章節 1: Unnamed
I smiled as I accepted the package from the delivery man. This is the item I had been waiting for all year. The New Virtual Reality game Bloodline Online was set to release at 10 tonight. This game had been hyped up and advertised for the last three years. The beta players had raved about the game.
The various Esport companies that sponsored guilds have already announced that this game will be their next big project. This meant that ordinary people had a chance to earn some income.
The world had changed a lot in the last century. As artifical intelligence and robotics were on the rise, more and more jobs were lost. Now, most ordinary people could not find a job, and lived off of the low monthly stipend the government gave out.
I was one of the people. I was not a dumb person, nor was I overly smart. I was remarkably average. I got decent grades in school, and even managed to make it into a halway decent college. I had majored in creative writing, and made enough from my webnovels to not be forced to eat top Ramen every day of the week. I was not truly successful, but I knew I had it better than most of the others out there.
That was until my webnovel got shut down when a new editor took over. My novel was not attractive enough for them to keep on, and my contract was canceled. I held no hard feelings towards the editor, this was life in the business. I knew I would just have to come up with a new novel that would attract more attention.
Unfortunately, as much as I tried I was unable to come up with new ideas. I spend countless days in front of a notebook, but I never once touched my pencil. I would simply stare off into space, my mind unable to grasp any sort of new ideas. Eventually I gave up. I knew my muse had left me, but would eventually return.
I spent countless days surfing the internet, my dwindling stash of funds disapearing at an alarming rate. It was then that I stumbled upon the advertisements for this game. Bloodline Online. As I researched, and found that more and more Esport companies were investing, I knew this was my chance.
My savings had nearly run dry, but I had barely enough to buy a game helmet. I only hesitated a moment before I made the purchase. This was 3 months ago, and my helmet had finally arrived today. It was only 5pm, I had 5 hours to wait. The game could not be played until it was released, but the company still allowed the players to create their character before hand.
I quickly rushed to my bed, and activated the game helmet. The world around me went black, as the world of the game came before me.
There was a large timer in the center of my screen. In bright red letters it listed off the time until the game could start. 4:47:52.
My attention was held only briefly by the timer before it was captured by a small floating fairy appearing before me. She wore a leaf green dress and had blond hair. She had a melodious voice, that was completly different from the old AI voices from the 2,000's. Her voice reminded me of an angel.
"Welcome user 5789234, the game will start when the timer reaches zero. Would you like to create your character as you wait?"
I quickly agreed, and a screen with a blank character in front of me.
An artifical voice sounded in my ear, one that sounded official, as if it had come from a government agency.
"Scanning body, please do not panic."
I could feel a warm sensation coming from the gaming helmet. The warmth was uncomfortable, and I could immediately understand why the system had warned me.
As the warmth slowly faded away an image of myself appeared before me. The image was as if looking at a mirror, everything was correct. A slight chill ran down my spine as I looked at it, but I quicklu shifted my attention the options that appeared next to the image.
Bloodline was different from most other games. There was not a concept of class. A person was free to design their character as the pleased. If a person wanted to play as an assassin type character they could, or any of the other major archetypes. But at the same time they could also play as a tank that used fire magic, or a mage that used a huge two handed sword.
But their were four major components to a character that determined the growth of your character.
The first was Bloodline. All players in the game were human, but what differentiated them were their bloodlines. The bloodline you selected determined your reputation with factions, the development of your character, and your Bloodline talent.
The second was the bloodline talent. The bloodline talent was an ability unique to the bloodline. Each bloodline had countless abilities, but only a single one of them could be chosen. These talents could be litterally anything. From increased damage with a weapon or spell, increased mana regeneration, or even an upgrade to forging or enchanting. Your bloodline talent enhanced your direction of growth.
The third was your signature skill. A signature skill was a level 0 skill that leveled up as you did. Signature skills were the same as the skills a person could learn in game, but only a single skill could be a signature skill, all other skills were fixed at a certain point that would not change. A signature skill was what made or broke a character. If it synergized with the bloodline skill a person took it would recieve bonuses.
The last was a mastery skill. The only chance a player had of obtaining a mastery skill was at this point. These skills increased the effectiveness of weapons, magic, abilities, or skills.
All four of these choices were the foundation of your character. They would determine your path of growth in the game. Unfortunately they were irreversible. If your character did not turn out how you wanted you could only blame yourself and reroll. Your character would be deleted, and all progress and items you had would be gone just like that. Very few people would chose to do that though, as even the worst set up character could be amazing if played right. It was up to each player to find their own path.
As I had spent 3 month obsessing over the start of this game I had already had a good idea about the backgrounds of each of the bloodlines. The orc bloodline was violent and excelled in melee combat and fire magic. The goblin bloodline was crafty and smart, they were incredible engineers. Dwarves were great blacksmiths, warriors,, and had an affinity with the earth element. Elemental bloodlines each focused on one of the elements. The elf bloodline was good at wood magic and archery.
The bloodline I wanted was not of these mainstream ones however. It was an obscure bloodline from the realm of shadow.
[Shadow Bloodline]
Your ancestors were banished to the realm of shadow. People of all bloodlines look at you with scorn because of the evils yours ancestors brought onto the world. Reptuation with all other bloodlines start at 1 stage lower. Reputation with the Light bloodline is Hostile.
The negatives of this bloodline were readily apparent. But bloodlines online was rather balanced. The negative the bloodline would only mean that the talents of the bloodline would be strong. Whether a player would be able to overcome the huge drawback was something that only the player could decide. The light bloodline was a prominent bloodline, and most players were predicted to choose this bloodline as the reputation with other bloodlines started at an entire stage higher in comparison to the other bloodlines.
With the selection of my bloodline selected I quickly moved on to the bloodline abilities. I quickly browsed through them. The general consession I found was that the majority were focused on stealth and illusion. This was not surprising, as the bloodline was forced to survive in a plane of existence that was extremely hostile. The bloodline was forced to sneak around to survive.
The best thieves and assassins would come from this bloodline. This is not what I was interested in however. The Shadow bloodline had an elite group of warriors who were responsible for defending the rest of the tribe. These warriors all had one thing in common, Their bloodline talent was [Shadow Armament].
It took me half an hour before I finally located a shadow Armament. I was dismayed to find that most of the shadow talents had been grayed out. They were unable to be selected. The only remaining one was [Shadow Armament: Pistol].
I hesitated a moment before selecting it. Shadow armaments were weapons that had been formed by condensing shadow energy. They had the unique property of dealing a portion of their damage as true damage. The amount of true damage depended on the type of weapon. A good rule of thumb was the more damage a weapon did, the less true damage it had. Pistols were the only weapon that had 100% true damage.
The problem was is that pistols were one of the weakest weapons in the game. They had no damage individually, and relied completly on ammunition for damage. Other firearms also had this issue, but added damage on top of it, or had an incredibly high fire rate to compensate. Pistols only did ammunition damage and their firing speed was much lower than an automatic weapon. They were mainly used as an offhand weapon.
The second problem is that ammunution was incredibly expensive. The only way to compensate for this was to craft your own. Unfortunately unless you had a high alchemy or engineering score, most homemade ammunition would result in either a dud or a misfire. This meant that only the rich could enjoy using firearms.
I sighed, as I selected the ability. I had no desire to play as a thief, or an illusionist. I had already selected my bloodline and there was no going back. I would be ineligable for a reroll for 30 days. Thankfully I knew of an ability I could select for my signature skill. I had seen it as I had been browsing the forums. It had been described as a useless ability countless times by the beta testers.
The skill was called [Arcane Projectile]. It was a spell like ability that cost 2 mana to cast. It did 10 points of non elemental damage. The skill was pitifully weak. Its mana cost was low, but the damage it did was almost negligible. The cost to ratio was not even a quarter of the best abilities out there. Even average abilities would do at least 70% of the best ones. The worst part of the skill though was that it required a ranged weapon to use. Most ammunition in the game did far more damage than this skill, and besides the bullets for firearms they were all extremely cheap.
I once again sighed as I selected [Arcane Projectile] as my signature skill. The skill would Level as I did, meaning the damage would upgrade as I leveled. It would always be inferior to real ammunition, but the only cost it had for me was mana.
The last of the big four to select was my mastery ability. This one I had no need to think about at all as their was only a single mastery that suited my skill set.
[Pistol Mastery] Adds 5 bonus points of damage when using a pistol. Increases firing speed and accuracy by 10%. level 1/5.
The bonus damage from [Pistol Mastery] was a unique feature for mastery skills. Most mastery skills would increase attack or spells speed, accuracy and damage by 10%. As pistols did not have any base damage the skill simply added damage.
This is not to say their were not pistols out there that added damage to the shots, but these would be magical weapons and the extra damage would be a special effect. Not that this would matter for me, as I already had a built in weapon with my [Shadow Armament:Pistol].
I gave a stiff smile as I observed my character screen. My avatar, which had once been my twin had changed not so subtly. The unique features of the shadow bloodline had infected my avatar, leaving dark swiring tattoo like marks over the exposed skin. My brown hair had turned into shade of black that was far darker than anything I had ever seen before.
My eyes only hovered over the image of my Avatar for a moment before they were drawn to small blue letters under my skill screen.
<Skill Synergy. [Shadow Armament: Pistol] + [Arcane Projectile] + [Pistol Mastery]. Mana cost of [Arcane Projectile] reduced by half. Skill does 50% more damage.>
My jaw dropped as I looked at the effects of the synergy. A single shot cost half the mana and did 1.5 times the damage. This synergistic effect increased my damage to cost ratio from a 25% to a 75%. This was slightly better than average. Because of the effects of my bloodline ability this would all be true damage.
I couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps my future would not be as bleak as I had imagined. With the power of this Synergy maybe I could stop living off romen noodles for a while.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票