Chapter 17 – The Open Beta test

The Open Beta test is finally released two weeks after the Closed Beta test.

Perhaps the greatest difference between the Closed and Open Beta test is the number of people who could play on it.

The Closed Beta test had limits on the player count; there i no limit on the Open Beta test.

Though I’m not the developers, and it’s only my personal opinion, there are no disasters during the Closed Beta Test, so the Open Beta test will mimic the real service. It’s possible that it’s used to test the servers and adjust the game balance.

The test will last one month and a half. It feels like it’s a half-baked duration, but the service starts in the middle of July. Perhaps this means that they are aiming to start the test during the students’ school break.

But this is the world’s first VRMMORPG, is it really fine to have such a tight schedule?

There might possibly be a flaw in this unknown game system, so it feels like it should be tested a little longer.

Well, an online game’s software can be updated but you can’t update the hardware in the consoles. Problems found in the future can be corrected and the service can be started now unless there are fatal bugs in it.

There were MMORPGs that started officially, but there were many bugs and “Beta testers were forced to pay money” to try the game out, and the users got furious and left critical comments in forums.

I hope that Another World won’t have this problem.

Earlier there was a required update in order to start up the game.

It seems like it’s taking a while. There are probably many bugs discovered and newly added functions in this patch.

I refresh Another World’s website to see new content as I continue to wait.

As expected, there are many bug fixes and new functions in the notes.

Because there are too many bugs that are fixed and I found it annoying to read them all, I look at the new functions and specifications.

There is a new additional function called Present Inventory.

This is the specialized storage where the official administration delivers their paid items, as well as the event items.

The paid items — Users can buy items with real money in the game.

For example, there are items that allow increasing the XP gain by 2 times within a specific duration, movement speed increase, transportation tools or combat-related items. There are skill points resets and stats resets, as well as cosmetic items, such as different types of armors for the various professions.

The detailed reasons as to why items cannot be bought in the Beta are not clear, but in order to thank the participants, everyone would receive five copies of [Book of Blessing], which raises XP gain by 2 times.

This is really something to be thankful for.

There is also a change to the [Bad Status]. It meant that there are conditions to the character that would be detrimental to combat.

The conditions are [Poisoned], [Burned], [Slow-footed], [Stunned], [Asleep], [Sealed].

[Poisoned] and [Burned] are damage that persisted over time — DoT (Damage over Time). The game has changes stated about the Poisoned status in the notes.

The damage and duration are lowered, but the skills are also changed and allow multiple instances of poison.

For example, if there are two existences A and B, and both use the related skills, they would receive the damage of A and B’s DoT.

And the rule to the antidote is that using the related skill or an antidote potion would allow all Poison instances to be removed.

Even though this is a terrible act for the professions low in HP, this is great news for Assassins and Hunters who had multiple skills related to poison.

[Slow-footed] is just like how it sounded. If a Water magician uses Ice-magic, they will cause the status of Slow-footed.

[Stunned] and [Asleep] are abnormal conditions where one could not take any actions.

[Stunned] has a limited duration, [Asleep] was the same as well, but receiving damage in that condition would allow one to move.

[Sealed] is a status where one could not use any skills.

This is a condition I must avoid as one who mainly uses Magic.

There are potions that counter the [Stunned] and [Asleep] status, so I can buy them as a counter. Also, in regards to these two conditions, one can probably be healed if a Healer uses their recovery skills.

There are no monsters that dealt these abnormal conditions at the start, so there is no problem playing without party members....

I didn’t enter a party at the end of the Closed Beta at all.

Hmm..... Well, it’s no use thinking about the negative aspects.

I should be positive in the Open Beta.

I also intend to play as a Magician. I have the [Book of Blessing] as well, and with the Closed Beta’s wiki information and strategy on the monsters, it might possible to change to a second Class.

The second Class as defined, the first Class— the so-called Magician that I have, is a Class that can learn far stronger skills.

The conditions are that I must reach level 50, and I won’t be able to change my Class if I didn’t clear the quests to change to the second Class.

To add on, the second class allows a combat-related profession to choose three types.

For example, a warrior could advance to a Knight which has excellent defense and offense, or a Paladin which has extremely high defense and healing capabilities, or a Berserker which has low defense but possess offensive skills.

The Magician also has three choices.

The first is the Wizard Class.

This is the Class that follows the Magician’s path, possessing extremely powerful Magic. It is the strongest Class if one is placed in a group battle.

The second Class is Sage. They lack offensive skills compared to a Magician, but they have skills that give buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies (like reducing the strength stat).

They are not suited for personal combat but give an overall boost to their allies.

The third is a summoner, allowing one to get summoning beasts from a different world. The Class also has their own offensive skills, so the ability to do personal combat is stronger.

All of the Classes have their own charm, but the wiki strategy guides recommend the Sage Class. The buffs that a Sage has affects the entire party unlike the Healer Class, so the firepower is raised overall.

It’s probably fun to raise the stats of the party members and one’s own.

But.... I feel the conditions to raise a Sage is pretty strict.

The reason is that too many skills rely on the Mind stat.

The [Mind] and [Intelligence] stats affect the increase of MP, skills, Magic Power, and Magic Defense.

[Mind] greatly increases the defense against magic, and affects the effectiveness of healing and buff skills.

[Intelligence] greatly increases the Magic Power, and affects the attacking skills.

Raising the [Mind] stat raises the Magic Power too, but it doesn’t rise as much as the [Intelligence] stats, and the reverse is true.

If a particular skill has no annotation to it, the power of the skill is decided according to the Magic Power.

In conclusion, the power of the Sage’s skills relies greatly on the [Mind] stats, but the first Class, Magician, with a low intelligence would mean that the effectiveness of its available skills will be going down. It is a contradiction.

Since one cannot change the points once they are allocated, changing to a Sage Class would mean that the points have to be added to the [Mind] stats from the start.

But the power from a Magician’s Mana Bolt is reliant on the intelligence stats, and the early raising of the class can be visibly affected from the start.

If I think about it a little, it’s best to give up on aiming for a Sage.

So should I go as a Wizard or Summoner....?

There are flaws on either side.

The skills of the Wizard Class are the strongest, but there’s a weakness as the incantation time is overly long. On the other hand, a Summoner’s expenditure in Mana is huge, and the flaw is that it’s easy to run out of mana.

Hmm, which should I choose?

I ponder and compare the two skillsets.

In this way, it’s kind of fun to think about the skills.

But I don’t really fantasize about [I shall form the greatest skill combination] with the limited skill points.

Though the Another World’s forum is becoming heated up. There are some volunteers who created a non-official simulator to calculate the points. It can simulate which skills to acquire according to the level.

Despite using this, it takes me 10 minutes to compare different skills as though I’m in a dilemma to piece a jigsaw puzzle together with groans.

I temper with it before I realize what I am doing.

Is it possible.... I think as I tinker with the simulator.

— As if the pieces clink together neatly, I compose a skillset according to my imagination.

Ha, hahaha. This. Isn’t this good?

A lot of skill points is certainly needed and I might not be able to reach this required high level in the Open Beta since there’s a time limit, but there’s value in it as it appears interesting.

The update is finally over when I’m glowing with self-satisfaction as I decide my target.

Alright, let me do it at once~

Login, and set up the characters.

Since the character data from the Closed Beta is deleted, I have to remake the character. The name is still Chaos.

The character’s gender and appearance can be changed. The previous character settings are based on my own appearances, and I want to make it similar this time too.

Looking at my finished character suddenly makes me want to mess with it a little, so I increase the Body Weight’s parameter.

Woah, so this is how I look like when I’m fat.

Since the stats don’t change, being thin or fat should not affect the character.

If I really want to, I can make a fat agile thief or a loli-body type warrior.

Since I have the chance to try it out I tried changing my hairstyle in mega ways; silver hair and heterochromia. Finally, I made a character that is taller than my height with a fat character and straight standing hair.

This is bad, I messed around with the settings a little too much.

Erm, reverting back the hair and wait.... Right, I reverted to the original?

I pull back myself together.

When I start the game, I can see several choices for the starting locations.

There were three choices: Malcott, Stolbrusen, Clermont.

Malcott is the Caastal kingdom’s capital.

I remember that Stolbrusen belongs to the Vixels Empire, while Clermont is the capital of the Commune Allies.

It seems like they changed the location to the cities instead of the empty forest. Though it might be a just a bug the previous time.

Since I chose the Caastal kingdom in the Closed Beta, how about choosing Stolbrusen this time?

Fortunately, the surroundings of the Vixels empire is also included in the wiki guide.

Well, let me begin my adventure!

I will also remove the chapters from my website during the weekends. If you want to keep the series, please copy the chapters into a notepad. If anyone is reading this elsewhere, remember to turn on your adblocks because I didn’t give anyone else permission to publish my translations, and the author definitely did not give permission to publish his series anywhere else. The only exception you should see this series TLed would be if someone else got his permission. In the case of MTL, you do need a little bit of grammar knowledge and maybe yomichan/rikaichamp equivalent for dictionary searching.

The hero Chaos who had won great fame within the Caastal kingdom disappeared after defeating the Elder Treant. At that time, Wilfred contracted the Adventurer Guild in order to find him. But there were many adventurers who leaked out the existence of Chaos, and countless people impersonated him. Thus the request was canceled, and this event was logged.

At the same time, there was someone in the neighboring Vixels Empire who had the same name as him. He was also a Magician with black hair but he had heterochromia, having black and blue eyes. At that time, the magic skills available could not change the colors of the eyes, so the Adventurer Guild treated him as a person with the same name.

But considering the achievements that he had, it was more persuasive to say that he was the hero Chaos.

The world continued to debate on the reason why he had to change his eye colors, and also how he did it. There was the opinion where he changed the color of his eyes because he disliked becoming too famous, but it was refuted because he continued to use the name Chaos. Another theory was that he was possessed by a Magic Eye when he disappeared. There was also another claim that there was a Magician group called “Chaos”, but the scholars said it was two entirely different things and a crazy talk.

Everyone knew about the heroic tales of Chaos in the current era. The mysteries that he left behind were still left unsolved.