"The game can control all your senses. That goes a long way. If you're uncomfortable though, you can freeze your progress towards Mastery in a perk or intentionally go backwards. It won't give you the point back unless you got all the way to zero but you can earn more points with time."

"Do you think people will do that? That sounds like my worries have a good basis."

"We want players to have agency over their experience. Options like that are there out of an abundance of caution. We want people to be able to embrace the game with confidence and without having to worry about getting stuck with something that they don't like."

"I'm not sure that's really an answer though. It feels like you're being a little evasive."

"I was a little. I hope nobody will feel the need to use options like that but some people probably will. People vary a lot and some of the consequences of perks inevitably won't sit right with some people. We'll do what we can to tune things but ultimately having the safety valve is important. People will be spending a lot of time with the effects of these perks and given there's no option to start from scratch it's even more important."

"About that, is there a reason for not letting people have second accounts?"

"Part of it is the bit about gaining real world skills. We are actually serious about that part of the marketing. Even if someone tried to restart from scratch they would carry a decent amount with them. Beyond that Daisy, feels like having consequences in games is important to them being meaningful. During development we tossed around some ideas to make that even more pronounced, like forcing permadeath, but this was the compromise we came to."

"I'm glad you didn't include that. I don't think I would be willing take many risks if they meant giving all of this up with one mistake."

"That's part of what ultimately decided us. We want people to experience everything the game has to offer and punishing mistakes that severely just isn't compatible with that desire. You'll still lose equipment sometimes, or suffer other consequences, but there will always be another day and another opportunity to try your best."

Claire thinks for a moment, "I feel like we've gotten a little off track. Not that that's a bad thing exactly in this context. I think it's important to have learned all this about perks but it isn't really helping me choose right now. And also we've kinda gotten stalled in the lobby instead of touring the apartments."

"Of course, as far as choosing perks I can try and summarize more useful information or help you find perks you're interested in if you're looking for something specific but I don't want to choose for you.

"We've done our best to avoid having any perks except maybe the core seven that are must-haves or clearly superior to everything else. And even the core seven are each more useful in some situations than others. It depends on how you're planning to spend your time and what directions you're most interested in growing in."

Veria starts floating towards the stairs up into the apartments. "As for the apartments, the main advantage is having a private space both for storage and for spending time in. Whether alone or with company. The side benefits include having access to a kitchen, nicer bathing facilities and laundry machines than the standard bunks, and of course the various amenities that vary from floor to floor and building to building."

Claire follows her up the stairs and blushes faintly at the mention of spending time in private with company. She hadn't really thought of that possibility. The mention of nicer bathing facilities deepens the blush a little. "You said you thought I'd have reasons other people wouldn't. Could you elaborate on tha

Veria shifts towards blue and somewhat gentler curves. "I think you're one of the people who will be happier in the game than outside at least for the next little while. In theory even if you're just using the standard bunks you can sleep in game but the bunks are really more intended for people who just leave their in-game bodies there when the log out. I also expect you'll need more time before you're comfortable changing around other people, that isn't strictly required if you're staying in the bunks but changing in a toilet or shower stall gets old pretty fast."

That brings Claire up short. "I... hadn't really thought of that. I guess I kinda knew that I can take off these clothes but I didn't move from there to realizing I'd have to change clothes. I guess I did get a little sweaty earlier but I wasn't really thinking of what that might mean."

"It surprised some people in the beta too. On a related note, the apartment comes pre-stocked with a number of outfits. The barracks provides some clothes but there's less variety."

"Huh, so it's a different sort of environment. More private then?"

"It is more private but it isn't entirely private, part of our goal is to get players to build community, the barracks certainly achieves that but even the apartments are just bedrooms. The bathrooms are separate and so are the food preparation and amenity spaces. We want people to meet each other make friends and form teams to work together on projects."

At this point they've reached the top of the stairs, after several pauses during the climb. The stairs come out near one of the wide corners of a diamond shaped room. This corner seems devoted to entry and exit since there's an elevator nearby and the start of the stairs to the next floor. Wrapping around it looks like the elevator is part of a central core of the building and she can see into another two rooms of similar size.

The rest of the space is filled with a mix of tables and chairs. Some of the tables are setup to seat several people together while others are cozier models with little side tables that seem more suited to curling up with a book. The walls of the room are dotted with shelves and cabinets displaying books and games.

Claire looks around and goes over to try out a couple of the chairs. They're a nice balance between soft and firm. She walks over to a shelf and looks at some of the books. One of them is a romance book she recognizes, another looks like it might be a small medical textbook. Sampling a few more books it seems to be a mix of fiction and non-fiction with no obvious organizational schema. "An eclectic collection."

"A bit, we can get other books if you want them around. The other two spaces on this floor are a TV area and a kitchen and seating area."

Claire peaks through the doorways. The television diamond is split into two triangles with a hallway between them. The kitchen has several islands and a sort of glassy material on the counters. The walls have several refrigerators and ovens and a profusion of cabinets. Beyond that there's a couple big tables with enough seating for at least thirty people. "How many rooms are there on this floor?"

"There's thirty private rooms and eighteen bathrooms. How to count the shared spaces and the hallways is up for debate. I could see anything from one three and four as reasonable interpretations with this configuration."

"Can I see what they look like?"

"Of course." Veria floats over towards the hallway. "All the bathrooms are the same. The bedrooms follow one of two floor plans depending on whether you have a corner or an edge room. The corners have slightly more space but not everyone does well living in non-rectangular rooms.

"There's also a couple other trade-offs: instead of having a proper closet there's just more furniture to serve as storage space and they substantially bigger windows. Though in half the corners you're fairly close to another building so your view is a bit more obstructed. In general, the windows have a privacy filter so people can't see into private spaces. If you want you can opt-out of the privacy setting to be able to see and be seen by other people who have opted out."

Claire blushes and when she responds her voice goes higher and louder. "You have a specific setting to enable mutual voyeurism?"

"That's not exactly how I would put it but that's one of the things it enables. It can also serve as a way to have less sexual exchanges like simple waves or sign language conversations with people in nearby buildings or down on the ground. We try to support a broad spectrum of preferences and there's a connection to the broader sensory filtering options we offer to allow people to avoid sexual content in general."