Андреа Хёст - The Starfighter Invitation

"It’s not Earth," the shorter sister said, after she’d drunk deeply of awe and had moved on to curiosity. "There’s hardly any land."

[[[[It is the Drowned Earth.]]]]

The sisters whirled, taking up defensive stances until they spotted the source of the strange, multi-layered voice: a floating point of light.

"What are you supposed to be?" the taller sister asked.

[[[[I am the Concierge of Dream Speed . You may call me Ryzon.]]]]

I couldn’t identify the accent of the odd, rich voice, though Ryzon’s German was certainly better than mine.

"You’re a game master? This is so awesome. I love it already. Do we get our own ships? What are the classes? Can we be anything we like? Even the panther?"

"Give it—her?—a chance to answer, Petra."

But Ryzon responded with effortless calm:

[[[[In some ways. Thank you. Ships are one of the goals. Technically, there are no classes. There are a wide variety of modal units. The panther is one option.]]]]

The shorter sister, Sabine, reached a hand toward the floating light, but changed her mind. "What’s a modal unit?"

[[[[A physical avatar. You start with your own Core Unit, but as you progress through the game you might access, for instance, an underwater modal, or one designed for flight, or zero gravity. Some challenges can only be entered using a modal with specific traits.]]]]

The room’s lighting changed, brightening to a dim orange glow, the brilliant white of the corridor shifting to match. Words in a language I didn’t recognise, accompanied by a two-tone beep, began to blare, and the two girls gasped as they both drifted upward. The shorter reacted to the sudden absence of weight by kicking accidentally against the window, propelling herself toward the centre of the room. She flailed, turning in a circle.

[[[[Zero-G games are best entered with a modal optimised for the environment,]]]] Ryzon said, voice brimful of amusement and clearly audible over the noise. [[[[But this challenge has been simplified so that even the rawest of space-goers has a chance to succeed. Your goal is to find and press four deactivation buttons before the countdown runs out. I’ll make the first one easy.]]]]

The floating concierge vanished as a red flashing object, the size of a fist and labelled in squiggles, appeared on the ceiling above the stranded girl.

"Petra! Give me a hand! No, help me first!"

But the taller girl had already launched herself at the ceiling, managing a near trajectory. Bouncing off metal a half-foot to the right of the button, she tried to slap it on the rebound, and succeeded in sending herself hurtling into a corner of the room.

As the pair gave themselves a frantic lesson in zero-G manoeuvres, my mother picked up her tablet, and in a few short pecks at the screen began shopping for GDG cowls.

"Is yours still working, Taia?" my father asked, taking off his glasses and twisting them, as he did whenever he was excited.

"Yeah, I don’t need—wait, are those DS -branded?"

"Official Ryzonart cowls," my mother said, bringing up a larger image of a deep blue cowl specked with stars, the mandatory smoke detector and emergency wake button gleaming blue and gold, like a planet and its sun. "Ryzonart definitely has its product placement ready to go."

"Standard price, at least. Damn, I want one. I don’t really need one, but I want one. I…hey, why four?"

"One for your Oma."

"Oma and computers? Really?" My grandmother, very much an outdoorswoman despite the arthritis that plagued her, had little time for electronics.

"Your Oma and a virtual body."

"Good point."

I shook my head and watched two girls working their way along a spaceship corridor. Of course, people had already been saying that Dream Speed wouldn’t just upend the gaming world, that VR would change lives. And while I might dismiss theories of aliens and AIs in guild chat, if these demos weren’t some magnificent hoax, then…could we really do this with current tech?

Corpse Light Forums

Thread: Dream Speed Starting City

26 September: Tornin (Guildmaster)

Right, the poll is officially closed. Guild starting city is Vessa. What Vessa is, what we’ll do there—your guess is as good as mine. Sounds like DS is solo-focused, but Ryzonart’s finally confirmed there will be guild functions in-game.

26 September: TALiSON (Member)

I feel like I’ve been waiting for this game my entire life. I don’t know if I’m going to survive the next week.

26 September: TazMazter (Member)

Never thought I’d be ponying up for a game while knowing hardly anything about it.

26 September: Silent (Officer)

if i didn’t know someone who’d drawn one of the demos i’d still be convinced the whole thing was an elaborate hoax

28 September: DIEMORTDIE (Member)

Here’s hoping we get the pre-load as smoothly as everything else. While we’re spamming F5, here’s a checklist of all the questions answered so far:

Classes: modal units with different specifications.

Races: As above.

PVP: Yes, can fight other players in designated zones, or by duelling, though majority of gameplay is PVE.

Max level: None? You gain reputation, rankings and credits to buy upgrades.

End game: Highest-ranked players compete in Challenges (for boasting rights?).

Setting: far future Earth (and all of the galaxy!?).

Plot/lore: No idea!

World servers: Only one? Seems unlikely, but probably the whole thing is a series of instances. There’s no differentiation between the starting cities in terms of PVP or RP. Probably each of the fifty starter cities is hosted on a different server.

Restrictions: Some content is age-restricted, with three divisions: twelve to fifteen, sixteen to eighteen, and nineteen up. Under-twelves not allowed to play. [Good luck enforcing any of that.]

Localisation: Claims (improbably) that it will be localised for all major languages from launch.

Microtransactions: No! No loot boxes, either.

Play time: This is new: you can only play DS for five (real world) hours at a time, after which you will be shuttled into normal sleep, and won’t be allowed access again for a minimum of five hours. MADDENING. On the flip side, they’re sticking to the idea of time compression , which means those five hours in-game will work out to 25 hours experienced. No answer to the question of whether the full shut out will commence if you log before your five hours are up.

28 September: Tornin (Guildmaster)

How Ryzonart can make everyone dream at the same speed—or do any of this—has yet to be answered.

28 September: Silent (Officer)

if we experience each five hours as twenty-five—hell, with five on, five off, we could fit in nearly a hundred hours of gameplay on the first day—can we possibly not burn through the game’s entire content in the first week?

28 September: TALiSON (Member)

I’ll be spending MY first week in the character creator.

28 September: Far (Member)

Aaannnd…downloading!!!

28 September: Thing One (Member)

download is tiny! miniscule! everything is server side and ds going to be death by laglaglag server down mass overload !!

28 September: Amelia (Officer)

Nice to have such a problem-free pre-install but…well, we don’t understand how this game works. We’ll see.

28 September: TALiSON (Member)

OMFG!! Game is unlocked already!! Game is unlocked! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! Go go go go go!!!

In some games you get to choose from a number of pre-made character models, and that’s it. In others you can spend days playing with settings: widening the bridge of your character’s nose, and adjusting the length of their chin—or ears, or tail.