L0g In @nd G@m3!

[Erin Hackett]

Erin was not a fanatic of Disney's movies. Alright, so she had made sure to watch every single one of them and even made sure to watch the new ones. She was a gamer and there was the whole Kingdom Hearts game series that touched on Disney movies. So she felt it was important to know of all the possible references in a game such as that, plus the movies were not all that bad. Most of them had different and hidden meaning to them, at least which was what forms would say but Erin didn't care too much about that.

She cared more so about the story and then also pointing out flaws here and there that didn't really make sense even for it being kids movies. She mainly loved the hidden naughty jokes or words that were in the movies that a lot of kids missed when they were watching the films. "Happy you enjoyed it. I do not want that achievement unless it is a super rare one to get." Erin muttered into her microphone making a face. She which her avatar could make the face that she was currently making so Tim understood that while she had fun she did not like the idea of dying to a bunny of all things. She had a reputation to uphold, even if she was new to playing the game and didn't really know much about it.

She agreed with him that probably someone wrote something about it, there was always someone out there that wrote something up on this, that, and the other thing. Erin was okay with some reviews but even then she was picky who she would read the opinions of because a lot of times she would just feel that a lot of the human race was just really stupid. She gave an approving nod when Tim said he was willing to lead and chuckled a little at what role he decided to go for. "You know you can be the leader and not have that role, right?" Erin pointed out as she followed behind him. She stuck closed and slashed away at the insects that they came across, still figuring out what role she was going to go into. She knew it was going to be damage but did she want to be up close or attack from a distance?

[Tim Tawfeek]

"Dude, don't you wanna go for all the achievements?" Tim asked, his smile nearly apparent in the words. He'd made certain to keep his avatar at the forefront, doing the whole human shield thing. Tim did have to pause for a moment to adjust his glasses, but he'd already started hot-keying various things and setting up macros to do things. He'd need them for grinding and farming in the future.

"Well, yeah," he said as Erin pointed out his class choice. "It's not like they really have set classes or anything either, what with the whole free building system and stuff." He went to work, getting his character to take the brunt of the attacks and barreling through most of the mobs that were already coming up. In truth, Tim normally picked classes that stood back and fought more creatively. But lately he'd wanted something that could wade in and dish out damage. He'd always figure to do some min-maxing later, maybe end up with some sort of jack of all trades thing.

"how long you figure we should grind?" he asked. Tim clicked to bring up quest logs. "Don't probably want to get too far ahead, and I don't know if the AI's set to jack up difficulty with more people or what. We definitely need to do some more research, assuming we don't want to try another game," Tim shrugged. He did like this one, and it seemed like a good fit, but he also figured they'd be playing a ton of games.

[Erin Hackett]

"I do, but even I have my limits. I rather have the hardcore achievements over the ones I would get from dying from a boss." Erin pointed out. The other achievements were more worthwhile and showed actually skill and effort. While anyone could die to a boss, all you had to do would be to just walk away from the game when you encountered the boss and come back a few minutes later. It took no skill and thus Erin didn't want achievement that took no skill to get, unless she got a really nice reward at the end of it all for doing the easy achievements.

She stayed behind him, letting him take the brute of the damage and then quickly stepping in to dwindle down the health of the creatures attacking him. She was making sure that he had their full attention first before she would attack, not wanting to end up like she had with that whole bunny battle. Still, every so often she was fine taking on one or two mobs without Tim's help but she mainly relied on him. "Free build always messes with my head, leaves me too many options, and while I love it, there is so much hate for it to." Erin admitted as she pulled up the specific window in where they could put their points into and work out what kind of class they wanted to be.

It was nice, but also meant to much freedom, and that meant noobs were going to get it wrong. Noobs getting it wrong meant that the unfortunate event of having to deal with them was going to result in bad things happening and anger rising. In video games Erin was fine playing really any class and filling in any role besides healing. Healers just had to deal with so much flak from people who were either not playing the game right to not listening to what they were told to do in order to receive heals. So long as Tim didn't expect her to be the healer, they were going to have no issues playing the game together.

"I figured we log off as soon as we got somewhere relatively safe. We don't want to level up or get too far, as you said. I 'm thinking we will end up with new members soon, so we don't want to get too far ahead of them. Plus the whole research part is a good idea." Erin said with a nod, her avatar doing the same as she finished killing off a larger than life bug. Why did games make bug so big? She already expected they would have a mission in where they were going to have to take out large spiders.

[Tim Tawfeek]

"That's so not the completionist way," insisted Tim, adding another chuckle. He didn't see the point in continuing about it though: he wasn't exactly a completitionist himself. He did aim for a few of the trophies and all, and sometimes he could get wrapped up in something, but he'd rather be focused on ranking up or being above other people who played the game or something. Then he knew he was better. Though for now, he'd settle for just playing the game and leveling up.

He grunted at the mention of the free build. he'd probably end up going jack of all trades route, especially if he was going to be their designated leader. Might tick a few people off, but it struck him as the most pragmatic approach. He also intended to log on and level up some of his lesser skills at some point, just to make certain he fully rounded out his character.

Though he had to agree with Erin for now. He nodded. "yeah, we'll do some hacking here, head back, do some research and recruitment. I'd like to get at least a five man band thing going, but I'd love to get a real sized guild," he bet they could gather a few mutants from across the world, and he was already considering it. He let his avatar nod as he smashed another bug, then paused. "We'd better go see if there are, like, killer plants somewhere. You know, circle of life thing and all." Tim already started moving, ready to get into that grind. He was pretty confident they'd at least get a decent head start, and he still intended to get more than a little ahead, just to get that cushion in place and all.

[Erin Hackett]

Erin's avatar shook its head in agreement to Tim's words about how she was not really doing the completions way. She even types in 'DAMN STRAIGHT, IT"S NOT!' into the chat so a little box would appear over her avatars head, saying what she typed. She even liked the fashion of how the chat box spread just because she used an exclamation point at the end. She was not a completionist for online games as big as this, foe say a consul game it was a bit easier since it kept track of a lot of things and general you could complete something without having to worry about competing with someone else.

Erin knew she was going to be all about the damage, but had to look up what was the best build or at least read the detailed information on the talents and specs you could go into. Then she could come up with the perfect skill tree to go into and make sure her build was perfect. She would likely have a cow over Tim's 'jack of all trades' build, but she said he could be leader so she would end up accepting what he did for the most part. So long as he did not cause them all to die repeatedly or his build got himself killed often later on in the game, she would not complain about it.

"Sounds like a plan." Erin said nodding in agreement once more. They didn't want to get far in the game and it was best to save some of the beginner quest to do with new people they would try to drag in. Erin would at least try and mention it to a few people or at least try and make more friends. Both ways increased the chance of them getting new members to their little gamer club that Tim had started up. "Wait, so you want us to take another boss out or are you just saying take out a few more super bugs before we log?" Erin asked, wanting to be sure. She thought he meant they would fight just a little more and then be done.

Now it seemed like they were going to go completely another major quest or something. She was fine with it either way, but she wanted to be sure. She didn't want a repeat of bunny so just wanted to be prepared in every aspect.

[Tim Tawfeek]

Tim just kept hacking at the bugs, till they elected to leave them alone. He got a feeling that if they stayed put too long, the bug alpha would show up, and that would definitely count as the "boss" that Erin talked about. Tim also wasn't sure they should be taking out alphas until they'd done some more work on mobs; the rabbit had practically ended them both after all.

Best mention that: "We should go for some more mobs. Like I said, plants or something," he said. He started getting his character to leave the area, actually forcing the guy to run for a bit. He definitely didn't want to be a sitting target for alpha-bug, should said creature pick just the right (or wrong) moment to materialize.

"The bunny nearly flattened us: you want to go against something worse?" he asked, turning his avatar. He nearly stumbled into a plant that literally began whipping him with tendrils, causing him to chuckle. "Random plant uses vine whip," he said, trying to move. He could see his health bar and winced. "It's super effective," did they have range? They so needed some ranged weapons...

[Erin Hackett]

Erin was all for avoiding another boss until they at least did some more clearly of the mobs and got a better understanding of the game. She hated when people would run right into a boss and that boss normally had a moved that called in nearby allies or summoned then. Then you had to deal with the boss, who it called/summoned, and possibly worry about pulling the others around if you had not gotten rid of them. That sort of thing led to a wipe and Erin really didn’t want to wipe so early on in the game when they had already been so close to it before.

“Alright. So clear some mobs and then we are going to try and take a boss?” Erin asked, just wanting to be sure. That way made sense but if they were just clearing mobs then they were going to log off it didn’t really seem like much sense because the mobs would respawn long before the time of them returning to fight the boss. Thus they would have to kill the mobs again before trying to take the boss. Unless the two of them were just killing mobs to gain experience. She already felt odd for asking so many questions but she was not a mind reader.

She had a hard time understanding what others were thinking and when it came to a game she didn’t want any confusion or miscommunication. She had to make her avatar run as well in order to catch up and keep up with the pace Tim’s avatar was moving. “No I do not.” Erin said, but Tim had apparently jinxed them as his avatar’s health dropped. “I suggest using a fire type move but we don’t have any with our current party.” Erin said, half chuckling as she moved in quick to hit the plant but pulled back quick and tried to stay out of its range.

She merely hit it to cause it to focus on her while Tim stepped back a little. “I only have one healing food thing so we either back off from this fight or do a lot off hit and run tactic. Unless this plant can get up and move.” Erin informed Tim. She would not have been surprised if it could in fact get out of the ground and come after them.

[Tim Tawfeek]

Yeah, times like this really made Tim wish that he did the whole jack of all trades thing. He liked having solutions to problems in games, and he didn't see any reason to not be ready to fill that role now. Plus, it still fit with the leader thing.

"Dunno if we wanna go so far as to fight a boss," admitted Tim, looking around for a clock, "getting late and I think I got a test tomorrow," ah yes, school, they still did that from time to time. It often fell into the background, what with being mutants surviving in this crazy, messed up world and all. And dating. Can't forget all the dating.

Which did make Tim wonder if he should try introducing this game to Lux. He could potentially see her getting into being a healer, but he could also see her wanting to save everything they were supposed to kill. Well, he supposed he could at least try. Couldn't hurt.

Unlike this plant thing. "Well, it's the next thing we're supposed to kill, so either the game wants us to go grind or use strategy," said Tim. He mumbled and dug around. "I suppose we could see if there's a solution on forums or something... man we so need to get better set ups this than this," he mumbled some more, but also tried getting his avatar to try and do a hit in run. the plants did hit hard, but they also didn't move nd did seem to have a pattern...

[Erin Hackett]

"Alright. Wait, you study for test?" Erin asked in a tone as if he was doing something inhuman. She didn’t study, ever. It was just not her thing and information was just so easy that she didn't even see the point in being in class. The worse classes were those that involved physical activity, like gym. Whoever thought it was a good idea to grade a kid on what they could do in a gym class was stupid. Some people were just not all that physically active, and while that meant they would have died out long ago if they were back during the time of survival of the fittest, one didn’t have to worry about that so much.

Not with modern technology and...Erin's mind was wondering again. Erin was not sure fully what to do beside a hit, run, hit, run, repeat type deal off the top of her head. It was so much easier to come up with a plan when you had an actual understanding of the game, which she did not. She was going to knowledge grind this game so hard when she and Tim were done here, after she took care of a few things herself. She didn't plan on studying like Tim and she didn't have a girlfriend to worry about but she did have things she had to do. She was going to work a part of her dad's company when she graduated after all.

"Then I’ll mark this place on the map. We check out the forms, do research on this game, and come back and own this zeta slow plants ass...er...bud." Erin said, pumped up already. She really did like defeat things in a game, so that was where her motivation came from to get better in a game. Tim hit the plan as well, backing off like Erin did so she figured they were at least going to try a little. She moved in to do another quick hit and backed off, watching, and figuring out the plants pattern. They could probably beat it, but they both were going to have low health when it was over. Or die in the process.

[Tim Tawfeek]

"Need sleep to do halfway decent," Tim replied. He shrugged in real life, though he knew it wouldn't translate into the game. He did pretty well on tests, barely had to study or anything, but that didn't mean he wanted to go through a test either hyped up on energy drink or yawning his way through every answer. Plus, he figured they'd have more research to do before they did anything too impressive.

And that apparently equated to fighting this plant thing. Hit and run worked pretty decent, though their health bars appeared to be depleting while the plant thing apparently regenerated slowly or something. Tim figured they were definitely supposed to have picked up some fire power at some point, either literally via magic or figuratively via some new equipment or something. Still, they could take this one out this way, and the boost to their health would be great.

"Yeah, we're gonna have to watch it," he chuckled as his avatar took a significant hit. "Man, can you imagine what the alphas for these are gonna be like? And this is just the low-level stuff," Tim jerked his avatar around and noticed that he could actually hit the lashing vines and deal some damage that way. Worked significantly better, though he still took damage. At least the thing looked weaker: the damage showing on the actual creature instead of via a health bar or something. Should die in the next few hits, that's for sure.

[Erin Hackett]

"Ah, fair point. Was about to call you a nerd for a second there." Erin teased, her avatar laughing before it got hit and she quickly pulled back. It was her own fault for doing an emote so close the plant. It took a nice chunk out of her health, almost as bad as that boss bunny. Almost. What level was this thing anyways? Or was it just because she had not fully started to lock in her specs for the game that she was not at the current ability she needed to be to not be affected by such a thing.

Then again, it was early on in the game and it was expected for her to have some bumps and kinks along the way. "This plant needs to be killed. I'm going to assume its story is that it’s stealing life from like the earth or something." Erin made a guest on the lore of the monster. All games had lore on their monsters and sometimes she liked to guess what it was. Since it was healing and this was all about balancing the world, that was her guess. Tim agreed with her that they were going to have to watch it, and he took another large hit as well. Yeah, they probably were going to have to come and try and face this one later.

"We are not facing any alphas until we at least get one more person on our team. I don't think my gamer heart can handle it." Erin said, chuckling a little but she was so serious. Erin made sure to sync her attacks up with Tim, making sure that after he hit that she would so it was a back to back sort of attack. Sure they were both getting hit after but they were at least chipping away the creature’s health. They both even found weak points and Erin made sure to focus on hitting those parts mainly.

[Tim Tawfeek]

Tim chuckled at Erin's comment too: yeah, they definitely fit the stereotypical nerd bits, between the two of them. Well, at least they could be alpha-nerds, attracting other nerds to their flock and ruling over them or something. Though that would be if they didn't have to admit to being smacked down by a particularly vicious form of plant life.

"Or it's just a plant that the insects we smooshed earlier were supposed to eat," Tim pointed out. Though he had to wonder how the insects managed to get at this thing. He actually pulled back for a bit, wincing as he took a blow from it. The insects supposedly ate this thing... so maybe they had to go low?

Erin talked about alphas while Tim thought, and he did agree with her, but they had to survive this plant thing first. They could figure out how to get more people and deal with boss-fights and whatnot after the fact. The creature was going down, but... "Hey, can you make your avatar duck?" he asked, trying out a few combinations himself, making his character spin for a bit. "See, the insects supposedly ate these guys, and they were pushovers, so I'm wondering if it's not a low thing..." or the insects just stayed back and spat. Really, Tim should probably be more focused on the whole killing the plant thing.

[Erin Hackett]

Erin knew she was a nerd, but she was a special kind of nerd. The cool kind, of course. She would have agreed with the idea of being Alpha Nerds and brining in other nerds to come game with them. It seemed like it would be fun and the rule of gaming was the more the merrier. So long as the more knew what they were doing, not being trolls, and that there were not too many people that commination became impossible. So there were a lot of situations that went along with having more people play a video game with them. Erin felt a little confident that Tim would be able to pull in some food people for the club/group/whatever it was.

"Oh...in that case, did we not just throw off the balance then?" Erin asked when Tim pointed out that it could have been a plant the bugs they killed were supposed to have killed. Unless they needed to kill basically everything in order to get the balance back. She figured that way worked just as well because if you killed off one species then the species it hunted would grow out of control and then you would have to deal with the problem. The whole circle of life was complicated sometimes.

"I could run off and try to find another group of them and pull them over here." Erin teased. She was teasing because her health was not high enough to be playing around with bugs that would attack her while she would try to bring them over to the plant. Tim then asked a question that Erin had no clue the answer too. She quickly tried hitting several different buttons before pulling her avatar back away from the fight a little more and pulling up another window. She then quickly looked it up if it was possible to have your character duck.

"Uh…I'm finding mixed results. Some say you can't. Other said you can but not until you hit a certain level. There is a dodge roll that we could do." Erin explained after she did a quick read. She listened as Tim explained how the insets ate the plants and thus was trying to figure out the best way to attack them as well. "Hmm...could be a whole swoop in and move back like we have been doing. Or their ranged attack might have been how they pulled it off." Erin pointed out, trying to recall just how battling the insets was and if they could use the mechanics in their fight to hopefully not die by plant.

[Tim Tawfeek]

Tim shrugged as Erin wondered if they'd messed up the balance. "Dunno, we might not have killed enough insects to really matter. Who knows how big this ecosystem thing is?" Tim certainly didn't. Just add that to the list of things that he'd have to go and look up at a later date. Not that he minded research like this: he could use it as a break between looking into various mutant rights groups and whatnot.

Erin definitely seemed willing enough to help too, and also had some plans for working the plant. Tim laughed at the suggestion, before instructing his character to dash in and deliver another hit, barely managing to get out of the way of another lash. "Figures that we need more abilities or something. Maybe we weren't even supposed to really head into the forest yet?" Though it seemed to sort of be working. Tim could actually see that his max health had already increased, so this was at least helping them win.

"Right, if we can both it at once, then we should be able to finish this," he said, before adjusting his glasses and wiggling in his seat in real life. "So get ready, and on three..." he tapped out the beat, getting ready to say the numbers in just the right cadence to ensure that their hits landed simultaneously....

[Erin Hackett]

"Very true. Sounds like more research to me." Erin said after Tim's words. It seemed like they had a lot of research ahead of them. Tim would likely end up doing most of it and then relaying it to Erin since he picked the game. She was still interested in it, but not enough that she was willing to put a lot of time into it yet. Perhaps once she understood the game better and they had more people to play the game with them then she would be more interested in it. For now she was just doing it for the sake of having to complete what she started. She still planned to help Tim out get members in her own way of course.

"Probably not. More than likely this area is out of our level range, but at least we will get a large chunk of EXP if we survive this." Erin said after Tim's words. They could run away but they had already invested time and health into taking out this plant so they were not going to leave until it was dead or they both died. At least, that was Erin's plan and she had no intention of dying so she was going to give it her all to put this plant creature down. Time seemed to be in agreement with Erin's plan of attacking and getting away. He was doing it himself and then pointed out that if they both attacked at once, they likely would finish it off.

"Actually do the countdown, and don't just say three." Erin pointed out when Tim said on three. She hated when someone said 'on three' and then said three right away and then she was not ready since she had expected a count down like any normal person should have. She was ready however, having her avatar in position and would wait until she heard the word three to go in and attack the plant with all that she had.