All this chatter…it sounds like I am in a daycare! Everyone still at spawn must be a young person, because how else could you handle so much noise at one place? Everyone go away!

It seems if I triple tap the side of my screen like Fate-Fan told me, the user interface opens up. After a while it disappears again, but there is a button to lock it in place which I just pressed that allows me to constantly see the minimap, my status, and other buttons. In the minimap it just outlines the building I am in and faintly shows the outside. If it showed icons of every player in the nearby area, then my whole minimap would be covered with those icons.

From what I read previously; this game isn’t attempting to simulate reality so I have something like a health bar you would see in many other RPG’s. However, so far from what I can tell the game does manage to adapt certain aspects of “reality” in order to enhance the adventure aspects of the game. This means that the minimap, for example, doesn’t display where I could head to or the number of players in this area. I like this! It’s awesome because the developers balanced out the things which make this game unique while keeping most of the aspects of what is fun to do. It doesn’t inconvenience the player too much because from what I read previously, the quests and activities in this game do not require the player to worry about whatever zone they need to go to in order to complete a fetch quest or a hunting quest. I’ll yet to see this, but the content in this game should “always be interactive” as the developers say. Because it will “always be interactive” then it in theory is also always immersive, and when the activities you do are immersive and fun…then isn’t the journey a lot more enjoyable than the destination?

Anyways, I’m carefully passing through multiple people who are just standing around talking or fooling around, which isn’t a bad thing. Actually, it’s amazing. In other multiplayer games such as this you don’t often see this many people directly hanging out and talking to each other out loud in voice chat.

“How’s the game running for you?”

“Did you see the water effects when you dropped down here?”

“Look at how freaking big this place is!”

“W-where should we go? There aren’t any signs pointing towards a quest.”

“I hear that there is a player whose recruiting people into his guild already.”

“That wasn’t an NPC character, Lux is actually played by a moderator.”

Then there is text chat which can be enabled or disabled, it’s at the bottom left of the screen. I guess not everyone has or wants to use their microphone to talk in voice chat, so they write into text chat. It’s probably easier for people who are using a keyboard to type in there, but maybe for most people like myself who are using VR controls it’s slightly difficult? I don’t know, I don’t even type fast on my smartphone so I wouldn’t know. Anyways, those people are also asking for directions. There are already some people who seem to have advanced to the other parts of the overworld, but in this server everyone is still at the region called “the Holy Temple”. I assume that it includes the spawn building I am at now and the surrounding area? But from the looks of it…it’s like the distances in this game are in real life. Of course, the distances in this game are probably shorter than real life, but if I peak through a stone crack outside, I see some structures and trees…but mostly a grassy field. A really big grassy field. It doesn’t look like this region’s area is ending any time soon. Holy crap the map size of this game must be huge.

Standing near the corner of the temple, I must look like a loner away from the main party. But from here I can see far away the back end of the temple, where the symbol of the “Great God” is located. I think it’s an eye or something. Then, next to the symbol of the “Great God” are multiple other structures of deities. I think those represent higher tier gods and goddesses, so the ones that are just part of the lore in the game. Then on the sides of this temple, next to the columns I can more clearly see the statues depicting the lesser gods and other gods. Maybe they are all lesser gods. But there are a lot more statues of them than there are of the higher tier deities. I guess they must all be representing each gamemaster and their avatars. But I don’t see where Fate is.

Like I thought before, it feels like the developers purposefully made the world and background lore of this game vague. It makes sense for a game like this. From my experience, games in the genre such as this one (MMORPG) tend to either have a stricter main story or a looser main story. The games with stricter main stories rely on their lore before and after the game, so the developers focus on integrating the game world with the story. On the other hand, there are certain popular MMORPG’s which rely less on a stricter main story and let their players experience the gameplay while providing the story away from the gameplay itself. It seems that Divine Mortality is trying to combine both of these paths. On one hand, there is no overarching main story, but on the other hand, the story and gameplay seem to be dynamically working next to each other. So, if this game is as immersive and interactive as it seems, then this will certainly be one of the best games ever!

I’ll probably be able to come back here later, it’s the game’s spawn location after all so it might be like the main hub zone. There are just too many people right now.

Heading towards the large exit archway, I can see stone carved maps of what looks to be this game’s world. It even has the letters ‘overworld’ written below and above the maps. All three of them are located next to the exit archway, on the sides and on the ground. Looks like there are other people also staring at these maps.

I’m looking at it closely and I can’t tell what the words inside the map are. They’re written in a different scripture, probably a fictional language.

“Guys try tapping on it.”

I heard someone say that, let me try. Oh, what do you know, it works! It seems that you are able to interact with certain objects in the world. There is a text box giving a description of the map. Hold on, let me try tapping something else in my vision.

There is a player character who is a tall blonde man, oh that’s obviously an elf. Just look at their pointy long ears! Huh, it doesn’t show their name, but it does tell me that it is indeed a player and some other minor details. What if I tap on this floor, I am standing on? Nope, no description. Okay so yeah, certain things in the world I can tap on, and it will give me some information about it. So, let’s see what this map’s description says…

“The Holy Temple is located at the center of this map. To the southwest are the mighty High Peaks, a very far-reaching mountain range extending from the south of the Holy Temple’s location all the way into the far west. To the southeast is the humid rolling hills of the no longer powerful Lunar Empire, which has recently collapsed. To the northwest exists the questionable Chiefdom of Visiwend, which acts as a bulwark against the very large expanse of land farther to the west and northwest known as the Hinterlands. To the northeast there exists a duality of power, the autonomous Free Counties which border closely to these holy lands, and the absolute Kingdom of Grayrest farther to the east which touches the coast of the ocean. Other notable powers in the realm surrounding the great temple are the proud Orchard Hills to the southwest and the Marchdom of Sonder to the north. Let all know that this map was constructed at the very beginning of the first year of the Second Age. Its creation marks the end of the First Age and the introduction of the Divine Spirits which have now been called upon to enter this world.”

Well…it looks like the developers don’t want there to be any player governments because there are already plenty of other countries around! Now I think about it, nobody currently knows how easy it is to set up a player driven government. I mean, it is a dream in most games, but whenever it does happen it easily falls because you can’t rely on players, right? Since everyone has their own lives, so not everyone is going to be worrying about the game over their real-world priorities. Maybe young people would because they have the time, but I wonder what the current demographic of this game is. I guess it’s too early to think about.

Now that I know how the overworld looks like. I’ll just head straight outside.

Ah what a nice pretty game this is. I can almost feel the climate. The birds are chirping, the sky is dotted with beautiful white clouds, I can see the wind physically flowing in the air…yup just like real life. Where is the sun at? Is it morning or afternoon right now. Let me step away from the outer arches of the temple and walk down these many tiny steps…ah I am starting to see the sun light and- It’s too damn bright! What the hell! It’s just like real life. Why did they make the sun actually very bright?!

Now not only my eyes literally hurt but so do my character’s? Yeah, I might need to take back about what I said about the realism in the game. His vision has gotten a bit sharper, and the contrast is slightly off but it’s quickly returning back to normal. Hey, I could see my shadow now. It’s not very big…

What I see before me now, is not a city scape which I expected, but a little town. It actually looks like some sort of monastery, I guess since this is the holy lands or whatever. There are some large stones dotted around the whole place, I guess it’s surrounding the spawn temple. Otherwise, I see a lot of people in the distance walking and running around and also next to me while leaving the temple just like I am. So far, I’ve only seen player characters, where are the NPC’s I wonder?