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.Hack Paradise - Play Session1

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.Hack// Paradise - Play Session 1


'Now logging into The World R:4'

The message lit up as the game loaded for the very first time, patching itself in the process. And as the small bar in the lower right corner of the screen reached a hundred percent, the message faded to black along with the screen before the main menu came into focus. No new mail, no new messages on the board. Only an announcement saying 'Welcome to The World R:4' and whatnot laying in ambush for when the 'Launch The World' button was pushed. Hitting the 'Close' button had never been more satisfying.

But, starting from scratch was never a fun thing to do. During the incident in R:3, CC Corp. had to wipe their servers and hard drives, deleting everyone's characters, even those of the mods. Although I found the thought of mods running around trying to level up their characters rather amusing, since they couldn't allow themselves to alter their character's data, this also meant I had to level up again.. Great. Going from a level 137 Flick Reaper to a level 1 newbie in the blink of an eye was something I hadn't even dreamt in my wildest dreams, but it was a necessity, I had guessed. But I had other things to think about. After all, the Paradise expansion pack had brought four new character classes to The World, amongst other things. I had been playing with the idea of going back to my old class, seeing as I already knew what to do, but that wouldn't be very challenging. I found the Steam Gunner class, being able to attack from afar, and the Adept Rogue class, being able to wield different types of weapons, to be tempting. Adept Rouges never learned the strongest skills though, because of their wide choices of weapons. After all, that'd end in one extremely overpowered class. This meant they were only able to learn five or six skills for each weapon class, plus quite a few spells to compensate for the lost skills.

Before I knew it, I found myself to be standing in the middle of a town square, players walking by, talking and laughing. I had to admit, I was surprised. I'd expected a lot of R:4, but that surpassed my expectations by ten folds. The graphics were amazing, and so lifelike. And character control was so much easier, and more realistic than in R:3. Although I felt like a gaming addict for thinking it, it seemed so real. Hell, it even felt real. It felt as if the wind blew in my face, and truth be told, I actually forgot it was just a game for a few moments.

I had my character look around slightly, figuring I might as well check out the town I had spawned in, before heading out to regain my lost, beloved levels. From where I stood, I could barely manage to get a small glimpse of a weapons shop, along with quite a few more buildings, through the masses of players walking past me. It appeared as though the Root Town - the town players spawn in when logging into The World - of the Ω Omega server had been modelled based on Greek architecture. Huge, more or less rectangular buildings surrounded me in the distance, with ceilings  supported by many pillars. It truly was a magnificent sight.

I tightened my hands into fists, and turned around, now facing the spawning point that was behind me. The spawning point, called 'Chaos Gates' in The World, consisted of mainly two spinning golden circles; each circle around ten centimetres thick, and roughly two or three meters in diameter. They were spinning unevenly, and around one another, emitting a feint blue glow as they did. These gates were also serving as a type of transport, sending players to different areas upon a phrase being said. The phrase consisted of three keywords, and varies depending on the area. Drops, monster levels, and environmental effects also varied depending on the phrase. It was an interesting, and different system, in my opinion, that allowed nearly endless combinations of keywords.

I drew a deep breath before raising my arm, hand still tightened into a fist saying " Tenacious Training Plains! " And so, everything faded to white. It was an area designed for new players, giving them a nice and easy start to the game. And as a 'new player', it was the only area I could visit at the moment; since I was only a level 1 character without a job. One of those problems would soon be solved though. One of the new features in R:4 was that one could pick a job when visiting one's first area, and having given it a little thought, I'd decided to go as an Adept Rogue. The ability to wield different types of weapons was just too tempting to turn down, and besides, I'd always have the upper hand no matter the situation that way; specializing with one weapon, and using the others are side-arms.

A few moments after pushing the 'Finish' button, having chosen my job, and altered my appearance ever so slightly, the field of 'Tenacious Training Plains' came into focus. Standing with my height of 5.7 feet, I looked around, a gust of wind causing my shoulder length, black hair to move accordingly. My character, named 'Rome', wore a black west, and black pants. Like every other character in The World, my character had 'wave symbols' too. The three stripes going from my shoulder to my wrist on both my left and right side bore a dark green colour to them. These were randomly generates, as far as I knew. I didn't know why, I just didn't like them. And besides, they didn't provide any stat boosts, so I didn't see the need.

As I started making my way from the Chaos Gate, down the small, grassy hill towards the open plain, and towards one of the portals monsters spawned by. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from a 'Newbie area', and when the portal started pulsating with a purple glow, I drew out my weapon. The portals themselves hadn't been modified from R:3 from what I could see, but I was guessing the monster that would jump and rush me had. My sword, the only weapon I currently possessed, was nothing to show off either. It was a level 1 Basic Sword, dealing roughly about 2 damage, and providing my with a physical accuracy boost of +1. Yes, I know, it was as crappy as crappy could get, but I wasn't much of a bare hands fighter, so it was my only means of defending myself.

Like I had foreseen, the monster attacked in the very moment it spawned, running towards me, sounding rather disturbing as it swung its arms around in a rather silly fashion. I glanced at the nametag right above the monster's head. 'Distraught goblin'. I chuckled to myself, before sidestepping, allowing the freak to run past me. There's a level 1 monster for you. But, although it was small, it had nearly double the amount of hit points that I had, which gave him about 25 hit points in total, adding to that, a small blade the creature was flailing around as it did a 180 degree turn back towards me, it would deal some serious damage to me, who only had some very light armour equipped. At best, my armour, giving me a defence boost of +8 in total, would remove two points worth of damage from the creature's attack.

I swung my blade around a few times, just to get a feel of it, while watching the distance between me and this 'Distraught goblin' become smaller and smaller. Eight meters. Five meters. Three. One. I had my character sidestep, allowing the monster to run past me again, before I spun around, sending my blade into the back of its small skull. It fell to the ground, and I straightened up and turned around. A small number jumped out of the life bar of the monster, causing it to shrink slightly. 15. I had done fifteen whole points worth of damage to the creature. A critical hit, in other words, since I normally wouldn't be able to do more than 5 – 8 damage. After recovering from the critical hit, the goblin plunged at me once more, roaring. I side stepped again, and brought my blade down on it. It fell, and I quickly finished it off. It lay there for a few moments, before turning into a gray-like colour and disappearing pixel by pixel.

CC Corporation had definitely improved the combat system in several ways, making it more dynamic, life-like and what not, but I still felt that beating a monster that could barely be described as a level one monster to be boring. I wanted to take on one of the tougher monsters out there, to level up quickly, and to acquire more powerful weapons like a pistol and a scythe, planning on specializing in the latter. It would have to wait though. After all, it was getting late, and I had school the next day, with a test in Math at the end of the day. Not that I would be able to sleep, but I had to try.  Wait, a test in Math? That wasn't good. That wasn't good at all. I hadn't even begun to prepare for it. I'd been too caught up in The World to remember. I quickly ended up at the main menu with the push of a single button, and clicked the 'Log Out' button, watching as everything faded to black, and a message lighting up in the darkness;

'Now logging out of The World R:4'

Once back in the real world, I quickly removed the head mounted display and stood up in the darkness of my room, making my way over to my backpack. I lived alone in a small apartment in Blackpool, Lancashire in England, near the sea. 18 Delphene Avenue to be precise. It was a small, kind of green house with a white door and a gray roof, which I rented from the landlord who was currently on vacation. My school, Blackpool Sixth Form, was a little south of the house I was currently residing in. The collage had 1900 students in total, of which three were my friends. Yeah, I wasn't the most popular nor the most social kid, but the few friends I had were good friends; Ellie Mathiews, one year younger than me, Adam Parker, one of my classmates, and Kate Jenkins, another of my classmates.

Stepping into my room, book in hand, I flipped the light switch, revealing my messy room. It had clothes here and there, a basket of laundry – which I totally had plans on doing something about – beside my bed, and another one the chair by my desk. Or at least that's what I thought it was. I couldn't really tell. But meh, I had more important things at hand, like studying for a test the following day. I'd have to ask Adam for his notes before class, just in case. He was the smart one out of the two of us. Laying down on my bed, sighing loudly, I opened the book creatively titled 'Math', and flipped through the pages until reaching chapter four, 'Geometry'. I sighed again, louder this time, picturing the grade 'C' sprouting wings and flying away in front of my eyes. " Right.. " I mumbled, turning the page again, starting to mumble to myself again. " Points are the basis of all Geometry. There are so many things you can do with the little buggers that the possibilities are endless. Points are zero-dimensional. That basically means that they have no height, length, or width. They are just there. There are four main definitions of a point. They are the dot, the exact location, the ordered pair, and the-.. " And with that, I dozed off, dropping my book in the process.
So, the first part of my .Hack// Paradise story. I'm going to be writing each play session, as well as a little bit about what happens in the main character's life.

As always, I'd love some constructive critisicm and suggestions.
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