Cyberlife the Game: VR Verse
The Lead-up
The release of the new VR game, “Cyberlife”, was highly anticipated. It was the first game which could lay claim to a real, completely immersive experience - several top gaming athletes pledged to be there for the release on November 5th, 2038, being some of the lucky few who received personal copies of the game for its beta testing, a week before the commercial launch of the game. The remaining players, totaling 10,000 across the United States of America (for the beta program, a local release), were selected at random from a raffle for spaces which many fans claimed to have been rigged when one player was selected twice in a row, and it probably was - but Elijah Kamski (eccentric, Elon-Musk-type figure, and the founder and owner of the Cyberlife Co.) didn’t mind if you entered one time or a thousand. Getting into the game was a matter of ‘wanting it enough’, and boy, did people want it.
With all 10,000 initial players selected, the Cyberlife company delivered immersive virtual reality sets to each lucky raffle winner, in what many people called the most ambitious publicity stunt for a new gaming company ever seen within the US. Elijah Kamski called it a ‘commitment to accessibility’.
The Reckoning
November 5th, 4:00pm. The day of the release, Cyberlife’s network finally comes online - everybody’s copies of the game now can connect to the golden gates that shimmer in the empty space of the Virtual World hosted by Cyberlife Co, waiting to be populated with various other immersive reality games once developers could work out how to make their work compatible with Cyberlife VR gear. Players spill into this Virtual World by the thousands, and many are there to witness the unchaining of these heavenly gates as they open onto the starter town within the First Level. This area is called Alther City; it’s a bustling little cyber town modeled after Detroit, fashioned of smooth concrete and metal. Paths and homely but low-level shops lining the streets, including two competing breweries called Hog’s East and Hog’s West (where many of the first low-level ‘mission’s from NPCs are delivered). Alther City makes up the vast majority of the First Level - it’s just this town, crawling with low-level creatures for leveling purposes, and sprawling suburbia: empty houses waiting to be filled.
Some people venture out into the empty houses and wonder why there are so many vacant places. A ghost event, maybe? Sites that will be filled with NPCs the further you progress in the story? Mr Kamski promised a formal announcement at 5:00pm, so people stick around until then, some trickling in closer to the time and others eager to find as much as they can in the time that they have. Some of the elite gamers have logged in using their gaming handles. Others have used pseudonyms, so they can enjoy the game as they please for the beta test period, without the excitement of the crowds.
5:00pm arrives. They’re all gathered in the central square of Alther. Ten thousand people, in a crowd, watch as the sky splits into a shining white screen, and Kamski steps into view.
Thank you all for joining Cyberlife this evening. We are delighted to have you. My name is Elijah Kamski, founder of the Cyberlife Co. I know you’ve all been as excited as I have to make this immersive experience a reality. You are currently on the First Level - this is a safe space for all players. PvP is not enabled here, and you may store your items safely with any of the friendly NPCs without fear that they may be stolen.
Now, I’m sure your aware that Cyberlife Co is always striving for the best, most immersive gaming experience. I would like to announce a revolutionary new experiment which you have all helpfully volunteered to be a part of: I call it ‘Cyberlife’. I have always wondered, what would people do, when forced to live one? A cyber life, that is. Well, we’re all going to find out, today.
Many of you will have found there is no ‘logout’ button within your user menus.This is not a glitch, and it will not be remedied. The only way to leave this cyber life you’re living is through death - which will happen, also, in the real world; I don’t suggest you experiment - or by someone in the ten thousand of you defeating Cyberlife’s final boss; no spoilers as to who or what that might be. The final boss is located on the Fifth Level.
Happy gaming.
Ten thousand people in the square erupt, at once, first into panicked murmurings - and then something closer to a riot.
Game Mechanics
Take and leave these as you please, they’re suggestions! Adjust as necessary for plot/etc.
If you die in the game you die in real life. No exceptions. If you lose internet connection in real life, you have a 72 hour grace period where you may be comatose. Any longer than that, automatic game over.
Those empty houses are meant to be for purchase or rent. Having a house has a lot of benefits - including the fact you won’t freeze to death, and access to a synthesis room, which you can use to make higher-level medpacks, weapons, armour, etc out of foraged or won items. You’d have to purchase these, otherwise.
There are five Levels. You may travel between levels freely once you have gained access to them - to gain access, you will need to defeat each Level’s local boss. Exploration and preparation is vital, as well as information sharing: a Level might have some clues scattered around with NPCs, but you very well could accidentally walk into a boss fight while exploring. Be prepared, be cautious, but if you don’t explore you’ll never find the boss.
Parties of up to ten players.
Guilds of up to 1,000 players. Guilds can have their own chat rooms. They have names to refer to themselves. The most well-known and biggest guild is Jericho. If someone dies in your guild it is announced to the entire guild. Very Hunger Games cannon-esque. It’s got its own chime. Ringadingding, xyz is dead.
Probably one of the guilds is a self-declared policing body. Let’s hope they’re good at it.
You still gotta eat. If your hunger stat is too low, NPCs at bars will offer to let you work for a meal; nobody will starve, unless they refuse to work.
Weaponries and armorists do exist. Cost is in-game currency (earned through drops or trades with other players). They sell daggers/knucklebusters for low-level melee, guns (sniper rifles! Pistols, shotguns - different stats), ammo, low-level medpacks (anything higher you will need to synthesise yourself), one grenade at a time (these are usually consumable pick-up from decently-leveled monsters), and the more common synthesis materials if you just need a quick top-up of the last 5 leathers, etc. Armorists sell different levels of armor - bullet proof vests, chain mail, damage-returning xyzs... all at the cost of stealth and mobility. Some people choose not to wear any armor at all. Others, panicked, wear everything they can get their hands on.
Killing is not the only option. Besides bosses, you can stun creatures and make them drop whatever they’re carrying, and they will still scurry off. You gotta kill the bosses. Sneaking past would-be combats because your stealth is high enough? Strategic AND useful.
You can kill NPCs. Everybody suffers the loss of that NPC for a week. ‘WEAPONRY CLOSED DUE TO MURDER’ until a ‘new’ NPC comes to replace them. People get upset. And annoyed. You don’t kill the NPCs.
Classes: there are no formal classes. People aren’t divided into types of people irl and they aren’t in the game, either. You can cross and mix and create your own playstyle - yes people will tend to have things they lean towards and roles within their parties, but hey. You don’t get any stat boost for pre-determining what you want to play as.
You can share information or choose not to. If you have mapped something it’s usually better to share this information with everyone - there is a communal open-source live map for access, but not everyone contributes everything they know, because people are like that.
There is friendly fire, be careful out there
Certain (expensive) tech artefacts with particular powers. You can make these up as needed for plot devices, but some useful things to think about:
Teleportation watch - allows you to insta-teleport yourself and your party with you to your house. Should a boss ever escape/rampage into the main city of a Level you’re on (or you just come face to face with one by mistake), this will be extremely advantageous.
Healing nanobots - restores a small amount of health at a time, but continuously. Good for cases of chronic damage. If you lose 3HP a minute to a chronic issue but gain 10HP every 3 minutes, you should still be able to sleep soundly.
Contact Cards. There are three Contact Cards in the entire game. They are awarded to players of significance - e.g. the first to locate the First Level’s boss, the first to uncover important game lore, the first to reach the Third Level, etc. Contact Cards are non-transferable (though you can use them on someone else’s behalf) items which allow the user a fifteen-minute phonecall home (to the real world). Fifteen minutes only. This includes ringtime. No more no less, but you can call any phone number in the world, for any reason, and you can use 5 minutes on one phonecall and 10 on another, if you like. If your character would never earn a CC - consider whether they might be able to win a raffle for one. I’m sure they’d be good to raffle off the use of, at a profit.
First party to beat a boss gets good items. Everyone thereafter gets recipes to synthesise those items. You will need a copy of the recipe and all items on it to synthesize - if you want to make two, you will need two copies.
You can PVP and stake items on the outcome. Be careful to define what a ‘defeat’ is, but this is a good way for people to identify those elite players/prove themselves to each other AS elite players/just to be able to get some sparring practice in, and gambling.
Once the game is over/someone has beaten the final boss, everyone is put back to their normal lives. I don’t believe in muscle wastage because being true to life at expense of plot convenience doesn’t appeal to me, but hey, each their own. Consider the reunion threads!!! the finding each other threads!!!
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