MMOhno, uh oh. 1 of 2.

So.

Vacillate.
Spin the chamber, revolve, move to the next topic.
We've covered Raving, Insults, and Music.

The only thing left is Videogames before the cycle completes itself.

With that in mind, look! Look at this thing.
Who is this mysterious woman?

Well.
Let me tell you about The Secret World, by which I mean that will be my topic starter and we will get horribly sidetracked into grander, more grossly cerebral vidyagame concepts while I gesture wildly and shred napkins while muttering to myself.
But first, ambiance. Play this while I talk to you about this videogame world, because it is literally the most perfectly fitting backdrop I can find.

It's okay, load it up. She can wait.
Okay. Okay. The Secret World is a full on, very recent MMORPG. A friend of mine bought it on a whim, because apparently that's something you do when you're jobsearching and you have disposable income. I can't imagine dropping 50 bucks on a potential source of entertainment, much less a goddamn MMO you have to pay monthly subscription fees to.

However, I trust this persons judgement in the field of videogames. I have strong faith in this man, as a connoisseur. So when he told me how much actual fun he was having playing a new, underground MMO (of which there are many - many, and shitty, and poorly fleshed out, and they are in general the bane of the vidya game world. Here be neckbeards) I had to listen unbelievingly and do some furious research.

So.


The Secret World is set in a contemporary universe, and it is an unabashed plunder and pillage of every single aspect of any mythology you think would make for a fun game experience. In the words of the games creators, "every myth is true".
Everything.
And, unlike the FFXI guys who just raped ancient myth and named everything Tiamat and Aspidochelone (that'd be the giant island-turtle. why, what did you do as a kid?), The Secret World puts a greater emphasis on more modern conspiracy theories and fringe belief systems.

After a day of playing, we found a single sentence to sum the world up: "It's basically the Hellboy universe. No, like, the comic book version. If it would make for a killer dungeon, Hitler's lizardmen-filled hollow Earth secret base would totally exist.......Okay, it probably exists. That's probably a thing that we'll have to go see. Now let's go join up with the Wandering Jew and fight some psionic mutants in Argentina."

It is modern day, and magic is real, and werewolves live in the alleyways of Ealdswick, London. The Hollow Earth theory is true, the Kraken is real, and laughably misguided Wiccan practices might actually work if you cut yourself with the right knife under the right moon.
That crazy bag lady out on the street might be a high-energy physicist cum amateur street shaman who found out how to travel dimensions using nothing but a piece of chalk and a blank wall.

In The Secret World, the Illuminati are real. The Templars are real. You can shoot lightning if you channel the spirit of electronics through a totem built out of an old iPod usb cable. Then again, you could just shoot your target in the head with a fucking shotgun because, as it turns out, righteous swords of fire are in short supply against the forces of darkness. (Not that you couldn't get your hands on one, eventually. For the right price, information, or favor.)
Everything is real, and it's probably trying to kill you, eat your soul energy, and assume your form so it can go unnoticed until it eats your neighbors too.
The real life, the real world, is in a constant state of chaotic upheaval and conflict, and the grand majority has absolutely no clue what's going on.
I'm waxing poetic, aren't I. I'm droning.
Fine, fine.
I can tell when I'm boring someone.
Stop being so theatrical.

The point is, story-wise, the game is neat enough that I was dragged in. Willingly.
So after a night spend tearing a 10gb-sized hole in internet-space (also known as downloading), I activated my 24-hour trial account and immediately spent an hour staring at the character creation screen.

Character creation....mother of god. One of my many only weaknesses.
In the end, I had to accept that I had no idea what direction I was taking this character, and my complete lack of understanding of the universe I was about to descend into gave me no concepts to armor myself against or shape myself around.

HA HA Just kidding, I googled the fuck out of my options and did some research.

Was I willing to be Illuminati? Did I care about wealth, power, information control, being the hand that guides events? Based in America? Wearing immaculate suits, kevlar vests and gas masks? Subterfuge, bribery, control control control?

Was I going to be Templar? Would I stand as one of many as a bastion against the forces of destruction? Would I forge my willpower like a rod of steel, and smith it into a mighty weapon in this eternal war? Would I embody justice, as I defined it? London based? Sacerdotal in doctrine (yeah, google that one, fuckers), with clean lines and no small hint of decidedly "Inquisition" fashion? Ornate weaponry? Shiny, shiny guns? Strength and honor?

Neither, of course.



I was immediately drawn to the smallest, least overtly influential, most secretive of the triad.
Dragon.
Not the Dragon, not the Order of the Dragon. Just Dragon.
Based in Seoul....currently.
Amorphous. Subtle. Vacillatory.
Pairing Asian philosophy with bleeding edge analytical research. Finding purpose, finding reason behind everything, Tracing the roots of the storm all the way back to the wings of the butterfly, then finding out what caused that butterfly to flap in the first place.
Chaos theory? Why stop at theory?
Dragon conducts empirical research into the nature of dynamic interaction, treating the entire multiverse as a connected system.

Fuck power, fuck control. I want to know how the universe works, and then I want to shake the shit out of it.

I want to be a butterfly.

I want to be the butterfly.






So I made my character and all the headstory and fictional background history just fell fell fell into place because stories, man, that's what drives an MMO at least half the way.

The other half, of course, is gameplay mechanics. We'll be discussing that aspect in the second half.
But for now, Raven "Haraam" Seldon is going to go strap her dual antique pistols up, shrug on her chaos magic focus, and wear suspenders and a duster coat like the fucking gunslinging lunatic mathematical physics grad student who's recently had a (third)eye opening experience with the inchoate that she is.

Pity it's an MMO.