My name is Nate and I’ve been looking forward to a certain game for quite a while, Elysia Online. In fact, right now, it’s 11:59 P.M. and I’m staring at the clock in the bottom right corner of the vr store hud. At 12 AM the game is supposed to release and I will most definitely be buying it as soon as I can.
Elysia Online is a VRMMO praised for its realistic graphics and mysterious yet fruitful world. In a world where VRMMOs run rampant, it is truly impressive that this game can rise upon the rest and gain such a following before release date. Even with the gaming having all this popularity, Nate was still going to try to be the first person to log onto the game's servers.
12:00
Before the change in time even registers in mind I have already clicked on the purchase button that just popped up. I already had my credit card entered so buying the game was near instantaneous.
I go back to the Home Screen and see the download start. Luckily, I have good enough wifi that it should probably be downloaded as fast as anyone in the world. The system estimates it to be 47 mins. However everyone knows those are always wrong.
45 minutes later.
The download finishes and I open up the game. I am greeted with a nice title screen with beautiful music playing. Even though I am not in my character yet I feel a rush of wind in my face and the smell of tall grass lingers all around.
I select create character. I have heard from trailers and forums that your in-game character is the same as your real life self. So I figured that I would be transferred right to the select class screen. However that was not the case for me. Instead, an ominous screen appears.
You are the first person to purchase this game. Because of this we are rewarding you with a different class than everyone else. |
*ding*
[Player: Andy, has obtained a unique class, Demon Lord.] |
What?! A unique class? Demon Lord? That sounds like something out of an isekai anime, not an MMO!
[Class chosen, game will now begin.] |
Well that was fast, I guess I'm a Demon Lord, better accept it. I look around, seems like I'm in some sort of castle throne room. I don't see a throne though, hmmm- Oh! I'm sitting on the throne!
Why am I the one the throne though?
Suddenly, a beautiful demon in a suit walks into the throne room.
She has her eyes closes for the most part, she then speaks, "Great Demon King, it is time. You must leave the castle and rule the world."
I guess I'm role playing as a Demon Lord right now? But I thought Elysia Online was almost entirely a player and pvp driven game?
I decide to play along, "Yes, I understand."
She responds nearly instantly, "Very well, you must choose your first demon to accompany you on your journey."
Demon to accompany me? Well, I am the Demon Lord I guess it makes sense.
The demon in front of me continues, "While other demons must be obtained by defeating the or other specific requirements, your first demon is decided purely by this crystal."
She hold up a perfectly round sphere that looks to be transparent but is too foggy to actually be able to see though, "This is the ancient crystal, we do not exactly know what it does, but we do know that according to legends, it reacts to the Demon Lord's power and grants him his first Demon."
Alright, this seems to be my only choice, "Very well, bring it up here for me." As the demon walks up to me with crystal in hand, I look at myself for the first time and realize how odd a 14 year old boy in starter, tattered clothes sitting on a throne meant for a Demon Lord probably looks.
The demon reaches me and holds out the crystal, "Simply hold the crystal in your hand, it will take care of the rest."
I take it from her hands and let it rest in mine. It begins to glow, first blood red, but then into a very, very, dark black, fitting for a demon king.
It then goes dark. Did I fail, did nothing happen because I'm not a real Demon King? My thoughts are shattered as a black cloud appears in front of me.
When the smoke clears away I spot a man, with dark, dark black hair standing in front of me. He looks at me and raises his eyebrows, "Lucarios, at your service." He says in a sly yet intelligent voice.
Before I can respond, the female demon from before steps in, "Hm, not bad, what you just summoned is a core demon, meaning it can converse and talk to you."
I see, so I guess all demons wont be able to speak with me.
She speaks up again, " You can also hide or show any demon simply using the demon call-back skill."
Skills! That's right! I still am in an MMO after all. I try using the skill and the man before me is whisked away. "Say, where did he go?"
The female demon smiles, "To the demon realm of course."
"Oh... I guess that makes sense."
The demons expression returns to its previous, emotionless form, "You have chosen your first demon, it is now time for you to set off." She points me to a portal that just appeared mere steps from me.
I stand up and walk toward the portal, my steps echo throughout the hall, before I reach the portal the demon speaks up once more, "That portal will lead you to the starter town, Mobley."
"Thank you."
Before I step out she interrupts me a final time, "Good luck, Demon Lord."
I step into the portal and feel wind rushing on my face. When my vision clears I see a blue sky. Let's get this party started!
What actually happened: Nate, like the other millions was spamming the buy button and at 12:00 the servers crashed because they got overloaded then Nate waited as "Servers under maintenance" flashed on the screen periodically for 2hours and at 2am he did the same thing and the servers crashed back.
Nate finally got it at 5am but at that point he was so sleepy he fell asleep and the rest was actually him hallucinating.
No need to thank me, lol.
Anyway, sounds interesting, I like the vibes of the evil guy doing evil things because he need to maintain his roleplayed image, like one famous Overlord skeleton.
It is more like the following:
Any MMORPG developer has learned to open downloading of the game in the days before the actual opening. So a week early at 00:00 Steam unlocks the BUY option and he is the first to download it for the region.
Then he is smart enough to have opened the game site at the same time to actually pay for a subscription and as the first person is one of the few who doesn't have problems due to N million people trying to do the same at almost the same time something which even CDNs cannot help with due to the privacy sensitive nature of financial payments.
On the day the game opens he then tries to sign in hours before to see if they allow that so he can verify the version of the initial release to the one that the game actually is and download the last minute patch before the game itself starts.
Then once the game officially opens he crosses his fingers hoping that everything goes well and whelp didn't you know not five minutes in they bring down the servers for emergency maintenance and keep them down for hours, forcing players to download an emergency patch taped onto the last minute patch. During the first day this happens three more times with increasing intervals of the server being up and the downtime being less.
After that everybody except the first players celebrate a MMORPG launch gone well.
Interesting....