Virtual Sword Warrior

**Virtual Sword Warrior (VSW)** was the most popular virtual reality multiplayer online battle arena game of the market when Novis Talen was 15 years old, and had been for the last 10 years. It was developed by Goldware Corp. It was played during the Magicless Era of Earth.

# Progress of VR technology

Virtual Reality progressed so much that only the mind was needed to control a character. The VR headset would dissociate the player's movement in the game from his real ones.

This is however not the only technology that progressed. Non-magical holograms were used during tournaments to show what was happening in the game to the audience.

# Esports with Virtual Sword Warrior

Since VR technology got so realistic (due to a technology termed Full VR), Esports became more popular than traditional sports. VSW matches were the most watched. 80 % of the households around the world would watch those matches.

It was only thanks to the introduction of Full VR that Esports stopped being a niche Asian activity and became at last widespread in the Western world. There were even Esports Olympics.

# Development of the game by Goldware Corp

## Paradigm in the development of the game

The game was developed prioritizing realism. The environment was meant to be as authentic as possible. Lethal moves in real life were meant to be lethal in the game as well. The game also did not provide multiple lives to players; death was permanent (it means that players could not respawn upon death in a game). This made the game very competitive. In accordance to the expectation of realism, the NPC knights did not have any health bar.

The game only stressed the used of mêlée weapons and featured nothing like magic.

## Development team

* Tom Dane, in charge of creating new characters with unique fighting styles

# Inputs to play the game

Both inputs had fingerprints scanners in order to link the accounts used by players to their own fingerprints, hindering account boosting in the process. The faces of the players were also scanned.

## VR headsets

Households mostly played the game with VR headsets. They could completely transfer the body's motor functions to the avatar, but they could not reproduce tactiles feelings, including pain. The player usually wore the headset while lying down on a bed. It was also possible to play while sitten on a chair, but if the chair did not have a good quality, one would be sore after the game session. The headsets were sold in various colors. Contrary to the VR capsules, the sense of hearing was not completely transferred and the player could hear what was happening in the room where his real body was. The headset was powered by electricity and needed to be plugged in an electric socket.

## VR capsules

Instead of the regular headsets used at home, tournaments and cafés used VR capsules. Contrary to the VR headsets, the capsules allowed one to have tactile sensory inputs, although the pain was dulled down to feel only like a pinch. The capsules transferred hearing to the location of the hologram in tournaments, meaning the players could hear what happened in the venue. The capsules would even transmit the fatigue of the avatar. Although the characters had their own stamina, it was beneficial for the player to increase his real stamina. The capsules also reproduced the smells. Unlike headsets, capsules had no latency between the brain's command to perform a move and its actual realization in the virtual environment.

The top of the line capsules made by Goldware Corp for the top pros were white in color with a golden trim outline, and insulated with the softest material known on Earth. They were equipped with an hologram projector to project the ongoing game outside the capsule.

# Game modes

## Solo matches

Two warriors would duel each other. The duel ended when the opponent was defeated, or the flag of this base captured.

In solo matches, people usually didn't bother capturing the flag.

## Team matches

Each team has 5 players that spawn at their base at the beginning of the match. The map has the two bases at the extremities and a dense forest in the middle. There are three "vertical" paths to reach either base, the top, middle and bottom lanes. The bases each have a castle defended by three (pairs of?) towers, that protected each of the lanes. The towers would automatically attack enemies within a radius of 20 m, wether they are on the lane or in the forest. Each team had 10 soldiers that could be used as meat shields against the towers, and upon death they would respawn at the base. The goal of the game was then to take down all the enemy towers and flags. The bases contained a first aid kit to heal the players, including painkillers, but the kit could only be used at the base.

Each team wears colored sashes, red or blue, that remind of the sashes worn by the knights of Avrion in the past. This allowed to tell apart people that chose to incarnate the same character during matches. It's interesting to note that in the past, when Avrion had the Avrion Academy for knights, the red sash was worn by the least prestigious knights, that would only get the basic training and that were not seen as suitable for any specialized use in war. The blue sash were therefore more prestigious. There were also the yellow, white and black sashes. Ray Talen had the red sash changed for orange sashes, since his signature color could not possibly be regarded as shameful.

Teams were meant to be balanced, so there were placement games to determine the correct rank of a player.

The initial phase of a team match was called laning phase.

# Spectating games

The game allowed to spectate a player in VR as a ghost on the map where he played, not only on a computer screen. All the matches were archived and accessible for the public. On a computer screen, the camera adopted an aerial view of the map.

When spectators watched the games trough holograms, the camera would automatically shift to the place where there was the most action.

# In-game characters

The players did not have customized avatars, but used pre-set characters. There were around 100 Warriors to choose from, but professionals typically used 20. When the game was launched 10 years before, there were initially 30 Warriors. Warriors generally were designed for roles like damage dealers, tanks, long-rangers and free roamers. The characters change to the same sex as the player, but they have a default sex in the promotional material. The game assigned blades to one's dominant hand.

Hastam Grey encountered several people paired with spirits at the London Heathrow airport and noticed that the spirits had the appearances of many characters of the game.

The characters were :

* **Dragonslayer**, an all-rounder longsword-wielding character, played by Arthur Pendragon. It was considered bottom of the barrel pick because it was not specialized in anything.
* **Quick Sync**, rapier user, played by Paul Snellart
* **Mu Samu**, samurai-looking character that favored strong attacks at the expense of defense, katana user, played by Lucas Bell and Justin Bell
* **Krang**, Viking character that uses an 8 foot hammer, played by Mac
* **Interfector**, Assassin character with two daggers played by Bill Talen
* **Xin Mao**, ancient Chinese spear user, played by the pro German player Hastam Grey and the actual ghost of Xin Mao trapped in an ancient red spear
* **Heros Puer**, a character based on Novis Talen and made just for him. The appearance is an older version of him with a sleeveless fur hoodie colored red with a black trim and black fur. He wields the four favorite weapons of Novis : long sword, dual swords, spear, chain sword. He doesn't have a skill in the usual meaning, as his skill is just to change his weapon. Experts ridiculed this character because the lack of a skill, making it hard to play for the average player. Because the chain sword was regarded as a ranged weapon, the durability of the chain was nerfed.
* **Gladio** is a Roman soldier using a short sword (*gladius*) and a circular shield (roundel); it is played by Alex
* **Mortem**, female scythe user
* **Pugnus** is a damage-dealer character that used gauntlets. He was played by Dan
* **Raidum** is a counter hitter that had the appearance of the Dragon Knight George and that was played by Ashley and George
* **Lilly Lil** is a long-ranger based on the Dragon Knight Sarah, played by Scarlett Springett
* **Iron Grid**, sword and great shield user
* The trap master with a blade, suitable for support roles
* Archer character
* Dual swords character
* Mace and shield character
* Crossbow character
* Two scimitars character
* Chained spear character
* Dual axes character

# Skills

Characters had skills, that were not supernatural moves but simply motion-capture macros of the proper way to wield a weapon. Newbies typically favored that option, but professionals disregarded it due to the latency to activate the skills.

## Known skills

* **Gladio** has Shield Barge
* **Krang** has Hammer Throw, Hammer Swing and Hammer Spin
* **Interfector** has Silent Boots and Spin Throw
* **Lilly Lil** has the Roll skill
* **Iron Grid** has the Charge skill
* The trap master has the skill Net Throw and a bear trap
* **Pugnus** had the Hammer strike skill

# Divisions

The players were ranked in bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, master and god tiers. Each of them have 5 subdivisions.

## Placement games

The game had yearly seasons where every player would be required to play 10 placement matches again to update their ranking.

## Ranks of players

* Bill Talen (ID : **BillyBill**) is ranked Diamond 5
* Justin Bell is ranked God 1 and is the number one player in the world
* Novis Talen (ID : **ProNovis**) started as a mere Bronze 5 in his placement games and kept this rank because he lost too much with his team
* The Dragon Knight Arthur Pendragon (ID : **Pendragon**) ranked Gold 5 in his placement games, then got Platinum 5, then Platinum 4,
* Alex is Silver 5
* Mac Ruman is Silver 1
* The Dragon Knight George achieved Diamond 5 while using Arthur's account

# Tournaments

The matches were projected to the audience on non-magical holograms. Some contestants would even train with actual wooden or blunt swords on the premise.

The county tournaments held the matches on a local network, not on the official servers, so the rankings were not affected. This was set up to account for players that were Diamond rank (while the tournaments were capped at the Platinum rank) or to account for the large rank imbalances in some teams.

In the local tournaments, the first few matches had only one round, but in the finals, the score that counted was the best out of three rounds. The teams were allowed 3 substitute players.

## List of known tournaments

* Children's VSW tournament
* Local VSW tournament for schools of the Berkshire county
* English Championship (Country tournament)
* Esports Olympics

# Moderation

It was possible to report a player for being toxic. Account boosting was prohibited. In order to avoid account boosting, the accounts a player used were linked to the fingerprints of the player.

# Companion applications to the game

There existed phone and computer applications associated to the game, used for example to manage one's friendslist.

# References

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