Offline:\Bayanihan Shopping Complex>
Sunday twelve high noon, in a large shopping mall’s convention hall. Thousands of anime and game enthusiasts, costume players, photographers, journalists, and other bystanders gathered around the stage.
Ten minutes later, media men from different agencies and TV networks emerged amidst the con-goers to record this latest technological craze. A female cosplayer in red dress, asked her male cosplaying friend in a quirky faded cyan light armor,
“Saito, why there are media men here?”
“This must be a big thing for them not to miss, Ayako”
“Why so? Many other online games didn’t undergo through this expensive promotion, Saito!” the female cosplayer stuttered.
“That game is now the online buzz, Ayako, that’s why they have this launching event extravagant”
At the backstage, a bespectacled boy wore his futuristic pirate-inspired costume and he thought,
“Papa, I am sure that this game will be a huge hit! The Internet waited this thing so long, that they are thinking of living like their favorite anime characters, in which our invention is based from!”
His older bespectacled sister, donning silky black hip-length hair, dressed in street punk fashion patted his shoulders and discerned him,
“Henry, papa knows what’s best, trust me.”
Henry, the bespectacled boy, nodded, and replied,
“Okay, Iris, let’s just do our best then…”
Back at the stage, the flat LCDs screens activated by themselves and showed a bluish sun. The disc jockey at the backstage announced,
“The unveiling of the newest online game starts now, presented by Orion Digiworks’ president, head designer and head developer of this game, Orion Kanlaon!”
Intense opera music is played, as the screens began previewing the new game’s appealing environments. A white-haired man in white coat walked towards the center stage, then he proclaimed with delightful might,
“Today, the gaming experience that we see in Asian, and Western media, will happen for real!”
The screens showed different avatar types that the players can use. The first screen demonstrated a semi-realistic, decently-armored human soldier. The second screen has a cyberpunk-dressed, anime-styled reaper. The third screen illustrated a stout rockhopper penguin-headed mechanic. The fourth screen portrayed a spiky-haired orc donning a powered armor with rhinoceros skulls for its shoulder armors. The fifth screen blurted out a message,
“YOU CAN REALLY BE ANYTHING YOU WISH FOR!”
Orion, the white-haired man, applauded at the screens behind him and he orated,
“That’s right! You can be anything in this game. We longed for this kind of gameplay throughout our gaming lives. The West may have enjoyed this, but not everyone can play and create content due to pricing and service limitations. NOAH will open its doors for everyone to play, create and share their creations!”
Audiences around the stage went wild. Some of the cosplayers screamed loud, solely based from Orion’s promising speech. Behind the young crowd, a middle-aged AGMN-14 news anchor is heard covering the whole launching event,
“You heard it guys, another technological marvel made in the Philippines blossomed and that is NOAH. NOAH is an online virtual world inspired by the Western and Asian-made online worlds created by the Orion Digiworks”
Orion continued his speech about the game,
“This game won’t be just another video game; it is our extension that we can live out the lives of the characters we dream of. We can almost do anything in this virtual universe, not just dungeon raids, item collection, but also… We can design clothes, new weapons, new enemies, up to the point that we can create new worlds, and even turn your ordinary online gaming into a quick 3D animation hit!”
The crowd applauded wildly. News correspondents shared their insights in front of their cameras. A handful of players started planning for their first adventure to NOAH. Now, everyone’s saga in this online universe will start!