Gray and Jono returned to their suite before the promotional video would be released publically and in front of everyone at the game conference.
Although Gray normally doesn't like to stand out, receiving some recognition was nice once in a while. Seeing his team being displayed for everyone to watch was a good feeling. Gray noticed that not only his name was shown for his team, but so was Caleb's name.
"Caleb must be here somewhere then" Gray thought.
Assuming the other VIP suites were filled with other teams that were invited today, Gray looked at the other balconies and saw that all of the others had a lot more people than his balcony.
"Do other teams share suites? Why am I the exception?" Gray thought as he looked at the large suite just for Jono and himself.
A knock was heard on the door and Gray heard a familiar voice.
"It's my suite too baby cakes, no need to knock" came from behind the door with a slightly nasal and arrogant voice.
Gray thought that the voice… sounds like Caleb, but the way he talks is nothing like him. The door opened and a fairly short guy in his early 30s wearing old 20th century glasses sauntered in being followed by a slightly stressed looking Felicia. Gray was happy to see her again but this happiness was interrupted by this guy. The guy turned to Felicia and said "Thanks babe that will be all!" and Felicia made a quick departure. Gray almost half expected the guy to pinch her butt or something like that.
"So, I'm guessing you must be Gray." Said the guy as he looked directly at Gray.
"Correct, and you must be Caleb! This is my friend Jono" Gray replied while introducing Jono also.
"I'm guessing you figured out it was me from the name in the video?" Gray asked Caleb.
"Indeed, and the 4 teams used in the promotional video were provided with a suite for each of them. Since you and Geoff are the only other male members of our team, it was safe to say that it would either be Geoff or you, Gray, that would be in this suite."
"Yeah, you definitely sound like Caleb now, so how come you knew it was me and not Geoff and couldn't Jono have been Geoff?" asked Gray
"You and Geoff are similar, if one of you had opted to have yourself high-lighted, the other would too. Since only your name was visible in the video one could deduce that Geoff is not here. As for why Jono is not Geoff, he doesn't have a VIP badge."
Gray felt the urge to rib Jono more about the VIP badge, but frankly the joke was getting old. He'd wait until later when Jono started to get over it.
"You didn't talk to Yurika and Stacia like that though in game, what's up with that?" asked Gray to Caleb.
"Team cohesion, creating a disturbance in the team would be detrimental to our cooperative relationship thus maintaining proper etiquette is imperative."
Jono whispered to Gray "Does he always talk like that?"
"Yes, he's one of those types that likes to flaunt his intellect by using big words to hide his insecurities." Gray whispered back to Jono.
Caleb coughed loudly to bring the focus back to himself. "I can still hear you even if you whisper. I do not have any insecurities, my intellect is significantly higher than probably everyone else in this conference. I am not trying to boast, this is merely a fact. I created a tech company that specializes in custom AI at the same age you two were just discovering puberty. I do not need to boast, my achievements in synthetic neural algorithms and software based linguistic analysis and emulation speak for me."
Gray and Jono blinked not really sure what to say then both looked at each other. Simultaneously they both thought to themselves. "He's totally boasting"
__________
After the promotional video was shown, the press group in charge of promoting Alterra Online were showing off some of the features that would be implemented after the game launched officially in 5 days. Gray, Caleb, and Jono sat in their balcony and listened to the question and answer session with a few of the employees from Alterra Corp did shed light on some features and design choices of Alterra Online.
Of the features to note, faction creation would be unlocked, matchmaking would be expanded, and mech customization would be unlocked.
The faction creation feature will only be available to Diamond Tier players. It was noted that players could be promoted within a player created faction to become the new leader should the existing one retire from Alterra Online. As for faction housing, players could use merits to rent specific buildings from NPCs as faction headquarters. These would include basic support staff for up to a squad of mechs (8 mechs) and be expandable to support a full platoon of mechs (50 mechs). Minimum rank to start a faction is 1st Lieutenant which will also be unlocked to players at the official launch.
The new matchmaking features also got Gray a little more excited. With the player base expanding, matchmaking would support up to 50 vs 50 in team assault. Having more mechs would drastically increase the complexity of the matches and it never hurt to have more cannon fodde… I mean… friends on the battlefield.
Mech customization didn't appeal particularly to Gray, but it was fun to mess with at times. He thought it might be hilarious if everyone painted their mechs to look like various childhood cartoon characters. The thought of Yurika going berserk with some SMGs in a mech that looks like Mikey Moose would be a terrifying sight indeed.
A question about matchmaking was brought up about solo ranks and how it felt like players were forced to join a team because of the lack of solo matchmaking ranks.
"Alterra Online aims for realism and is designed to emulate military structure. Missions and battles are carried out in teams. Individual bravery is important, but glorified heroism often romanticized about in movies and other popular media will only lead to wanton losses. While this seems harsh, our aim is indeed to create as accurate a military simulation as possible."
Overall most of the attendees agreed with how Alterra Corp responded to this, but a few of them seemed a little disgruntled from what Gray could see. This made sense as a lot of players didn't trust other players or just enjoyed not having to worry about a team and did only solo matches. While going in to a match solo wasn't disallowed, if you couldn't get your team rank up you wouldn't be able to get merits very quickly.
Another question that everyone has already asked before that was brought up again was regarding why Alterra Online was so persistent about keeping the game as realistic as possible.
"We want to offer something that no other game has, the feeling that you're not playing a game. Others have tried to do this in the past, but none have reached the amount of realism that Alterra Online has been able to facilitate. We don't want you to just feel like you're lumbering around in an 80 ton mech, we want you to believe you are piloting it!" answer the Alterra Corp staff.
Lastly a question was brought up regarding the policy on if you die in game you lose your account and how Alterra Corp would essentially be losing customers if players died in the game because of this.
"I know it may seem harsh to force a player to quit a game, but as we said before, we aim for complete realism. If you die in real life, you don't get a second chance at life." (This isn't one of those kinds of novels after all)
__________
After the question and answer session, Gray, Jono, and Caleb decided to return to the main floor and look around some of the other booths. By the way Jono was asking about Felicia, Gray was pretty sure he just wanted to look for her and it wasn't all that surprising.
Gray pulled the door closed behind him to their suite when a very familiar male voice that caused Gray to get repulsed immediately came from behind him.
"Gray? Gray Wilhelm! Yes! That is you, what are you doing sneaking around up here with the VIP attendants or is the dropout lost?"