Age of heroes and gods was too different to normal games, to put it simply, it was too realistic in consideretion with the level of social development and tecnology the game was set in, the world was composed of empires and kingdoms, noblity ruled but at list they didn't dare abuse of their power too much, the reason were the gods, the gods were real and people that prayed to them gave them glory, so they mostly prefered a group of people praying over a single noble that probably didn't even respected them. So society were stable this way, the ideal way of feudalism. But even so, noblity and royalty were supreme and they protected their positions with fervor, so political conflict existed and more importantly, there didn't exist armed people that didn't belong to a country, so there didn't exist an adventures guild or the likes, most of the blacksmith, alchemist and engineers belonged to the kingdoms or an expecific noble. So, the players belonged to the army and the quest were missions for squads (10 man), companies (100 man), legions (1000 man) and so on, and at the same time for different military ranks, the higher the harder and different was your position as you could become a commander.
There were all kind of conflicts, internal, fights between nobles, normal monsters subjugacions that were the territories lords responsibility, and external, war against other countries, or the apparition of special monsters, this were monster destined to be kings of their race and governed over them, with this the normaly scatered, simple-minded and unorganized monters became a force to be reconed, even conquered other monsters and created armies. Also extremely powerful monsters that come out from their slumber or hiding like dragons and the like. And finally the demons, they come from their own dimension, they are a totally diferent society they aren't all bad but most of them are, and the real problem arise with the appereance of their kings, demon lords. They are so powerful that some are said to be as powerful as gods, but like all their race there are good ones and bad ones, some maintain the civilities of other demons making their society advance like proper kings, and the others only wish for violence and destruction.Those are normaly the missions forr fighting, there are other like exploring new places, dungeons, ruins, etc. But unlike games, this ones aren't certain to have good things, also recolection mission for the blacksmiths and alchemist, so it isn't totally different to normal games but you cannot choose wich mission to go until you have higher authority, here is where my knoledge of the game make things easier, i can try to go to the mission that gave out good rewards somehow and this kind of missions sometimes can become a chain quest with even greater rewards.
In the game, the players that selected a race obtained different kind of background, some had giants blood and were extremely more powerful than the rest, or where nobles from the beggining, a better start, and because of that, they rose like a star, but even so Apfel was the one that reached the top in the end, because he has never seen someone with so much potencial as his avatar. He was a half god and half high elf, for most people his avatar was only a pretty face, even though he wasn't a noble from the beggining, he have royalty blood, he can be a king, even though he wasn't born with overwhelming power, he was the son of a god, he could reach the level of the gods. And the secret that no one but other half gods knew. Half gods received glory for their heroic acts.
Even so, he didn't become as strong as he could have been, two reasons. His character was too handsome, and the older he became, the stronger his charm became, he was good at fighting as well, too good. People started to want his talent. Jealousy started to arise in his superiors and nobles, and rage because of their advance getting rejected. He was send to shitty missions. There were even assasinations attempts. And to make things worst the clans started to appear, the noble players started to pull other players under their house influence and clans were formed. But Apfel as if the royalty in his bloods boiled he rejected them, he didn't like them, they would take the better rewards and he would obtain the leftovers, they were arrogant and did what they liked, they were players after all, they didn't care much about the gods rage and the like and as they were great heroes, they were great income of glory. But more importanly he didn't like to be under others, he didn't want to accept orders and much less from such trash resemble of human being.
So he worked hard, and took all opportunities he could obtain, his overwhelming talent, wits and effort made him reach were he had reach. Now he has to become a noble the faster posible and hide facts like that he knows magic or he can attract unwanted attention to himself, also, he must start his effort to atract the god he desired to be hero for. Most players selected powerful gods like odin, zeus, poseidon, thor, ares, and so on. But these gods were harder to please as their standart was too high *ahem* hercules *ahem* they looked only after greatest heroes and even if they gave you their blessing, it was a bad one like didn't matter, in the past i selected Hermes, it wasn't bad, actually it was quiet good, but the problem was, he was a greek good, for them, mortals were tools and nothing more. I started to hate them, not only aphrodite left my avatar without ever caring about him, they were all people with shitty personalities. So this time i decided for a god or better said goddess that not only will give me one of the best blessings, she was quiet serious one but caring at the same time, i have seen her once in a quest and well i developed a quiet serious crush for a long while. Her name.
"Frejya"