Earth, Year 22XX.
Within a giant building, crowds upon crowds of people and journalists had their eyes glued towards the large raised platform at the very front, their expressions all eager for something to happen. Thankfully for them, it did not take long for their wishes to be granted as six people went up the platform, with five of them wearing slightly formal attires, while the last one wore a suit that exuded the feeling of business.
Unsurprisingly, a cacophony of cheers, screams, and questions soon resounded throughout the entire building once the six people had appeared, with the journalists at the very front of the crowd capturing pictures of the six at the platform, asking a set of questions that none of the six answered, or telling some of the crowd that tried to squeeze in between them to move back.
“Silence.” After looking at the crowd beneath the platform for a while, the man in the business suit eventually opened his mouth, radiating a sense of pressure that made almost everyone in the crowd come to an abrupt silence as their attention was fixated on the man that had spoken. Seeing that he had caught his attention, the man lightly smiled before nodding.
Making his way to the podium located to the front right of the platform, he then told everyone to focus their attention towards the large screen behind the five, asking the five that came along with him to sit on the chairs near the podium in the meantime. Responding in their own ways to the request, the five eventually sat down on the chairs, allowing the man to proceed with what he had to say.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to welcome you all to the premiere of the beta version of our company’s newest game, Greater Beyond.” Hearing the name of the game mentioned by the man, a small portion of the crowd cheered for him, only to become silent once more once they noticed that none of the other people were cheering along with them.
“Before I begin, let me introduce myself.” As the man said these words with a light smile, the contents on the large screen changed, allowing the crowd to be more privy to who the man on the podium was.
“My name is Azazel Silvers, the current CEO, as well as the representative of the Far Universe Company for this event,” the man said. “I am proud to announce that, after five years of development, Greater Beyond is finally nearing a state where it could be enjoyed by the masses.”
“Though we are certain that the current state of the game is already more than enough to appease even the most stringent VRMMO player, we shall be conducting a beta test of the game in order to ensure that once we do release it to the masses, it would be in its optimal state.”
“For this beta test, the company has handpicked 100 players that have great experience and a wide set of skills in VRMMOs, with some of them being household names among fans of the greatest organizations VRMMOs have to offer.” As the contents on the screen changed to one that explained the various features Greater Beyond, causing great awe to those in the crowd, Azazel asked the five from earlier to make their way to the front of the platform. Naturally, this did not go unnoticed, with a great portion of the journalists at the front taking pictures of what was happening.
Of course, with the sense of pressure Azazel had radiated earlier, the journalists stopped what they were doing once they had noticed that the man was looking at them, allowing the five to line up at the front of the platform as the crowd gave a round of applause for them.
Smiling, Azazel went ahead and introduced the five that had come along with him. “I’m sure most of the people attending this event today know of the five leviathan organizations of the VRMMO world: Starry Night, Red Sky, Wanderlust, New Frontier, and White Galaxy.”
At the mention of these names, a great portion of the crowd could not help but gasp, putting two and two together in their minds as expressions of excitement adorned their faces, their gazes fixated on the five that stood before them.
Of course, Azazel noticed the excitement on the crowd’s faces, chuckling as he revealed the identities of the five. “Indeed, your thoughts are correct. We have brought Moonlight_Desire from Starry Night, Tianshen01 from Red Sky, Avaris from Wanderlust, Belial from New Frontier, and Astra_Aeterna from White Galaxy for this event today. As part of the beta test, we have requested the leaders of these five organizations to become a part of the beta test of Greater Beyond.”
“I shall not go into further detail regarding the feats they’ve achieved in the past since most of you know of them by heart already. Nevertheless, I assure you that their inputs would be used in the optimization of the game before the public release.” With these words coming out of Azazel’s mouth, the crowd went into a round of cheers and applause, with the five responding to it in their ways.
After that, the five returned to their seats as Azazel continued to introduce the features of the game that made it stand out amongst other VRMMOs. While that was happening, five pods that seemed to fit one person each were being lugged over to the center of the stage.
“Aside from the previous features I’ve mentioned so far, the company would like to focus once more on the incredible lifelikeness of the in-game characters. As we have configured them to have access to the same system as you, in conjunction with the quantum computing servers we have built, these beings shall feel no different from any player. You could even have them join you during a dungeon, and even befriend them.”
“However, the greatest feature the game has to offer would be its Extreme Time Dilation technology. With it, we have been able to cram in 7 days’ worth of game time within the span of a day.” As Azazel said these words, a great portion of the journalists could not help but write it down, knowing that something like that would make for a great article.
“With that in mind, even though the beta test shall only last for roughly five days, those in the beta test would actually experience a month’s worth of time in the game,” said Azazel as he finally allowed those from the crowd to ask him questions. While doing so, he asked the five to head towards the pods as he informed them that the beta would start very soon.
With the five making their way towards the pods, Azazel attended to the multiple questions the journalists and the crowd wanted to ask him, making sure to not spoil any information that he and the company hadn’t already mentioned in the past, phrasing all of his answers in a way that left the one asking satisfied.
Eventually, once the five had gotten inside the pods and were ready to begin at anytime, Azazel announced that the question and answer portion of the event was finally over, telling everyone to focus their attention on the five pods at the center of the platform.
“We have configured these pods in a way wherein we could obtain a live feed of what the five are doing in the game world, allowing everyone in the crowd to view it through the large screen behind them.” Azazel moved closer to the five pods, asking the five inside the pods if they were ready through gestures. “Of course, the company shall be monitoring the feeds from the pods in real time, omitting part of the audio and video from the feed whenever necessary.”
Obtaining a thumbs-up from the five in response, Azazel nodded at them before nodding to a person outside the platform. “Nevertheless, we’ll try to make sure that most of it shall be unedited, allowing everyone to view the game as it was meant to be.”
“And with all of that said, let the beta…”𝒐𝑽𝐿xt.𝑐𝑜𝚖
“Begin!”