Delayed Transfer

“So who amongst the circus leaders would play the game?” Mark asked.

“Hamil and the others would be very busy handling the circus business including the warp gate so my sisters and I decided that we’ll be the ones playing the game and not only that, we want to become the managers of the internet café, all three of us. That way, the café would be easier to manage. Are we going to sell food here since it’s called a café?” Solinae asked.

“Since you three are planning to become the managers, it would be your decision but I would advise you not to let the customer eat or drink near the computer since the computers are sensitive. If they get wet or get dirty, they would malfunction and please remember that food would attract pests,” Mark said.

“You don’t need to worry about pests since we have spells that would prevent that and we also have cleaning spells that would make sure that the café is clean. We probably would need to allow the customers to eat, at least in a designated area since there is a good chance that they would play for several hours at a time,” Mentorra mentioned.

Dozon and Lorendo then stated they would like to play. Hamil would also play for a few hours to get a feel for how the game worked.

“Are you sure you want to be part of the people that would test the game? You will need to commit for three or four days here,” Mark asked and Dozon and Lorendo said that it wasn’t going to be a problem.

So the players were going to be Dozon, Lorendo, and Hamil but only for a few hours and he would be replaced by Toby. The other five would be the two actual customers who got lucky and were chosen as testers and three circus people. One of the three was one of Zenethor’s people and the other two were actors.

Mark decided to add a couple of manager’s computers and he arranged it so that the three eleven sisters were back to back. It was easy for him since he just needed to replicate a fully completed desktop PC that he stored earlier and connect it to the network and as per Solinae’s request, he added a dedicated computer for customer registration since the elven women didn’t want customers touching their computers.

Hamil invited the two young customers who were waiting just outside the tent and everyone sat behind the computers. Mark saw that the two customers were actually trembling in excitement but even Toby, who was sitting beside his father, was trembling in excitement as well.

Since Mark knew that he would need to teach the people who would play the game first, he arranged the computers in a way that when the players sat, four of them would be back to back with each other so Mark could navigate to each of the computers easily since he would be at the center of the customers.

“The first thing that we need to do is to register for an account. Registering for an account meant creating an identity in the world of Star Wars the Old Republic so everyone line up in the computer over there that is assigned for account registration,” Mark announced in a loud voice.

Mark made the registration simple. They just needed to enter their full name and their password and that’s it. Once everyone was registered, all of them sat behind their computers again. He told everyone that the headset was the device that would allow them to listen to the game.

Mark was glad that the spell Comprehend Language was powerful and comprehensive enough that it would allow everyone to understand the written and spoken language in the game without any issues.

Before they started, Mark explained that each player needed to select a faction which was the Empire or the Republic or evil versus good. But he told them that even if they select the Republic, their character could be evil as well depending on the choices they would select, and the same with the Empire.

The two young customers who were very lucky to be able to play the game ahead of the others and for free at that chose the Republic and Mark expected that since who wouldn’t want to be heroes, especially the young ones? Hamil, with prodding from Toby also selected the Republic. Mark asked that four of the players should choose the Republic four should choose the Empire and that those who selected the same faction should sit together.

The three elven sisters were free to choose what they wanted since they were separate from the players and surprisingly, they chose the Empire. Mark asked one of them to choose the Republic so one of them would be knowledgeable with the other faction but when he informed them that only players from the same faction could play with each other, the three sisters chose to play for the Empire.

After everyone chose, Mark assigned the right side to the Republic and the left side to the Empire. The ones sitting on the right side were Hamil, the two customers, and Dozon. For the empire which was seated on the left side were Lorendo and three of the other people from the circus.

Before they logged in, Mark advised everyone to take their time to listen to what the characters were saying and to follow the instructions that they would receive. If they have any questions they just need to stop, remove their headset, and raise their hands. After that, everyone logged in.

Mark noticed that everyone did take their time since choosing the characters alone took them one to two hours and another hour was taken in customizing their character. Apparently, everyone did read every single word they saw in the game even the instruction on how to customize the appearance of their characters.

Since everyone was taking a very long time, Mark decided to connect another computer to the network so he could play the game as well. He planned to play as a Jedi Consular. Since Mark knew how to play the game, his gameplay was extremely fast compared to the others but he made sure that they wouldn’t see his screen to avoid spoiling the game for them. When he saw that everyone was on their origin planets, he quit the game to check everyone’s gameplay.

Since everyone took the time to follow the tutorial and read every detail that they could find, everyone was playing smoothly. Toby was very noisy though since he kept harassing his father so after another hour, Hamil gave the computer to Toby.

“So what do you think about the game?” Mark asked Hamil when the circus leader joined him in observing the others play.

“This game is highly entertaining and the fact that the gameplay was set up thousands of years before the movies was fascinating. It felt like we were reliving the lives of the Jedi who lived before the character in the movies,” Hamil said.

“So do you think this will be popular with our customers? Mark asked.

“Of course. The novelty of the game alone would be enough to draw the customers but I can’t decide for now how much we can charge for the game. We could only do so after the testing of the game,” Hamil answered.