As you begin to play with the options you quickly realize that choices are endless, from your avatars backstory, to appearance, to outfit, let alone the source of your power and types of powers you have... about 2 hours later you were nearly in tears having changed your mind several times because something sounded really cool but required your entire character concept would need to be rethought.
Initially you thought it would be cool to be psychic and telepathic but you noticed your avatar's head began to grow as you added basic abilities like force shield and telepathic flight. Then you thought elemental manipulation would be amazing but as a level 1 character you would be left with being unable to interact with anything more than a foot away, or being unable to put any force behind any attack you make. There were countless options including skill sets, or character flaws (like choosing to be evil) could provide additional points at character creation.
After 2 hours and 5 minutes a popup appeared, "If you are having trouble deciding you can start the game without choosing. You will be able to allocate points in skills, abilities, or flaws whenever you choose and have sufficient XP to spend. Additionally, you will gain bonus XP for completing quests and challenges with unspent XP, and start in tutorial mode."
Mentally exhausted, you accepted this option and the popups continued. "There are 4 main types of abilities. Offensive, defensive, movement, and special but the way you use the ability is more important than its classical definitions. You could use the Elemental Air attack to reduce damage from falling or increase jump distance, for example. Special abilities help to drastically change the nature of the challenge, things like regeneration, shapeshifting, or control environment and are generally flavored/limited based on your backstory. You may be able to shapeshift but only into humans or animal form, but not both. You may be able to make a forest spontaneously grow, but not control the weather."
"I didn't pick a backstory." you mumbled to yourself both bored and confused. You clicked okay. "Finally flaws are things that make progression harder in some ways, but may make it easier in others. Stupidity may make challenges harder to solve, but if you become a public hero you may have an agent hired to make choices in your best interests." You read the sentence twice, "What?" before giving up and clicking next.
"You have the following flaws applied, Underage, Hormonal, and Very Weak granting you a(n) 16x bonus to earned XP. (Flaws will automatically be removed with applicable enhancements, or added based on choices)" As you moused over the flaws it gave a description of how they impacted the game, "Being underage means you are closely monitored, and limits access to environments and resources like money and transportation." Mousing over the other option, "Being hormonal means decisions you make at any given moment may be completely irrational. This flaw mimics many others such as insecurity, overconfidence, pride, cocky, depressed, arrogant, immature, impulsive, and foolhardy but also comes with acne." and finally "You are more than one standard deviation below average adult, let alone superhero strength. Counts as two Flaws."
You clicked OK hoping the game would start, and it did... after one last popover showed you where to click to edit your abilities. You saw your character, a very accurate rendition of you, and you were walking around on an empty
blue plane, there were exclamation points floating in space, but no other characters or identifying markers of any sort. You walked up to one and a dialog box opened, "Do you accept an escort quest?" You clicked yes and the dialog box disappeared but nothing else happened. You began to run to the next exclamation point, thinking you need to collect all the quests you can see before heading out.
Before you got to the next quest you heard your mom come in the garage door, "Hey honey?" You knew that was you because Dad isn't home yet. "Yeah Mom?" You called back. "Could you come down here?" You made a face wishing that you had more time as things in the game were just starting to get a little interesting... "Yeah mom." You ran down the stairs, the sooner you do whatever she wants, the sooner you can get back.
"Hey, what's up?" you ask neutrally.
"I was getting the mail as I was coming in and I saw Mrs. Brandson leaning on her mailbox for support. I called over to her, apparently she's got a bad case of the flu."
"Oh, okay? That su... stinks." You responded, unsure how this effects you.
"Could you go over and take her dog for a walk? She doesn't have the energy for it and needs her rest."
"Oh." Your mind switching gears as your brain put the pieces together. "That, would be really nice of me." you say trying to shove down your immense disappointment as it will probably take over an hour before you can get back to your game after taking dinner into account.
"Yes it would, but don't you dare ask for or accept anything for it. We're doing this because its the right thing to do." Mom chided.
"Of course." you got your shoes on and walked over, you knocked on the door and explained that you'd love the opportunity to spend some time with their lovely dog, and you could give it some exercise as you were planning on going for a walk. The plague riddled woman smiled and sneezed and oozed and after a few minutes you were being dragged along by a four legged toddler with ADHD.
Unbeknownst to you, your escort quest began...