"A sudden sound woke him out of the deep concentration as a figure stared into his state of the art touchpad. the figure took a deep breath, and pulled out a surprisingly old flip phone, flicking it open and cutting off the sound of the Naruto theme "Bluebird". "Hakuro here. Yeah. No I'll be there, just putting some finishing touches on my bio, looking over the avatar, making sure everything looks good and is ready to go for the live demo, and official launch of the game tonight." He grinned, laughing as he said, "Yeah yeah, the Jutsu demonstration'll go great, I spent the last week getting 3 hours of sleep to make sure of that. YOU just better make sure the server's don't crash with everyone logging in and making new avatars. Though having each "headset" as its own micro server was a good idea, crashing SHOULD be impossible, but you know how it goes. If it can go wrong, it will." He nodded twice, then responded with a much more respectful tone, "To business then Sir. Yes, I'll be there for the Demonstration performance an hour ahead of schedule." A brief pause. "Yes sir, the plan is for a Movement showing, world setting, a AC...er, Academy Student, or basic level quest, Taijutsu, Ninjutsu, Genjutsu demonstration, in order. There will be a very select few celebrity invitations to try out the new headset, as well as a grouping of 10 units that can be used by media and other celebrities." A hesitation, and the young man grinned, slipping back into the lightly teasing tone. "I stayed up all night memorizing that. I'll head down to the demonstration stage now. I'm too worked up to wait, and we don't have that much longer before the first round of demonstrations anyways." A quick flip of the phone, and that was that.<br/><br/>A half hour later, and he stood on the wide open stage, with several beds set here and there, for the demonstrators to use. Several techs in white labcoats were walking around, and one grinned at seeing Hakuro. "So you pulled the short straw eh Jaden?" Hakuro frowned, and said sharply, "HAKURO. Not my real name please." The tech frowned, then shrugged. "Yeah yeah, I never got why you insisted on that. Why use your Avatar name as your real name? Oh well, we have your new headset here anyways." Hakuro grinned, blue grey eyes flashing with a burning light. Finally. Each of the Demonstrators, as thanks and payment, for helping with this were going to receive their own custom headset, designed to have their own custom symbols instead of the planned 5 village seals. Dave motioned to a box on one of the benches, looking around the stage with sharp eyes. Some of the reporters were already making their way inside, eyeing the giant display screen behind the stage with inquisitive eyes, and then latching Hungry eyes on Hakuro.<br/><br/>He coughed, and glanced at Dave. "Er...lets get that fitted, shall we? I'd rather not be in earshot of requests." Dave grinned, and led him to the box, letting Hakuro open it. He did, and for a second, his breath caught. Inside was....a headband from the show. The metal itself was bright gold though, not silver metal like the regular other units would be. The symbol though was the image of Konoha. Hakuro had elected to keep the Konoha default symbol rather than anything else. The device itself was miniature, and was really more of a secondary device. It was small enough that it still allowed the unit to interact with the brain of the user, but transmitted the coding from the headset to a more powerful unit. In most player's cases, that would be their personal computer. However, the set itself ran off the user's own bio-electrical current to power it. He hefted the black cloth, examining the glinting golden sign before taking a deep breath. "well, should we get the prelim's done?"<br/><br/>What followed next was rather boring, and simply was 20-30 minutes of testing, to make sure both Hakuro's own unit was exactly as he requested it to be, and that it was functioning correctly and linked to the large overhead display. When the time for the main demonstration came up, all the seats were PACKED. The demonstration was supposed to take place over the following three days, with over 20 of the staff helping out during the demonstrations, alternating between being on stage, and online in the game as well to help kickstart the game, help new players with advice and so on and so forth.<br/><br/>For Hakuro, the opening demonstration was a blur. The CEO stood up, talking easily before the crowd, answering several questions, finishing with hold up an example of what the new headset would look like, announcing that, as of that moment all around the world, they could be purchased. The game itself would be be going live at the Demonstrations end. Then Hakuro was brought up. He made some comments appearing to be a quiet, rather....well, plain looking young man with black hair and blue eyes. He wouldn't stand out in a crowd at all. He smiled, then said with a flourish and bow. "Well, its time for the demonstrations. I'm more comfortable in the game anyways." He smiled, making his way to one of the tables as the CEO explained what was going on. Hakuro bound the Ninja Band around his head, making sure the golden plate was centered directly over his forehead. The CEO went on to explain only staff members would be able to receive the golden sets, and would actually show up in the game exactly as they appeared now in reality. It only took a minute or so, and Hakuro was laying comfortably on the table. He formed the seal of the Tiger with a grin, saying, "Link Start, Initialize and launch!". For everyone else, Hakuro's hands went limp, and his eyes drifted shut. The CEO explained that while a vocal command wasn't required, it was a mental trick to help new players interact with VR for the first time a little bit better.<br/><br/>For Hakuro though, the ceiling itself dissolved into colored swirls, before he floated in the void, standing in front of his character. A figure that looked almost exactly like he did in real life, with one exception. His Avatar had vivid purple eyes, and several cosmetic changes. The Hakuro smiled, and turned to face what he saw as a small window floating in the void with him. "This is the character selection screen. As you can see, this is my customized Avatar. We choose to do this to show just how lifelike the Avatar's can look. We also want everyone to see just how detailed every aspect of the customization is regarding character creation. There are 10 machines that can be used after the demonstration that will be open for public use, as well as units available for purchase during the demonstration." Hakuro turned back to his Avatar, and formed the Seal of the Tiger again. The Avatar matched the seal, and the two drifted together, and became one.<br/><br/>On the large display, the world resolved from Hakuro's perspective, first person. He glanced around, standing in the large training field. "Now, since you all are not with me yet, I wanted to explain what's going on. I can feel the wind, temperature, I can even smell rain coming on." He reached down, running fingertips over the gently waving grass, saying "Though naturally, not all sensations are desired by all players, nor are all sensations, so the game includes a revolutionary...buffer layer." He smiled, turning and walking towards one of the large three pillars, and punched it hard enough wood chips flew off. The audience could see his hand was red and slightly scraped. He shook his hand, saying, "It's sorta like having your teeth worked on with numbing applied. You feel it, but you don't. There's a separation between what happens in the game, and what your mind receives."<br/><br/>He smiled and motioned towards the screen, saying, "Now naturally the game will have a bit of a steep learning curve." He grinned, and walked up the side of the post. The screen shifted, and now they were watching Hakuro from outside his viewpoint, as he looked at them, standing as if nothing was out of the ordinary. "After all, not many of us can just stand sideways like this whenever we want. I'm doing this by using a particular skill in the game. I can choose to use Chakra, a player stat, to stick to flat surfaces. If I run out though..." Suddenly his feet lost that sticky sensation, and he fell, landing on the grass with a laugh. "Well, you see."<br/><br/>He stood, brushing the grass off, and with a grin, motioned to the clearing. "There was supposed to be a beta test, a simple sparring match, but I'd like to do that at the end of the demonstration to give an example of what you can REALLY do in combat." He grinned, and said, "So, moving on. Now my character stats for physical combat are not very high, and not many players are going to be real life martial artists. The game has an "assisted play" feature, where the AI will take over your physical body, allowing you to do moves you normally can't do. The downside is, the AI is controlling combat. Against another player, and some of the bosses, the AI will be predictable. For example." He turned, spinning to his left, his left knee coming up, with his right leg coming across where an opponent's head might be. It wasn't badly done, but he Clearly was not a martial artist. "That was pure me, with natural skill. Then there's this." The same technique, but performed flawlessly, as if done on the big screens of movies by a shaolin monk.<br/><br/>"Ninjutsu. For those of you that know the show, you need no explanation. For those that do not, Ninjutsu is....well, basically magic." He smiled, forming several seals, explaining as he did so, "So hand seals are key to activating. Again there is an assisted program to perform everything, but it is faster to actually learn what the seals are yourself and perform them. For example..." He formed several seals, and then breathed in deeply, "Fireball, Firestyle Jutsu!" and blasted out a glowing sea of fire about 10 feet in front of him, the heat crackling the grass from green to black. He stopped, saying, "This is an example of a Fire style release, or move. Now the sequence of five moves, you saw how long it took to do, about 5 seconds, one second per sign. That's how long the assisted program takes. Now..." He turned, hands flashing. He was moving faster, though the seals were not as..."form perfect" as you would expect. The resulting fire was no less spectacular. "The game will encourage players to invest in it. Being a part of the world, investing time and energy here, PLAYING the game will make you a better player." He smiled, and then nodded. "Dave, would you bring out an AI opponent? All stats 1 please."<br/><br/>Part of the screen shimmered, and a wooden training dummy stepped forward, clunkily moving towards Hakuro. Suddenly the screen shifted, jumping to the Dummy's viewpoint. "Ok, so Genjutsu is illusions, and happens to be a skill i'm very, very good at." Hakuro smiled ferally, and moved forward, forming several seals. The screen suddenly seemed....slightly wavey. Hakuro was also completely gone. "I'm controlling what the enemy is seeing. In this case, its a simple Genjutsu that makes me vanish. Of course, it only works on this one enemy." The view point drew back, and the crowd could see both figures again. Hakuro released the handsign he was holding, and the dummy started towards him again. "This is what combat looks like." He said with a feral grin, stalking forward slowly.<br/><br/>What followed next was a thing of beauty. The poor training dummy didn't stand a chance. Hakuro was able to move far faster, landing hit after hit. At first, he used the “Form perfect” assisted combat, but began to use his own abilities, the moves not as “pretty”, but no less effective for it. Several intense blows followed, with ninjutsu back and forth, before the dummy vanished in a puff of smoke. "System, log out." It took about 20 seconds before Hakuro stood up slowly, and bowed to the audience itself, saying into a mike. "Thank you for coming all."<br/><br/><br/><br/>The CEO smiled, "Thank you Hakuro for helping us with that wonderful demonstration. Now, as a reminder to EVERYONE. Staff will be online inside the game itself, you can tell who they are as they will have a Golden Ninja Sign. You can buy units for yourself here at the center. And the game. Is. LIVE!!!!" He raised his hands, and the opening of the game started playing on the big screen, drowned out by the roaring applause and demand for questions. While most eyes were focused on the CEO, several sharper eyes would see Hakuro get unsteadily to his feet, and have to be helped down the back of the stage to a small first aid area. As soon as he could, the CEO joined them.<br/><br/>Dave had just asked Hakuro something, to which he’d gotten a shake of head in response. Hakuro looked...wrong, pale in the face as if something had happened. The CEO came over, looking concerned saying sharply, "Dave, what happened?" Dave shook his head, motioning to Hakuro. The CEO waited calmly waiting as Hakuro collected himself. "There was...feedback." The CEO looked at Dave, and Dave just shrugged. "Feedback? What do you mean?" He said. "The game was more intense then we expected, then I expected. During the initial testing we had the barrier to sensory contact pretty high." Hakuro explained, "We may need to increase the buffer, if only for a couple of days. I think a lot of players are going to get overwhelmed very quickly. I could....I couldn't tell it wasn't reality, and even though I knew what was going on, my body and brain felt like they were fighting each other. My body KNEW it wasn't real, but my brain thought it was." Dave nodded slowly. "Sir, its possible that because the SEED draws and uses memories from the user, that its causing this conflict. Ja...er..Hakuro's right, increasing the buffer SHOULD help. We'll get on it right now, and double the buffer as a precaution, and tweak it as the launch goes on." The CEO nodded, saying, "We can't exactly cancel it now so...Alright." He took a deep breath, smiling, "Well done Hakuro, that was great. I thought you memorized the script though. Stay up all night my ass." Hakuro laughed, and shot back with a grin, "Hey, I don't do public speaking for a living, that was Terrifying." The CEO grinned, and clapped a hand to Hakuro's back, saying "Get some rest kiddo. And don't dive into the game again right away, you know the drill. Give it at least two hours, and drink a liter of water before you go back in." Hakuro nodded, and stood stretching. He was heading back to his hotel room to get a quick nap....and log Right back into the game as soon as he could. It HAD been real, even with the feedback loops. It had been so vivid. Even if it had felt like he was numbed, he could still remember the feel of the grass, the heat of the fire....it had been Awesome.<br/><br/>And so, a quick nap, and water break later, and Hakuro stood with a grin, stretching his arms over his head, purple eyes scanning the Horizon of Konoha, his custom sword on his back, watching the stumbling new players in the opening plaza with a grin. They still acted like they were regular people, not ninja. And there were 5 villages, all filled with players with different play styles and ideas.<br/><br/>Still, there wasn’t time to waste. He wanted to get as much of a head start as he could. Within a few minutes, he stood at the base of two towers extending upwards, close enough they could be used as a Great target area. Looking at the first one, he bent his legs, and Leapt. When he had decided on the target, a small blue ring had appeared, indicating the target, with a dotted line marking his path through the air. He landed, and the AI assist kicked in automatically, keeping him locked in place via Chakra in his feet. Looking up, he leapt again, and proceeded up the towers until he stood at the top. Looking down, he leapt, falling the good 100 feet straight down to land without injury on the ground, his Chakra cushioning the blow. He then turned off the AI assistance, and leapt again, taking care that, before he leapt, to WILL himself to leap to the area, keeping his eyes fixed on his target. He landed right where he needed, but couldn’t get his feet to stick in time before he fell to the thick grasses. It was a learning experience, and a tough one.<br/><br/>(And with this post, the RP is LIVE!!! Feel Free to check out the recruitment thread/OOC for questions and such, or just PM me directly! New players/those not familiar with Naruto stick to my character for a bit, and feel free to ask questions directly of him in the RP, he’ll be happy to answer, just as I will OOC!! Also as of right now, our characters can freely move inside and outside the game world, we are NOT trapped in the game yet. I will be informing everyone when that happens!)<br/>Modify message<br/>