Cat's Quest

by Roman Prokofiev

  “That Chick, to hell with her, almost burned me together with my little presents!”

  “Where is she?” I asked looking around the square. Stalls and tents were still in flames, and many burned bodies lay about.

  “She was killed by the guards. She comes in almost every day and hangs out until her Reputations drops to HATE. Then she deletes her avatar, creates a new one, levels it up for a week and does it all over again. You got real lucky coming here today. There you go!” Alex handed me a heavy, hexagonal token made of dense yellow metal. I wondered whether it might be made of gold.

  You have received a portal token. CHARGES: 3/3.

  “Did you see the portal? Let’s go. Press on the token when you get in and select the city of Dan-na-Eyre. Remember?”

  When the darkness of transition faded, I found myself at the top of a small hill, covered in thick, tall grass. Behind me, the portal stood shimmering. Not too far away, the wind played with the canopy of beautiful trees I did not recognize. I was looking at the mossy city walls up ahead in the distance, surrounded by a moat filled with water. The city was called Dan-na-Eyre.

  AlexOrder straightened his shoulders enjoying the pleasant sensation of the cool, night breeze on his burned face. Two warriors, who had been conversing by enormous granite boulders nearby, were looking at us in surprise. Then, one of them approached us.

  “Alex?! What are you doing here?” The guard sounded surprised.

  “I’m supposed to be here,” my companion replied briefly and looked at me.

  “Follow me, Cat.” We headed in the direction of the city that the locals called Eyre. The city had hundreds of narrow streets that ran and intertwined within its mossy walls and houses. The city of the northern winds, tall towers, and beautiful night stars. I followed AlexOrder into a half-empty tavern. He sat on a bench, gesturing me to sit opposite him. The tavern guy, who looked bored to death, waived to Alex and approached.

  “Hi, Karn!” Alex said. “Meet my friend Cat.”

  “Hi there, Alex. It’s been a long time…” the tavern guy, an older NPC with a light beard, looked at me. He glanced at Alex with a smile and periodically tapped him on the shoulder as if he were an old friend.

  “Any friend of Alex is a friend of mine. Nice to meet you, mister HotCat.”

  You received a personal recommendation! Your reputation with Karn increased by 100. Current value 90/100 (Neutral)

  “What would you like?”

  “Four pints of dark beer, and two charcoal grilled steaks,” my friend smiled softly. “And your special grilled veggies on the side.”

  “I took you from Fairs because it’s very dangerous there,” Alex said when the tavern guy had left.

  “You’re gonna live here. Eyre is a good place. And not too hot…”

  “Here,” he threw a leather bag over to me. “There’s a hundred. Should be enough for starters. Then, you’ll make some money yourself.”

  “Thanks man, but I can’t accept it…” I said, hesitating.

  “Take it, Cat. I won’t take no for an answer,” Alex insisted. “It’s really nothing. But ask for a room key from the tavern guy, he’s the innkeeper. You can live here… and there’s something else…” Alex dug in his bag and took out a black, leather belt with a strap, slightly worn in appearance, with rings for knives and a small bag on the side.

  “Take this instead of the rags from the trial. Get rid of the rags. I remember wearing them as a noob,” Alex sighed. “Go ahead, try it on.”

  You have received a new artifact: Pantherskin Belt with Chest Strap

  Quality: rare

  Material: leather

  Durability: 63/90

  Weight: 1 kg

  3 quick access slots

  2 item binding slots (used slots: small traveler's bag, leather sheathe brace)

  +3 Agility, +2 Physical Defense (chest), +3 Charisma

  Light Armor skill used when worn.

  “Cool!” I whispered, touching the rough leather. The artifact was glowing a shade of blue, a rare characteristic, but most importantly, it felt so real and great quality, too.

  “That’s not all,” Alex smiled as he placed more items on the table: two hand-crafted books with elegant leather covers and copper-bound corners. They had intricate double buckles, dull metal in the shape of dragon faces... Opening one, I found pages full of maps with notes and explanations; the second book was blank with a dozen, pristine white pages.

  You have received a new artifact: AlexOrder’s Complete Atlas

  Quality: rare

  Crafted by: AlexOrder

  Contains: 29 maps, scalable

  Do you want to open the Atlas?

  “Alex, I don’t know what to say…” I said, throwing up my hands. “I’m lost for words!”

  “Allow me to feel like Santa at least once in my life!” Alex laughed. “Besides, I’ve been meaning to have a sort out of my chests for a long time. That’s all I could find that would fit your skill levels.”

  “What’s with the empty book?” I asked curiously.

  “It’s for spells, rituals, recipes, and blueprints. You’ll figure it out,” Alex said mysteriously.

  “Look. The beer’s here! Thank you, Karn. Let’s drink, and then you can tell me what you think of the game!” Blowing on the white flakes of foam, I marveled at the reality of what was happening once again. My mortal body was now inside a capsule, and I, having completely forgotten about it, was chatting with an old friend over a beer. The beer was good and cold, reminiscent of Irish ale. And the table was… felt sooooo… wooden. I pinched myself in the forearm and it hurt. It was like a drug!!!! A second life, damn it. Alex nodded, looking toward the kitchen, rolling his eyes dreamily.

  “Hey, how do I turn on smells,” I asked, having completely forgotten about it. “And what level of immersion do you use?”

  “Full, of course! You can activate the smells. There’s a little tick in the settings. You can even do it from within the game. But level of immersion can be changed only after re-entry.”

  “Won’t it hurt? I’m playing 50% and sometimes… brrrr…” I remembered the skeleton poking me with its rusty stick.

  “Kinda. But manageable. Everyone who’s serious about the game plays with a high level of immersion, and there are reasons for that,” Alex replied, finishing his first pint.

  “I didn’t read about that in the forums… Interesting.”

  “First, they don’t like to write about it. The skills level up quicker when you’re fully immersed. Your brain mobilizes when it knows something is going to hurt, and you get the maximum from your avatar. As a result, you do everything faster and better. You get quicker and stronger. The second reason is hardcore. It just feels good to be able to immerse in it fully and feel something you could never feel in real life. Have you ever tried deer cooked on a fire in the woods? Have you ever felt the adrenaline rush of chopping someone’s head off?”

  “What’s the third reason?”

  “Sex!” Alex said laughing. “You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

  The sizzling stakes arrived with grilled vegetables in round, clay pots on the side, and bread on a large wooden platter. The silverware looked almost like ours, only with a medieval twist. The elaborate nature of the game, together with this level of attention to detail amazed me. How did they manage it?

  “The developers are geniuses,” Alex went on, “have you heard about Balabanov?”

  “The name rings a bell…” I was confident I had heard the name in gaming circles.

  “Yeah… You’re out of touch with the modern world playing that COSMOS of yours. Balabanov, Svechkin, and their team developed and released SPHERE three years ago. They incorporated all VR technology advances, developed a unique game engine and procedural generator. They received a Nobel prize nomination on the basis of this game alone. They integrated a scalable, new generation artificial intelligence, and digitalized pseudo-personality. SPHERE is a masterpiece!”

  This wa
s exactly what I had read in the reviews. Every NPC in SPHERE’s worlds was unique, had pre-programmed character traits, habits, behaviors and was supported by a separate AI. Shortly after the associative AI invented by Takia, passed the Turing test, it became possible to create ‘thinking’ machines. In other words, it became impossible to distinguish AI from a real person, and this contributed to a huge advance in game realism. If you were to try to expose an NPC for what they really were using abstract concepts and conversational topics, another, more powerful AI would immediately be connected that was able to converse at any level. The technique was called ‘scaling’ AI. Some NPCs were digitalized from real world people, with all their character and habits, copied from historical figures. Horrific!

  “Yeah, the details are mind-blowing. I gotta give it to the designers, I can’t begin to imagine the effort it took,” I said, twirling before my eyes a heavy double-toothed fork, covered in an elaborate engraving.

  “Designers?” Alex burst out laughing. “You seriously think that all this was drawn by artists and game designers?”

  “Well, who else then?”

  “Cat, there are hundreds of worlds in SPHERE. Only three hundred and forty of them have been discovered. There are hundreds of thousands, even millions of NPCs, plus a huge number of cities, fortresses, villages, forests, everything! Did you know that the area of Dorsa world alone is as big as Eurasia? You think all this was manually developed to achieve such high levels of detail, every fork in every tavern?”

  “Um…?”

  “Like I said, the Balabanov’s team are geniuses. There’s only about a hundred of them. Most of the work was done by the procedural generator they invented.”

  “Procedural generator?”

  “That’s right. It works on the basis of random numbers. When a new location is created, initial conditions are set. Then, using the generator's algorithms, it randomly determines parameters such as size, climate, ecosystem, presence and location of rivers, mountains, creeks, settlements, resources, minerals... There are rules that don’t allow certain generations, for example, it won’t let it create a blooming green valley in a volcanic world or place a desert in the middle of a forest. Then the NPS population is generated from a set list of races; their biography and so on is written based on real world history, and so on and so forth…”

  “You’re saying all this was created by a generator?” I asked, looking around the tavern.

  “Almost everything. The designers came up with an initial set of rules for generation. The generator proceeds by assembling various tasks, kinda like a Lego constructor. Anything you want: a sword, castle, or a cave in the snowy mountains. There are countless patterns and templates covering all aspects of the Earth’s culture that are implemented at generation stage, including myths, tales, movies, books...”

  “Wow! I can’t believe it. All this is unique?”

  “Exactly! All NPCs, cities, worlds, as well as their quests are different. Balabanov’s team had only to set a task and choose templates and styles, for example, a medieval city, and the generator accepted the job. Well, they’d clean up any little nuances and glitches occasionally, but as a rule, the procedural generator is so perfect, there are rarely any errors.”

  Alex sighed as he was finishing his steak. I was deep in thought, trying to figure out how this information might aid or hinder the implementation of my plan.

  “The thing is though… Balabanov died,” Alex continued, “… in a plane crash three months ago. Their entire team, about seventy people, flew to the Mauritius on Christmas vacation… team building and all that stuff… The corporation paid all the expenses as a bonus, a reward for hard work. But they all died…”

  I remembered reading about it right before New Year. The internet was buzzing with the news. Signals were lost. The plane came down somewhere in the sea and was never found.

  “Now a new team is working on SPHERE. Agasyan, the main investor, pulled together the best of the best… but they could never be as good as the original Balabanov team… I only hope they stay away and don’t start messing with the generator…”

  “Yeah… You know what they say… If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” I joked.

  “Exactly. I haven’t noticed any changes so far. Listen, Cat… Sorry I’ve been talking non-stop. Beer, right…? Do you have any questions?”

  “Why Dorsa?” I wondered.

  “This is a Russian world. There are plenty of foreigners, of course, like Germans and Polish, but mostly, everyone speaks Russian. Convenient time zone, easier to adapt. The world itself is very interesting… The resources and dungeons.”

  “What about cashing out game currency?” I asked, trying to hide my true motivation was pointless. Alex knew me like the back of his hand.

  “Cash-in and cash out all you want, no limitation, via gaming auction, you know, the regular stuff. Admins charge 10%. The conversion rate is floating, one to ten.”

  “You think I can make some money?”

  “Of course. Take me, for example.” Alex hesitated for a second, “Well… we really shouldn't talk about it, but I’ll tell you, anyway. I left my job and am now making more money here playing 8 to 10 hours a day.”

  “Interesting. Go on. What does your wife think about it?”

  “What difference does it make to her, whether I’m at work or inside the capsule? When it comes to my income, I’m on a fixed salary in a clan.”

  “Are there any vacancies…” I asked jokingly, “with a fixed salary?”

  “I thought about it, but they don’t accept noobs in Watchers,” Alex replied looking serious. “You’ll have to get at least 10,000 Craft skills. That’s the minimum required to get accepted. When you level up, we can talk about it some more. You know, I’ve been playing since the release date… well, almost. That’s why I was able to… and I learned a few useful tricks along the way, both for myself and my clan.”

  “I see. Here’s another question, then. Since there aren’t any classes, what should I work on? What are your skills?”

  “I’m developing quite a few archetypes, something like a multi-class. I’m good at sword fighting, not a super pro, but I know a few things, and as you may have seen, runes. I’m also a cartographer. What you should level up at is a hard question to answer. There are so many skills. Everyone sorta needs to develop their athletics initially, and some close combat skills. It’s handy to master the technique of strikes, dodging, parrying—learn some basic fence and bow. As you go on, you’ll get the simplest archetypes, and then you’ll figure out what to develop depending on your game style.”

  “What about magic?”

  “Forget about it. It’s a good skill, but super hard. This game is really hardcore. You can’t develop magic from the beginning. First, get some basic skills, and then you’ll figure everything else out.”

  “Looks like everyone can be a warrior, mage and archer simultaneously? If everyone can do everything where’s the interest?”

  “No,” Alex shook his head. “There are many skills, but you’ll never develop them all. It’s a good idea to have one main discipline that’s excellent, and a couple of supporting ones; not great if they are opposing ones. For example, if you’re trying to level up as a mage and a warrior, you’ll be lousy at both. For example, mastering a skill depends very much on your durability and intellect… and those are leveled up by items of clothing, mostly. Mages wear spiritual and intellectual items while a warrior wears items for durability. I’m talking basic terms now. In reality, it’s much more complicated than that.”

  “Oh, I get it,” I said, throwing my hands up. “There aren’t classes as such, but there kinda are…”

  “Something like that… and there’s one more reason. You can only level up a skill while you’re actively using it. If you stop using it, take Defense, for example, you’ve leveled up, but you don’t use it, you start to forget the skill. The rate is approximately 1-3 of leveling up. It makes sense to develop one or two types of sk
ill categories that are closely intertwined that require similar attributes. And ones that are constantly used.”

  “But what about your multi-class? It looked like you were exactly that, a mage and a warrior, no?”

  “I’m not a mage. I’m a rune master. That’s different. If you’re talking about the scroll I threw at you, that was the clan scroll… You’re right though. A Multi-class is much more difficult to level up. But that said, there are more perks. By the way…” he said, changing the subject suddenly, “Let’s see what you look like. Open your info, let’s see…”

  It took me a few minutes to find the right option for turning on and off information displayed to other users. As I intuitively understood, it was normal for players to hide as much info as they could. Obviously, it was much easier to find a counter-attack if you knew your opponent’s stats.

  “Look, don’t delete this character,” Alex said, looking at my character list. “You’re lucky! You got a rare trait.”

  “Ancient Gene? What kinda trait is it?”

  “I’ll tell you more about it,” Alex switched to a whisper even though the tavern was empty. “It is precisely because of the Ancient Gene that our clan is located here and our noobs are from the Eyre Nation.”

  “Oh wow! I’m lucky then.”

  “It’s super rare. Only 3 or 4 characters out of 100 get it. Not completely unique, but still. By default, only the nation of Eyre, the descendants of the Ancients, can get it. Not a lot of people know about it.”

  “What’s the benefit?”

  “Both in Dorsa and certain other worlds, there are a few difficult dungeons left by the Ancients. The rewards and loot aren’t bad, putting it mildly. There are also caches and mechanisms that can only be activated by those who possess this gene. In other words, when we end up in this kind of dungeon, we always have to have at least one character with us who has it. Only two… no, three people in our clan have it.”