“You’re oh for two, bro,” Wyatt said.
“Tell me about it.”
Wyatt clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. It was kind of a cheat. You’re still an undefined character, so you don’t have any combat skill.”
“Gee, thanks for that.”
“Well, we’re going to remedy that right now. It’s time to figure out what your profession is.” Wyatt led him to the far end of the hall where a line of seven marble statues stood.
“You’re still wanting to go to Greystrand, right?” Wyatt asked. “Because these are all keyed to that world.”
Justin nodded and moved closer to the first statue. It was of a brawny young man holding a battle axe and a shield. A polished gold plaque at the base of the statue read “guardian knight.”
Wyatt said, “You can overlay it if you want. There’s some basic info, but not a ton.”
Justin focused on the statue:
:::::. Guardian knight. Role: defense. Domain: combat .:::::
“I don’t think that either combat classes will pop for you. No offense, but no one’s going to mistake you for a linebacker, right?”
“What do you mean?”
Wyatt hesitated for a moment. “Didn’t they brief you on professions?”
Justin shook his head. He couldn’t remember any special briefing on professions. He knew that there were different character classes, of course. But not much beyond that. He told Wyatt so.
“Okay. Here’s the crash course. OmniWorld is a CGE. You know what that is?”
“No,” Justin said.
“It stands for ‘Cooperative Gaming Environment’ and it basically means that all the game worlds—not just Greystrand—are designed to promote the idea of players all working together. It’s all kind of touchy-feely: cooperation, not competition. But that’s what the psychologists believe works best.”
“But you can still solo, right?”
“Technically, every player has agency, so you can do whatever you want, but the reality of it is that the game controller wants players to work together. If you solo, you advance slower, have less fun, and are more likely to die. They did tell you about the death clause, right?”
Justin certainly remembered the death clause. They made a big deal of it during the briefings. Every player knew that they had unlimited deaths until they hit level five. Once you reached level five, it was three strikes and you’re out. Contract terminated. No million-dollar payout. Plus, every one of those three deaths after level five meant a character wipe. You had to start from scratch with no memories.
“Okay, so I get the whole cooperative gaming thing,” Justin said. “But what does it have to do with choosing my character class?”
“That’s the thing. You don’t get to choose.”
“Well, that sucks!” Justin really wanted to be a battle mage, not some stupid cleric or thief.
“The game controller assigns you a profession—based on a bunch of things, including your physical and mental aptitude, your personality and psychological profiles, and profession supply and demand within the game world.”
Now that Wyatt explained that all, Justin had a vague recollection of hearing something about that. But the briefing sessions hadn’t been game-specific, so the whole idea about being assigned a character class hadn’t sunk in.
He sighed. “Well, let’s get this over with then. What do I have to do?”
“Nothing really. Just step in front of each statue and see which one pops for you.”
“Great.”
The next statue in the line was an enchanter.
:::::. Enchanter. Role: defense/utility. Domain: magic .:::::
He stood in front of it for a moment, but nothing happened.
“Keep going. If it pops, you’ll know it right away,” Wyatt said.
Another brawny-looking statue was next. This one had a longsword. The plaque read simply “warrior.” Pretty generic.
:::::. Warrior. Role: offense. Domain: combat .:::::
When Justin stepped in front of it, nothing happened. Probably for the best.
“Three down, four to go,” said Wyatt.
Glancing over at the next statue, Justin saw that it was obviously a magic-user, but not the typical lanky wizard type. The statue was of a tall, buff guy with an aggressive stance. He glared down at Justin like he was just about to blast him with a fireball. This is the class Justin wanted to be:
:::::. Battle mage. Role: offense. Domain: magic .:::::
Heart pounding, Justin forced himself to walk in front of the statue of the battle mage. He held his breath and… nothing.
“Crap!”
“You wanted battle mage?”
“Of course I wanted battle mage. Who wouldn’t?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Wyatt said. “Professions aren’t a real big deal in the long run.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
“And I’ll let you in on a little behind-the-scenes secret. You want to hear it now or once we’re done here?”
“Is this secret a hack that will let me be a battle mage?”
“No, something better.”
“Whatever, then. Tell me now.”
“Well, now I’m not so sure that I should. You have a lot of anger in you…”
“Wyatt!”
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you right after you step in front of the next statue. It’s the healer, and I have a good feeling about this.”
“No freaking way! I do not want to be a healer. I’ll commit suicide and re-roll.”
“Wouldn’t matter. The controller would probably assign you healer again. Unless, of course, we had a glut of healers for some reason.”
“This sucks. Have I mentioned that?”
Justin stomped over to the statue of the healer and didn’t even bother to overlay it. Thankfully, nothing happened. He was spared. Whew.
“Well, I guess I was wrong,” Wyatt said. “Funny, I would have bet my life that you were destined to be a healer.”
“Thank god for small miracles. Now tell me this behind-the-scenes secret. You promised.”
“Fair enough. So here’s the thing. The game controller wants you to be happy and have a good experience in the game world. Makes sense, right?”
“I guess so.” Everyone who applied to this first public beta of OmniWorld—all two million—had super high expectations. If there was bad word-of-mouth about the whole thing after this first group of five thousand beta testers got out, it could really hurt Loneskum-Alexander.
“So the little secret is that 99.9% of players end up loving the profession that’s chosen for them. That’s actual data, by the way. I’m not exaggerating.”
Justin sniffed.
