Since it was the real life party, there was a separate room prepared for the event. Players could go enter a game with a random setting. They had enough headsets for everyone in attendance and anyone at the party could head in for as long as they pleased. Since I was alone, there was nothing stopping me from going in and playing for a bit. Everyone was cordial and nice to me, but it was just due to the nostalgia of the game. "Where were you when this happened?" and "What was the highest level you achieved?" and "What was your favorite seed world?" were the questions that were invariably asked. I was keen at the beginning of the party. I had gotten there about a half hour early and was talking to other guests on line to get in. After the fifth cycle inside the building two hours later, I had gotten bored of talking about it. To be honest, there was not much to talk to others about at a party centered around a 20 year old game. I excused myself from the group I was in and went to the game room for a session. An attendant gave me a headset and ushered me to a cushy Italian leather seat.
I put the headset on my face and settled down with a deep breath before turning it on. Suddenly I couldn't feel my body anymore. I looked about, but everything was black, and so I couldn't see my body anymore either. I saw a glimmer in the distance, then a white square about ten foot high came zooming towards me out of the void. I turned from it, but it moved with me, remaining directly in the center of my field of vision. It grew and grew, until it filled my entire field of view. I couldn't tell whether it was still growing or not. This was one of the things I dislike about first gen headsets like this. Thankfully the innovations in the technology led to a smoother transition both in and out of the game. Then something appeared on the surface of the square, rippling into existence. It was the FOG logo! Then an all too familiar message followed, appearing in front of me: WELCOME TO ETHER. It was really just like I had remembered it. I set the timed reality check to be every three hours and I was then taken to the character creation screen. The start area was already preset. I could be anything.
That was always a pretty good feature in FOG. Such a innovative move has now become commonplace, but this game was the first to implement it at this large scale. I decided to choose a human teenage body. My sex was male. It was pretty much how I used to be in real life with a few more muscles and a color pallet swap. I made my avatar a nice tan instead of the pastry white I was in real life. I also made my eyes purple and my hair jade green. My avatars were always pretty colorful and brighter than I would ever be comfortable doing in real life. Because of this, I changed up my fingernails and toenails so that there would be yellow and french tips. I then added a large black sun tattoo on my right shoulder and a smaller one on my lower back. On my left oblique, I put a large sunflower. It was a nice change from my 37 year old body. Using this new body for the evening was looking like it was going to be fun for me. Feeling a bit whimsical, I named the character I made Sunny Solaris. I accepted the new avatar and began the game. The character creation faded out to white for me.
