Hello participants. Please enjoy all the amenities we have to offer here in the lounge. We hope you are taking regular breaks from the VR equipment as prolonged use can cause random disorientation in some uses."
The lounge is actually a whole floor of the DiamondTech building set out just for the members of the playtest group to discuss the game and relax while taking a break. There is food of all, dozens of different types of games, a mini theater, a small gym and a bar.
Brian was on a lunch break from bug break fixes when a chime came through his earpiece. Allie was whispering to him from his workstation.
Good news Brian, management has approved your submission for the beta test. Looks like you will be one of the first Dhampir pcs in the world. Isn't that exciting?
Brian smiled as he pulled the tab to his soda and headed back to his office with a bag of chips griped between two fingers. Time to go discover the meaning of life... In Dusst at least.
Hi Guys. 'sup
Just waiting for the servers to be up to start exploring this! Can't imagine how they've gotten this close spoiler free, but it should be a blast to explore!
I admit the interface is awesome, but I can't see anyone but the one percent being able to buy the hardware.
Well, we know that the price always comes down fast, at least for the techs that stick around. And I heard a rumor that they were going to try to sell the initial gear package at a loss to try to get the buzz and to sustainable levels of subscriptions faster. I guess we'll see how much that does for the bottom line?
Excellent our three starters are ready. The new Dusst server is almost ready. We may have a fourth before we start but we don't need to wait.
One question for you all though. You can if you want, decide to group before spawn, and those who want to will start at the same(still randomly chosen) place. It is random where you will start between 4 ports where your boat may dock. I hope that was understood in recruitment that none of you have been to Dusst and the only way there is by boat.
Maybe so.
If so, I just wonder how long it'll take to turn into the worlds largest brothel. The sensory feed back is unreal. But yeah, I'm looking foreword to go all 'Westworld' in it.
Excellent our three starters are ready. The new Dusst server is almost ready. We may have a fourth before we start but we don't need to wait.
One question for you all though. You can if you want, decide to group before spawn, and those who want to will start at the same(still randomly chosen) place. It is random where you will start between 4 ports where your boat may dock. I hope that was understood in recruitment that none of you have been to Dusst and the only way there is by boat.
I'm cool either way. Wanna start on the same boat guys?
Yeah, I wonder what they're going to settle on for the final age requirements with that in mind. I guess it also depends on how much modding the community is able to do (though that would probably take place off main servers, and not make it into Dusst itself.) It'll certainly be a ride in any case!
Oh, and for starting, I suppose I don't mind starting in the same spot as other players who are ready to go. I'm thinking I'll probably want to try soloing a bit at the start (no offense intended to others about, it's just how I like to stat play with these things,) but being in the same general area as others can't hurt if that turns out to be less viable than grouping. I'm know that they're advertising the system to handle solo play, groups and even raids, but I don't know how smooth things will be right at the start.
Allie, set me up to spawn on the same general area as the next wave of newcomers. This character starts off a little frail. It would be nice to have help near by if necessary. Trying to do a corpse retrieval while naked is never fun.
I will roll 1d4 to see where you starts. If you want to start solo I'll roll individually. If a group starts together I roll once for the group. You won't know where the next starters will spawn until I roll for them so you can't really plan for someone to be nearby.
Suit up everyone. I'm going to put you four in as a group and you can split up or stay together as you wish. Gameplay post coming later.
A broad-shouldered, balding man in his mid-40s quickly walks into the lounge.
"Sorry. Sorry I'm late. I worked last night and had to get some sleep before logging on."
The man was holding out his ID to the DiamondTech associate and carrying a small duffle bag. After a quick orientation, the late-comer was shown to his module.
Gameplay is up. Dot in when you can.
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Waking up from an impromptu nap in one of the theater seats, a poorly-shaved young man wanders over to the rest of the playtesters (assuming they're still around).
"I haven't had a chance to log in and such yet; how's the experience?"
He frowns and thinks for a minute.
"I guess it'll be safer to travel in groups; would anyone mind if I joined you in-game?"
As you know, most encounters will scale based on group size, level and difficulty so it shouldn't be any more or less dangerous being together or alone.
Also can everyone choose a difficulty you wish to start with? The choices are Easy, Average, Challenging, Hard and Epic.
Casey hardly pauses to think before selecting the Challenging setting.
I've played enough of these games not to need my hand held. Let's see how challenging it the devs think challenging should be!
I've played enough of these games not to need my hand held. Let's see how challenging it the devs think challenging should be!
Zaidel types in group chat: [Sure. Why not.]
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Hmm. I'm inclined to play something more difficult, but something too difficult would probably not be great for a first play of a game, and might impede my ability to playtest if I just keep getting killed.
He shrugs. Let's not overthink it. I'm just going to split the difference and go Challenging
He hesitates briefly before selecting the Challenging option.
Challenging is okay dokay to me. Let's do this!
Oh, hey guys. Hope I'm not too late, says a twenty something just now entering the lounge. I totally blanked on character creation.
I'll start on Average and move up when I have a feel for things.
I guess you first quest will be to find your character's testes. Jeremiah replies in chat.
Excellent. Kyuzo, do you want to start with the others or on your own. You got in quick enough that I'll let you choose.
A cursor flashed in the lower right of Brian's HUD.
Oh right, difficulty settings. I forgot. Allie, set those to Challenging would you?
Brian, the rules for Beta Testing for DiamondTech employees clearly state that beta testers and code fixers employed by DiamondTech should use Easy and Average to test basic functionality and let the public beta testers test the higher difficulties as they will command less of the market share when the game goes live.
I know the protocols Allie, I didn't get into game design because I like playing kiddie games. Override and set to Challenging.
Very well Brian, but please be informed that I will have to log the non-complaince.
Sure, fine. Thank you very much.
I've always done bold as speech and italics as inner monologue or thoughts.
Ok new post just for you coming up later.
Ok guys. I've had an insanely busy week and hoping for more of you to post sop I've been a bit slack here. Are you guys not really interested in this game?
I can say that I'm about and still interested. I'd work with more details if they were provided, but for now I'm assuming that I'll get some of that through interaction with NPCs shortly.
I'm still interested. I'm just helping an old guy of the boat.
I agree we could use more information about the areas we have arrived in. The local scene needs to be set or it becomes hard to visualize. But I knew going into this we'd have to find our own adventures rather than be pulled along so I plan to seek them out. Would it be okay to suggest our own hooks? What we are hoping to find or accomplish by searching for information?
Never played solo (With grouping up as an option) so I am still interested.
Ok possibly my homebrewing isn't so good. I'll be free enough tomorrow to put enough time into the next gameplay post and add some detail.
The thing is, if you're going to let us run off in four different directions at once (and I love that you are,) you're either going to have to do four times as much work as normal, or let us fill in some of the details for the entry level stuff as we go. As long as we can make it a collaborative story telling for the minor details, with your overarching plot/whatever at the important bits, there's no reason that it shouldn't work. Some more detail would be lovely, but I wouldn't write this off as not so good at all. I will however look forward to advancing play as you've got a chance to!
I know how much work I may possibly have to do and am totally happy to do separate directions/quests for each of you.
I will try to put in more information, if there is something that I should describe please ask and I will fill that out. There can be some collaboration here and if you want to seek out a particular thing/personal quest that will help me too.
Regarding the captains not knowing the towns names or where exactly they are on Dusst: You come from a far of continent across a Pacific sized ocean. Dusst was, until recently, a long lost and forgotten land. The charts and location of it that were just recently deciphered and translated revealed how to find it. But names and locations are thousands of years out of date so trying to sail for a particular ancient city won't work. Instead the expeditions which you are a part of have just sailed in the direction of Dusst(affected by weather, currents and navigator error) and are landing up and down the coast at 'random' locations. So until someone asks or tells you, current names of places and towns are unknown. Which is why the captain said he isn't a wizard(that could possibly divine such information).
More gameplay coming later. I ran out of time today.
============ Global OOC Chat =============
"OK, it looks like one of the starting villages is called Dunloch. Sounds almost lovecraftian so far as names go, but other than a lack of wealth wealth and a minor sense of oppression there's nothing else here which screams cosmic horror. It looks like the town has a chapel, a small market and a main hall with a chief that you can probably get missions or quests or whatever they'll end up being called. When I asked about dangerous tasks an NPC pointed me in the way of the hunter's lodge south of town, so I'm off to check it out now.
"Hope everyone else is finding cool things as well! Anyone else starting in Dunloch that wants to fill me in what the town itself has would be a friend! I'm also not sure if I'm bound back in town or what. I haven't seen any obvious options to set my spawn point, so if anyone figures that out let me know.
"Everyone have fun, and I'll keep posting reports about what I find!"
Happy Thanksgiving!
I'm in Arch...no idea where that is in relation. Tiny town. Like 150 to 200 tiny. Also found the inn. Calm Seas I think. It's really faded. Gonna get a room and see if that doesn't give me a respawn sight. Also asking the owner about local quests, if that's even how it works. Might have to through all the meta out the window. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing.
============ Global OOC Chat =============
"Right, I found the Hunter's Lodge, but no official seeming quest so far. They just told me to capture something and bring it to them. I'm not sure if they mean live or not, but we'll see what sort of something I find when I'm out. At this point I'm relying on the encounters near the starting locations to be appropriate for starting characters, but we'll see what the designers had in mind for appropriate.
"I've also learned that the basic overview of races that they gave in the teaser trailers seems to be what the NPCs know about. Humans where we are, dwarves, elves and orcs in the spots it said they would be. Apparently they don't travel as the humans in Dunloch and the surrounding area don't travel away from the village and haven't seen non-humans near as I can tell. Being a hobgoblin got me shot at, though mostly because I was unrecognized, and there wasn't too much hostility when I identified myself. They've heard of goblins as a story to frighten kids with and knew that I was too tall, so there are probably goblins out there somewhere of the sort we'd expect.
"I'll share more after I see what hunting in the area is like."
"Guys. Someone please talk me out of giant rats in the cellar quest. It's like the most cliche quest ever. I am scared I might actually get it if I push this innkeeper about it."
============ Global OOC Chat =============
"I dunno, we need someone to do those quests. What if someone just forgot to turn off the rat faucet, all KoL style? Someone's got to explore the options so we know the meta we're working with here."
Let me see if I can add you to our quest.
Siete, your group leader. Can we add Kyuzo to our quest?
flashes across Kyuzo's HUD.
Yea you are much too distant from each other.
I have sent Mirpaliniel a message to see if they have lost interest in the game.
Either way I'm going to post in recruitment again and see if others might be interested in joining. How are you guys finding things? I did throw in the rats in the basement quest as a little laugh.