PVP?
VRMMO Utopia is set in a fantasy world.
Humans, Elves, Fairies, Beastmen, Fishmen, Dragonoids...
A variety of races exists in different ways.
Kingdoms, Empires, Independent Cities, Tribes...
Right now, nobody from the players knows what the name of this fantasy world is. Most of them just assumed it was Utopia.
Currently, there is 6 known continent in this world.
However, at the start, the player's starting continent was already decided for them.
Dragon, Serpent, and Phoenix empire's players are situated on 3 different continents.
Right now, the majority of the 3 million players from the three superpowers had already arrived, and they are about to mix in with this world's inhabitants.
...
Gilbert, after learning a few additional things from Ava, had then left the summoning area together with her.
Currently, Ava is in a resting state, inside Gilbert's soul.
After leaving, he was immediately taken to a realistic miniature holographic map of a continent.
On the map, many areas are still surrounded by mists like some kind of fog of war veiling them in mystery. However, even then, there are still a lot of places to choose from.
Each place has a summary of details describing them including how much population they have, what level it was recommended for, level of law, and specialties.
Populated and unpopulated.
Places populated with 100 - 90 000 inhabitants.
Towns, small and medium tribes, villages.
And unpopulated places.
Abandoned ruins, Abandoned settlements, churches, shrines, and isolated islands.
Cities, with the exception of some small independent ones, are currently off-limits.
From these choices, a million other players from the Dragon empire would also have to choose.
Because of that, people would have to take many things into account.
The lesser populated areas would probably have lesser chances of finding quests.
Though one can have lesser competition and could try finding hidden discoveries unique to the places, it would probably akin to gambling.
Geography would also have to be taken into account.
Like choosing an abandoned island for example.
Picking it as a choice is the same as picking a totally different genre of game from everyone.
Only hardcore survivalists would choose to play like some kind of hermit or castaway.
After a while of examining the map, Gilbert finished choosing.
His choice is an abandoned church.
Although it was unpopulated, it was near another town called "Prac" town with a population of 10 000, so it wasn't really a problem.
It was part of the territory belonging to Mucs Kingdom, a human kingdom specialized in slave trading.
The current average level of law in the whole kingdom's territory is at level 0.9 from a total of 5 levels.
Though it wasn't completely lawless, it was still extremely low.
Red text could even be seen from below the summaries warning players to avoid picking such choices especially if you are a female or someone who can't handle dark elements.
From the game manual, it was worth mentioning that this game doesn't shy away from dark themes.
Players could suffer tortures and sexual assault.
But the game admins had made measures to protect the players from it.
Players at default could only feel 10% of total pain from whatever damage they received.
However, even that 10% could feel like death to some people.
So in order to avoid suffering from torture, players could activate instant suicide from the system.
Activating Instant suicide would kill the player and will enable him to revive on his last 3 registered Ressurection point on his next login.
However, dying from Instant suicide would double the death penalty hours of the player, turning the 24 real-time hours of waiting to 48 hours.
Next, is sexual assaults and harassment.
To avoid being the target of sexual assaults, the players are protected in different ways. And player to player protection is different compared to NPC to player.
Players who would try to assault or sexually harass other players would be punished immediately by the game's AI admin.
Players could only be intimate with other players in 3 ways.
First, is if they sent an invitation from the interaction system called consensual invitation and the other player accepted.
Second, is when they are granted rights by the other player from his/her friend list settings.
And lastly, if the target player deactivated all forms of system protection in his/her personal settings.
Unless one of the three is at least true, even if both players are married in real life or in-game, the assaulter or harasser would be punished.
NPCs meanwhile are not punished for trying to assault or harassed players. But to protect players, the targeted player, if defenseless would be forced to teleport on a safe area chosen by the AI admin.
And that works for both genders, male or female.
Still, for the few exceptional perverted degenerates, they could cancel the protection via personal settings.
Gilbert's thought returned to the map. Comparing the abandoned church to Prac town, the abandoned church was recommended for levels 1-20, while the Prac town is 1-15.
Although it would be more advantageous to start at Prac town, Gilbert is more interested in the abandoned church.
['Abandoned Church' has been selected]
[Confirm?]
'Yes'
A bright flash of light had then swallowed Gilbert's body.
...
[Welcome to 'Abandoned Church']
[Inventory and Status is now live]
['Invulnerability' Status Received for 60 seconds]
The bright light disappears, and Gilbert finds himself inside a wide ruined church.
Rotten long wooden chairs could be seen disarranged on the sides, and an old large rusty broken chandelier punctured the center of the floor leaving a few cracks around.
Gilbert moved his eyes around to examine the church's walls and entrance.
Cracks could be seen on the walls and the large double doors that should have been on the entrance are gone, leaving it wide open.
Old and abandoned.
Right now, Gilbert is currently alone, but he felt something strange in the air.
Other than the smell of old wood, Gilbert could smell the scent of iron.
And for some reason, it feels like someone is looking at him.
'Smell of Blood?'
<'I am of the same thought'> Gilbert replied.
Using their connection, Gilbert could converse with Ava.
Someone is camping on a spawning point?
A player?
A PK?
If he is a player, then the reason he is not attacking him yet should be because of the invulnerability status.
However, when everyone should be trying to find quests and level up, someone is odd enough to stop by to PK fellow newbies.
For what purpose?
Money?
According to the game manual, if someone dies, then all of his gold coins will drop.
And right now, Gilbert only had the basic 100 gold coins that everyone had from the game.
Is it really worth it to waste time just to farm such amount?
Well, right now, nobody really knows the true value of the gold coins.
Item drop?
Upon dying, 10% of the items from the inventory of the player will drop with a high priority rate for the recently acquired items.
Right now, Gilbert is wearing the basic rag-like clothes that everyone is wearing.
It was not really attractive.
But then, there was probably no use thinking about such things, people would even sometimes do something for the sake of doing it.
Gilbert himself used to play GTA online in his past life and had gone on a killing spree just for the sake of the killing spree.
It could be the same for this lurking fellow.
It might even be his...
'Oh, I see... It could be that too...'
Though it would be better to level up first than trying to rank up a soul weapon, someone could think otherwise.
<'Ava, weapon form'>
Balls of white lights began gathering on Gilbert's right hand as a beautiful long sword with a black handle appeared.
Ava, Weapon Form.
Soul weapons on the basic level can transform into two forms.
One is their human form, and the other is the weapon form.
And right now, getting battle-ready, Gilbert made Ava transform into her weapon form which was a long sword.
From the time that had passed, Gilbert had already pinpointed out where the feeling of being watched is coming from.
From his position, Gilbert turned around and looked in front.
He could see a large statue of the same woman from the paintings before.
The feeling of being watched came from the shadows under the statue's long skirt.
"I know you are there. There is no use hiding anymore..."
Gilbert's voice resounded in the whole church.
"I see... So, I've been found out..." A man's rough voice replied as Gilbert could see a man, slowly come out from the shadows under the statue's skirt.
It was a serious-looking man with daggers in both hands.
Hearing the confidence from the man's tone, and seeing the way the man moves, Gilbert knew this person isn't just any nobody.
A strong person.
The man too could see and feel that Gilbert isn't a nobody either.
That could be seen from the seriousness currently on the man's eyes.
The tension is increasing.
At this point in time, both of them are getting ready to attack if either would try to do something suspicious.
Both their soul weapons aren't an exception either.
Both are talking via their owner's connection, and getting ready to support their owners anytime.
"..."
"..."
<...>
But before Gilbert and the man could continue talking to each other, another silhouette of a person formed between them as a new player arrived.