by Jason Cheek
“What, because you’re not having a relationship with a real woman?” Unalia innocently asked.
“It’s not like there’s a lot of gaming women out there for me to meet!” I snapped, trying not to go off on my quiet friend. Seeing the disconcerted look on her face at my words, I tried to explain what I meant.
“Look Unalia, it’s not easy to meet someone who gets me in the real world. A normal nine to five career woman isn’t going to accept my professional gaming schedule or my shenanigans in-game.”
“What are you talking about?” Sarka sarcastically asked, rolling her eyes at me like I was an idiot. “There’s female players everywhere in town.”
“Are there?” I asked, bringing her and Unalia’s chuckling up short. “Just because you see someone playing a woman in-game doesn’t mean they’re a woman in real life. Same for if they’re a man.”
“I’m a woman, so is Unalia,” Sarka contentiously said. “You’re acting like women don’t game.”
“No, women game and I agree that women gamers are becoming a larger segment of the overall player population in MMOs,” I argued back. “But, in general, men play these types of games more often than women. The figures I last saw reported on Nielson Marketing Research was sixteen percent of all players for MMOs were women in the early two thousands. The last figures I saw just before The World was released put female MMO gamers at around twenty-nine percent of the overall MMO player base.”
“So, for The World, the percentage could be a much larger portion of the community?” Sarka contended, slightly miffed at my figures.
“I won’t argue that possibility,” I grudgingly agreed. “The technology in the game itself has turned markets around the world upside down.” Trying to smooth over my friends’ ruffled feathers, I brought up an interesting fact about the figures.
“On the flip side, if I run into any female gamers in The World, they’re more likely to be hardcore or pro gamers than men.” I shrugged seeing Sarka and Unalia disbelieving looks. “What can I say? I guess when women do play, they tend to play harder than men.”
“So, it sounds like you have a better chance of meeting a female gamer than not,” Sarka said, as if that somehow proved her original point.
“Yeah,” I said, letting out a wordless snort. “I have a higher chance of meeting the future love of my life and being forced to kill her before she kills me.”
The three of us laughed at the joke, since there was a lot of truth in that. Most hardcore and pro gamers wanted to make a name for themselves, which typically put them at odds with other hardcore and pro players. It wasn’t bad or good, just the nature of the beast once you mixed money and rankings into a game. Though, it made me wonder if other professions had problems like this when it came to dating.
“The sad part,” I said, turning serious once again. “Is that even if I did meet a female gamer who wasn’t trying to kill me, wasn’t already in a relationship, and was someone I could actually hit it off with, that doesn’t even begin to cover the baggage I’d have to work out due to the abuse I went through during my relationship with Julie.” Seeing the stricken look on my friends’ faces, I gave a sad smile.
“Yeah, she kind of messed me up for any long term relationships.”
We chatted a little more, but my last comment had basically killed the conversation about dating. Seeing that we weren’t fighting, Yun and Tinyr ran closer and started talking about the two guilds I was planning to meet up with tonight. A moment later, we were joined by Angie and her girlfriends, all of whom studiously said nothing about the argument I’d had earlier with my companions. Before I knew it, a subdued Krishna and Lyeneru had joined the conversation along with a number of other Uten Syn players as more of the group got into the mission at hand.
Chapter One.Twenty
(Wednesday, May 7th / Day 17 of The World.)
The main question on everyone’s minds was how were we supposed to meet up with a group of players we couldn’t communicate with while in the middle of the wilds on the backside of a mountain at night. It sounded pretty impossible once you realized there was no instant communications to link us up, or convenient arrows on the mini map pointing us in the right direction. Also, since neither one of us had been here before, it wasn’t like we could even say meet at the big granite rock half way up the slope on the western side.
I did have some hope that Tengsly could find them to help coordinate our meet-up, but honestly, I had no idea if he could find someone I’d never met face-to-face before in-game. It wasn’t like there were any wiki articles on flying squirrel messenger pets. Hell, this was the first time I’d ever heard of players being able to pass messages outside of a city or player-owned piece of land, and I’d been following The World’s forum for the last four years. Still, if Tengsly didn’t work out, I had some other ideas but it wasn’t going to be easy or pretty.
The secondary question on everyone’s minds, of course, was how could we ensure the guild wasn’t working for the enemy. Don’t look at me like I’m being a paranoid freak for thinking that. Julie was a smart and ruthless bitch who’d been planning this betrayal of our group from before we’d even started the game. I didn’t put anything past her. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time a guild had been taken in by a player acting like they were a friend.
Surprisingly enough, almost all of my new friends were hesitant in trusting random strangers they met in the game. After Yun and Sarka had been griefed by The Syndicate players in their PKing pick-up group, they were less than trusting of other players. Unknown to either Krishna or me, the Uten Syn guild had a similar experience too. Julissa Cota, Angie’s girlfriend, had met the Global Brutality players while picking herbs. She didn’t know they’d been looking for the entrance into the Uten Syn valley and had showed them the way. By the time she’d realized what they were really up to, the guild was being cut down and imprisoned.
Only Unalia and Tinyr hadn’t been betrayed in this way. While they’d fallen prey to the PKers bullying players for money, they’d never been betrayed by any of the players they’d teamed up with in one of their pick-up groups. Instead of acting like everyone was just overreacting, they listened closely to the various stories. Tinyr said it well. He didn’t want to automatically think that everyone was out to get them, but believed that having a healthy amount of skepticism when meeting new people was just being smart.
For my part, I told stories about some of the most common examples that had been going around the pro gaming circuit. You know the ones. A guild leader promotes a promising new recruit after a few months of playing together. The next thing they know everything has been stolen out of the guild’s bank and their coffers have been emptied out. Then the player they trusted and promoted to an officer passes everything they stole to a competing guild, before deleting their alt account and rejoining that same guild with their main account.
Guilds that had that happen to them usually implode afterwards. That shit was no joke. During my gaming career I’d seen it used plenty of times by hardcore and pro players alike on newbs to the leagues as a way to take out the competition. These victims end up losing their income, are usually forced to go back to a regular job, and usually have their in real life friendships ruined due to the stress and mistrust that occurs after something like that happens. It was definitely the dark side of pro gaming.
Often times, non-gamers would laugh when they heard gamers taking these events so seriously. The comments were always the same. It’s just a game. None of it is even real. Why don’t you get a real job? Fuck that jazz, a six figure income for each person playing in a professional guild was some serious cash, and that didn’t even take into account the number of items that many pro gamers received from gaming companies wanting to promote their newest hardware by utilizing well-known gamer names.
As we made our way past the base of the cliff that marked the borders of Uten Syn’s valley, the landscape took on a much different look than the deep forest we’d been traveling
through up until now. The forest was frozen, rocky ground mostly covered by a scrub-like grass. Copses of pinewood trees could be seen nearby with thick underbrush with clumps of icy snow stuck in their branches. The moon was so bright that when I switched to my regular vision to get a better feel for the lay of the land, I was greeted by sharp crags that quickly turned into a low mountain range in the near distance. I swore the entire area looked like we’d walked onto a Norwegian fjord or highland.
Sudden changes in the landscape or environment was nothing new to MMO types of games. Sometimes each zone had a hard dividing line that could go from tundra to temperate forest or even scraggly desert. At least in The World, the zone wasn’t completely unnatural and actually reflected the type of landscape that this would be in the real world. Switching back to Darkvision, I called up my in-game map to verify my location and the direction I was headed without breaking out of my run.
‘Neysa! Helgath! Would you scout ahead to make sure we’re not ambushed?’ I mentally called out to my soulmates as I headed off in a northwestern direction. This should bring us to the base of the mountain on the eastern side of the pass that I’d agreed to meet the Aussie guild at. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
For the most part, our group stayed mostly quiet throughout the trek. I wasn’t sure if it was because everyone was focused on traversing the rocky terrain or because they were anxious about traveling through the unknown zone. While a hundred yards sounds far for one’s line of sight, the unnatural way Darkvision cut off to anything beyond its range was somewhat disquieting. But, it was more than enough distance to see the wild animals snuffling around in search of food.
The creatures were odd to say the least. There were numerous packs of Elite Large Rock Wolves with odd rock-like formations sticking out of their skin and herds of horse-like creatures called Elite Fanged Tarpan Striders that was some odd mixture of a lizard the size of a terrestrial horse. Instead of hooves, they had clawed feet that they used to grip the rocky ridges, charcoal-gray scaled bodies, and snow-white manes of hair around there horned heads that also went down their spine to the tips of their tails. Like the Twin-Tailed Foxes, they were beautiful but deadly. We even saw massive Elite Great Ridgeback Boars far off in the distance that were larger than a Clydesdale horse was tall and massively wide like something crazy out of earth’s prehistoric past. Even from this distance, the one to two-foot long spikes running along their spine could clearly be seen. As we passed the third non-aggro’ing group of level 35 Elite Large Rock Wolves, I mentally commented to my ladies.
‘Okay, how are we not aggro’ing these packs?’
‘Pppfffttt!’ Neysa’s mental chuffing echoed in my head in amusement. ‘You have a Silver Dire Wolf with a Half-Orc rider acting as scouts. Of course we’re not going to be aggro’ing any packs.’
‘Our large numbers probably don’t hurt either,’ I said, thinking that I was starting to understand the aggro calculations of the game.
‘You’re joking right?” I could feel the Silver Dire Wolf’s dismay over our link at my complete lack of understanding. ‘So many lower-level newfar in one area is like setting up an all you can eat buffet next to a Sumo Wrestler convention.’
‘What the hell?’ I swore at the obnoxious comment. ‘Where the hell are you getting all of this shit from?’
‘Your head is full of garbage,’ Helgath explained matter-of-factly, giving me a mental shrug as if it were nothing new.
‘Is that so?’ I sarcastically asked, rolling my eyes. Thankfully, no one else could hear our mental back and forth as I unhappily snapped. ‘And what did I tell you two about poking through my memories?’
‘Like that would stop us,’ Neysa’s chuff rang in my head as I let out a mental sigh.
‘And the constant attacks on our run from Darom to Telrain was just bad luck?’ I asked, deciding that changing the topic would be for the best. I didn’t see myself winning that argument against these two brats.
‘Of course not,’ Helgath replied with a laugh. ‘You were close to leveling up so we thought it best to give you a hand.’
‘Let me just say,’ Neysa interrupted in exasperation, ‘it wasn’t easy pulling everything in the zone back to the group either.’
‘Hmmm,’ I grunted in surprise, ‘I would have thought there’d have been more spiders.’
‘I don’t do spiders,’ Neysa stated in no uncertain terms, as I heard the twitter of Helgath’s mental laugh. It was an odd comment for a combat mount to make, which made me wonder if my own dislikes had rubbed off onto her. ‘Dodging those disgusting creatures camped out in the trees is what made the pulls so hard,’ the Silver Dire Wolf gave a mental “duh” over our link.
None of what she said particularly surprised me. Although, the clear and concise worded sentences made me wonder if the boost in stats she’d received this morning from the Emergency Hot Fix had done more than just increase her overall intelligence. Our connection seemed to be deeper now, more than ever before.
Even so, Neysa was very different than a regular thinking person … or then again … maybe she wasn’t. It’s not like I’d ever been mentally connected to anyone before in my life. Who’s to say what truly lies in people’s thoughts and hearts. For myself, I know I was no angel. Nonetheless, in our shared mental space the Silver Dire Wolf was truly an odd mixture of thinking person mixed with a feral beast in many of her thought processes, which was probably how she was so good at judging the aggro distance in monsters. Pushing the speculative thoughts on the nature of my companion off, I focused on what I’d originally wanted to ask.
‘So, if we’re not going to be inundated with monsters that means it’s safe for me to train up the Uten Syn players with Dark magic?’
‘Only if they keep together and don’t hang back,’ Neysa grumbled in agreement. ‘Even then, I doubt we’ll escape combat completely, but that should help to keep the fighting down to a minimum. Though, if those manifest pets aren’t reigned in soon, they’re going to aggro the entire ridge.’
‘Fuck my life,’ I mentally snorted in annoyance. It was always a pain in the ass to escort lower level players in your raid when you were trying to get through a higher level zone. We’d have to do this another way if I wanted to make it to the Aussies within the next hour. ‘I’ll talk to Krishna and Angie to get their higher level players in the rear. That might help with the aggro somewhat, but if it looks like it’s going to be close, you tag’em and we’ll bag’em.’
As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt both of my ladies begin combing through my memories for the odd slang reference. I couldn’t help the groan that came from my lips as soon as I realized my mistake. Obviously, just asking to explain what I meant wasn’t an option. By now, they both knew how much I hated it when they did that in the middle of one of our conversations.
A moment later, Neysa and Helgath apologized like perfect angels as soon as they found what they had wanted. Even so, modern terminology from earth took a lot of shared memories to fully comprehend the meaning of slang, but, now that they understood, they acted as if nothing had happened. Whatever, I unhappily thought. No matter how much they said they were sorry, we both knew this wouldn’t be the last time we fought over this issue. ‘I’ll go ahead and get everyone moving if the two of you will focus on not getting us killed instead of pawing through my memories!’
‘That won’t be a problem,’ Helgath said, joking playfully. ‘I don’t even have any paws.’
‘Says the girl with three-inch long Orc claws,’ I sarcastically said, mentally rolling my eyes. Even though I tried to keep my tone light, more of the frustration I was feeling must have come through our link, because they both got back to business without giving me any lip. Letting out a heavy sigh, I went to work. Looking over my shoulder, I got Krishna, Lyeneru, Angie and her friends’ attention.
“Listen up guys, I’m going to need your people to tighten up the formation and to keep their manifest pets close,” I sa
id, as my eyes quickly scanned the positions of everyone in the raid. “It would probably be best if you started rotating your higher levels towards the rear. Hopefully, that will help keep them from aggro’ing the entire area on top of us.”
“I’m on it,” Krishna hurriedly said. As he switched to guild chat to pass along my message, I turned back to Angie and her girlfriends.
“While Krishna’s doing that, how about getting the three of you some Dark magic?” I offered helpfully. Instead of being excited about the opportunity, the three women looked less than happy at my offer.
“Hmmm, why would any of us want to learn how to raise rotting corpses?” Monica asked in a disgusted tone, as Angie and Julissa looked at me repulsively.
“Besides, they stink to high heavens.” Julissa added, obviously surprised that I’d even suggest having them learn something so awful. “Seriously, why would anyone want to be surrounded by those disgusting creatures every time they logged in?”
“Probably because they want to be powerful in battle,” Krishna snapped at her in annoyance, after passing along my message to his guild. “Besides, they’re not limited by a twenty-four hour time out and can be easily replaced by the enemies you kill.”
That brought Angie up short. I could see the light go off in her eyes as she began hurriedly talking with Julissa and Monica. As the Druid turned back to me, Lyeneru cut her off.
“I have to admit the undead creatures are really quite useful in battle,” Lyeneru agreed, before adding in a quiet voice. “Once you get past their horrific smell and looks.”
“Almost like an unlimited supply of pets …” Angie muttered thoughtfully under her breath, as if she’d just figured something out. Her eyes focused on me as she spoke with awe in her voice. “That’s how you defeated Cristiane Sekhmet in Telrain. You kept the pressure on by hammering them with waves of undead.”
Although Angie obviously understood the strength of the magic I was offering, I could tell by the scrunched up look of distaste on her face that she was less than thrilled about having her own zombie pets. Not that I could blame her on one level. The undead creatures were definitely nothing like the furry manifest pets that Nature magic came with. Looking out of the corner of her eyes, I could see her silently studying the rotting corpses running beside us as her friends dejectedly grumbled about learning Dark magic.