12. Best Start, Part 4

  When we found Rick – whose name I was still hearing as ‘BrickWall88’ because he hadn’t added me to his contacts yet – I immediately did the Picard. You know, his classic facepalm, right? A lot of the people I like to play with sleep on the same schedule, but know enough of my other friends that it would look weird if I didn’t at least pretend to be offline sometimes. So I watch a lot of old television. Anything in the public domain is free to me.

  Because instead of using his time to adjust to his digital body, he’d gone shopping. And everything he’d bought was wrong.

  Oh, I shouldn’t say wrong. Most good tanks will have fifty gear sets to pick from, and his set would have been … somewhere on the list of some of those tanks. But it was wrong for Wildedeer. It was wrong for a tank who was trying to use his football skills in the game. And the set of armor they bought would be [High Quality or better], whereas his looked like it was NPC spawned.

  And I could tell at a glance that he’d spent every copper I’d given him.

  See, like I was trying to teach the others, the starting areas are mostly about teaching a player how to control their digital avatar. For that reason, the enemies are more fast than they are strong. A tank’s job at this level is more about learning to dodge and block and parry and use his abilities to protect the party than it was to actually Soak damage. For that reason, you don’t see anyone really wearing heavy armor until they’ve been playing the game for quite a while.

  Rick should have, at most, been wearing chain-mail. Leather would have been better. He was in heavy plate. And not good plate, the kind that a player crafts once their skill gets high enough. He was wearing the cheap plate. The kind that only gets bought by crafters so that they can melt it down and reforge it using the metal. Normally it’s cheaper to buy ingots, but when a player is really burning through the ingots, it sometimes becomes economic to buy poorly crafted (meaning done by NPC’s or absolute beginner players) items for the materials they were comprised of.

  The only thing his armor was good for was slowing him down. And a slow tank means a dead healer, which means a dead party, which means a slow tank is a dead tank, no matter how heavily armored he was.

  “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be at the entrance or something?” he asked when I sat down at the table he had picked out for us at GreenMeadows.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be learning how to play this game?” I challenged back. “Oh man, how much did you spend on that trash? It’s not even [Mediocre] quality, is it?”

  “Look, I don’t want to hear it from some gate-guard NPC --”

  “Rick, this is Simon,” Paula said, interrupting him halfway through his rant. I heard Luke, but at the same time I know that she said Simon. It’s kind of weird, but you get used to it. “He’s my cousin, the one who’s been playing for years and is going to be showing us around? Apparently once you’ve played long enough you can pretend to be part of the game, and that’s what he was doing to greet us all.”

  “I wasn’t pretending anything. Brickface here was so rude that I just marked his map and let him fuck-off. Then he went and wasted every penny I gave him on that trash! ” I said, gesturing at the armor he was wearing.

  “It is not trash! It looks awesome!” Rick challenged.

  “How does it feel? How can you move in it?” I challenged back. “What’s it’s armor rating? What kind of weapons can it deflect without being damaged? Hell, I have a fruit knife that I can probably punch right through it!”

  “That’s enough, both of you,” Paula shouted, pulling the eyes of the NPCs and players toward our table. “Luke, can he return it or something?”

  “Not for full price,” I answered. “Depending on his reputation with the vendors in town he’ll only get between ten to forty percent of what it would cost to buy that gear from an NPC. The only reason he could afford any of it in the first place is because I gave all of you ten times what new players usually start with, but I didn’t realize that he was going to spend it all on armor . Did you even get a weapon?”

  “No,” Rick said, and for the first time he looked a little nervous. “I, um, I was going to ask the nerd for some of his starting money. He’s going to be doing magic, right? That means he doesn’t need a weapon, but I do.”

  I did the Picard again. “Spellbook. Spells. Reagents. Clothes. Focus. That’s his shopping list. Yours was Weapon, Shield, Light Armor. He has more to buy than you did, and you wasted all of your money on the wrong thing.”

  “Wait, Light Armor? He’s a tank, why not--”

  “Because that’s how it is until you hit like five hundred hours in game,” I shouted. “There’s no point in wearing heavy armor before that because nothing hits hard enough to justify it. You need to be fast so that you can learn how to dodge and, more importantly, position yourself to protect the healer. Look, you want to know why this is a mistake? Let’s go outside for a minute and I’ll show you.”

  “Hey Arnie, got something about to go on out front,” the barmaid called into the kitchen. “Let’s get the word out, okay? Might be some people want to watch.”

  I chuckled, and the others looked around with confusion as people began to appear in flashes of various colors.

  “They’re syncing up with us,” I explained calmly. “Most of these players have more time in game than you, so they’re running at a higher time dilation. But when an NPC notices something interesting happening between player characters, they notify nearby players about it, and sometimes those players sync up with you to watch.”

  “Whatever,” Rick said, “that just means that I’ll have an audience when I punch your face in.”

  I laughed. “Oh, this isn’t that kind of display. We’ll fight at some point, I’ll duel the six of you together before you’re ready to even leave town, just to make sure you’re ready and judge your skill. This is just a lesson to show you why that armor is worse than useless.”

  Once we were out in the streets, and we had an adequate audience, I grinned and pulled two things out of my inventory. One was a small box, the other was a very, very large rabbit. A rabbit the size of a German Shepherd, although I held it by the scruff of it’s neck like it was a regular sized rabbit.

  “These are the normal rabbits that run around outside. I caught a few of them to have you guys practice on before you logged in. If you bop them on the head you can put them in your inventory while they’re still alive,” I explained. “They’re not dangerous, they’re just hard to catch, most of the time. But they’re no faster than the majority of the actual threats to a Player in this zone. The entire reason that they exist is just to get a player used to moving fast enough to chase them, kill them and/or avoid them. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “Whatever, I don’t care about killing a digital rabbit. I don’t need a weapon for that either,” Rick challenged.

  “Oh, you’re not going to kill it. You’re the tank, remember? That’s why you spent all of the money I gave you, ten times as much as a normal player without a veteran babysitting them gets from the city , on that armor you’re wearing,” I said, emphasizing what was being displayed for those players who were just syncing up with us, of which there were still several.

  “Because in this hand I have a lure. It’s an herb that’s like catnip crossed with heroin to these things. If you put it in a box and carry it in your pocket, you don’t have to chase them down because they’ll chase you. So that’s the game. You’re just going to stop this rabbit from catching whoever has this box of herbs. That’s it. You’re not allowed to touch the box, but the other party members can throw it about like they’re playing keep away. I guess since Kevin is playing melee DPS, he can help you try to control the aggro – that means keep him away from the back liners. But everyone else in your party is either ranged dps, healer, or support. So it’s down to just the two of you to keep everyone else from being attacked by the killer rabbit.”

  As I spoke, the rabbit was beginning to regain its senses, so I tossed the box to my sister, who caught it nervously.

  “Why are you throwing me a box of drugs, [Luke]?” she asked. Again, I heard Luke, but I know she said Simon. Like I said, you get used to it.

  “It’s a lure, not drugs. I just used drugs as a comparison,” I told her. “If you want, just think of it as highly-addictive chocolate to these bunny things.”

  “Carrot-crack,” Lewis suggested.

  “Hey, that’s not bad,” I complimented. The bunny was awake and struggling to get loose now. “Okay, I’m going to let him go now. Just remember, the entire point of this is to teach you party mechanics. I am not trying to humiliate anyone, we were going to do this exercise no matter what! I’m just doing it early to show Mr. BrickWall88 why his armor is not a good fit for a tank at this level of gameplay. Once we get him properly outfitted, we’ll play it again to show him the difference that it makes.”

  This level of gameplay or any other, I thought, shuddering again at the marks of poor quality I could see on it. Everyone got into position. It wasn’t the best position, actually. Not the worst either; the worst would have been Paula standing right next to me and the rabbit with the rest of the party planting their thumb in someplace warm. The best would have been with Paula behind Rick and Kevin, with Sam and Sophie and Lewis standing nearby to play hot-potato when the rabbit got close. But it wasn’t time to tell them that, and it would be much better if they could figure that out on their own.

  Instead it was somewhat between. Rick and Kevin were treating this like football, which was actually a good move, except for the fact that they both got down in the stance. The other four party members were standing behind them in a small group.

  “Releasing the rabbit in three, two, one.”

  The first release went exactly as I expected it to, as all of the new players seriously underestimated the rabbits speed. Although it was the size of a large dog, it was as fast as a cat, and it easily ran between the two football players, pounced on my sister, and knocked the box away from her. Fortunately it was sealed tight and the rabbit couldn’t get at the contents, or it would have drugged itself and I would have had to retrieve a new one from my inventory.

  Quickly, I gathered up the rabbit and the box again, this time tossing the box to Sophie.

  “Same thing, except this time it’s the support player who pulled aggro instead of the healer. Otherwise all of the rules are the same,” I said.

  Kevin, for his credit, learned from just the one example. Rather than getting in line next to Rick, this time he stood a ways back with his hands on his thighs like the linebacker he was, ready to intercept the rabbit whichever way it went after getting past his friend.

  Unfortunately, Rick learned nothing. He went into the same stance, which he couldn’t even get out of fast enough once I let go of the rabbit in order to block its path. Kevin darted towards it as it ran to the right of rick, but the rabbit just ran between his legs and tripped him. It knocked Sophie over completely when it pounced on her.

  After about the fifth time of playing the game the lesson was finally starting to sink in. The ‘backfield’ players realized that they could ‘juggle aggro’ – a very common technique that is important to master as early as possible – by tossing the box between them. Kevin actually became adept at blocking or slowing down the rabbit as it raced between his party members. But Rick was just too slow, too hampered down by the armor. The game compensated for weight such that it wouldn’t have ‘felt’ heavy while he was just wearing it, but in combat it would slow him down and he would tire quickly. The fact that it was made of [Iron], not [Tempered Steel] or even [Steel], added to its weight and fatiguing effects.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “Hey, can I switch in for the noob in plate?” one of our audience members asked. “I’m trying to get into tanking and this seems like great practice. Can I show him how it’s meant to be done?”

  “They’re all friends. One of them is my cousin, I’m just giving them a good start,” I explained. “So I’ll let them decide if they want some Rando jumping in on their stuff. But if you want to practice this with your team, you can just catch a rabbit outside town and buy a lockbox of Kensel Herbs. Just be careful not to take the box out of your inventory in these rabbit’s territory because you can get swarmed if you do.”

  “Like I’d be able to catch one of those things without the lure,” he laughed. “How about it? Can I switch in for your friend? It looks like he needs a break anyway, and I’d really like to give it a try.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, the rest of the group acquiesced to the request, including Rick, who was looking winded. You don’t actually get winded when your [Stamina] goes to zero, but you feel like it. Which is why everyone, especially tanks, keeps an eye on how much their gear weighs. Lighter is almost always better. Which is why nobody uses iron armor, ever. Iron weapons, sure, but never armor.

  The pickup tank was wearing leather armor, the cheap kind you could afford on the base sum you get for logging in the first time. The kind a want-to-be-tank would buy after listening to the training hall masters tell him what to expect for his chosen role in the game.

  The difference between Rick and Pickup was night and day. The rabbit was fast, much faster than anyone who hadn’t been playing for hundreds of hours could catch without help, but between Kevin and Pickup they were able to do a pretty solid job of slowing it down long enough for the other players to spread out and juggle aggro effectively.

  “The thing is, Rick,” I said as we watched the new tank work, “He’s actually not much better than you would be if you weren’t weighed down. Take off that stupid armor once your [Stamina] recovers a bit more and try again. You’ll see what I mean pretty quick.”

  Reluctantly, the stubborn tank surrendered to the possibility that he had made a mistake. “So, how do I change out of it?”

  “Just say [Equip beginner’soutfit],” I said, and saying the words changed me into my own set of noob-clothes which everyone is wearing when they zone in for the first day. You can never actually sell them, and even if you take them off and throw them away they return to your inventory.

  But that also put me out of my [Captain of the Royal Guard’s Uniform] and disguise. Which put me into my normal teenage appearance, which is why one of the audience members cried out “Holy shit, that guy’s in NinjaGuardians! I’ve seen videos where he, like, solos raid trash for fun!”

  “Oh shit, I didn’t mean to do that,” I grumbled. It wouldn’t have been a problem if we hadn’t attracted quite a few people in the audience by then, but with so many people it was almost assured that someone would recognize me. “You caught me. I’m [Luke Benton].”

  So, here’s the really weird thing. I don’t actually know my screen name anymore. I mean, officially, I have one, but it gets changed regularly so that anyone who’s not inside my guild doesn’t figure out who I am. Everyone inside my guild just knows me as [Luke], but everyone outside knows me as … well, I don’t know who they know me as. I’m not supposed to know who they think I am unless I tell them my real name, in which case it logs me as whatever my current screen name is for them in the future.

  So, I told them my real name, but they all heard some random screen name. And I don’t know what it was. I could ask them, but although I’d know they said somerandomscreenname45, I would hear ‘Luke Benton.’ And vice versa. My settings are different from most people to keep me from accidentally causing another economic crash with my generosity again. Unless I actually add a person to my contact list, as I did with my sister’s party members, they stop seeing me log in a few weeks after I meet them, unless I bump into them again. Normally a contact remains a contact, and you can look them up for as long as you remember their screen name.

  And of course, my sister’s friends all heard me say “Simon” instead of “Luke Benton.”

  Sometimes this game is weird. Unfortunately once my fake identity was out, I was quickly bombarded with questions.

  “Yes we’re recruiting, but raid members only. You need to actually be able to keep up to raiding, which means that you need to get the gear and the experience to join the raid team on your own.”

  “No, I can’t give you a handout. We have rules about that stuff and I have to follow them after the trouble we got into last time.”

  “Yes, this is a normal game we play to practice for raids. Actually we usually have three or four rabbits and five or six lure boxes, and we play with a twenty-five man team.”

  I answered a few more questions before engaging privacy mode, kicking me and Paula’s party out of the same instance as the audience who had been watching. It was kind of rude, but it was normal at the same time whenever someone sort of famous starts drawing attention in the game.

  “Ugh,” I said, “I hate it when that happens.”

  “Where did they all go?” Paula asked.

  “Privacy mode. Look, let’s get a drink, and then I’ll explain a few things. Including and especially what your goals should be before we leave town. We wasted a little bit of your free time at the training center with that exercise, which can be done literally any time and any place. But it was a good experience, because that’s how a group like yours is meant to work together. Now you can see why the practice at the training center is so important to begin with.”

  “That’s not at all what I was expecting it to be like,” Lewis said. “Look, um, it might have been my fault that Rick bought that stuff. It was my idea to have one of Kevin’s meathead friends – I mean, one of his friends from football – tank for us. When Rick joined our group, I told him some things based on some of the other games I’ve played, but tanking in those games was nothing like that.”

  “Yeah, EternalRealms doesn’t follow the traditional ‘the tank always has aggro’ method of tanking that a lot of games are stuck in,” I agreed. “You get used to it, though. You guys picked up how to deal with it pretty quick. It’s just like that most the time. DPS switch out aggro by hitting the target one after another, taking turns. The tank jumps in and out of having aggro, but mostly his job is to keep the target from actually catching anyone. The healer sometimes pulls aggro depending on how smart the target is supposed to be. Support members are usually fairly safe in the back lines, unless the target really doesn’t like something that they’re doing. That might be a problem for you, Sophie, because Bard’s do draw aggro sometimes with their music. Which is why it’s so important for all of you to practice movement! Agile, nimble, fast! Those are the things that you want to focus on, here in the game, and at home too! There are obstacle courses set up all over the place since EternalRealms became popular, find one and practice it until your muscles burn, and then find a different one and run that!”

  “What are we going to do about Rick’s armor?” Paula asked. “It really wasn’t his fault he bought it. We told him he was going to be tanking, and that tanks wear heavy armor. I mean, don’t they?”

  “It’s weird because if you play other games you would think that. But ER is different. The better the armor is, the lighter the material it’s made out of. The best general tank armor in the game is [Mastercrafted Mythril Plate Armor], but there are fights where you don’t want to wear [Mythril] either. The problem with Rick’s armor is that it’s [Iron]. Not even [Steel], just cheap [Iron]. [Hardened Leather] would be better, because it wouldn’t tire him out like what he’s got. But the second problem with it is that it’s [Low Quality]. It was probably generated by an NPC rather than a player. At this point, years after launch, there’s no reason to ever wear something that was generated by an NPC. It is always inferior to player crafted gear, and it is often inferior to dropped gear. Weirdly enough the best gear is [Mastercrafted] gear crafted by players, but true [Mastercrafted] gear is so expensive that only players with years of subjective time can afford a single piece of it. But with the amount of money I gave all of you, you should have been able to buy [High-Quality] starting gear. Most players start out with [Normal Quality] and work their way up, and they also start with [Iron] and [Oak] weapons, while you guys will probably start with [Steel] and [Yew] weapons.”

  They all absorbed the information slowly, even Rick who looked like he’d swallowed the rabbit we’d left behind us outside for the strangers to play keep away with.

  “So, do I sell this junk or hold on to it?” he asked.

  I considered. “Go ask the barmaid what your reputation with the merchants in town is. If it’s below neutral, then the armor is worth more for its iron than it is for the coin you’d get to sell it.”

  “Wait, what?” he asked.

  “The prices the NPC’s offer you depend on your reputation,” I explained. “None of you have been logged in long enough to have built up a strong positive relationship, but given Rick’s … brusqueness? Given the way he was acting to me earlier when he thought I was an NPC, there’s a chance he might have damaged his reputation with some of the ones that he’s encountered. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem if he hadn’t gone shopping, because the Training Hall NPC’s are used to new players being jerks to them. But the Merchants demand respect, and they punish you economically for rudeness. Haggling is fine, but being a jerk is not. Actually, Lorietha? Would you come here a moment?”

  “You having your usual, hon?” she asked of me, setting down said usual, a tall mug of root beer soda. You could make the food in the game taste or look however you wanted, although the inebriating effects of alcohol did not occur.

  “Yes please, but I was also looking for your help. My friends are new to this realm and I’m showing them around. I was going to teach them how to check their local reputations, and I figured it would be easier for you to do them all at once.”

  “Of course, love,” the young barmaid said. “It’s not difficult, hons. You just walk into a tavern or bar and ask what the words been going around about you is. In larger places it gets more complicated because you might have to go to different bars to check what the [Thief’s Guild] thinks of you compared to the [Royal Guard], for example. But you picked the wrong town if you wanted to join the [Thief’s Guild] anyway, the Guard rules here. Shadowdon is where you go to join the Guild. Coldbeach is for the [Merchant’s Association], and Bluewyn is filled with [Mercenary Companies]. And that’s just for starters! Why--”

  “Let’s try not to confuse them too much, Lorietha,” I suggested. “Maybe just show them their local reputations, and what actions they’ve taken that have changed those reputations from the baseline since they logged in.”

  “Of course hun. Get ready, you’re all going to have some screens opening up,” the barmaid warned, and my sister and her friends jerked in surprise.

  “Display local reputation,” I commanded, and was pleased when my own screen popped up. I had, of course, maximized everything in this zone – and all of the other starting areas as well.

  “Holy crap,” Lewis exclaimed. “You have like eighty reputations at [Exalted] or [Worshiped], and a bunch more that are at [Feared], and a few that are both [Exalted] and [Feared].”

  “Yeah, most players don’t have that kind of time on their hands,” I admitted. “They pick one or two directions that they want to go in the game and grind the reputations they need to help them get there. A player I [Greeted] today wanted to join the [City Guard], which is a really good faction to join early in the game actually, because the sooner your join and the better your criminal record when you do, the easier it is to progress with them. Because he’s doing it this way, he’ll actually have more access to better training facilities than regular players for his first few months subjective time, on top of having access to quests that you can’t get without earning [Reputation] with the [City Guard].

  I put on my best sheepish expression. “I started this game as sort of a ninja-assassin-thief character. I still am, combat wise, but for role-play I’m all over the place. It was kind of hard to build up reputation at the [Thief’s Guild] and the [Royal Guard] at the same time, but totally worth it in the end.”

  “It says here I’m [Untrustworthy] with the guards,” Rick complained. “And the merchants regard me as [Easy Pickings]. Does that mean I’m screwed?”

  “Not completely,” I admitted. “You can probably fix the guards just by walking into their headquarters and saying ‘Hello, I am new to this realm and unfamiliar with the customs here. I am sorry if I have caused anyone offense. Are there any local Laws or Customs which I should be aware of?’ And then just listen and act polite as they give you a rundown on the local laws. That will probably be enough to bump you up into neutral, and it might be enough to bump all the rest of you into [Trustworthy] as well. As for the Merchants,”

  I sat back for a moment and thought. Then I grinned.

  “Take your armor to the Blacksmith and tell him that it is shit. Be like ‘it’s too heavy, it pinches in the wrong places, and it smells like somebody else has been wearing it without washing.’ Then tell him that you want it scrapped and the materials sent to [Luke Benton]. Just make a complete ass of yourself and refuse any attempts to get you to pay for anything. Name-drop me whenever it comes up. Then after being an ass for about ten minutes, just leave, and leave the gear behind. They’ll scrap it, and I’ll use the metal to make you some stuff that will be actually useful to you. There’s more than enough [Iron] their for a [High-Quality Iron Mace], which is what you should have bought anyway. I’ll use whatever is left over for binding a shield – only medium quality because you’ll be breaking it eventually anyway – and maybe reforge some of the armor into something that doesn’t suck. Then tomorrow, when everyone goes shopping, we’ll figure out what you need after crossing off what I’ve made you.”

  “So, we get to name-drop you to the NPC’s?” Paula asked.

  “You can name drop me any time you want,” I informed her. “But it might not be the best idea. Because of all of my reputations, establishing an official link between us aside from guide-mentor in the eyes of the NPC’s will also link our reputations, which might limit the opportunities you’d have otherwise. But Rick here is exploiting it in a way that’s beneficial in the short term without being detrimental in the long term. Because when the Merchant’s come to me to complain and demand payment, I’ll be giving them the runaround too. The Merchants are too [Frightened] of me to actually do anything about it, and it will adjust Rick’s reputation to offset the mistakes he made earlier. Long term, you’ll all have to learn to barter for yourself, but I’ll teach you how to start. How much time do you all have left on your dives?”

  They went a little unfocused as the newbies worked at manipulating their menues.

  “Two hours real time is what it says for me,” Paula said.

  “Then let’s have a drink, and get back to the Training Hall. We want to burn up as much of the free-training that you can today so that you can all work on actually learning to play together tomorrow,” I suggested. “Oh, and you can literally ask for any drink you want. Including alcohol, although what you get is just the taste. It doesn’t make you drunk.”

  Grinning stupidly, the footballers both ordered beers, while the rest of the party asked for sodas.

  ?