Hi. Some of you may remember me from the game's launch event at Duxford, just south of Cambridge, UK. Others might remember me from in-game event I organised a few years ago: the St. Valentine Day Regatta. (Yep, I actually purchased a proper silver trophy and posted it to the winner, inscribed with his character's name.)
Anyway, I've just written a science fiction novel, which is free and being serialised online. It is set in the near future, but covers several topics familiar to people here: the economics and practicality of interstellar space travel. Self-improving computer systems and extreme corporate surveillance. And it tells it from the perspective of someone using a home-replicated VR helmet to roleplay a character inside a MMORPG.
So, on the off-chance you'd like to give it a try, here's a link:
Who'd want to be a hero?
Technology advances like juggernaut. Hard to steer, impossible to stop, and heedless of those it crushes. At least that's what it felt like to Nadine when competition from expert systems destroyed her career as a singer. It is 2045 and, like everyone else in her remote village, she does her best to forget things were ever better and concentrate on surviving year by year, month by month.
So when a group of pranksters that Nadine made friends with during her university days contact her out of the blue, and persuade her to start playing an online game which makes use of newly released immersive virtual reality technology, all she wants is to have a fun time together as they explore an alternative version of 17th century Venice full of stylish assassins and androgynous poets, noble vampires and venal nobles, socialist necromancers and prophetic nomads. If there's one thing she doesn't want, it's to put a big glowing target over her head by trying to be a hero. But...
Sometimes you don't get a choice.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/66044/soul-bound
Anyway, I've just written a science fiction novel, which is free and being serialised online. It is set in the near future, but covers several topics familiar to people here: the economics and practicality of interstellar space travel. Self-improving computer systems and extreme corporate surveillance. And it tells it from the perspective of someone using a home-replicated VR helmet to roleplay a character inside a MMORPG.
So, on the off-chance you'd like to give it a try, here's a link:
Who'd want to be a hero?
Technology advances like juggernaut. Hard to steer, impossible to stop, and heedless of those it crushes. At least that's what it felt like to Nadine when competition from expert systems destroyed her career as a singer. It is 2045 and, like everyone else in her remote village, she does her best to forget things were ever better and concentrate on surviving year by year, month by month.
So when a group of pranksters that Nadine made friends with during her university days contact her out of the blue, and persuade her to start playing an online game which makes use of newly released immersive virtual reality technology, all she wants is to have a fun time together as they explore an alternative version of 17th century Venice full of stylish assassins and androgynous poets, noble vampires and venal nobles, socialist necromancers and prophetic nomads. If there's one thing she doesn't want, it's to put a big glowing target over her head by trying to be a hero. But...
Sometimes you don't get a choice.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/66044/soul-bound