Capítulo 2: Unnamed
2 hours had passed as I was creating my character. This means I still had 3 hours until the game launched. Bloodline Online had been fashioned in the same way as most other games had been these days. It was Only playable while a person slept. That is, it could be played from 10 pm to 6 a.m. 8 hours a day. 7 Days a week. The game would forcibly log you off after.
The game industry had moved this way several years ago when they found that these types of games were extremely addicting, and had effected a persons real life and career. With game time standardized it soon became the norm. For those unlucky souls who happened to work doing those time periods the game company would adjust the game time period for them, allowing them to play as they slept as well.
Because of this, two.different servers were created. They were called they Day and Night servers respectively. The servers ran parallel to each other, never to cross. What was achieved or taken in one server would not effect the other. This led to what was called the gamers market. If a person discovered a secret in one server they could sell it to the other. Most of this trading was done between the majors guilds, who had people in both servers. Occasionally however, a free player would be lucky enough to discover something and could make a decent profit if they sold the secret to the other server.
I was tempted at first to sell the synergy I had found, but quickly decided against it. The information might be valuable, but would also expose the advantage I had as well.
Synergies were something that was well known. Bloodlines online had even went as far as to advertise some of the more common ones. For example a fire element bloodline ability would synergize with a fire ability and fire mastery. An orc bloodline who chose a rage abilty would synergize with the bloodlust ability. The bonuses of these common sense synergies were rather low, usually only lowering the casting cost by 10% and raising the damage by 10%.
When a rare synergy was found the bonuses would increase. If a person found a synergy for a unique bloodline talent like he had, the bonuses would be equally high. However these hidden synergies were not easy to find. It might make sense that the skills symergized now that the effect had happened, it was not something that was even on my mind when I had selected them. I was only trying to make the best out of a bad situation.
My thoughts were interupted as my phone rang beside me. I looked briefly at the caller ID before answering. I did not even have a chance to speak before the excited voice of my best friend Dan greeted me.
"Dude! I can't wait to play. I made an Orc Beserker. He looks so Jacked! My avatar grew by over a foot, and he's complelty ripped. I bet you won't even recognize me!"
"You went with berserk? not rage?"
"Yea, I know we had talked about it, but berserk is so much more powerful than rage, even if the consequences are much higher. Who cares about armor anyways?"
I sighed, he was always like this. "Did you at least get a decent synergy?"
Daniel paused for a moment, but sheepishly began to speak. "Eh, I mean its decent? I chose a skill called Ultimate boxing. It attacks the enemy with my bare hands. That combined with my unarmed mastery gave my a synergy that raises my damage with my fists by 15%. It doesn't lower the mana cost, but that's not suprising as it doesn't cost mana to hit things."
I laughed. "That's not bad at all! Most of the synergies only raise damage by 10%. The extra 5% must be in compensation for the lack of mana cost. What does Ultimate boxing do?"
"It raises my attack speed and damage by 1% with each consecutive punch. I guess it also adds 3 damage per level as a signature skill."
I nodded as I listened. "A passive signature skill, not bad. Beserk raises your damage by half but also lowers your defense by half. Another passive. You're a mean green punching machine. Who was your inspiration? The Hulk?"
Dan let out a nervous laugh, his obsession with the old marvel movies was not a secret. His small physique and nerdy personality often got him picked on in school. His choice of character in Bloodlines was not surprising.
His character would have good growth. His damage to cost ratio would be extremely high, as his abilities cost zero mana to use. His damage would also me fairly decent. He would likely only run into issues when it came to enemies with a lot of armor or damage resistance. No character is perfect, which is why party play has always been a big part of vr games.
We talked for a few more minutes, mainly discussing our plans for the game. We were not allowed to choose our starting village, and could only decide on which city to advance to once we hit level 10. We really only had a single option. Nine out of ten of the cities were run the the light bloodline. As they were mortal enemies with the shadow bloodline we could only choose the tenth city. Not much information was known about the cities, but it was common lore that the world was ruled by the light bloodline.
"Did you really have to choose the shadow bloodline? You know its the most hated bloodlinr in the game."
I shook my head as I spoke. "What choice did I have? You know how I feel about relying on equipment. Ever since That incident with our evil DM I have never played anything that could take my source of protection away. I can't even look at goblins the same after that."
I could hear Dan holding back a laugh. "Come on man You know it was funny."
"You didn't have to experience it. I swear Virtual Reality Dungeons and Dragons should make the DM's pass a psych exam."
"Yea yea, he was banned permanently for that. Just get over it already."
"The videos are still on YouTube Daniel! I cant even log into a game without people calling me a goblin fucker! Thats why I quit playing and started writing remember?"
"... There are still other ways you could have gone. Theirs the blood sword ability the vampires have. The elemental sword signature skill. Hell you could have went unarmed like me."
"Shadow Armament is far better than those abilities. You can't beat true damage."
"So what weapon did you pick? A sword? A spear? Oh I bet it was a dagger."
I paused as he listed off the weapons. The dagger of course was my first choice. A fast light weapon. It had low damage, but the true damage ratio was second only to the pistol. A staggering 90%. Of course someone else had chosen it first.
Daniel jumped onto my hesitation without mercy. "None of those? Don't tell me it was something like a bow? You're better than that Stephen. Don't tell me you're afraid to get up close and personal with the monsters. This isn't D&D. That's not going to happen."
I still didn't say anything. A bow would have been preferable, well if I didn't know about the synergy I had recieved that is.
"So its not a bow either? Then what? Don't tell you got a firearm? You know you can't afford the ammunition for that."
I sighed. He was right of course. Firearm ammunition was expensive. They had announced that at the beginning. The game company included the weapons because they did not want to limit the players choices. They had even included the arcane ammunition skill to compensate for it. Even if the damage was horrendous. But it all went to show that the company truly did not want people to use the weapons.
"The only option that was left was the pistol. I did not want a stealth or illusion ability so I took it. I also took [Arcane Ammuntion] and [Pistol Mastery]. I actually recieved a decent synergy from it, even if my damage potential is much lower than yours."
I did not tell him how good these things actually were. If he knew he would likely blab about it. He was rather talkative and liked to brag.
Daniel sighed. "Idk man. You picked the worst weapon, the worst ability, and the most hated Bloodline. Maybe you should just reroll it in a month. You won't get very far with that. Hell I would be surprised if you can even make it to level 10."
He paused before he spoke again, but whatbhe said broke my heart. "Maybe we should just play separately. I am playing this game to make some extra cash. I don't think it will be possible if I have to carry you. Maybe in a month when you reroll we can play together again if you manage to catch up."
I stayed silent as he spoke, and I remained silent after. What he said made sense from his perspective. He needed to eat as well. But, he hadn't even stopped to consider if my character would be worth it. Hell, even I didn't know if it would be.
The silence afterwords eventually got to him, and he hung up without a goodbye. I could only shake my head. The synergy I got was powerful, but that did not change the fact that my signature skill was still trash. The only redeeming feature of the character was the 100% true damage. Even with an above average damage to cost ratio, my damage was still fixed at a low amount.
But, when I thought about what Daniel said it pissed me off. We had been best friends for 20 years. I had his back from the day we were born, and had protected him from countless bullies. For him to abandon me like this was unacceptable.
My mind slowly cleared, filled with only a single goal. I would take this character that was deemed garbage and rise to the top. I would become the best player I could be.
Status de energia semanal
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