As One Thing Ends

October 5th, 2035, the popular game Kingdom of Warmasters officially shut down its servers for the final time. A masterpiece in its own right, it garnered millions of players on each continental server where the top minds in the world waged war against one another in order to gain recourses, XP and clout over other guilds.

Kingdom of Warmasters had a zealous following and player base that withstood the test of time, for ten strong years it dominated the gaming scene due to it's player driven content and it's unique playstyle not often seen in other MMORPGs.

Unfortunately it was not going to last, with the release of new technology and new games Kingdom of Warmasters slowly died out as VRMMO's became the new big thing, with competitors like Arcadia Online which introduced mechanics such as flying or Art of the Blade online and it's intense sword based mechanics there was no longer a niche for old school games where full dive VR was becoming more and more accessible to the general public.

On the final day of the closing of the servers Nicholas watched as his life work slowly came to be redundant, once a top player within the world he became reduced to nothing more than a shut in NEET with no income or qualifications to speak of.

Nicholas was a guild owner of one of the top guilds, ranked within the top 50 players his mechanics were almost unparalleled in the rankings but what really stood out was his tactical ability and mind for war. Strategy games were always Nicholas' go to and when he heard he could micromanage multiple real people in a real time strategy game he jumped at the chance and after many years he built himself up to be a top player.

After many months of silence from the parent company Twelvepence a small teaser was released which revealed the development of a new MMO that had awfully similar game design, mechanics and even concept as Warmasters but instead it will be given updated graphics, engine and most importantly is access through the newest VR technology. Warmasters was coming to Virtual Reality!

It was clear that the shut down of the Warmasters servers was to make way for the next large project that was going to change Nicholas' life, and it was named Conqueror Online. An MMO based off five great empires; Brittania, Qin Empire, The Khanate, The Imperium and Lacedaemonia.

Each empire has it's real life equivalent and history that translates differently into the game as to simulate a true real world scenario where millions of people will fight one another for dominance over the world of Gaia and lead their nations and people to victory drawing similar parallels to a certain game that was released in 2012 but with a much more ambitious style of gameplay.

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Nicholas stared at his computer screen, the monitor dated and doesn't even incorporate magnificent holographic technology stared back at him. He'd been like this for an hour or so, tracking the time in which his package was going to arrive, his full dive headset. It had been five years since commercial use of such a headset was first released and so he saved up a large amount of money and took out a loan so he could afford this new headset that was made for the specific game, Conqueror Online.

As the time grew ever closer to the estimated time in which his beloved headset was going to arrive his heartbeat grew in anticipation. "Jesus, what am I getting so excited for? It's just a game..." Nicholas spoke to himself in the dark of his room. His room was quite small being only big enough to hold his mattress on the floor and a desk opposite it. Since the closing down of Warmasters, he had to get several part time jobs, living wage was no where near the minimum wage so he had to move out of the apartment he was staying in and get an old crappy one just to be able to keep up with rent and food costs.

After what felt like a lifetime of waiting there was a loud buzz that filled the apartment, his package had finally arrived! Racing through his small apartment he busted open the front door bounding down the hallway and to the stairs as he raced down them like a madman only to realise half way that he was one of the most inactive people on the planet, Nicholas wasn't overweight or anything as he didn't eat enough of anything to be able to gain a substantial amount of weight and such he quickly grew out of breath and took the elevator the rest of the way instead.

After reaching the bottom floor and catching his breath he quickly moved towards the front door and noticed the delivery driver walking away from the door with HIS package in hand, "HEYYY WAIT!!!" Nicholas bellowed in an attempt to gain the attention of the delivery man. Flustered the man quickly jumped and looked back to Nicholas who had a crazed look in his eye as he stared at the box in the hands of the man. Slightly trembling the man stared at the unkempt man who for seemingly no reason yelled at him.

"Box... Hand now please." being out of breath Nicholas struggled to get his words out as the terrified man placed the box on the ground before slowly backing away facing Nicholas as though he was some wild beast. Moving quickly forward Nicholas grasped the box in his paws and rushed back up to his room. With a little more wit he took the elevator instead of going up those god forsaken stairs.