Long Island

Chapter 17: The Good, the Annoying and the Irritating

Please Note: Statements between % something in italics % are game system messages. 

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The Night Life. A term Swamy heard long ago and understood much later.

Swamy was thinking hard on all the experiences he had so far as he wrote another paper due in class. And he was astounded by the behaviour of the npcs (non player characters) in the game. Not that he did not like it or enjoy it, but he came to realize that there was something else at play here.

After all, when Cassian showed his Peek skill he did not need to show Neona's bath. For Swamy, the experience was amazing but the thing was, it was not required. He could have easily shown the next room to display its workings. Why then the particular experience. And what about the kisses he got from Lady Verina and Lady Altia. He could understand how intimacy worked and maybe he had gotten close enough to them. It could also be possible that their personalities came into effect. But if you think about it rationally, the experience, while enjoyable to some, could be treated as harassment by others. It could cause innumerable legal complications and should not generally be allowed. What if a female child is playing the game, such behaviour could be considered rape.

However nothing of that sort had come up so far. Even after players started getting blessings. A male npc just swooping to kiss a female player, kid or adult, would probably put a million dollar or rupee harassment case in any court in the world. Not to mention the male players could feel the same way as well.

So what was it? While thinking hard, Swamy remembered a term he had heard long ago. The night life. Ofcourse he was too small to understand what it meant at that time. After growing older, he finally figured out what it was. The night life was becoming a part and parcel of many virtual reality games. Exclusive content or facilities to be enjoyed by adults or 18+ people. A room which allowed two players to sleep together or a hot water spring which allowed bathing together or even simply taking off your clothes in private, was possible due to this. However, those were the extremes. It could simply be consumption of alcohol or smoking. All of which would form the experience for adult players.

'It could be this night life which is affecting some of the behaviour of npcs towards players. The Peek skill too, I am sure, will have limitations if one were to peek on underage npcs. It might not even work on the player houses or there might be some system setting for that. That doesn't explain everything though.'

It was the concept of choice and permission. The system may have a lot of different attributes to determine the compatibility between two people, be they npcs or players. But at the end, what really matters is choice. That is an incalculable factor. You could try guessing it based on as many factors as you want, but there will always be the slight probability of being wrong. Wherein comes the permission. When initiating such activities, people could always ask permission which would permit the system to allow such behaviour.

Some of the things which happened to Swamy in the game, could be attributed to him being 18 years old. The other thing about choice and permission was still worrying him though. In the end he decided that probably the reaction from the other party, in this case himself, when such an action was initiated could be an indication of whether it was permitted. It could also be a result of many factors but in case the system is confused on the reaction, it could either stop the action or simply ask permission. It should work both ways in that case.

'Well its just how I would do this, but there could be something different at play here achieving the same results.'

However, there were too many probabilities in these thoughts to put in a paper due in class. In the end Swamy wrote on the properties of magic in the game.