"Alright, let's see what the hype is all about," I thought as I loaded up BATTLE on my computer.
BATTLE was advertised as a first-person MMORPG game with multiple worlds and servers. For example, as you progress through the game, new worlds made by the developers of BATTLE would be unlocked. These worlds would stay the same once a person gained access to the world, and a global system message would appear in the chat once a new world has been found and the player's name who found it. Like a normal MMORPG, BATTLE has a leveling system. You would gain a certain amount of XP for the quests, mobs, and things you do in BATTLE. You could gain XP from taking on a job which included being a blacksmith, tailor, and more. The number of things one could do in the world of BATTLE number in the thousands. This would lead to extreme hype, especially since it came from one of the biggest game development companies in the world. The release date for the game was just today, and it cost around $50 to buy.
After some moments, the screen faded in to show a blue sky and floating island in the background. The words "BATTLE" started to appear gradually and were shown in big large blue and white letters in the upper middle of the screen. A medium-sized but cleanly designed beveled button displaying the words "PLAY" could be seen under the game title. Another button titled "OPTIONS" also appeared under the "PLAY" button.
Hitting the "PLAY" button, the screen faded out and shortly faded back in with the same background, except there were now four gold color outlined cards with the words "SELECT A CLASS" under the middle of the four cards. Each card had a distinct character on them showing what seemed to be a knight, archer, and magician. I noticed that the golden-colored words "SKIP" also appeared under the "SELECT A CLASS" text. The words "STRONGLY Not Recommended" were listed under the "SKIP" option.
"Hmm, a class? Back in Raid Online, I never really had to choose a class."
"Maybe I'll choose to be a knight? Or maybe I would be a good magician..."
I knew that the class a person chose would determine whether or not they were successful. If a person chose to be a magician and liked to charge in and tank all enemy hits, they were most likely going to fail.
"Damn, I really can't decide."
Too focused to notice my mouse cursor pre-placed on the skip option, I decided to make my self more comfortable while I think of what class I should by propping up my legs on my wooden table. Right as I did that though, I heard a familiar clicking sound. Taking a moment to notice what I've done, my facial expression slowly turned from contemplating my class to contemplating my life.
"WAIT-"
The screen faded out and then faded back in with the text "What is your name?" and a text box beneath it.
"..."
I excruciatingly typed out my username "kogen02" and pressed enter.
The screen faded out again and then slowly showed what seemed to be medieval-styled houses and shops along the sides of a large-sized stone road. In front of me was a large gray and gold-colored castle with dozens of spires. The castle seemed to stretch into the blue cloudy sky.
Quite instantaneously, I pressed the chat key (Enter) and typed "I accidentally skipped my class selection what do I do?"
Promptly, a response from a player named DragonSmasher14 said "nothing, classes cant be changed"
I replied "are you sure? can i make a new account?"
DragonSmasher14 answered, "nah, you got screwed LMAO"
With some doubt, I alt+tabbed from the game and searched up my question:
How do I change my class in BATTLE?
The search results showed the same response he got from DragonSmasher14, stating that classes could not be changed and only one account was allowed per person.
Further investigating, I clicked the website link that provided this answer which was from the newly made and official BATTLE forums. A person with the same fate as I replied to the forum post made from an admin and said: "I skipped my class selection, can I still choose a class?" And the response from the admin was what I had hoped not to see, stating "No, you would not be able to choose a class."
Scrolling down the thread, I found out that skipping your class meant that you could actually learn all of the skills in each class. My hope was refounded for a moment, but soon it was diminished as I read that the extreme downside in skipping your class was that you would need to do 10x or even 100x the work it took for a normal player. It essentially meant you were always going to be weaker than everything else in terms of progress. No one in their right mind if they had a choice would choose to be an unchosen class player.
"So what do I do now?" I started to panic. BATTLE was the most-watched game on every streaming platform currently and all games failed to even reach a tenth of its viewership. Starting on a new game was not an option because of this and also because the competitiveness in all other games was refined and only experienced veterans of these games could be in professional gaming careers. Choosing to play BATTLE as the first game for me to start my career in was possibly the best choice to make as it had a fundamentally new style inspired by Raid Online, meaning that mostly everyone didn't have experience with it. However, I did. It didn't matter though because now my hopes and dreams seemed to be crushed.
The only option I had was to either find something better to do as a career and live my life without any excitement or stick with it.
And so, even if I have to work harder than the rest, I chose to stick with the unchosen class. Somehow, I'll find a way.