9 Chapter 6: First Group

Browsing halfheartedly through the quest board he noted that there was a new one. 'Meet the Royals' had the goal of going to the city of Merildale and introduce himself to the king. It was greyed out. Apparently, it required level 5. Well, he could go on a dungeon run. His skills, both offensive and defensive, were over the soloing minimum of 8. Most were over ten.

"Hey Nat," a voice cheerily asked next to him. Dave continued pondering his course of actions. "Nat! Nathaniel! The level two knight standing in front of the quest board. Yes, you!"

Dave finally realized he was being addressed. Turning he saw that Marieta was next to him shouting in his ear. "Oh. Sorry," he replied in embarrassment. "I'm not used to the name. Only the system calls me that. But even it just usually says 'player'."

"Yeah, I get it," she said good-naturedly. "I used to get a mod that made my chat text multicolor and honk when I got a 'Tell', otherwise no one could ever get me to reply until hours later."

"That would be freakin terrible," groused Aragorn from next to her. "I can imagine 'Tell Hell' with horns and whistles."

"Well, I guess I never had that many people talking to me at once. Not like I was a guild officer. Who wants to do that <beep> in a game. Oh sorry. I mean that's work."

"And they are mostly jerks," Dave interjected.

"Well they have to be," Aragorn said defensively. "Nice officers don't get squat done in a raid. And they can't deal with troublemakers."

"That's not always true," Marieta protested. "I was in a nice guild and our officers were the sweetest people."

"Right. And it was probably ten people, all friends and you didn't raid anything that needed more discipline than a few casual players," Aragorn snorted.

"Maybe," admitted Marieta reluctantly.

"I get it," Dave said. "My last guild was casual. If the expansion hadn't allowed flexible raid sizes and multiple difficulties, we wouldn't have been able to much outside the Raid Finder. And you know what train wrecks those were."

The others nodded in agreement. "I can't wait until the raids start," Aragorn said eagerly. "That's where the heart of MMOs are. Twenty people against a fifty-foot tall monster!"

"Good luck with that," Marieta replied. "There aren't even guilds yet. The raids will be cool with a telepathic link."

"It's going to be rough to get decent raid groups together without tools like a DPS meter. How the <beep>, er, heck am I going to figure out how to optimize my moves without the numbers?"

"Bah, DPS meters ruin the game," the girl replied in disdain. "You just get jerks that know the combos best but are a pain to play with. This game actually has real roleplaying. There's more than just fighting."

Dave stared at her. He hadn't noticed anything except the fighting. "You mean the crafting system? That's really cool!"

"No, I mean the lore. I have been talking to the NPCs and each one has a back story and personality."

Dave and Aragorn looked at her uncomprehendingly. "So? Did they give quests or something?"

"Some did," the girls said, blushing. "I saved a child from a giant rat in the basement and got a 'Knight' vanity title!"

"What the <beep>?" Aragorn said scornfully. "I had to take a husk down with five other players to get a Knight title!"

Dave looked at them uncomprehendingly. It seemed the Knight title was a bit more common than he thought. Then he did a doubletake. "Did you say you took down a husk with six players?"

"Yeah, they are really rough," Aragorn said proudly. "I can totally see how just a few almost destroyed the village."

"Was it an elite version," Dave asked hesitantly.

"I don't think so. I haven't seen elites yet. Maybe in the dungeons we'll see them."

"M&M sixth edition doesn't balance the monsters. It requires the GM to send monsters of the appropriate power level to fight the players or the players to know enough to avoid instant kill fights," recited Marieta. "I am not sure if this means that the fights scale with the players or we are just supposed to avoid monsters we can't take out."

Dave nodded to himself. That explained why six players had it so rough. Soloing in the game was looking like a pretty good option. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be tied to a group to play the game. It was good to know he wouldn't have to call out and whine in OOC chat for a group.

"That reminds me," Dave said. "Is there a Group Finder?"

"Not yet," Marieta responded. "The system said it was under consideration. That's actually why we were trying to get your attention."

"Want to go to the dungeon?" broke in Aragorn.

"Well I don't know," Dave began. He wasn't really into PUGs. He really only wanted to play with his real-life friends. Otherwise, he was fine with soloing.

"We noticed you had the Knight title," Aragorn interrupted. "Did you know that if you group with others with the Knight title it increases your drop rate?"

"There's drops? The system told me there weren't any drops!"

"Yeah it told us that too," Marietta said disdainfully. "Then it told us that the creatures have what they have. They don't get anything more on their death."

"So, the system was just being nitpicky on what drops were," Aragorn said triumphantly.

"That's a typical AI," Dave nodded. "Wow, if there were a thieves class they would rule the world with the Pickpocket skill. It still might be possible. I think the system allows you to make your own skills. I got Stealth and Mask Presence just from trying."

"That's neat! Can..." Marieta started.

"Getting off topic," cut in Aragorn imperiously. "Dungeon?"

"Sure," Dave gave in. They seemed nice. It could be fun. "Do we need more?"

"What kind of template are you working on?" asked Aragorn.

"I kind of ended up monkish. At least in a world without monks," Dave confessed. "I have good hand to hand, body defenses, danger sense and kickass power punch. I was still able to blast them from a distance though, so only sorta-ish a monk."

"Okay, we have a melee tank or striker. The roles are so darn vague its hard to figure out yet," Aragorn said with frustration.

"I figured out how to use TK to bind and slow," Marieta said shyly. "Just like Nat said I tried doing something and the system came up with a skill for it. I also got something called Biomanipulation. It's both a debuffing skill and a healing skill!"

"Nice," Dave said in appreciation. He wasn't the only one finding decent options in the game. "So, your our healer and crowd control."

"I just went with the mage template," Aragorn said. "TK force field, TK barrier, Psi-Blast and wait for it... Pyrokinesis!"

"I didn't even know that was an option," Dave responded in surprise. "Cool so fire mage. Monk, Healer, Fire Mage. For a nontraditional game it's getting to sound pretty traditional."

"You can take the players out of Warcraft but you can't take the Warcraft out of the players," Marieta added wryly. The others smiled.

"Okay, let's go," Dave paused a moment. A moment of concentration and they could feel a mental connection between the three of them. With it, they could communicate and had some instinctive knowledge of each other's hit points and resource points. "You know where the dungeon is?"

"Most of the starting quests are vaguely in the direction of the portal. This was an abandoned, um... nano forge. Whatever that is. Seems like some sort of automated base or factory. The goal is to get to the controls and program the forge to self-destruct. Aragorn wasn't that greyed out before?"

"It must be because we hit a player limit," Aragorn responded. "Maybe it needed three players?"

"I think it requires the Empire Technology skill," Dave volunteered. "I got it during my Knight quest. It allows for some amazingly fun crafting if you get the materials. I can't wait to see if I can get Rebellion technology crafting!"

"Lucky! I love crafting," squealed Marieta excitedly. Dave could tell she was looking at her map as she led them out of the city. "Do you think the game will allow you to learn both? Other games cap you at just a few."

"The game seemed to pride itself on flexibility," Dave answered. "So probably. The Rebellion seemed to be a magic-based coalition so maybe it's like steampunk."

"I think it's like Deridel's stuff, amulets, and jewelry that stored spells," Aragorn volunteered his opinion.

"It must be more than that," Marieta said. "Probably a whole enchanting system to add spells and functions to objects."

"That doesn't sound like a tech tree," Dave said. "That sounds like the Imbue Object talent trees. I bet its steampunk with enchantments."

"I can't wait to find out," Marieta said. "I was all about the crafting in the last game. I got rich! In game at least. Too bad that game is never going VMMO."

"Anybody know anything about the economy? I haven't seen gold, credits or anything that looks like currency," Dave asked.

"We live in a kingdom so they can't possibly live on barter. When that means anything to players... who knows. Maybe they'll connect the currency to the real world. Imagine being rich in the real world too Marieta."

"I hope not," the girl sniffed disdainfully. "Gold farming ruins games. And the entire 'Pay to Win' direction the MMOs have been going is disastrous."

"It does suck a bit," Dave said. "On the other hand, people were buying gold to get around days of grinding the same <beep> over and over. I hate grinding."

Marieta nodded. They had traveled out of the city and towards the portal's direction. Moving in a group was definitely slower than moving on his own. Dave started to scout ahead a bit and then head back. He also practiced his stealth at the same time. Fortunately, with the telepathic link, they were still in contact.

"Ugh, grinding," agreed the girl.

"Eh, I liked the dailies," countered Aragorn. "It kept me busy in between the raids."

"Dailies and raids," muttered Dave disdainfully. "Two forms of grinding. When Everquest first came out you could barely communicate with the NPCs, let alone get quests without looking things up on the Worldnet. It pretty much was research where a drop was and camp that mob's spawn point until it dropped. I remember camping a giant's spawn point for literally three days and nights for a pair of boots that increased my speed by 10%!"

"Ah the good old day," Aragorn said while grinning.

"The nutso days," Dave said in disagreement. "I must have been brain damaged to consider camping a spawn point fun."

"Eh, it was the evolution of MMOs," Aragorn casually waved his argument away. "Grindings a lot more fun these days. Repeatable quests and fishing for the win."

"No... just no," Dave moaned. "Thankfully, I haven't seen anything like that here. Although the travel isn't too fun. Oh, wait a husk."

Dave spied a husk wandering the plains, huge sword over its shoulder. Since he was already stealthed, he simply approached it from the rear and hit it with his biggest combo in its weak spot. Just like the first one it went rocketing backward from the impact and lay still.

"Just lay low until we get there," Aragorn stated with urgency. "It will be tough but I think we can take it."

"Heh heh," Dave chuckled in embarrassment. "Um, I already took it out."

"What?" Aragorn squealed over the link. "No way! It took six of us thirty minutes to take one down earlier today."

"I think it scales," Dave said with a shrug. His two companions came in sight a moment later.

"Still... holy cow! Is that an impression of your foot?"

"Yeah, I think a kick is a bit more powerful than a punch. Though its harder to get multiple skills to trigger at once."

"Wait, you got more than one skill to trigger at once?" Marieta asked.

"Yeah I think they stack," Dave said hesitantly. "I am not sure if it's linear or not. No DPS meter, you know."

"Oh, no wonder," Aragorn nodded in wonder. "I guess we did it the hard way. I'll have to see what ranged skill I can get to stack."

"Do you think crowd control skills stack? They don't really in most other games," the girl asked. "No loot?"

"Try it," Dave suggested. "The game seems to reward experimentation. It even said that if you invent a skill not already in the system you can name it. All the husk had was its lousy sword."

"Maybe it can be melted down," joked Aragorn. "I think that may be the entrance."

Dave looked where Aragorn was pointing and saw a small door-less entryway, barely visible in the distance. A touch of Remote Viewing and he could see that inside was a stairwell that lead downward.

"Let's go see what a dungeon in this game looks like."