It was a good idea to take a look at the map, Dakkon figured. “Map!” he exclaimed inwardly, with no effect. Again, he tried, more forcefully and again he failed. After a dozen attempts—each with greater intensity than the one preceding it—Dakkon’s patience was tested, broke, and he yelled out, “Map! Map! Damn it, Map!”
A passing body of townsfolk stopped their conversations and stared at him, dumbfounded. One mother grabbed her young, gaping son by his once freely-swinging arm and tugged him far away from the adult dressed as a pauper yelling about maps from a public bench.
“Odd,” Dakkon thought, feeling little shame for the scene he’d created. “Perhaps the map is an item I have to activate.” Then, by thinking the word ‘inventory’ he pulled up a menu displaying his items along with a miniature version of his own avatar designed to let the player see what they looked like from any angle, while striking any pose. He found that thinking the word ‘character’ allowed him to view his statistics as well.
His equipment was all very lackluster, but that was to be expected. His shirt, pants, shoes, and bag were all made of some sort of tattered cloth which provided no real protection. He had no weapon, no map, two canteens, and twenty of some foodstuff called “Traveler’s Tack.” Before he could inspect the dubious tack, Dakkon noticed something he thought strange. His stats looked wrong.
|————
|Statistics
|————
|Strength: 10 ( ? )
|Stamina: 10
|Agility: 10
|Dexterity: 10
|Intellect: 10
|Luck: 0 ( X )
|Free Stat Points: 0
|
|Hit Points: 50/50
|Endurance: 50/50
|Mana Points: 50/50
|Leveclass="underline" 1
|EXP Until Next Leveclass="underline"
[
“Where the hell are my stat bonuses?” Dakkon wondered, dejectedly. He knew from his periodic research while longing for the game that his base statistics would be 10s across the board, except for the luck stat, but he should have been awarded a large bonus of automatically allocated stat points for choosing not to customize his character. The bonus was introduced only a few days after the game was released, supposedly in an effort to curb the hordes of perfectly attractive people parading about.
Noticing the question mark to the side of his statistics, Dakkon clicked on it and a more detailed, yet still unspecific, explanation of statistics was presented in the form of a floating window of text:
-Strength: Increasing Strength allows an individual to make more powerful attacks and increases their carrying capacity. This statistic is recommended for close quarter fighters. Please Note: Players with high strength will have noticeably larger muscles.
-Stamina: Increasing Stamina gives an individual more hit points, slightly reduces incoming damage, and increases one’s amount of endurance. With more hit points, an individual can withstand more damage before they are killed. With more endurance, one can perform physically demanding activities for a longer period of time. This statistic is recommended for everyone.
-Agility: Increasing Agility improves how well an individual can move their body, and slightly increases the overall speed at which they can travel. This statistic is recommended for classes that require quick and agile movements.
-Dexterity: Increasing Dexterity improves the steadiness of an individual’s hands. Dexterity is vitally important for trade skills that require the use of one’s hands and improves one’s ability to aim. This statistic is recommended for craftsmen and those who wish to attack from a distance.
-Intellect: Increasing Intellect increases the number of mana points an individual has, how quickly those points regenerate, and the potency of effect and duration a spell has. With more mana points, an individual can cast more spells or maintain spell-based effects for a longer period of time. Intellect also factors into the innovation of trade skills. This statistic is recommended for spellcasters and innovative craftsmen.
-Luck: Increasing Luck makes an individual more fortunate. This statistic has a small impact on everything. Players may not distribute free stat points into the Luck stat.
“Typical,” thought Dakkon. “Intellect does a bit more than the other stats because of how it pigeonholes you into certain roles.”
While looking into information on the game, Corbin had read up on characters trying to stack stat points to improve their builds. Having a high score in any stat seemed to be pretty useful, but no one could increase their luck except through the use of magical items and temporary buffs. Not being able to pour a player’s stat points into luck made it hard to have a high luck score, and because of that exclusivity many players had gone well out of their way to document the effects of the statistic.
The players who spent large sums of money to temporarily increase their luck reported little to no change. Maybe an extra copper or silver from a monster, every once in a while, but nothing significantly outside of chance—and definitely nowhere near enough to justify buffing up one’s luck over any other statistic. It was even hypothesized that luck may affect a character’s chance to deal a critical strike, inflicting several times the damage of a normal attack, but players found that after parsing thousands of attacks the tests were inconclusive. Dakkon supposed that if luck was as useless as everyone seemed to think, then perhaps that older brother was right. Maybe the devs did everyone a favor by not allowing new players to distribute their points into it.
“Where are my extra stat points?” Dakkon wondered again with renewed fervor. Next, he tried clicking on the box with an X on it.
A light chiming noise sounded: *Bhnnn*
[You have created your character without customizing it.]
[You have been awarded stat points!]
[Due to the player being under the prerequisite level of 20, you will be unable to view how these stat points have been allocated.]
“Aha,” Dakkon mused. “So that’s it. But, if the stats are already allocated, couldn’t I just compare how I perform against another beginning player to have a rough idea of how they’re divided?”
Dakkon closed out of the menu and looked at his arms. “Damn. They don’t seem particularly muscly. Of course the devs would have thought about that. But then, have the points really been allocated?”
Dakkon decided it was better not to worry about it. He’d already received a message clarifying that he did, in fact, create his character in the method required to get the large stat point bonus. Come level 20, if he couldn’t see the stats, he’d just contact some form of administrator and get the problem taken care of. Maybe, if that happened, he’d even get a chance to pick where the stat points went as some form of compensation. “Nice,” Dakkon thought, and nodded his head twice.
He had no weapon, and no idea what was around him. He’d have to see where he could find a map, or at least figure out where he was. Dakkon stood up from the bench and, ignoring the remaining few NPCs that were still snickering over his outburst, walked up to a city guardsman, who was easily identifiable thanks to his uniform plated armor, upright pose, and generally bored expression.