Diverging from the conventional approach of pre-designed storylines, VISIDIA took a unique path. Employing AI in conjunction with their engine, they crafted dynamic scenarios and plotlines in real time, sculpting a game with an almost limitless narrative.
The next noteworthy aspect was the stellar combination of graphics and gameplay. Harvey wasted no time testing it out upon landing, executing jumps, slides, and kicks.
Despite being a VR game, the fluidity of movement and the high-quality graphics surpassed almost every other game in the market.
"So, what exactly are we doing here?" Elizabeth inquired as Harvey strolled toward a shop.
"You created your character, right? What stats did you focus on and what did you use your extra points for?" Harvey asked as he gestured two with his fingers.
[Each character was given 55 points, 50 points were a must-use on your character, while the other five could be kept and traded for money, items or kept for early game upgrades by trading for skill points(sp).]
"Umm, I don't remember to be honest." Elizabeth tapped her settings, attempting to find a way to display it for him. "I do recall investing a lot of points into luck, though."
"Luck? I didn't allocate anything into luck." Harvey took two glass bottles from the shopkeeper and began walking away.
"What did you get?" She pondered.
"Potions, I had some points left over, so I traded it in for cash."
"I guess it's safe to say I'm short on cash," She chuckled. "Oh, I found it." Tapping an icon, a blue screen popped up, suspended horizontally in the air. "Yeah now I remember, I spent my extra points to get a magic staff."
[Character: Ellie]
[Age- 18]
[Level- 1]
[Experience: 1/100
[Class: mage]
[Clan: None]
[Cash available:]
[Unique Ability: Stat Switch: Allows the user to swap a single stat with any target currently within their line of sight. Only one stat may be swapped at a time. The effect is temporary and ends once visual contact with the target is broken.]
[Manifestation: none]
[Manifestation Type: none]
[Each character started with 50 points that were allocated manually at the start of the game, plus the 5 bonus points that Ellie also spent.]
Strength-5/99999(maxed)
Agility- 2/99999(maxed)
Intelligence-10/999(maxed)
Dexterity- 3/99999(maxed)
Toughness-10/99999(maxed)
Luck: 20/99999(maxed)
[Health and mana scales with level and class, mage types typically gain more mana than any other classes]
Health-100/99999(maxed)
Health recovery: 2/s
Mana-100/99999(maxed)
Mana recovery- 2/s
....
Elements: Water, Earth, Fire (Elements are only available to mages)
Skill points earned:
Skills learned: ....
Skills available to learn: incantation-less casting, 12sp, Quick cast, 15sp
Weapons equipped:
Weapons stored: Sozen's Crafter(Staff)- durability- peak.
Items stored: None
Spells learned: [Fire magic: Fiery Sphere]: Creates a large fireball from the user's palm or staff destroying everything in its path. (When created from staff, size, and intensity are increased)
"Wow, you really did spend a chunk of it on luck," Harvey said as he read her stats. "That's a nice technique though."
"Yeah, that's actually the reason I put so many skill points into luck," Then she boxed the air, "catch the enemy off guard and all of a sudden I have his strength, they'll never see it coming!"
"Wow, you're skilled at this. Are you sure you weren't a pro gamer at some point?" Harvey smiled, and she laughed, wearing a smug expression.
"I played Grandroad as well, leveled up to Gold-3 before quitting. What about yours? Your unique ability. How useful is it?"
"Oh, I actually don't understand it yet."
"Seriously? With you having over thirty thousand hours on Grandroad, I thought you'd be a gaming oracle by now."
"Can we stop mentioning my Grandroad playtime now?" Harvey covered his face in embarrassment only removing it when he felt someone tap his back.
"Huh?"
"Hi." A little girl with cat ears and a matching tail spoke. He glanced around, searching for her parents, but when she touched him again, he bent down, meeting her eye level.
"What are you doing here alone?" Harvey recognized her as an NPC, but the reports and stories surrounding VISIDIA suggested that players could engage in seamless conversations with NPCs, even comparing these interactions to those with other real players.
The cat-eared girl panted, uttering disjointed words like "Dad, cave, mom, wolf. Please, forest." Harvey stood up, exchanging a glance with Elizabeth.
"We're saving your parents, baby, Let's go, Harvey." Elizabeth said, running after the cat girl.
Harvey smiled and followed them, it wasn't their first mission and it wasn't tied to the story in any way, however, he couldn't bring himself to tell Elizabeth that. Instead, he'd use this as an opportunity to test out the combat system.
The cat-eared girl sprinted toward a cave in the forest, urging them to follow. Yet, something felt wrong, like they were being stalked from the shadows.
"Harvey, anything wrong?" Elizabeth asked, watching him glance around.
"Protect the kid!" Harvey said, pulling up his system screen beside him. "We're surrounded!"
Elizabeth secured the cat girl, backtracking toward him. They found themselves trapped in between six wolves.
Harvey assessed their levels with a glance, looking at the red icons above their heads. "Four levels above us."
Unlike Elizabeth, who opted for Mage as her class, Harvey chose Condemned. It was the class he had selected for his first character in the first game he ever played, and since then, he hadn't deviated.
Although the Condemned class wasn't featured in many games, his reputation alone prompted its inclusion in a lot of MMO titles, VISIDIA included, with the hope that one day he would play.
And they'd gotten their wish.
Harvey exhaled. Pulling out a pair of silver daggers from the window.
The ability and power system in VISIDIA differed from other games. Instead of allowing players to choose their abilities, they were randomized.
Moreover, each player received a unique ability, along with two elements of their choice and a weapon. Though the elemental selection was only available to classes that could use spells.
Classes like Twin attacker, Gunner and Condemned. Were given weapon forms, which they could use in battles.
A wolf lunged towards them, but before it could reach Elizabeth, Harvey swiftly thrust his dagger into its chest, causing it to disintegrate into red cubes that ascended into the air.
Five wolves left.
While his unique ability, and the manifest system appeared perplexing, Harvey didn't dwell on understanding them at the moment. His sole focus was on protecting his girlfriend, and making sure she had a good time with this.
"I'm not grinding, I'm just having fun," Harvey grinned as he charged at another wolf.
With a smooth glide across the ground, Harvey impaled a charging wolf's skull, deftly rolling over its near-vanishing form, delivering a kick to keep another at bay.
Rushing towards the wolves, he firmly embraced the role of the aggressor, yet an uneasy feeling persisted. It seemed as if the wolves were under some form of guidance.
But from where?
He glanced around the forest as he ran. Then, just hidden behind the mask of trees, he identified a larger wolf, barking orders. Undoubtedly the leader. "That's the alpha, isn't it!"
Closing the distance, he swung at a leaping wolf. The creature twisted mid air, narrowly avoiding the first strike, but Harvey was already moving.
A second slash came in sharp and low. He felt the catch of fur and skin as the dagger bit through. The wolf yelped once before shattering into red pixels.
This was the part he'd praise the devs for actually creating such a great project, but there was no time for that. The rest of the pack was already upon him.
Harvey danced on the edge of danger, parrying bites and swiping at the wolves with calculated precision. His movements were fluid, the daggers an extension of his arms. He dodged, rolled, and struck back, leaving shallow cuts on the wolves fur.
The remaining wolves, fueled by instinct and under the guidance of a higher command, attacked in unison.
Harvey spun, evading one wolf's snapping jaws, only to be met by another lunging for his throat. His agile maneuvers saved him, but the wolves persisted, relentless in their pursuit.
"C'mon guys," Harvey said, darting backward as the pack tightened around him. "You're embarrassing me."
The wolves weren't listening. The four remaining charged in from every angle, closing the circle. Harvey grinned, but wiped it off quickly. Just before anyone could notice.
It was needless to say how much he'd missed this.
One wolf lunged first and he jumped, palm planting on its back as he vaulted clean over, body floating in the air, and in that same sequence, with the flick of his wrist. His dagger spun out from his hand, burying itself in the skull of another. The creature collapsed into a mess of fading red pixels.
Three.
Harvey landed light, arms to his side like a gymnast. The wolf he'd vaulted over was already on him, jaws widened to rip at his throat.
But with a loud clank, its teeth met the steel of his blade. Then, maybe in an attempt to bite through, its grip became stronger, but he slammed an elbow down on the side of its head, pixels floating past his face.
Two.
The two remaining slowed, instincts now screaming to go the opposite way. But as if pushed by an external force. They lunged forward.
And in that same instant, they were gone, bodies reduced to a line of code.
Zero.
All the fodder was gone.
All that remained now was the alpha.
It strode out from the shadows beneath the trees, a hulking thing with a red icon gleaming above its head.
[Wolf Pack Leader, Level 10]
Harvey looked it up and down, arms folding. "Nine levels above me, huh?" He tapped his foot against the dirt. "You sure this is a side quest?"
The ground buckled beneath him a second later as the beast shot forward, a blur of muscle and teeth. Harvey barely dodged, dashing to the side as its snout slammed into the earth like a battering ram.
He clicked his tongue. "Is that what evolution's done to you guys now?"
The alpha spun fast, faster than anything that big had any right to and its jaws caught both of Harvey's blades as he crossed them just in time to defend.
[System Notification: Basic Daggers (Lv:1) — Durability Low]
Harvey sighed. "That's not fair. I just got these."
He forced the blades free and used the momentum to land a roundhouse kick, boot connecting square with the wolf's snout.
It fell back, claws tearing into the ground. But Harvey didn't give it time to recover, leaping high as the beast charged again, slashing across its back as he flipped over its head.
"Seriously though, a level ten boss in the first city?" he muttered, landing in a crouch. "I can hear the noobs complain already."
The beast skid through the sand, wiggling its face to regain composure. Then it turned back to Harvey who spun his daggers in his grip, urging another lunge.
But the wolf didn't, instead. It turned to its side, where a woman and a child stood, both cowering in fear.
The boy had unknowingly pushed him toward the prey he'd been searching for since.
And as its jaws opened—
Its head fell to the ground, blood spilling in waves, body crashing onto the floor with a thud.
Harvey looked over it, eyes reddened, daggers bloodied. Then back at Elizabeth.
"I'm sorry, I got carried away—"
"THAT WAS FREAKING AWESOME!!" she yelled, running toward him. "You were all like psshhh, and he was all like fweeepp, and you were like zapppp."
"I don't remember any zapping," Harvey said, scratching the back of his head.
He didn't even notice the wolf's corpse still lying there.
"Doesn't matter, that was seriously cool."
"Thanks," he replied, flipping his blades into the air. They vanished, returning to his storage.
"Tasia!" A man's voice echoed, and as they turned in its direction, they saw a cat-eared man—likely the individuals they sought.
"Dad! Mom!" Tasia ran out from Elizabeth's side, and into the outstretched hands of her father.
"Thanks for dealing with those wolves, they've been a plague to Falusha for centuries." A cat-eared woman, most likely her mother, expressed her gratitude.
"No problem. We're happy we could help," Elizabeth replied.
"Please, accept this as a token of my appreciation."
[Side Quest: Helping Tasia. Result: Completed]
[Quest rewards: 20 coins and a stamina potion.]
A prompt appeared on Harvey's screen, and he tapped it, receiving the rewards straight into his storage. "Not bad for a first quest."
"Thank you," Tasia said, hugging Elizabeth's leg.
"Oh my God she's so cute—" Elizabeth said, crouching down to pat her brown hair, but as she bent over. Tasia was no longer there, but it wasn't the girl who departed or fled, it was them.
Abruptly, they were transported to the center of an arena, surrounded by numerous players, all one hundred and twenty thousand who were online at the time. "What just happened?" Elizabeth asked, slightly irritated that she missed the chance to pet her.
"To all the people currently online, it is with great pleasure to announce that you will no longer be able to leave VISIDIA." A voice spoke.
"Hm?"
"What is he talking about?" A voice from the crowd asked.
"What kind of sick joke is that?" Another said.
A commotion stirred among the crowd, but abruptly, they fell silent, not by choice but by the arrival of another entity. "Armenadiel, it was never your duty to disclose this to them."
"Why not? I relish the sight of their helpless faces, especially before their demise. That's when it's most gratifying," Armenadiel, adorned in a clown's attire, remarked, a glob of spit dripping from his mouth.
"Players of VISIDIA, from this point onwards, until the game is beaten, you will not be able to leave this world." The second man said, dressed in a black trench coat, a dull look on his face. "Death in this world also means death in reality, so I suggest you take good care of yourselves."
"What do you mean?" A member of the crowd questioned, frantically searching for the log-out button in the menu. "What kind of prank is this?"
"Prank?" Armenadial laughed, a portal spawning just by his side. "I assure you my friends... this is as real as it gets."
Without another word, the two stepped through, vanishing from the crowd's sight.
Harvey and Elizabeth stood amidst the crowd as everyone began desperately checking their menus.
"It's not here!"
"I can't see it!" Their complaints echoed out, and when Harvey checked, his log-out option wasn't there either.
"What's happening?" Elizabeth asked, as she approached Harvey.
"I don't know, but I doubt what they're saying is real, it's probably just a glitch in the system, the devs must be working on a patch now." Harvey tried making sense of the situation.
"Guys..." a voice uttered, eliciting a loud gasp from everyone in the crowd. "I didn't mean to... I only wanted to check..."
They turned to a lifeless player on the ground, his body not disintegrating into pixels. Instead, it resembled a corpse on Earth, with blood streaking the concrete, rushing toward the soles of their feet.
Then in front of their eyes, the blue screen of their systems appeared.
A message sprawling across:
"A player killer has been registered: player: Inkling206, has killed a player."