Avatar's skin returned back from rough green to silky white skin even smoother than before, making her look more sickly and ghost-like. Her hair becoming White as snow, and her Eyes turning from Dirty Yellow to Wine Red with Cat-like slit pupils. I chose this with the knowledge that I'm aiming for a Hybrid Assassin Build. I smiled at how much I'm going to regret this. I better be quick and "Purchase" the rest of my flaws before I start to seriously regret it.

Meh, I wasn't planning to fight Long-Range from the start. That would be too boring. I was never much of a Bow and Arrow sort of man. I'd rather get up close and personal when I'm crushing my enemies.

Why would I need to speak if I don't plan on communicating with anyone? My Character is going to be a Silent Assassin. Not like there's anyone to speak to in the wilderness. I was never the most social person in the first place.

If I'm going to go all Antisocial anyway, I might as well go all the way? Who needs expressions anyway if I'm not going to speak?

And that just about does it with that. Leaves me with 900 XP left to spend. Go me! So, up next I'm going to purchase an evolution for my poor weak Goblin.

I observed as my Avatar grew back to chest height, looking alot less like a child or midget and more like a regular albeit Short Person, and her Ears became slightly larger.  I marveled at what a brilliant job I did with customizing this exotic beauty for a few seconds before returning my eyes back to the all important Character Creation Screen. I still had 700 XP remaining. I guess I should pick a Dominant Stat. Unlike most Fantasy RPG's, Classes aren't truly a thing in TEO. But during Character Creation, and ONLY then, thare is an option that most overlook or underuse due to not having enough points. The ability to select which stats to specialise in. Of all the Stats, the ones I want to specialise in the most would be STR and AGI, followed by SP. STR so that I can quickly get to weilding oversized weapons like a stick, and AGI so that said oversized weapon doesn't slow me down. SP is the Physical equivalent to Mana, and as someone who finds playing as a mage character to be boring, I'd rather focus of Stamina. The first one comes for free, so most only choose to get a free boost to their favorite stat, but every one after that comes at a cost of a Weakened Stat and 100 XP. I decide to go with this.

And that's that! It now costs only 5 XP to increase SP, STR and AGI but it now costs 15 XP to increase MP and INT. It's fine since I wasn't planning to spec into Magic anyway. SP covers the cost of the majority of Physical Skills. With this I'm down to 500 XP.

I scroll down in search for any Skills I want to start with, selecting a few that I need.

I chose this Skill because it is essential to my survival in the Wild where monsters are everywhere. As a Hobgoblin, my character is going to spawn in the middle of nowhere, I can't even blend in with other Goblins due to my being both an Albino and a Hobgoblin, so the ability to Sneak efficiently without startling any Monsters is greatly appreciated. 400 XP Remaining.

I chose this Skill to supplement my Assassin/Warrior Build, allowing me to deal more damage in close range. 

And those are my Weapon Skills, I chose a mix between a Short Blade Mastery for Daggers and Long Blade Mastery for Swords. With this, my remaining XP is only 200. I decide to spend the rest on my stats and starting weapons. As for my name? Well, I won't need one since I won't be interacting with anyone, but in the name of bad comedy I name my self Ellipsis.

And to end it all off, I select my Main and Sub Weapons to be a pair of Short Swords.

My Main Weapon is a Iron Short Sword for 10 XP each, and my Sub Weapon is a Iron Broad Sword costing 15 Xp. These are the second cheapest starting weapons of their Class. I then select my starting Outfit to be a lightweight Assassin Clothing with a facemask that covers from the top of her nose to the bottom of her neck. I chose a Black Assassin's Cloak with a large hood.

With that over and done with I take one last look at my masterpiece and smile. Yep, I think I Like it.