Hisa's Garden

Hisa Online is a character RPG inspired by Sword Art Online and Log Horizon. The protagonists are a group of players, caught within the world of Hisa Online along with thousands of other pre-order players on the Dominion of Amahara server. While the concept of players in a video game might seem mundane, be aware its closest relative is probably Exalted. Might have preludes but expect timeskips.

Background

Incident

The incident occurred on 11 November 2019. Two years after the unveiling of first generation arcade-style machines using FullDive VR technology, the first FullDive machine designed for home use was released. Declared to herald a resurrection of the specialist home gaming console (though it is more properly a gaming peripheral), the Neuron launched simultaneously in 13 countries and territories with a small collection of third party games and a single first party killer app: the Virtual Reality MMORPG HiSA Online. Rumored to stand for Highlyadvanced Subliminal Assembly, Hisa Online is not only the world's first VRMMO but also vastly advances the older concept of dynamic content, combining the traditionally static MMO world with the characteristics of a sandbox and an exponential increase of the amount of content implied by its development budget. Then, on launch day, something happened. All pre-order customers logging in during the initial rush were swept into the virtual world and found themselves unable to log out.

World of Hisa

The game world of Hisa Online is composed of realms. These are open play areas that vary widely in size and theme, though the starting ones are especially large and generic. In contrast, "dungeon" realms tend to be smaller and more heavily themed and often have foes with unique mechanics. Realms are in turn divided into different zones ranging from completely safe protected zones to dungeon zones where in-game communications or other functions are restricted. The zone restrictions in effect at any point are always visible to the player. Realms are connected to one another via portals. Every realm has, at minimum, an "inbound" portal where arriving players will find themselves appearing when they first unlock the realm and from where it is possible to warp back out to where they came from. Therefore, in order for players to access a new realm, the outbound portal leading there must be found and opened. While some portals are merely well hidden, most are guarded by bosses. Once unlocked, any portal allows free travel to the corresponding portal in the next realm over. Portals with a town or castle around them either are or can upgrade to join the warp network which allows quick direct travel from node to node for a fee. Any uncontested portal within the network can also serve as the target of expensive Warp Scroll items which will, depending on the item's level, teleport one or more players to that portal.

Additionally, there are also realms (the aforementioned "dungeons") that consist exclusively of a single dungeon zone and have no exit besides the entrance. The myriad realms in the game are thus conceptually arranged in vertical order with each portal leading "up" to progressively more difficult content in an arrangement referred to in lore as the World Tree. The "trunk realms" – large, relatively generic realms defended by the largest scale bosses – progress towards the endgame with each one branching off into many minor realms where resources and experience can be gathered. A variety of "quests" are scattered throughout the realms though there is no formal quest log and players must act based on the information they gather. When a quest completion is triggered, the credited players are notified and rewards are received. Simpler quests are usually limited to a single area or realm but complex ones require a great deal of travel or obscure knowledge and lore. Nevertheless, all could properly be described as side quests. The "main" quest line of Hisa Online is entirely implied: reach the realm of Hisa itself at the very pinnacle of the World Tree where, the celestial gods and true heroes reside.

Gameplay

Death

When a player dies, they respawn at a temple after a delay. This was quickly demonstrated in the first few hours, allaying fears that death might somehow be permanent in this strange virtual world. Nevertheless, even the staunchest players report that death is a strange and disturbing experience that often results in forgotten nightmares among other things. There remains a large proportion of players who have never died out of fear of it, including those who go as far as to never leave the home city and simply wait to be rescued by the outside world. Those who have died before are usually quite aversive to it.

Players can attack others. In general, players are protected from being harmed or harrassed while in a protected zone. Attacking or killing innocent players results in not being protected while in said zones (which could make entry to some realms difficult or impractical), aggro status from some "guard" type mobs and also allows others to kill you in the open world without repercussion.

Characters

The PCs are a group of involuntary players in Hisa Online who have chosen/will ultimately choose to do something instead of lying around in the starting area waiting for the real world to return. You need the following things:

• Name: This is the Amahara server but there are foreigners who imported the game in order to play with friends.
• Background: Whatever you like. It could have some connection to why you are good at the game or it might not.
• Appearance: Appearance as well as vocal tone and even body odour of your character in game. This is, in all respects, your new body. In particular, it does not actually have to be the same gender nor remotely similar in any way to your real body which is now but a memory. That said, most people play modified or beautified versions of themselves. One reason for this is that the game accurately detects and presents an enhanced version of one's body and appearance along with a simplified set of quick change buttons and sliders by default during character creation that most players simply accept that. Most people also find playing someone significantly different from their original selves to be either psychologically uncomfortable or disadvantageous since their motor skills need to adjust for different limb lengths and so on. There is also a bit of a negative stigma applied to males playing cross gender.
• Motivation: What you want to do in-game as the story progresses is not as important as what aspect of your character makes him/her determined to do something as opposed to nothing. An unmotivated character would quickly fall to the wayside and not remain among the doers of the server.
• Personal Talents in both ●'s and the base threshold number.
• Build

Personal Talent

Personal talents account for the natural aptitude and experience you have in this and other video games. There are six talents arranged in three conceptual pairs – Skills, Smarts and Socials. These paired talents have overlap – they are often both able to accomplish the same general thing but do so in significantly different ways and often with very different consequences. Of most particular note, only one of the two in each set can be used to actually initiate an encounter but the other one always wins initiative. They can be seen as "active" and "reactive" counterparts to each other.

Every rolled action in the game is based on a pool of dice derived from the relative resources being thrown at the problem (a single primary resource, which can be another talent, plus bonuses) against a difficulty largely or entirely determined by the talent the action is based on. Each dot you have in a talent reduces your difficulty threshold by 1 from 10. This threshold of (10 – talent) constitutes your base threshold and should be noted down somewhere convenient since this is what you're actually using when rolling time comes around.

The maximum number of dots you can put into one field is seven, resulting in a minimum base threshold of 3. Additionally, results of 10 are always successes and 1's are always failures.

Skills

Skills cover your actual ability to play the core game, which is mostly about fighting computer controlled entities or other humans in a virtual reality. It is also important for navigating the environment itself and any task that requires speed, precision or timing.

Focus (Active Skills)
Focus is a matter of execution – the ability to use a tactic to perfection with proper precision, timing and, if necessary, sheer patience and dedication. This talent often reflects that of the traditional MMO gaming experience and players approaching the game from the perspective of a genre veteran will generally have high Focus as a result.

Reflexes (Reactive Skills)
Reflexes are your ability to react quickly to enemy movements and unexpected situations. This correlates well with talent in fast-paced, dynamic traditional video games, sports, real life combat experience or martial arts but as FullDive ultimately transcends the limitations imposed by the human body it requires neither physical fitness nor the dexterity to maintain high APM. The only real speed limit is how fast one's brain can interpret the signals from the Neuron and produce an effective response. Some otherwise unassuming people happen to have incredibly well wired brains for this interaction and are talented virtual reality gamers as a result. Reflex based players are flexible and unparalleled in their ability to survive unexpected situations or blind encounters but cannot achieve the same things as those who use information and play smart.

Smarts

Smarts cover the perceptual and informational aspects of gameplay in the virtual reality of the world. These are the foundations upon which savvy players can build advantage, mould situations and win battles before they are fought.

Knowledge (Active Smarts)
Knowledge is the province of those who like to play smart, who understand the game, and exploit the systems and societies of Hisa Online to their fullest advantage. Those with high Knowledge are (unsurprisingly) more knowledgeable than other players on various topics ranging from obscure quests, services available from PCs and NPCs, to recent events and the server economy. They are assumed to spend considerable time offscreen gathering information one way or another.

Perception (Reactive Smarts)
Perception is the ability to quickly and accurately perceive a situation, changes in the environment, enemy attacks or even another player's feelings or intent. Players with observational skills and high situational awareness can often avoid dangerous situations entirely or fill gaps in information before it leads to disaster.

Socials

Socials govern interaction with other humans in Hisa Online and participation in its community.

Charisma (Active Socials)
Charisma is your ability to make a first impression and to be popular and welcome. You can use it to actively fit in or stand out in a desireable way. This is obviously a very important talent for those who want to be visible leaders in some capacity – perhaps more important than the smarts to actually do things yourself so long as you have clever allies.

Manipulation (Reactive Socials)
Manipulation is your ability to get what you want out of social interactions as well as to hide your own intentions, withhold information and deceive.