Game Background

============<\* Multiverse Crisis MUSH BBS - 23: IC - News - 102 \*>============

Message: 23/102                    Posted        Author

VRMMO Death Game Copypcat Claims 50,000 Day 1Aug 13 2022   Lilian Rook

        A shocking sequence of newscasts on global networks across a score of individual worlds, nearly half of them recent Commonwealth constituents, is currently running a frenzy of stories on breaking news of an ongoing urgent event identically shared between over them, with reports still continuing to climb.

        Over one million players of a hotly anticipated full-immersion virtual reality MMORPG, Blade Craft: Connect, have been listed as victims of a widespread 'death game' crisis when hours after official launch, all players connected to the Treble server were forcibly locked into their game session and all other servers were immediately shut down. The following announcement, broadcast from an anonymous source still under investigation, claiming responsibility for the event and warning relatives, authorities, or specialists, from attempting to remove VR gaming devices, has investigators suspecting a 'copycat crime' modelled after 'living game' crises of years ago, enacted at an unprecedented scale.

        However, experts are left scratching their heads. Not only was the publisher able to slip the trapped game through Confederate customs, with only an elaborate front of a studio or employees ever existing, the popular video game was released for eight different major VR immersion systems simultaneously. Previous 'death games' that did not involve abducting players were made possible through manufacturing flaws in hardware allowing lethal shocks or microwave pulses to be delivered to the brain or deletion of digitized consciousness, but given the game's popularity on midrange, consumer-grade consoles, which have no capabilities to speak of, it is currently completely unknown how over fifty thousand players have been reported dead so far, many already under medical monitoring.

        Organized response from national leaders has begun, reminiscent of mass hospitalization policies of old, remanding victims to long term emergency care while calling for aid from various grassroots organizations, independent troubleshooters, and even the Paladins. While the number of victims is a hundred times the most notorious case of its kind, the widespread release has resulted in significantly lower hospitalization burden on affected worlds, and higher levels of organized response.

        However, no tangible 'iteration' of the game world has been detected unifying, and responders are currently stumped for how to intervene, as there appear to be no security measures in place, allegedly responsible for the number of deaths reported from attempts at forcefully disconnecting victims. Cybersecurity Elite specialists have been unable to detect malicious code, nor uncover the location of a main server, whilst technological Elite specialists have been unable to safely shut down consoles without casualties, and medical Elite specialists have been thusfar unable to stabilize or resuscitate victims killed so far. Efforts remain ongoing.