At first TrueSoul was only thought to have had an interesting trailer. But like many MMORPGs it seemed that it would be a dissapointment.
It simply promised too much and no one believed that it could deliver!
But on the day of its release, it quickly shut up the naysayers and the early adopters of the game quickly became addicted.
It was a VRMMORPG with 100% realism, fully allowing the user to dive into the game.
It had a multitude of classes and races to pick from, the gameplay was incredibly smooth and fun and the detailed lore and worldbuilding was comparable to the history.
But a new suspicion arose: was the game even safe to play?
A 100% realism game could lead to unforseen consequences and side effects, and the mental trauma might be too much to handle for some people.
After a month and half of investigation, testing, and consulting with both experts and the game developer, it was assured to be safe to play!
Soon top guilds who held of on the game entered the game with a frenzy.
A rush of new players entered the game and a player counts reached 500 million!
And with the influx of players came a problem many games encountered- a shortage of desired usernames!
A problem someone in the Myre Federation, Mooncrift city was dealing with.
"I should've played the game earlier..."
All of the names that he wanted to use were already selected.
His usual usernames included "twilight", "Eclipse" and "Gunsoul"
Most variations of these usernames were already taken!
"Wait, let's try...!"
[101_GUNSOUL_101]
[Username available]
"Alright! Time to enter!"
Alex had already wasted 10 minutes on this stupid section of the character creation.
He got recommended this game by his friend and after reading up on it and watching some video documentaries he was extremely excited to play the game.
This 23 year old had nothing better to do with his life than laze around and hang out with his friends, but gaming soon became something to preoccupy himself with.
[Select Class Archetype]
-Warrior
-Mage
-Ranger
He had already planned everything while waiting for the game to download!
-Ranger!
Why you may ask? Because a ranger class had guns as their main weapon!
Most people would want to use swords, spears, magic or something fantasy like in games like these, but he only had a passion for the gun!
"If only there was a mecha class... Now that would is a man's romance!"
Maybe a Gundam class was the only other thing that would interest him.
[Select Class]
-Archer
-Hunter
-Gunslinger
All of these classes had their own benefits. Archers were the most basic and simple to use with decent and consistent ranged damage.
Hunters were the most versatile, as they can use any ranged weapon at the beginning and involved fighting, trapping and luring high level prey.
Gunslingers had the highest early game dps of all the classes. Unfortunately cost of bullets and gun maintenance was a pain in the ass and they were highly dependant on equipment.
They were currently not a popular class, for PVP, PVE or casual play.
But does the meta matter when all you want to do is have fun? NO!
-Gunslinger
[Choose Race]
-Human(R)
-Elf(NR)
-Dwarf(R)
-Gnome(R)
-Giant(NR)
-Variant-Human(R)
The (R) stood for recommended and (NR) stood for not recommended.
This recommendation process involved multiple factors like your class, worldbuilding of the race, current economy in game, etc.
Humans were humans. Just that. They have a racial buff against certain negative conditions and an extra few stat points.
Elves get more skill points and a bonus to learning and leveling up skills.
Dwarves start with a crafting skill and get a bonus to it.
Gnomes get certain resistances and very easy early game areas.
Giants had the highest stats early game.
Amd variant human involved mixing human passive with another races.
Like a half Elf with bonus stat points and skill points.
Unfortuantely this comes at a reputation debuff since in lore half breeds of any kind are looked down upon.
Anyways, Alex already decided to pick human since it was a popular pick that had the most information gathered about.
Although it had only been half a month since most of the player base came, much had already been discovered.
The game also ram on a 1:2 ratio, with 1 day in real life equating to 2 in game.
-Human
[Assign Attribute points]
Strength- 5
Agility- 5
Constitution- 5
Mana- 5
Magic- 5
Charisma- 5
Attribute points- 10
All the stats were pretty self explanatory.
Investing in strength wouldn't be very useful as his damage was based on his gun and bullets, but the recoil control would be appreciated.
+2 Strength
Moving around, along with quick draws and fast reloads were going to be his main playstyle so agility needed to be high
+5 Agility
And finally be needed the stamina to maintain this movement and survive some surprise attacks.
+2 Constitution.
And some charisma would be fun, right?
+1 Charisma
"All set"
[Starting location being selected...]
This process involved multiple factors, like monsters around the starting areas, the quests, the npcs, players and economy.
[Selected Surya Empire, Cracked Griff City]
A light quickly shone as his body materialized in the middle of a moderately crowded city square.
A revolver hung on his waist. He had brown pants and a white shirt.
His dirty brown hair swayed in the breeze as he opened his gray eyes.
"Open status"
A blue screen appeared with his info.
[Username]: 101_GUNSOUL_101
[Race]: Human
[Class]: Gunslinger
[Level]: 1
[HP]: 70/70
[MP]: 50/50
[Defense]: 7
[Attributes]:
Strength- 7
Agility- 10
Constitution- 7
Mana- 5
Magic- 5
Charisma- 6
[Skills]:
-Racial: [Adaptive]
-Class: [Gun Sense], [Aimed Shot], [Quick Shot]
-General: [Gunmanship]
[Equipment]:
- [Novice's Revolver]
"Let's see... Nothing special here. Let's see the effects"
[Gun Sense(lvl.1)]
-You are a traveler walking the path of the gun! You have a natural affinity towards guns.
Gun related skill learning +50%
It was a simple skill that improved the efficiency of learning and improving gun skills.
[Aimed Shot(lvl.1)]
-Aim, hold, fire!
+30% damage for Aimed Shot.
Cooldown: 10 seconds
A good initiator when ambushing someone that can also be used anytime given the right opportunity.
[Quick Shot(lvl.1)]
-Your hands and fingers are swift!
+30% Faster shooting speed for Quick Shot
Cooldown: 10 seconds
That sounded... wrong. But it was definitely a useful skill.
[Gunmanship(lvl.1)]
-Your understanding of the gun.
+10% Damage with guns
A generic skill anyone could learn. Would become more useful later on after leveling up.
And finally the most interesting skill, his racial one.
[Adaptive]
-Humans, a species that carved out a place for themselves, had to evolve to survive! You carry the efforts of your forefathers within your blood, flesh and bones!
+2 Attribute points on every fifth levels
As a human of The Kingdom Of Surya, you have an enhanced resistance to Diseases, Sicknesses, Parasites and Similar Effects.
Certain level of resistance against aforementioned effects.
The text in bold letters would change depending on the location of your spawn.
"Hmm, pretty useful. Not gonna have to worry about buying antidotes or medicine"
TrueSoul was a pretty realistic game with complex mechanisms that mirrored the real world.
This basically meant that common sense and intelligence was needed. Or as much can be crammed into a fantasy game.
Too much realism would only make the lives of players difficult so there was some leniency involved.
[Novice's Revolver(Common)]
Damage: 35-40
-A typical revolver that can contain 6 bullets! It has been magically modified so that it doesn't need maintenance. Spawns 50 bullets per day. Automatically gets destroyed upon ascending class. Cannot be traded, destroyed, discarded, etc.
A very special weapon among the physical classes were the modified weapons.
This was a significant boon to the masses who didn't know how to take care of a weapon.
Especially for rangers who needed ammunition, even more so for Gunslinger as bullets were rarer, more expensive and harder to make than arrows or bolts.
"I'll be using you for a very long time"
A small 3D version of himself was placed on the top right of the status screen, a carbon copy of his current self with the same clothes and appearance.
"Still have my brown hair and gray eyes huh... Guess people really can't catfish in this game"
A wonderful thing for some, a frustrating feature for others.
"Man this thing is really detailed"
He remarked while playing with the little avatar in his status screen.
He was soon done fiddling with the settings and avatar and taking in the realism of the game
"Alright, its time to start my journey in TrueSoul! And I know exactly how to do it"
Alex quickly started making his way through the town with a specific location in mind.