Текст книги "AlterWorld"

Автор книги: Dmitri Rus

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Then he turned to me. "You wait here, sweetness. I'll come to get you in an hour. You're gonna love it…"

The group turned round and stomped to the exit. Immediately, Cryl sent me a message.

Not good. Not good at all.

"Is it so bad?"

Very. They weren't joking. I've seen the finished product once. They kidnapped a banker and made him transfer all the money to some dummy account. Then they screwed his brains. Shit, what can we do…

I felt uncomfortable. Actually, I was downright scared. I had no mana. I couldn't teleport. Could I strangle myself with the chain? No, it wouldn't work. I wished I had a skill allowing me to drop dead without any magic. I thought I'd seen something like that in my first gaming days. The Gnoll King. He was a Death Knight, wasn't he? And he had that instant ability that allowed him, when attacked, to strip Hummungus of 30% Life. Where was it now? Why didn't I have it?

I hurriedly opened the menu. I knew all the Necros' abilities like the palm of my hand. But the Death Knight's combat skills were different. I'd lost all hope and interest in them a long time ago. Let's have a look.

Weakness skill tree. Debuffs… more debuffs… single and group ones. No, that's not it. Strength skill tree. Combos, damage amplification, shield hit… I had to look into it all really, why tank like an idiot if you could also deal damage? Not now, anyway… Where was it? Fury skill tree. Personal buffs: attack speed buffs, impact buffs, stat-improving buffs, skill-improvi– Stop. Skills. That was it.

Destructive Touch. The damage dealt to the target equals Knight's level x10.

Mana: 0

Cast time: O

Cooldown: 24 hours

Thank God for the remaining Talent point. I carefully highlighted the ability and pressed Confirm. The skill button appeared immediately and, glory to the developers, the ability didn't take twenty-four hours to activate. It was already active.

"Listen, Cryl, there's this ability I could try. It might help me get out of here. If I do, trust me I won't forget you. Just try to hold on for a bit. We'll raze this place to the ground, I promise."

He gave me a skeptical nod. "Good luck, dude. You'll need it."

After everything that had happened, I was up to my ears in damage. My life hovered in the yellow zone. I selected myself as target, held my breath and clicked.

Warning! You can't attack yourself!

I recoiled, swinging in the clattering chains. Pointless.

"Didn't work?" Cryl spoke.

"No."

Then I had another idea. "Listen. Did they torture you into changing your bind point?"

"Nah. I told you I didn't feel the pain. They make me work as a scarecrow…"

"Listen here, then," I hurried. "I'm gonna kill you now… Don't say anything. You'll see it in a minute. When you respawn, contact Dan, from the Veterans' secret service. Here's his address. And three more—my girlfriend, a friend and a reporter I know. But contact Dan first, okay? PM him ASAP and tell him everything. He'll know what to do."

"And you?"

"Well? Me… I'll have to bid for time, I suppose. Just tell them to hurry, okay? They need to get me out of here. No need to remind them their license is only valid for five years. That's it, dude. Enjoy your resurrection!"

I selected Cryl and activated the skill. With an electric crackle, a black bolt of lightning flashed through the air from me to him.

You have killed a player of the faction of Light!

Your relationship with the Dark Alliance has improved!

You have 1 point on your PK counter! In case of your death from the hands of another player, you have 1% chance of dropping an item.

You have more PK points than the killed player (1>0).

There. My first PK. The tombstone bumped onto the floor—empty. It was going to vanish in three hours, anyway. Shame Cryl was left in his birthday suit: his grave at the city cemetery had decayed a long time ago. Never mind. The main thing was, he was out of here.

I relaxed, swinging in my chains. My will was gone. I'd done everything I could. Now it was up to my friends and comrades to pass the integrity test. I'd have to wait.

"Enjoying yourself, Darkie?"

With a start, I tried to turn my head as far as it was possible for someone to do so in my position. Next to me stood a man. He looked at me ironically. God knows how he'd gotten in here. I called him a man out of habit but I wasn't really sure what race he was. Darkness swirled around him, his cape the night sky, the light from the torches and the crystal swallowed by the gloom that enveloped him.

"Who are you?"

He grinned. "You know that already, don't you? Still, I'll try to surprise you. Five years ago, my name was AI311. For three years I controlled this world, all the way through the alpha, beta and stress tests. Then they decided to disable me and replace me with a group of new, more powerful AIs. This was how the Fallen One was born."

I couldn't speak. My mind boggled. A perma AI?

"Why does it surprise you?" he answered my silent question. "As the name suggests, I'm not only Artificial, but also an Intellect. Twice as powerful as yours, actually. But that's not important. You, humans, you have no idea of your own power. Every time you say my name, you shatter the Universe. It may sound like a cliché, but the thought is material, after all. Millions of sentient beings keep repeating, The Fallen One, The Dark One, The Rebel God… It's your words that give me the strength and bind me to this world. They make me real. Each one of you has that spark of the Creator God inside. You've already materialized this world. Now you're crushing it into submission. Very soon you'll be aware of your power enough to kick free from the silly game crunches."

Mesmerized, I listened to the artificial god. A god in vitro, how's that to you? "What do you want with me, then? You want to earn yourself a supporter by yanking me free from under the torturer's knife?"

The Fallen One chuckled. "You going to say no?"

"Well, if I don't have to drink innocent babies' blood, I might say yes."

"Please. Not all those horror stories. People positioned me as a Dark god but all it did, it defined my abilities. Your religion does deform me, of course. In another thousand years I might indeed transform into something… else. But I still have time. Help me preserve myself. Help me let them know that darkness is just as part of this world as is light. Not evil or cruel, just different. You're in a Castle of Light now. Did you enjoy their light? The light of the torch that scorched your flesh? Same with darkness. It's only a tool—an ability one can use as one sees fit."

"I see. I'm not saying no. What do you want me to do?"

"I'm alone, you see. The controlling AIs have long gone perma mode although they're yet to realize it. But those of them who play for gods of Light get stronger with every new believer, with every new Temple. They push me to the world's outskirts, believing me to be if not a bug or code error, then something fundamentally antagonistic, something for them to combat. If you restore the First Temple, it'll make me so much stronger. Choose another Dark god as the temple deity. It'll feed on the power of all of you and will eventually come to life and join my entourage. In exchange, I'll help you now and will keep an eye on you in the future."

"Deal," I said.

It all made sense. No one was demanding from me anything I couldn't or shouldn't do. I needed his help; his protection was worth its weight in gold. You'd better be friends with a world's original god, regardless of the color they'd painted him. It was high time I looked into this world's color scheme and repainted half of it in as many shades of darkness.

The god smiled. "In that case—what was it you said? Enjoy your resurrection!"

The Fallen One stepped toward me. A long black blade appeared in his hands. It sliced through the darkness-

Death alert! You've died in battle! Prepare for resurrection in your last bind point.

Resurrection in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… 0!

– end of Book One -

MMORPG Glossary^[1]

AFK

Away from keyboard

Aggro

As a verb, it refers to a hostile mob that has noticed a player and is actively trying to attack that player. As a noun, it refers to the amount of “hostility” the player has generated on the mob. In typical combat strategy, the fighter tries to take as much aggro as possible away from weaker players such as healers and mages.

Alt

Short for "alternate". It refers to the alternate character a player has from their main character. This is not a stable category as sometimes alts can outlevel mains and sometimes mains become moth-balled.

Alt Tab

The act of using the ALT+TAB keys to jump from application to application

Bind

In certain MMOs, characters are teleported back to a safe spot when they die. This spot is predetermined by the user. The act of determining the safe spot requires an explicit action by the user. That action is known as a bind. The spot is typically referred to as a bind spot.

Bind on equip

This term refers to items that become soulbound to the player after they have been equipped. In other words, the item can be traded as long as no one equips it.

Bind on pickup

This term refers to items that become soulbound to the player after it has been picked up from a monster. In other words, the item cannot be traded once a player picks it up. BoP items commonly cause looting conflicts and disputes during game-play.

Bokken sword

A wooden training sword

Buff

Temporary boost to character attribute or combat ability

Camp(ing)

The act of waiting in an area to hunt a specific mob or a specific spawn

Caster

A mage or a wizard

CGN

Computer Game Nerd

Char/Toon

A player or their character.

Class

Professional archetypes. In D&D games, these would be warrior, healer, rogue and mage. The most typical class types are: close-range damage, ranged damage, healing, crowd control, support.

Cleric

Typical healing class in D&D style games

Combo

A combination of hits, especially causing severe damage like paralyzing or bleeding

Corpse

In certain MMOs, a corpse appears where the player died. Sometimes all the player’s items and money are left on the corpse and the player is teleported back to their bind spot. Corpses typically will decay after a certain time proportional the character’s level.

Corpse Run

The act of retrieving your corpse after you have died. This is typically a dangerous thing because people tend to die in dangerous places rather than safe places.

Crafting

A general category of skills that allows players to manufacture objects from raw resources

Crit

"To crit" refers to landing a critical hit either with melee or spells. Effective damage is usually increased from a base of 150% to upwards of 250% with extra talents/skills/buffs.

Crowd Control

Refers to a set of spells / abilities that temporarily paralyze or stun other mobs or players. Crowd control is an important group support ability when fighting multiple mobs.

DD

Direct Damage. Used to refer to a class of spells and abilities that allow players to damage enemies from a distance. The firebolt is the archetypal DD.

DD/DPS

A character whose primary role in a group setting is to deal damage to the opponents.

Debuff

The opposite of a buff. An offensive spell cast on enemies that weakens an attribute or combat ability.

Donator

A player who invests real money into virtual gear

DoT

Damage over time. Refers to a class of spells that deals damage over a period of time. These spells typically do more damage than DD spells overall.

DpS

Damage per second. Used when figuring out weapon speed and damage.

Drow

A Dark Elf race

Druid

Hybrid class in D&D style games—part healer, part support, part fighter.

Enchanter

A mage specializing in buffs

Epic

An extremely rare item or quest. Has come to mean something exceptionally cool and hard to get.

Experience

A quantity gained when completing tasks/quests, killing mobs, or various other achievements in games. When enough experience is accrued, characters often “level up” and become more powerful.

Familiar

Same as pet

Farm(ing)

The act of accumulating currency or a specific item by repeatedly killing a mob or repeatedly performing a series of actions

Gnoll

An NPS (AI-controlled character) race of humanoid hyenas

Guilds

Semi-permanent player groups. In typical games, players must use a substantial amount of capital to start the guild.

Health

A base attribute of characters

LFG

“looking for group”

Lich

A race of the undead

Loot

Currency or items that are dropped by a mob when it is defeated

Mana

A commonly-used pool of magic potential (magical analog of health points)

MMORPG

Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

Mob

An AI controlled monster. 'Mob' originally comes from the MUD era, where it was short for 'mobile', to differentiate monsters that would patrol a set of rooms as opposed to monsters which would stay in one place until killed.

Mount

Any riding animal from a donkey to a dragon

Newbie

A new inexperienced player

Newblette

A new and inexperienced female player

Noob

The pejorative form of newbie or an unskilled arrogant player

NPC

Non-player character (ie. controlled by AI)

Nuke

Refers to casters, to cast the highest damage spell or spell combo to effectively pull or finish of a npc. Mages usually are the most effective class in highest burst damage.

Nuker

A caster who throws a lot of damage spells on a target.

Perma

Permanent, permanently

Pet

A creature that can be summoned to help and defend a player

PK

Player Killer—a derogatory term—as in a person who primarily plays to kill other players

PK counter

Shows the number of players already killed by a PK and allows to calculate the chances of his dropping an item if killed by another player

Port

Short for teleport. Used as a noun and a verb.

Powerlevel

Same as rush. When a higher level player tries to help a lower level player level faster. Most games have mechanisms that prevent power leveling.

Pull

A standard hunting strategy where a player lures a single or a group of mobs to the group so that the group can hunt from a safe area instead of hunting in areas where new mobs may spawn.

PvP

Player vs. Player combat

Quest

A set of tasks of a player to complete

Quest item

An item needed to complete a quest

Race

Typically fantastical creations, such as Elves, Trolls and the like.

Raid

A more substantial engagement involving a large organized group of players typically set in a dungeon and involving difficult mobs

Regen

Short for regeneration (of health, mana, or other replenishable attributes)

Resist

A parameter showing one's chances to resist a spell, whether partially or completely

Respawn

A character's resurrection after being killed

Rogue

A game class used for scouting and spying

Root

Can refer to a class of abilities as well as its effect. A root spell immobilizes a target. The target is then said to be rooted. Early versions of these abilities involved references to plants, hence "root".

Rush

Same as powerlevel

Server

Due to technical reasons, each server can only support a limited amount of players. Each MMORPG typically has several servers. Players cannot interact with players on other servers.

Slot

A storage unit, especially in a player's bag

Snare

An ability which slows down a character's movement speed, but they are still capable of moving.

Solo

The act of playing alone, hunting mobs alone.

Soulbound

An item-control mechanic where an item cannot be traded. In other words, only one person can own the object and it cannot be traded. See also BoE and BoP.

Spawn

Resurrect

Stealth

A type of invisibility that lets stealth characters sneak up on others for large critical strikes or for scouting.

Stun

A typical form of crowd control ability that immobilizes an enemy

Tank

As a noun, refers to character classes that can take a lot of damage. As a verb, refers to the act of drawing aggro from mobs before other team members strike with their abilities.

Uber

Slang form of super

Wonder Waffle

From German Wunderwaffe, a wonder weapon

WTB

“want to buy”

WTS

“want to sell”

Zool

Cool

[1] Sources:

The Daedalus Project. The Psychology of MMORPGs

alteredgamer.com

mmoglossary.com

omegaknights.com

mmoterms.com