I start my old pc; the only reason it's even running the game I like is because I play on the lowest of low graphics… which is still better than just imagining things.
Sometimes, I wish I could lucid dream, but only a few attempts were made.
It's not easy saving for a pc, especially if you don't want to settle for a mid-level one but directly jump to highest quality… so you don't have to switch again in the next decade.
The pc started, and it takes a minute or two.
Meanwhile, I check the books I really like.
I have quite a few, but my favourites are directly next to my desk.
For no other reason than to always look at them in those endlessly long waiting screens.
They are a series of books from the same author, happening in the same large world, one so big it contains all the past, current and future genres that the author will write about.
Fantasy, Romance, Medieval, Cultivation… well, most of the time, the game world is focused around the Renaissance, although they have some interesting settings, such as mage punk in the Victorian age.
There is never Sci Fi… not that I miss it.
'Why would I need Sci Fi? Nah, that's just not my taste, and the author thinks so too. Sci Fi just doesn't fit the whole vibe of fantasy, it's more like a stand alone, deserving its own different branches…' I thought to myself as I recalled the times I tried reading them.
Taking a book I really like - one of the first books the author wrote.
It was a book he wrote following a trend, not one I normally read, as the main character couldn't be more of a Mary Sue than any other book I read, but there are some nice sides.
Like the love interest, though it seems awkward for all the characters to fall for the female lead, clichés aren't to be questioned.
The person that really made me read the book a few times is the Villain, such a weird word for the world this plays in.
If the world is one about profit and only has a baseline of morality, one which is held by the strong and righteous, can there really be a Villain?
Most of the people in such a world are just those that walk in the grey area.
Maybe only a cliché Mary Sue can be a pure White Lotus. Maybe this is why people loved her – a bright light in the otherwise grey world.
'Well, the word choice should be different, that's for sure, but let's just call them a person with some emotional issues that were never handled and often abused. ' I thought about the so-called Villain.
A traumatised person that shouldn't be faulted, as they only fell in love because the Mary Sue is a Mary Sue, someone that was so perfect, they even were therapeutical.
'What a sad villain, one born with so much… ahh, dear Alaric, why do you have to be so stupid?
Your servants are all controlled by your evil mother, who has just as much of an issue as you.
Unfortunately, she takes her anger out on you because you are too easy to bully.
Your childhood friend, well one of them, is so perfect that you can't help being jealous, even when you know it's wrong, but why do they always seem to be relishing in your own suffering?
The other childhood friend of yours is confused the whole time, and you make it so that he is forced to choose the Bitch that hides behind the façade of a Mary Sue.
Acting like the main character of a reverse harem… not that a 'normal' harem is any better…
Ahh, my sad little bird Alaric, you look so villainous in my mind, yet you seem so soft to the other childhood friend – okay okay, chill out.' my imagination runs too wild sometimes, influenced strongly by my desires… ehehehe…
My pc finally awakened, and I double-click on my very nice game, which takes another minute to start. In all the time of using this pc, one of the main lessons I learned was patience.
Out of optimism and hope, I even made a ritual to some void gods mentioned in the book series. Of course it didn't help.
The game starts and jumps into full screen, not lagging at all.
I press 'new game', basically what I always do after a long session.
I never 'cleared' the game, as that is impossible.
After over a decade of creation and several more years of beta, the game came out with so many options and things to do, I doubt people have even reached the ninth circle in magic, or anything equivalent.
I myself played the whole beta and later on, but I'm more of a jack of all trades, reaching the fifth circle in magic and everything equivalent, as that is the point where a lot of new things open up, but I didn't go further, since I had been working to really learn everything 'equivalent'.
For that reason, I naturally started anew.
Though this time, I truly plan to play the game till the end, which is either another death, forcing me to start again, or the end goal, goodhood? Not sure if that is truly the end.
I know for a fact it is a possibility, but I'm not sure if I wanna go the faith-based path… there are many other things that are just as exiting, like immortality, sagehood, arch wizard, and many other things.
As the screen opens up, I see a menu for the place I want to start in.
Did I mention that the game was based on this exact book series?
So of course the whole game play is heavily influenced and even controlled by the author!
The start points of the game are sorted into the several books.
I open the option for Alaric's start, it is in a small corner of the southern continent, one of the three 'minor' continents from the eleven presents.
There was one continent per book, several books for the few oceans around the world, some for single island and some more for special places.