After browsing through dozens of uninteresting MMOs the man finally stumbled across a sketchy-looking link.

He clicked into it.

The website looked like an early two-thousands nightmare.

Giant, animated buttons and gifs of cats littered the screen.

Advertisements leading to several foreign adult-entertainment websites.

When he clicked sign-up the website displayed a screen with several fields to fill in: name, email, username, blood type, next of kin in case of a sudden disappearance.

“What the hell… next of kin?” thought the man as he filled in all the fields, leaving the last one blank.

After making the account he had a look at some images and came to the conclusion that the game looked pretty fun, the graphics were cutesy but not cartoony and it offered some fancy physics when it came to water, character damage and cloth simulations.

There were a few links to alleged videos of these physics in action, but they were all dead links.

He clicked download and immediately doubted the legitimacy of his internet provider the moment he saw the estimated download time of the game.

”I know I don’t pay much for the WIFI but come on!”

While the game was downloading, the man took the time to get a cup of instant noodles.

Th game was downloading at a glacial pace, it was almost eighty gigabytes, "That’s enough to fit, like, two generic MMOs - or about eight hundred generic block-building games," thought the man.

He never actually played an MMO before, he played plenty of other games, racing games, strategy games, farming simulators, but aside from his distaste for socialising with people, he struggled to understand the point of an MMO, the goal if you will.

Was the goal to kill some super-powerful enemy? Was he supposed to find the ultimate weapon and armour?

“It’s not like I never played an aimless sandbox game, but MMOs have RPG mechanics and progression, right?… So there must be some goal.”

When the game finally downloaded he placed the newly acquired file on his desktop which was littered with dozens of games ranging from “released this month” to “released sometime between the invention of the computer and ten years ago”.

He double-clicked the icon and out popped the game log-in screen.

"By continuing to play this game, you are officially accepting our EULA, read more?"

The man just clicked accept.

After he filled in the account details and clicked play, a server selection menu appeared in the centre of the screen but much to his surprise, there was only one server that wasn't greyed out, it showed over five-hundred players online.

“Great, looks like I chose a dead game…” he thought leaning back in his chair.

"The whole point of this was to try a new genre... why would I try a multiplayer game with no people in it!"

He right-clicked the icon and clicked “item directory”.

Next, he selected every item inside by pressing “control” and “a” and hovered his finger over the “Delete” key.

“On second thought… this may be my chance to ease into a multiplayer environment!”

"The fewer players, the less likely it is I run into a b*tcoin assassin out for my blood!" he thought.

“I mean… would they still be pissed about…”

“Yeah, no they would absolutely still be pissed…”

He went back to the game and chose the only available server.

The screen turned black as an image faded in, it was a sketch of some strange fish-creature, it was wearing a robe and wielded a trident, below was a blue loading bar and a little piece of text, it read: “Tip: If you need help, do not hesitate to contact our active community!”

The man rolled his eyes.

“Active community my ass, five-hundred players…”

Moments later the screen faded to white before glitching out, pixelated textures appeared on the screen for a solid ten seconds before disappearing.

"I feel this may be foreshadowing..." he sighed.

A message appeared in the centre of the screen accompanied by an "ok" button, the message read: "Yeah… we lost the tutorial.map file… soooo Imma’ just assume you know what to do."

He clicked "ok"

“...I'm starting to have a really bad feeling about this...”

Another message window opened: "If you don't understand something, don't hesitate to ask the other players in the chat because the mods don't give a f*#k! Use the enter key to post messages in the chat!"

“...”

He clicked "ok" again and after screwing around with the controls for a few seconds he realised they were pretty standard for modern games.

He clicked enter to open the chat box allowing him to type, when he typed in his message he clicked enter again and in the bottom left his message appeared alongside the dozens of other people typing.

"JohnWillStab: Does anybody know how to play this game?" he wrote.

In about three seconds his message got buried under a dozen new messages, completely unrelated to his question.

He didn’t expect his username to be used here but on second thought, it made sense.

They asked for a username for a reason plus he didn’t make a character yet, he just assumed that he could pick a name himself.

"XPhaxX: Hey, fam - if you need a tutrial - just go into the help menu!" The reply was in a separate window labelled “Private Chats”

Seeing his chance he wrote back,

"JohnWillStab: How do I do that?" he asked back ignoring their spelling mistake.

A few seconds later he got the reply...

"XPhaxX: Hold ‘ALT’, then use function keys, I think F4 is the help one?"

"JohnWillStab: Yeah... no... I'm not that gullible, that joke would have been funny like... eight years ago."

"You’d have to be a complete idiot not to know “alt-f4” shut down whatever window was open." thought John.

"XPhaxX: Shucks... "

"JohnWillStab: So is there an actual guide? Because the tutorial is... a little old fashioned... like... pre-written history."

JohnWillStab was uncertain of the etiquette in regards to swearing, so he kept his messages PG13.

"XPhaxX: Didn’t the tutorial get deleted? "

JohnWillStab let out a sigh.

"JohnWillStab: Yeah…"

"XPhaxX: Look up a tutorial, online - idk how the new zone even looks."

"JohnWillStab: k, thanks…"

He logged out and immediately considered uninstalling the game.

Reluctantly, he looked at a few tutorials online, they went over the basics but seemed pretty out-dated, the game interface was completely different.

The only videos which were even vaguely helpful were by some guy playing a dark-skinned “ogre” with vibrant purple hair, the purple hair didn’t match his massive muscles, his username was “TellerOfTheTeach_1”.

After watching no less than twenty videos, each ten to twenty minutes long, John finally felt comfortable with the basic game mechanics, his question of “what is the goal of an MMO” still remained unanswered though.

He logged back in, appearing in the same forested area as before, his character stood on a patch of dirt surrounded by a forest of gold and red leaves, the trees had white logs and the grass was yellowy-green.

After glancing at the interface again he realized nothing looked right.

The health bar was placed in the other side of the screen, most of the textures were similar at best.

Even the controls were different, John suspected the character wasn’t controlled with the numpad keys as stated in the video, but that was just a gut-feeling.

That was when John decided to look at the publishing date on the video, it was published over ten years ago.

JohnWillStab heard somebody in real life speak up from his living room: "Hey, John! Are you still alive in there?" asked the voice of a woman.

"Why are you in my house?" he asked not turning away from his screen.

This type of intrusion wasn’t out of the norm for JohnWillStab.

"Well, you left the window open!" replied the voice.

"Close it on the way out, okay?" John asked.

"Sure." replied the voice.

"Now then, back to business..." he thought unphased by the person entering his house through the window.

"JohnWillStab: I think the tutorials are out-dated…"

"XPhaxX: Yeah, no s#*t, nobody’s played this game in years?"

"XPhaxX: You're asking for help in global chat... what did you expect?"

"XPhaxX: New players aren’t exactly liked around these parts…"

"JohnWillStab: ?"

"XPhaxX: You’ll be spamming the global chat with questions for the next six months T_T"

"JohnWillStab: Alright, alright! I’ll just look up the mechanics and try and get something recent."

Realising the chat was not on his side, JohnWillStab decided to try and figure it out by himself, some keyboard tapping revealed the character was controlled by the usual ‘WASD’ keyboard keys, the camera could be moved by holding down the left mouse button and moving it.

On the bottom of the screen was a row of empty squares - he could click on them but a red error message appeared reading: "Missing ability!".

After moving his mouse around John came to the realisation that there was a glowing, yellow circle below the feet of a small object near the edge of the dirt patch he stood on, he slowly navigated towards it and climbed atop the object... it was a mailbox,

Suddenly his character fell down onto the ground limply before standing back up seconds later, "Guess this is the ragdoll physics they wrote about online..." he thought.

After some trial and error, he right-clicked the mailbox leading to a new interface, boxes like those on the bottom of the screen except for two boxes, one had the picture of a sword, the other a scroll.

He clicked on the sword and another box opened: From - Admin: Sup - the original welcoming message got corrupted so I’ll just write this thing out - on the off chance you’re a new player… who am I kidding, you know what to do XD. Anyway, I think I'm the last admin left, I'll be deleting this account if I don't get paid by next week so you guys are on your own.

”What a community...” thought John.

After reading the message he clicked into the other box, the one with the picture of the scroll: From - ???: DNO'T DELETE ANY OF THIS OR I’LL BREAK YOUR F#*KING LEGS!!! Aside from the text there was also an icon below, it looked like a piece of gold Gold Coin (x9,999,999) the name and count of the item appeared when he hovered his cursor over it.

He clicked it and heard the sound of coins jingling as his character became surrounded by bright lights and various sound effects.

Achivement unlocked! : First Gold!

Achivement unlocked! : Ten Gold!

Achivement unlocked! : Hundred Gold!

Achivement unlocked! : Thousand Gold!

Achivement unlocked! : Ten Thousand Gold!

Achivement unlocked! : Hundred Thousand Gold!

Achivement unlocked! : Million Gold!

The messages appeared one after the other before quickly disappearing. "What the hell was that about?!" he thought.

The screen went black as a message appeared on the screen: Create Character, below it was a button reading "confirm".

Realising the tutorial wasn’t getting him anywhere, JohnWillStab clicked confirm.

John was then met with another loading screen, this one depicting a sketch of a small monkey looking monster, it was labelled “Crypt fiend”.

The tip read: “Tip: Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”

John rolled his eyes upon seeing the message, “Alright, they gave one legitimate tip and are now resorting to quoting Confucius… this does not bode well for the game.”

He was taken to a character creation screen, "First, you must select a race! - Each race starts in a different zone and has different perks, so be careful which one you pick!"

There was a human wearing generic clothing standing in the middle of the screen, to the left were eight pictures of what looked like different races.

He hovered over the first one "Human"

"Humans are the most generic race - no buffs or debuffs! They start in the dry plains."

"That sounds like an alright race..." he thought before checking the other ones.

"Ogre"

"The ogres are a race of powerful warriors and shamans, the tough climate made them strong - they are stronger than a human but slower than them - they can go twice as long as a human without food or drink. Orge players start in the stone forest."

"Wolfkin"

"Wolfkin are a race of feral beastfolk living in the wild glacier mountains - with both speed and strength greater than a human their weakness comes from the low health and inability to handle hot temperatures."

"Seafolk"

"Seafolk are a noble race of mages and healers, they are slower and weaker than humans - however, they can breathe underwater, swim faster and can replenish their stamina by being in the water - potentially allowing them to not eat any food. The major downside of the seafolk is that their stats are halved when they are on land."

"Undead"

"The undead have a permanently full stamina meter, meaning they never eat, drink or sleep - they can also never be poisoned and are immune to many spells - however, an undead is considered a monster and can be killed free of consequences until their reputation is increased sufficiently."

"Harpy"

"The harpy trades health and speed for their ability to fly for a limited time - a harpy is capable of eating raw food products without taking any loss to their health or stamina"

"Demon"

"The demons are a difficult race and are not recommended for new players as they are hostile to every fraction - this means that even fellow demons will be able to attack you if they wish. The demon has greater strength and speed as well as health - however, they must wear a disguise if they have any intention of working with others."

"Toakin"

"Toakin, sometimes called frogkin, are a race of traders - capable of the highest non-combat move speed and no debuffs regardless of the terrain. However, they cannot eat cooked food and are inferior in every other way."

The man was finding it difficult to choose between the human and undead, he knew he wanted to play an assassin-like character, jumping off rooftops and tossing poisoned blades at his foes.

For just a second he imagined the single edgiest character, hood, mask and dagger equipped.

He would stand in the corner of the inn and would most certainly be approached by every low-level player begging him for help.

With a re-discovered need to play as the most bad-ass looking race he settled on the undead.

The image of the human was replaced by the decayed looking, pale undead, next, he could select the gender of his character, he selected male.

"Don't want to be a trap now do I," he chuckled.

A 'decomposition' slider let him choose how badly rotted the body should be, '1' was basically a vampire, pale and with what looked like eyeliner but otherwise human and '10' was a skeleton, he chose a '1'.

The 'race' allowed for the undead to be a different type of undead, like an undead seafolk or undead harpy, naturally, they wouldn't receive any of the given race's bonuses. He decided to stick to an undead human.

After fiddling with the hair and facial features he decided on a black ponytail with a slight fringe, bangs and a handlebar moustache.

Next, there were four sliders, age, weight, muscle and height, he set them to his desired settings, the undead looked young, like he died in his mid-twenties, with visible muscles and average height, that said John didn’t want his assassin to be the size of a gorilla.

The image of a gorilla wearing the mask, hood and wielding a tiny dagger appeared in his mind.

"Now that you have selected your race - you have to pick your classes!"

The interface shifted to show three icons, a sword, bow and wand.

Since John wanted to be a stabby-rogue, he selected the sword.

"The melee classes utilize close-range weapons and martial arts abilities to defeat their enemies!"

Below appeared a dozen or so icons, various weapon types appeared, axes, maces, long swords, short swords, hammers, dagger, flails, shields and whatnot.

He selected the dagger and tried to click the continue button on for a new message to appear: "You need to select two classes! Pick another one!"

Looking through the icons he selected the fist icon, "An assassin should know how to fight someone hand-to-hand, right?" John thought.

He clicked continue causing the screen to fade out to black before it faded into a dull blue forest, like a dark, grey, blue-green colour, the trees had grey bark and the sky was cloudy and stormy.

Below he finally saw some actual icons, he hovered his mouse over the first one, Slash: deals 1 x (Weapon damage*strength)

Shiv: deals 2 x (Weapons damage*strength)+ distance bonus - Note: can't use in combat.

Kick: deals 0.5*strength

On his top left, he saw a portrait image of his character, as well as his level Level: 1

Tip! : Click 'c' to see your character stats!

John did as instructed and saw his stat page.

Stamina: 100/100

Health: 20/20

Magic: 0/0

Intellect: 5

Strength: 1

Speed: 1

Acrobatics: 1

Agility: 1

Dexterity: 1

Charisma: -100

Karma: 0

Weapon skill (Daggers): 1/100

John closed the stat menu and decided to just head in one direction and hope to find the boss he was probably meant to kill.

After a minute or so of walking a small yellow message appeared in the corner of the screen Speed +0.01

He checked his stats page to confirm and his speed has in fact increased.

The next thing happened in a flash, his character burst into flames, he fell to the floor in a ragdoll state as his health drained down to zero in about two seconds.

A new message appeared in the centre of the screen.

Your character has died, you may wait ten minutes to respawn at your place of death or respawn at the nearest town now.

He clicked the second option and appeared in a town, the buildings looked tall and gothic in architecture with black fences and large windows.

Suddenly, in perfect unison, several NPCs called out "Stay back, undead!" as they charged towards him, John broke into a sprint (not literally, he walked at the normal speed) heading for the gates, he moved his camera to see what's behind him only to see that he was still chased by ten or so guards, their speed stat was a lot higher than his allowing them to slowly close the distance.

Suddenly guards appeared from the other side of the gate and attacked John, killing him in a single slash.

Your character has died, you may wait ten minutes to respawn at your place of death or respawn at the nearest town now. he chose the second option again, he appeared a few meters away, he didn't even have a loading screen this time.

The guards ran towards him and despite his strategy of "running in another direction", he got killed again.

"JohnWillStab: THIS GAME IS SO [email protected] BROKEN!"

He complained in chat.

John temporarily forgot about his plan not to swear in the chat, but being killed a few times tends to wear away at the human mind.

"WillWillWas: ...you chose undead, didn't you?"

"JohnWillStab: yeah! Why even have a race if it's unplayable!?!"

"XxFoxlyxX: Tis why we REAL GAMERS play as the frogkin!"

"WillWillWas: stfu fox..."

"XxFoxlyxX: No i"

"XxFoxlyxX: No u*"

"WillWillWas: ..."

"Oofgod: this [email protected] chat is cancer..."

"JohnWillStab: ...so... how do I play an undead? Do I have to make a new character?"

"Oofgod: what do you mean? You can’t make new characters you re#*rd…"

"Kilin_: You have to grind a bit, but undead get infinite stamina so you'll be op eventually."

"JohnWillStab: ...I'm stuck in a town getting killed by guards..."

"XxFoxlyxX: lol"

"WillWillWas: ..."

"WillWillWas: f"

"Oofgod: wait the ten minutes and keep dying a little closer to the exit until you eventually revive far enough from the guards..."

"JohnWillStab: I'll try it."

A long... LONG time later...

JohnWillStab stood outside of the town, just barely out of the reach of the guards, at this point his character looked less dead than the real John.

"JohnWillStab: I did it..."

"XxFoxlyxX: oofgod logged off twenty minutes ago, fam..."

"JohnWillStab: ..."

"XxFoxlyxX: All I'm sayin' is a frogkin would have made it out of there faster than an undead..."

"JohnWillStab: ..."

"WillWillWas: IF YOU LOVE THE FROGS SO MUCH - GO F*@K ONE!"

"XxFoxlyxX: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"

"JohnWillStab: ..."

"WillWillWas: ..."

"WillWillWas: the command is /mute XxFoxlyxX"

He typed in the command and received a notification ""XxFoxlyxX" has been muted! Use the command /Unmute to hear "XxFoxlyxX" again"

"Bonifacius: HALT, Traveler!"

Appeared a message in a separate dialogue box labelled "Local chat".

"Bonifacius: *looks at JohnWillStab*"

"Bonifacius: T’would appear t’me that an illness be upon thee!"

"JohnWillStab: What?"

"Bonifacius: didst thee not listen t’me, I simply asketh if thou be sicketh"

"JohnWillStab: ..."

"JohnWillStab: What?"

"Bonifacius: *sighs*"

JohnWillStab was considering backing off slowly, but he didn’t remember if he was meant to maintain eye contact or not… or was he supposed to roll on the ground? No that’s for fire.

"Bonifacius: I may not be convinced fully, yet I feel my manor of speaking is referred to as “role playing”"

"JohnWillStab: ..."

"Bonifacius: doth thee need’th help"

"JohnWillStab: Dude, speak like a f*@king normal person or leave me alone..."

"Bonifacius: *sighs*"

"Bonifacius: tis hazardous for an undead to be located in this location!"

JohnWillStab saw the man approach him, it was a human with pale-blond, almost white hair, the character was dressed in heavy-looking white armour with a massive shield and thick sword on his back.

A short beard clung to the man's jawline.

"JohnWillStab: Look - I don't know what the “'s” are about but try asking for help in public chat, I don't know what you're saying."

"Bonifacius: ..."

"JohnWillStab: …"

"Bonifacius: ..."

Bonifacius seemingly decided to re-start his roleplay, acting surprised at the wild discovery that JohnWillStab is, in fact, an undead.

"Bonifacius: mine own god, art thee an undead?! I has't to killeth thee!"

The armoured man drew his shield and sword and approached John. Bonifacius: *Strikes the enemy*

Seeing the acts of aggression he decided to prepare to fight the human, even if he was clearly disabled.

While Bonifacius was writing, JohnWillStab ran up to him and started spamming the kick spell causing Bonifacius to keep replaying the "hit" animation.

"Bonifacius: thou art a stout foe! but I has't the pow'r of god on mine own side! "

"Bonifacius: *Strikes the enemy*"

JohnWillStab continued kicking the enemy, Bonifacius cast Shield Bash killing JohnWillStab instantly and knocking his ragdoll corpse flying through the sky and landing on the stone ground.

He used the mouse to move the camera around to see where he was.

JohnWillStab was once again, in the centre of the town.