Vaudevillain

Psy-Ops sat in his hideout, waiting for his friends to arrive. Both Yuppie and Fursation were meeting him so they all could travel to Haven City to find Menagerie. Psy-ops leaned back in his chair and tossed a stress ball into the air. It was one of those things left inside the hideout when he found it, and the player enjoyed having something mundane to occupy his time.

The ball bounced against the wall and returned to the player's hand as he thought. Dr. Zlo's emergence in Mutatholis had kicked off a chain reaction of events no one expected. After the sporting event, the players discovered that the janitor inside the mutant school had been replaced with one of Dr. Zlo's minions, kept hidden from the other NPCs by using another villain's powers. Psy-Ops didn't even know it was possible to dive that deep into dialogue with the characters. Sure, he expected the NPCs to act reasonably advanced, but he didn't expect they would work to keep the janitor hidden after Dr. Zlo stole him.

It had opened up some options for Psy-Ops. Initially, he'd done most of his hero work with other players, ignoring the various NPCs and treating them as quest givers. He berated his past self a bit. Vert had even said that the NPCs would run with the use of neural networks. But like most of the others, Psy-Ops went into the world treating it like other MMO games. NPCs were there to give quests and didn't have much else unless you wanted to learn the game's lore.

But after Dr. Zlo appeared, Psy-Ops could see the benefit of fully interacting with the NPC characters. Sure, not all of them were advanced enough to hold a conversation. Pretty much every shopkeeper had limited dialogue unless they were a secret contact, and even those had fewer options than the quest NPCs.

It seemed the whole system worked in tiers. Leaders and primary quest givers had the most advanced dialogue. They could react to practically anything while the minor heroes and villains in the cities had a decent enough AI to hold conversations. Those NPCs could still respond to the unexpected, and sometimes they'd work together with the players if given the right dialogue. But more often than not, those heroes and villains held a specific quirk that prevented flexibility. Finally, there were the special contacts and the general populace. The special contacts could hold a conversation and were advanced enough to answer any question, but none would react to anything except their specific field of interest. The general populace was the same, and the only major reactions from them came from heroes and villains fighting.

It had made things a lot more interesting in Mutatholis. With his bias broken, Psy-Ops had gone to the Attorney's office in his secret identity and tried to start up a conversation. At first, he only got as far as aides and attendants, but then Psy-Ops decided to try another route. He waited until closing one night and entered the Attorney's office before she could go home. He'd startled her, but Psy-Ops calmed down the NPC and started talking about his fight against the chief of police.

Amazingly enough, the Attorney remembered the evidence that Psy-Ops had given last month. She said it was a good enough amount to indict the chief, but somehow the court system had been stacked against her. The judges dismissed most of the evidence, and all that they could pin on the chief were a few small infractions that resulted in fines. At least the fines were hefty, but it seemed someone was backing the chief.

With the new information, Psy-Ops and his friends started searching. Any evidence they found they brought to the Attorney. In turn, the NPC helped create a list of corrupt officials in Mutatholis. With the list, Psy-Ops, Yuppie, and Fursation all started their vigilante war on crime. Evidence of corruption was brought to light, and the three friends uncovered a hidden group of villains controlling the city from the shadows. It was the most fun Psy-Ops had had in a while, all thanks to a crazy villain.

Which was why when Dr. Zlo announced the start of something on Menagerie's channel, the three friends immediately decided they wanted in on the action.

Isaac sat in his chair at home, reading through the forums on World of Supers. His shift wasn't coming up until nighttime, so the IT professional was killing time. Today was one of the few days he'd gotten bored of everything else he had. His consoles didn't have anything new he wanted to play, his Viewtube subscriptions hadn't released anything new to watch, and the man had already clicked on Spreddit and closed the tab more times than he could count.

So Isaac found himself wandering over to the official forums for World of Supers. He didn't have anything particular in mind when scrolling, but sometimes it was fun to find threads with ridiculous complaints.

Reality warping needs a buff.

Isaac shook his head at the title but clicked on it to satisfy his morbid curiosity.

The current version of reality warping needs a buff. Right now the power is only good for crafting. But that's not what reality warping is. When I think of the power, I imagine characters that can change the world with their thoughts. Right now, Vert has reality warping as some advanced version of Photocrop.

Isaac rolled his eyes. Of course the power would only be good for crafting. This person obviously didn't know how many restrictions VR had. It wasn't like anyone had the programming capability to link an interface with someone's thoughts. And not to mention the insane amount of privacy violations that could ensue.

There was a reason why every power worked by interpreting hand signs or eye movements. Leave it to angry teenagers to complain about their power fantasy not being strong enough. Reality warping was plenty powerful. The number of insane traps someone could make that outright eliminated anything in the area was mind-boggling. The trade-off to that power was the complexity of it all. It was standard game design, and Isaac knew that the power would probably get nerfed once someone figured out how to exploit the ability.

Isaac clicked away from the thread and backed to the main page. He navigated to the general section this time, not wanting to see any other threads about game balance. His eye fell on the top thread at the moment.

Menagerie recruitment, apply within at your own peril!

That was the guild of those players he met if he remembered right. The ones that stole an alien mothership and took over a city during the chaos.

Isaac had kept up a passing interest in the players and enjoyed their video to Vert about their inflexibility. Not everything they said was correct. If players had more impact on the world, the game would fall to those who looked to break it because they could, but he liked their plea and petition. He'd even signed the petition in the hopes that Vert would see it.

He wasn't sure if they had yet. He needed to find someone in marketing to talk to, or maybe operations. There were enough signatures on it now that Isaac assumed someone would be talking about it. He hoped it wasn't legal.

Isaac clicked on the recruitment link just to get a look at what those players were planning. Inside the thread was a video and a short paragraph.

www.viewtube.com/watch?IWej-aiow0

Many of you asked, and now we deliver! Presenting the first ever Menagerie recruitment drive!

If you're interested in changing the Vert's stance on WOS or want to join up because you have a great idea you want to execute, Menagerie is here for you! At Menagerie, we look to create lasting change in World of Supers. We aren't content with letting the world reset after things get too messy, like some comic book series. No, we want Vert to allow players agency in what they do, and we'd like it if the world keeps the changes that get made. If this sounds up your alley, come to Haven City, Thenapolis, or Cartis on Friday the 23 to participate in our recruitment!

Isaac sighed. It looked like those players were about to start something else. He wondered what it would be this time. What else could they do after stealing an alien weapon and taking over a city? He hoped it wasn't anything too insane.

Tentatively, Isaac clicked on the video link. He watched the video all the way through, groaning a bit as it reached the end. This would be all sorts of trouble, and Isaac bet his bottom dollar that Vert would hear about this soon.

He wondered how they would react. Would marketing reach out? Or maybe it would be the game balance. Though, thinking about it, there wasn't too much of a reason for Vert to reach out unless they wanted to recruit Menagerie. It wasn't like this would be the first time someone tried something on this level. It wouldn't even be the first time someone tried it in the history of videogames.

Convinced, Isaac went back to scrolling through the forums, then changed his mind and switched over to watching Viewtube videos. Menagerie had a decent list up already, and Isaac kind of wanted to see the craziness that was Dr. Zlo without being on the side that dealt with him.

He got a good chuckle from the earliest video, where Dr. Zlo kidnapped Stonewall and tied the hero to the train tracks. He remembered a ticket a little after that time about fixing the hero's gender. It wasn't a hard fix, but Isaac also remembered a slew of tickets weeks later about character model problems. He didn't have to deal with it since so many came at once, but he recalled the conversation about it.

"Thank god Vert is paying us a decent wage to deal with all their issues," Brad said as he grabbed a donut.

"What happened this time?" Isaac asked, grabbing a donut of his own.

"Someone created a gender changing device and used it on players, then sold more of the devices. Now players are complaining about the lack of options to fix the problem."

"Geez, that sounds terrible. Glad I'm not the one doing it," Lisette replied.

"Hey! How's everyone doing!" Mark said as he walked in. "What's on the menu today?"

"Hey Mark, Brad brought coffee, and Lisa snagged donuts from the marketing party," Isaac said.

"Right on."

Mark grabbed two donuts and poured a cup of coffee.

"So Mark, you hear about the gender swap guns?" Isaac asked.

"Oh yeah! Simple fix, but we had to dig through a ton of code, right Brad?"

"How'd you fix it?" Lisette asked.

"Oh, made it so the change holds a time limit. Only a few hours. Players could log out and come back later to find they're right as rain."

The phone ringing brought Isaac out of his memory. He looked at the number on the desk. Brad was calling, which didn't happen unless something was going down.

"What's up, Brad?" Isaac asked as he picked up the phone.

"Are you able to come in a few hours early? Ron hired some new techs today, but he forgot to send me a memo."

"Again?" Isaac questioned.

"Hey, you know how swamped he's been. These new hires were going to reduce the workload."

Isaac looked at the clock, "Yeah, if I leave now, I can make it in thirty minutes or so. Depending on traffic."

"You're the best," Brad replied.

Isaac hung up and shut down his computer. He took one last look at Menagerie's home page before he did and resolved to find someone who knew what Vert's response was going to be.

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