PSU TMZ
09-25-2008, 04:34 PM
My name is Ali, and I play Phantasy Star Universe. My character’s name, also Ali, is a Beast, and he’s what some would call a high end player. Mind you, I don’t own any 50% S ranks, I don’t have millions of meseta sitting on me at all times, and I don’t spend my time running missions over and over again. After all, it’s just a game right? Well…that’s what I thought too. My entire life changed one day, I went from poor to rich, from high end to top of the line, and while it was good for a while, I soon found out that life in a game such as this is not all that it’s cracked up to be. I hope you read this, because this is my story, and I don’t think I’ll have another chance to tell it.
Chapter 1
I had 3 star luck on the day it happened, and my friend Reyna and I were playing together. She was an acrotecher, and I was a fighmaster. The two of us had known each other since we were little newbies, and had slowly became stronger and stronger until we were both very good at the game. She knew me better than I knew myself, knowing my tactics, my skills, my weaknesses, and she was always covering my back. I never needed to use a scape doll when she was around. Her character was stunning in appearance, with short brown hair and two sapphires for eyes. I knew her in real life of course, and in time we became very close. We were fighting a boss, the Adahna Degahna when I received a message.
“Ali, get behind him and use Daggas!” she ordered, “I’ll lure him so you can get behind him!”
I did as she told me, stopping my attacks entirely so she could attract it’s attention. As his back turned to me, I pulled out my spear, a Gekitsnata, and began to attack. The notion was very simple. With most skills there was a delay, and with a more complicated skill like Majarra, the small delay in backing up was all the time needed for the giant robot to move out of my grasp. With Daggas, no such thing could happen, and as I repeatedly pierced into the metal body, I heard a crack opening and saw the one thing I was looking for, a shot at his central core. With one quick jab of the spear, I heard a loud beeping sound.
“Get back!” Rayna shouted.
I took the order with stride, moving as far back as possible. The Adahna exploded in a brilliant flash of light and the mission was over. Several boxes appeared on the ground, and we both moved towards them.
One giant megid ball later, the boxes were destroyed and a medley of green and blue items littered the floor. Rayna put her head down in disappointment, “Nothing…” she muttered.
“Don’t worry about it Rayna, it’s only a matter of time before-” I began, but was cut off by an email notification.
The mail was from an old friend of mine, a gunmaster named Jim.
“Meet me at the Galenigare Lake, and come alone.” It read. The message was simple but clear.
“Rayna, I need to take off for a bit.” I informed her.
“Where are you going?” She asked, her head rising to meet my gaze.
“Jim wants to talk…in private.”
“Ohh, I get it. Go on, I won’t bother you with your boy talk.” She giggled, scanning over the numerous piles of trash on the ground, “How long will you be? I’ll join another group if you are going to be long for a while.”
“Not a clue, go ahead, I’ll be back soon.”
A little while later, I arrived at the Galenigare Lake, a massive underground lake filled with passageways and secret tunnels. I caught sight of Jim and he waved me over.
“Ali, I need to tell you something, but you have to keep this under your hat, okay?” he warned, his expression serious.
“Oh come on Jim, you can tell me. I don’t need to-” I stopped when I saw his serious expression turn into a frown, “Alright fine. You have my word.”
“I’m serious Ali, you can’t tell anyone. Not your clan mates, not your friends, not even Reyna.” He explained, “What I’m about to tell you could be…volatile.”
“Alright Jim, now tell me!” I exclaimed, eager to hear the secret.
“A few weeks ago I wanted to set up a link between my computer and my Xbox. However, I accidentally managed to…merge the two together.”
“Merge? How?”
“That’s not important, I don’t think you would understand even if I told you, but more importantly, I found that I could play games while at the same time use my computer, and in the merged state, the Xbox actually uses some of my computer’s memory to function.”
“…So how is this important?”
“Well, I developed an engine that can modify game code. It’s complicated, but it works. I have the capacity to alter actual game data, but only to an extent.”
“Jim…that’s amazing! You could become rich!”
“Quite so. However, there’s a little snag in my plans. You see, whenever the game detects a possible modification in progress, it automatically removes the source of the alteration and reverts back to normal. The source, as you may know, is my character. As a result, I haven’t been able to see the full extent of my coding…without a partner to help me.”
“But why me?”
“Believe it or not Ali, you are one of the only people I can trust to keep a secret. When you say you’ll keep a secret, you will. I respect that, and that’s why I need you. I assume that if we start a mission, but only have you inside of it, I can freely alter the code from out here, and you can reap all the potential benefits. Of course, there’s always the chance you could be deleted along with all the other data, but…I could use your help.”
“Jim, trust me on this one. I’ll take the risk.”
“Good man. Now I’m going to start the mission, get inside and wait for further commands.”
I entered the mission, Desert Goliath, and waited for orders.
“Code sequence initiated in 5…4…3…2…1…Go!” Jim informed, laughing all the while, “Are you disconnected Ali?”
“…No, everything seems okay.”
“Okay, I’ll start editing some code. Don’t attack anything unless I give the order.”
“Waiting…”
“………Okay Ali, I need you to try and attack an enemy.”
I walked a few steps forward and 3 armed guards with rifles blocked my path. I pulled out my double saber and launched myself in their direction, blowing them all to bits in just one hit.
“What happened?” He asked hesitantly.
“…They all died in single blow, I don’t get it…”
“I modded their HP value to 1% of maximum. Check the ground, I also modified something else.”
I looked and saw three red boxes on the ground. I retrieved them all, each of which was a gemstone called Morbinia.
“3 Morbinia?!” I exclaimed.
“Yes! It works!” Jim laughed, “I altered the code for morbinia to drop at a 99.9% rate, with all other drops at .1%”
All of a sudden the world went black, and I was ejected through the entrance of the mission.
“That will be all for today Ali, I hope you had fun.” Jim told me, “And remember, not a word to anyone!”
“…Right. If this kind of technology got into other people’s hands, it could destroy the economy, dissolve the player base, even destroy the game!”
“No…” Jim retorted.
“Then?”
“It could ruin my fun…” he laughed.
Afterwards, both Jim and I returned to our rooms. We were both ecstatic about what had just happened, but he told me he needed to do some things in real life, so he logged off. It was about that time that Reyna appeared in my room.
“Visitor: Reyna has entered the room,” my Partner machine, Alex, informed me.
“Hi Alex, hey Ali.” Reyna greeted, somewhat tired from her expression, “What are you smiling about?”
“Oh nothing, just got back from a mission with Jim. I found 3 morbinia in the run, can you believe it?”
“Lucky!” she replied, smiling, “I’ll have you know I didn’t find anything worth mentioning…”
“Well, I think that’s about to change…” I said with a dark grin on my face.
“What? Why do you say that?” she replied, curious.
All of a sudden Jim’s words of warning revived in my head, and I realized that I had said too much, “Oh you know, just a few words of confidence…” I said, turning away and entering the Morbinia into my shop.
“200,000 for 1 morbinia?” Reyna asked, “That’s a pretty serious undercut Ali, the second lowest is 400,000.”
Sure enough, a short, stumpy looking CAST entered the room. He eyed both of us and quickly bought up the morbinia. Before I could even say ‘thank you’ he was gone.
“I’m sort of hurting for cash…” I explained.
“I still think you got scammed, you shouldn’t do that Ali, it’s a waste of your time to burn away money for no reason.”
“Mr. Ali, you have just received a message from Jim. Would you like me to read it out loud?”
“N-” I began.
“Yes,” Reyna cut in, “Go right ahead Alex.”
The machine, knowing Reyna to be such a good friend, took the order as if I had given it myself, “Tomorrow we hunt Mugunburgacs.” Alex said in a voice befitting Jim himself.
“Mugunburgacs?” Reyna scoffed, “You know how rare those boards are? What is Jim up to?”
“The guy’s really into profit,” I said in his defense, “And besides, I haven’t run Bruce’s Dungeon in weeks, it might be fun.”
“I’ll come with you then,” Reyna chimed in, “It’ll be fun!”
“No-!” I started, but caught myself, “I mean, Jim doesn’t like you. He thinks you are…too girly.”
“Girly?” Reyna gasped incredulously, “I am a girl! Don’t you get it? I think you should stop hanging out with Jim from now on, his attitude might rub off on you…”
“Oh come on Reyna, I just think he doesn’t like techers. Besides, it’s sort of a guy thing. You know…male bonding?”
“Well if that’s the way you want it, you can have it that way. You can BOND with Jim all you want Ali, because I won’t be talking to you from now on!” she shouted, leaving the room with a loud bang.
“…Smooth.” Alex said in her robotic voice.
“Oh come on…” I sighed, “What did I just do?”
That was the first day, and bad winds were already brewing. I was pretty amazed to see Jim’s coding, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for Reyna. She worked so hard for what she had, we worked so hard for what she had, and I just told her to shove off. I’ve never done that before, which is why I guess she took it so seriously. Tomorrow we were hunting Mugunburgacs, powerful S rank spears, and I was really looking forward to it, but I had no clue what kind of nightmare I was walking into.
Rules regarding coding:
- When the coding begins, the coder is automatically booted from the area. This is why I cannot code by myself, or do so in my room.
- Coding can increase drop rates and modify monster stats.
Chapter 1
I had 3 star luck on the day it happened, and my friend Reyna and I were playing together. She was an acrotecher, and I was a fighmaster. The two of us had known each other since we were little newbies, and had slowly became stronger and stronger until we were both very good at the game. She knew me better than I knew myself, knowing my tactics, my skills, my weaknesses, and she was always covering my back. I never needed to use a scape doll when she was around. Her character was stunning in appearance, with short brown hair and two sapphires for eyes. I knew her in real life of course, and in time we became very close. We were fighting a boss, the Adahna Degahna when I received a message.
“Ali, get behind him and use Daggas!” she ordered, “I’ll lure him so you can get behind him!”
I did as she told me, stopping my attacks entirely so she could attract it’s attention. As his back turned to me, I pulled out my spear, a Gekitsnata, and began to attack. The notion was very simple. With most skills there was a delay, and with a more complicated skill like Majarra, the small delay in backing up was all the time needed for the giant robot to move out of my grasp. With Daggas, no such thing could happen, and as I repeatedly pierced into the metal body, I heard a crack opening and saw the one thing I was looking for, a shot at his central core. With one quick jab of the spear, I heard a loud beeping sound.
“Get back!” Rayna shouted.
I took the order with stride, moving as far back as possible. The Adahna exploded in a brilliant flash of light and the mission was over. Several boxes appeared on the ground, and we both moved towards them.
One giant megid ball later, the boxes were destroyed and a medley of green and blue items littered the floor. Rayna put her head down in disappointment, “Nothing…” she muttered.
“Don’t worry about it Rayna, it’s only a matter of time before-” I began, but was cut off by an email notification.
The mail was from an old friend of mine, a gunmaster named Jim.
“Meet me at the Galenigare Lake, and come alone.” It read. The message was simple but clear.
“Rayna, I need to take off for a bit.” I informed her.
“Where are you going?” She asked, her head rising to meet my gaze.
“Jim wants to talk…in private.”
“Ohh, I get it. Go on, I won’t bother you with your boy talk.” She giggled, scanning over the numerous piles of trash on the ground, “How long will you be? I’ll join another group if you are going to be long for a while.”
“Not a clue, go ahead, I’ll be back soon.”
A little while later, I arrived at the Galenigare Lake, a massive underground lake filled with passageways and secret tunnels. I caught sight of Jim and he waved me over.
“Ali, I need to tell you something, but you have to keep this under your hat, okay?” he warned, his expression serious.
“Oh come on Jim, you can tell me. I don’t need to-” I stopped when I saw his serious expression turn into a frown, “Alright fine. You have my word.”
“I’m serious Ali, you can’t tell anyone. Not your clan mates, not your friends, not even Reyna.” He explained, “What I’m about to tell you could be…volatile.”
“Alright Jim, now tell me!” I exclaimed, eager to hear the secret.
“A few weeks ago I wanted to set up a link between my computer and my Xbox. However, I accidentally managed to…merge the two together.”
“Merge? How?”
“That’s not important, I don’t think you would understand even if I told you, but more importantly, I found that I could play games while at the same time use my computer, and in the merged state, the Xbox actually uses some of my computer’s memory to function.”
“…So how is this important?”
“Well, I developed an engine that can modify game code. It’s complicated, but it works. I have the capacity to alter actual game data, but only to an extent.”
“Jim…that’s amazing! You could become rich!”
“Quite so. However, there’s a little snag in my plans. You see, whenever the game detects a possible modification in progress, it automatically removes the source of the alteration and reverts back to normal. The source, as you may know, is my character. As a result, I haven’t been able to see the full extent of my coding…without a partner to help me.”
“But why me?”
“Believe it or not Ali, you are one of the only people I can trust to keep a secret. When you say you’ll keep a secret, you will. I respect that, and that’s why I need you. I assume that if we start a mission, but only have you inside of it, I can freely alter the code from out here, and you can reap all the potential benefits. Of course, there’s always the chance you could be deleted along with all the other data, but…I could use your help.”
“Jim, trust me on this one. I’ll take the risk.”
“Good man. Now I’m going to start the mission, get inside and wait for further commands.”
I entered the mission, Desert Goliath, and waited for orders.
“Code sequence initiated in 5…4…3…2…1…Go!” Jim informed, laughing all the while, “Are you disconnected Ali?”
“…No, everything seems okay.”
“Okay, I’ll start editing some code. Don’t attack anything unless I give the order.”
“Waiting…”
“………Okay Ali, I need you to try and attack an enemy.”
I walked a few steps forward and 3 armed guards with rifles blocked my path. I pulled out my double saber and launched myself in their direction, blowing them all to bits in just one hit.
“What happened?” He asked hesitantly.
“…They all died in single blow, I don’t get it…”
“I modded their HP value to 1% of maximum. Check the ground, I also modified something else.”
I looked and saw three red boxes on the ground. I retrieved them all, each of which was a gemstone called Morbinia.
“3 Morbinia?!” I exclaimed.
“Yes! It works!” Jim laughed, “I altered the code for morbinia to drop at a 99.9% rate, with all other drops at .1%”
All of a sudden the world went black, and I was ejected through the entrance of the mission.
“That will be all for today Ali, I hope you had fun.” Jim told me, “And remember, not a word to anyone!”
“…Right. If this kind of technology got into other people’s hands, it could destroy the economy, dissolve the player base, even destroy the game!”
“No…” Jim retorted.
“Then?”
“It could ruin my fun…” he laughed.
Afterwards, both Jim and I returned to our rooms. We were both ecstatic about what had just happened, but he told me he needed to do some things in real life, so he logged off. It was about that time that Reyna appeared in my room.
“Visitor: Reyna has entered the room,” my Partner machine, Alex, informed me.
“Hi Alex, hey Ali.” Reyna greeted, somewhat tired from her expression, “What are you smiling about?”
“Oh nothing, just got back from a mission with Jim. I found 3 morbinia in the run, can you believe it?”
“Lucky!” she replied, smiling, “I’ll have you know I didn’t find anything worth mentioning…”
“Well, I think that’s about to change…” I said with a dark grin on my face.
“What? Why do you say that?” she replied, curious.
All of a sudden Jim’s words of warning revived in my head, and I realized that I had said too much, “Oh you know, just a few words of confidence…” I said, turning away and entering the Morbinia into my shop.
“200,000 for 1 morbinia?” Reyna asked, “That’s a pretty serious undercut Ali, the second lowest is 400,000.”
Sure enough, a short, stumpy looking CAST entered the room. He eyed both of us and quickly bought up the morbinia. Before I could even say ‘thank you’ he was gone.
“I’m sort of hurting for cash…” I explained.
“I still think you got scammed, you shouldn’t do that Ali, it’s a waste of your time to burn away money for no reason.”
“Mr. Ali, you have just received a message from Jim. Would you like me to read it out loud?”
“N-” I began.
“Yes,” Reyna cut in, “Go right ahead Alex.”
The machine, knowing Reyna to be such a good friend, took the order as if I had given it myself, “Tomorrow we hunt Mugunburgacs.” Alex said in a voice befitting Jim himself.
“Mugunburgacs?” Reyna scoffed, “You know how rare those boards are? What is Jim up to?”
“The guy’s really into profit,” I said in his defense, “And besides, I haven’t run Bruce’s Dungeon in weeks, it might be fun.”
“I’ll come with you then,” Reyna chimed in, “It’ll be fun!”
“No-!” I started, but caught myself, “I mean, Jim doesn’t like you. He thinks you are…too girly.”
“Girly?” Reyna gasped incredulously, “I am a girl! Don’t you get it? I think you should stop hanging out with Jim from now on, his attitude might rub off on you…”
“Oh come on Reyna, I just think he doesn’t like techers. Besides, it’s sort of a guy thing. You know…male bonding?”
“Well if that’s the way you want it, you can have it that way. You can BOND with Jim all you want Ali, because I won’t be talking to you from now on!” she shouted, leaving the room with a loud bang.
“…Smooth.” Alex said in her robotic voice.
“Oh come on…” I sighed, “What did I just do?”
That was the first day, and bad winds were already brewing. I was pretty amazed to see Jim’s coding, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for Reyna. She worked so hard for what she had, we worked so hard for what she had, and I just told her to shove off. I’ve never done that before, which is why I guess she took it so seriously. Tomorrow we were hunting Mugunburgacs, powerful S rank spears, and I was really looking forward to it, but I had no clue what kind of nightmare I was walking into.
Rules regarding coding:
- When the coding begins, the coder is automatically booted from the area. This is why I cannot code by myself, or do so in my room.
- Coding can increase drop rates and modify monster stats.