Vaudevillain

"So you up to anything tonight?" Samir asked as he and Dylan left work.

"Going to talk with some friends online about our guild," he answered.

"I never pegged you as the hardcore gamer type," Samir said.

"What can I say? Something about a VR superhero world speaks to me."

Understanding crossed Samir's face, "Ohh, I getcha. You always were a superhero nut, Dylan. That means you're getting the Zony console, right?"

"The new Gamestation 6S+ Ultra? Maybe. I'm going to wait a bit after it releases to see if Arachnaman goes to PC."

Samir nodded as he reached his car. Dylan unlocked the one next to it and tossed his light jacket in. The days were starting to get colder, but not enough to keep his car from overheating in the sun. Samir followed suit, tossing his lunchbox in with his jacket.

"Probably a good idea. No need to spend money you don't have. Anyways, if you do get a Gamestation, let me know. Maybe we can do some Call to Action sometime after work."

Dylan waved a hand, "Sure, have a good day, man."

Samir waved back, "Bye, Dylan."

Samir's car peeled out of the driveway, tires screeching as his new car put through the wringer that was Samir's reckless driving. Dylan shook his head. That man was going to crash that car into a ditch someday. He got into his own vehicle and safely pulled out onto the street.

On the way home, Dylan thought a bit more about the patch notes he'd read. He hadn't gotten through everything; work had picked up again later on. A few of the drafts needed small tweaks. It was slow, tedious work, and it didn't help that Dylan's mind kept wandering towards World of Supers as the day ended. He had barely finished his task when Dextra messaged everyone to meet.

Dylan arrived home at his usual time, just before dinnertime. Thanks to the changing seasons, the sun had dipped close to the horizon, bathing his car in orange light. Dylan parked it on the street next to his place and walked inside. He tossed his coat and keys onto the couch and walked into his kitchen to prepare something.

Not wanting to make anything, Dylan grabbed another of his frozen pizzas and tossed it into the oven. While he waited, he pulled up the patch notes on his phone, scrolling down to look for any other changes he'd missed. He skipped over the faction mechanics, having read them already, and went straight to the powers.

Sure enough, Mad Science listed a few changes. Changed that Dylan didn't like all that much.

Mad Science is one of the more interesting crafting powers. Unlike gadgeteer or generic inventor powers, Mad Science allows one to know exactly what they want. At first, we believed this wouldn't be an issue, as the ability required specific materials to create their contraptions. However, with the delivery system, players were quickly able to acquire whatever it was they needed without issue. If you combine that with the almost infinite amount of inventions a Mad Scientist could create, players had access to a power that grew in strength at a highly disproportionate rate. To remedy this, we're changing the base mechanics of Mad Science.

When we here at Vert hear the words Mad Science, we think of a man in a lab coat, surrounded by beakers and test tubes, cackling maniacally at his latest masterpiece. Often, science itself is backseat to the character's idea, and plot or story conventions are worked in to explain the mad creations. We don't want to lose that feeling, which is why we're keeping the core idea of Mad Science the same. Players are still able to enter what they want, along with a description of the item. Our main change comes from materials.

All Mad Science materials now require a bit of Phlebotinium, Alienite, or a new substance called Scienceum. Scienceum is a unique resource that Mad Scientists can create using their power. Currently, players are limited to ten instances of Scienceum a day, which refreshes twenty-four hours after use. Scienceum works like Phlebotinium at a one hundred to one ration (100 g of Scienceum is equal to 1 g of Phlebtoninium) but cannot grant players new powers. Rest assured, we will closely monitor this change to ensure that the ability isn't too weak or strong.

In addition to this change, we're making a few tweaks to Mad Science, Alchemy, and other powers that technically allow for a plethora of creations. These powers are now able to create, restore, and possibly reuse materials such as Phlebotinium. In particular, Mad Scientists are now able to create devices that rejuvenate depleted Phlebotinium, or tools that transmute materials like Alienite into the coveted substance.

"Holy shit," Dylan said.

Sure, the need to use Scienceum or other materials nerfed Dylan's power slightly, but the option to refresh drained Phlebotinium was huge. He still had a piece of depleted Phlebotinium sitting around in his inventory. Dylan had planned to use it for something wacky, like a PHB bullet or something, but the option to refresh the piece was too good to pass up. Excited, Dylan continued reading through the patch notes.

He found a bit on Riptide's power, which was mainly a list of bugfixes. It looked like the surfer's power conflicted with a few spots on the physics engine. Dylan thought back to the fight with Rampart's team. Back when Riptide told Merla to use her rebound shield while he surfed. He looked through the list of bugfixes, and sure enough, the issue was there.

Sweet Dream's power hadn't changed any, though Dylan hadn't expected it to. The ability to shift into molten hallucinogenic chocolate wasn't something people immediately thought of when building a character. Shizuka's power had changed a bit, though. Her clones now had a set time limit, and a player could only summon up to five at a time, down from ten.

Dylan kept skimming the various powers until his eyes rested on tech assimilation. He sighed and scrolled past it. He didn't need anything that reminded him of his former friend. The timer on his oven dinged, and Dylan pulled the pizza out. He quickly sliced it into fourths and grabbed one of the slices, bringing it to the living room to watch some shows.

He finished up with dinner after an episode of one of the Narvel shows. Pizza now in the fridge, Dylan went into his room and started up World of Supers. Menagerie needed to make some plans to deal with all the patch notes changes.

John sat in his office chair, reading over the patch notes. It was his turn to take the later shifts, and he hated every minute of it. Any tech issue past regular working hours meant dealing with clueless people of overly self-important office managers who thought working overtime meant they were entitled to special treatment. The problems were never anything important either. "The printer's out of ink. My monitor won't turn on. The coffee machine's stopped working. I need you to fix it."

John didn't get off work until late at night. One of the bigshots, an actual bigshot, needed a projector set up for an international meeting. He also wanted a webcam that would show both him and the projector. John told him to use the screen share function, but the man wasn't having it. And since John couldn't argue with someone who could fire him on the spot, he was forced to grab and haul a projector, two webcams, and a laptop loaner computer over to the administrative building. It had taken way too long to get it all set up, and by the time everything was ready, the meeting had already started.

It wasn't John's fault that the bigshot requested a projector so late and required a ridiculous setup for a completely virtual meeting. But that didn't stop the angry looks.

Tired and annoyed, John practically kicked open the door to his apartment and tossed his coat onto the floor. He needed to unwind. John's mind went to World of Supers. Maybe he would play Singularity some more. No, as much as Dylan needed a lesson, John was too tired for another fight. Perhaps he would use his hero character instead and go through a few quests on the moon. Or maybe he could head over to one of the other cities.

Yeah, a few quests as a hero sounded fun. He could put all his annoyances behind him. John grabbed the VIS from his desk and started it up. He navigated over to World of Supers and activated the software, closing his eyes to keep the flashes of light from burning into his retinas. John felt his body change over to the virtual world, but a message appeared before he could select his character.

John's room was silent as he read the message, the fans on his desktop computer silent for once. John's body was still on the bed like a man asleep. Then, the man's arm twitched, and a shout came from his mouth.

"A two-week ban?!?! FOR WHAT?!"

Dear DemarX,

It has come to our attention that your character, Singularity, recently purchased some technological devices inside the game with real world currency. This is against our fair play policy, as defined in our sportsmanlike conduct rules listed on our website and in the options menu. As this is your first offense, your profile will only suffer a two-week ban for the infraction. Afterward, your user profile will be under probation for six months. If your characters perform break any more rules, your profile will experience a permanent ban. Once the six months have passed, you will be off probation and will be treated as a first-time offender in future issues.

"Gotcha again, Ix!" Matt-att cheered.

"Lucky shot," his friend replied.

"No luck, all skill. Watch."

Matt-att lined up his next shot right where his friend spawned and let loose a hail of gunfire. Ixzay spawned just as the bullets arrived, and the man's character went down again.

"Damn spawn points," he grumbled.

"Maybe next time," Matt taunted.

The two friends were playing a round of SBA2 before Matt started his stream. Zach, or Ixzay, had agreed to help Matt create his guild, and the two had spent the last few weeks discussing their plans. Matt wanted the group to be exclusively for hunting Dr. Zlo, but Zach pulled him away from the idea. Instead, the new guild would direct itself against any who trolled new players in World of Supers. Matt had to admit; the plan was better for his stream.

Matt knew he wasn't the nicest of people when it came to gaming, but he at least knew when to quit being a dick. And as someone who played games for a living, Matt knew just how bad games like World of Supers could get. Heck, he knew firsthand what it was like, considering his rampage against Dr. Zlo.

Hilariously enough, Matt's depiction of the player had been entirely wrong, and he wondered how he hadn't seen that. Dr. Zlo was still a troll, but the kind that players loved to see in video games. The shit he pulled off left people in wonderment, instead of seething anger. Like that mothership heist, when Matt watched that video, he realized how ridiculous he had been. This man was straight up playing the old cartoon villain, and he completely missed it.

Oh well, now that he knew, Matt could use it to his advantage. His new guild would fight against Dr. Zlo at some point, making for good TV.

"So, you excited for the patch changes?" Ixzay asked, blowing a hole through the wall to Matt's left and killing his character.

"Yeah, the base building and faction mechanics will help us a ton. I'm thinking we rush out to the wilderness as soon as we can and buy up land for a base."

"You don't want to be in a city?"

"Nah, our whole schtick is helping everyone. Better to have a building away from the city. That way, when players start coming after us, we have a defensible position."

"Yeah, alright. You ready to get started?"

"Hell yeah. Let's go announce the Trollstompers to the world."