RNG OOC

[Maric]

Alright.  So my browsing of these forums tells me that these are supposed to happen.  For character sheets, and such.  Certainly, I don't see how it could hurt.

So, here's the character skeleton:

Name:
Gender:
Age:
Appearance:
History:

And here's Vincent Key.

Name: Vincent Key
Gender: Male
Age: 21
Appearance: Vincent has a mop of brown hair, slightly tanned skin, and a pair of glasses over deep green eyes.  Typically, he'll be found wearing a brown leather trenchcoat that reaches down to just below his knees.  Not only does he like the look, there's a lot of storage space in all those pockets.
History: Vincent Key was one of the hundreds of thousands of children who participated in the Master War against the four Dark Masters, vanguard of Hell, in 1984.  For years afterwards, he suffered from PTSD from his repeated in-game deaths.  His trauma disregarded by professionals as being unimportant (the common belief being that Cyberspace-related injuries were nothing to be too bothered about and those who claimed to suffer psychological damage from them were just attention-seekers), he graduated high school only by the skin of his teeth.  He was able to turn his life around in college, however.  His increasing skills as a GAMER, and the increasingly savage nature of the GAMEs, led to an increase in pay for GAMERs and a growing number of adults in the industries' ground level.  Eventually, his skills proved to be so impressive that he was brought on to Microsoft's Emergency Response Team.  Microsoft wasn't a big name amongst GAMERs, as their main industry was building the hardware in Realspace, but nonetheless, being a professional GAMER meant that he had the beginnings of a career in the field.

[N2O]

Name: Akiola (no last name)

Gender: Female

Age: 25

Appearance: 5' 4 black woman, athletic build. Short cropped jet black hair with blue streaks she wears as a comb over that hides almost half of her entire face. Fashion choice is a combination of shorts, t-shirt, suspenders, thigh highs, and platform boots. Accessories both in Cyberspace and the Realworld are a pair of blue industrial goggles and one huge locket ring.

History: Akiola, unlike typical GAMERs, was not trained from birth; however, her raw talent in conflict management and extensive experience in countering threats in the GAME world more than makes up for her lack of formal training. She is a freelancer whom Microsoft hired in their desperation to rescue those trapped inside their headquarters. A lot about her is shrouded in mystery.

[pendarious]

Name: Harrison (Harry) Tyler
Gender: Male
Age:22
Appearance: 5 foot 9 inches tall, Short Black Hair, Hazel eyes, Pale Skin, stubbly black beard, broad shouldered with stocky stature. Tends to wear blue jeans, T-shirts, boots, and a long black coat that stops just above his Ankles. He acquired the style from watching movies.

History: In 1984 Harry was one of the kids who was in the great war against the dark masters. He went on to serve as an expedition leader for NINTENDO going into their games and exploring the sorts of place that came to be. He spent his High School days traversing the realms of cyberspace with the NINTENDO forces until one day he realized he was sick of letting NINTENDO's executives call the shots and thus he quit. He was a senior in High School at the time. After graduation he had a hard time adjusting to regular life and finally found himself applying at MICROSOFT to try and become an overseer of the cyberspace pocket dimensions however they used his background as a GAMER to bully him into the emergancy response team.

[Maric]

Sorry this took so long, but the thread is up!

[Maric]

So, Pendarious' backstory got me thinking about a hole in my setting I'd kind of been skirting around up 'til now.  I gave it some thought and have (hopefully) filled that hole in.

Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers!

So, if GAMEs arise spontaneously as Cyberspace is expanded and GAMERs fight wars in them, what does a developer do?

Well, first off, some of them develop the hardware behind the GAME systems that allow us to access the GAMEs in the first place, just like in real life where they make actual game consoles (except I imagine less quantum physics is involved in real life game consoles).

Software developers have four jobs.  These days, these different jobs are usually split up amongst multiple different people, but back in the beginning of GAME technology (and today in small, independent GAME companies), they'd typically all be shared by a very small team of developers.  By 1995, even twenty people is considered a huge development team.  And these developers aren't called developers because they develop technology.  They develop countries.  In Cyberspace, of course.

The first job is that of an explorer.  With the exponential increase in computer technology that's been going strong since the 70s and not expected to stop until 2018, there's plenty of unexplored territory out in Cyberspace.  So developers chart the uncharted.  The second job is that of a diplomat.  This is pretty much impossible to separate from that of the explorer, because when you make first contact with a new GAME you'd like to colonize, you've got to pick sides (or else decide to let your GAMERs play both ends towards the middle, since they can't die in Cyberspace and it's no skin off your nose if the GAME ends up a post-apocalyptic wasteland when you're through with it).

The third job is that of a grand strategist, deciding which theaters to open up to GAMER intervention and when (some GAMEs, for example Star Wars, have huge chunks of their Cyberspace that has never had their coordinates disclosed by their dev team, but most devs make the coordinates known and hook them up to a GAME system within a year or so of discovering them in the first place).

The fourth job, closely related to the third, is that of a logistician.  They decide what kind of material gets to the player.  When new weapons, units, techniques, etc. etc. are released for an expansion pack, it's because the dev team has paid local Sprites to produce them for the GAMERs in order to help in the new theater.  When a dev team nerfs existing skills or equipment, it's either because the enemy Sprites have partially or completely adapted to them (mostly in the case of skills) or because the dev team has started cutting costs in having the equipment produced, which results in lower quality (mostly in the case of gear).

[pendarious]

well glad I could be of help

[Maric]

So.  I was kind of hoping to avoid the issue of cheat codes for a while, since I'm not sure how to deal with them exactly.  Keep in mind, GAMERs are fighting a literal war for actual resources that are worth money back home.  It's not a hobby.  It's potentially traumatic and painful.  If any GAMER who knows the right codes can literally rewrite reality to the point where they're effectively invincible, why would anyone ever do anything else?  Why would they need dedicated GAMER teams when the devs who found the place could just flick a switch, become invincible, and deal with any and all threats with absolute impunity?

[pendarious]

another question is why use a cheat code so early?

[N2O]

I thought it might makes things more interesting. If this is unsatisfactory to you and unfitting for the plot I'll just modify my post. You need only say the word.

[Maric]

It breaks the setting.  So, yes, please change it.

[N2O]

Pardon me, it was not my intention to spoil the game. My post has been modified.

[Maric]

I apologize for taking so long in my replies, by the way.  Usually I try to make sure it takes me no more than 48 hours between someone else posting and my responding, but I've been slower on this thread than normal.  And it's my own thread, too.

[N2O]

Awww thats quite alright. And speaking of taking forever, I'll be away until next Monday :( but if I can post any sooner I certainly shall try :)

[pendarious]

don't worry about it maric nor you N2O i'm not exactly the most reliable for a speedy response unless everyone else is quickly responding. I tend to post at a speed that seems somewhat more relavent to the pace of others.