The thread titled 【CBT1 Player Tell-All: The Ultimate, Most Up-to-Date Guide to Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom!】 had gone up about two hours after Sharlock posted the new-zone announcement. It was barely half an hour old and already had close to a thousand replies, with the view count climbing like crazy — easily the hottest thread on the entire forum besides Sharlock's own announcements.
Going by the title, it seemed to have been written by one of the hundred servants summoned just today. Sharlock actually did care what his servants thought of the dungeon — they were dungeon members, after all, and with more residents coming in the future, this startup phase was exactly when he should be gathering feedback.
Sharlock clicked the thread open.
【CBT1 Player Tell-All: The Ultimate, Most Up-to-Date Guide to Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom!】
"Hey everyone, I'm beta tester 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 — yep, THAT one, the guy who's been making pro video guides on YouTube forever! I got insanely lucky and scored a beta spot in Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom, the world's first MMO to ditch the traditional console for gaming pods and full-on virtual reality! I'll be honest — like most of the skeptics, I figured the gaming pod and VR thing was just a marketing gimmick. But then this morning at nine sharp I climbed into my pod, jacked into Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom... and I owe the dev team a formal apology. I'm sorry!
One hundred percent fidelity, one hundred percent freedom. Not a gimmick — the real deal. I don't know what game engine they're using, but considering this is rendered through actual virtual reality, 'engine' probably isn't even the right word. We might genuinely be entering the jack-into-the-back-of-your-skull era from The Matrix! Yes — this game is real like a second world! Beyond moving every single joint in your body, you can touch, breathe, and interact with any object — and yes, we can feel PAIN. Don't worry, it's adjustable, from zero pain all the way up to 100% real pain. Casual players: set it to zero. Hardcore players and assorted sickos: challenge yourself with 100%. (Says the guy who tested the respawn mechanic by face-checking a wall. Very sincere advice!)
Enough chit-chat — time for the most complete, most up-to-date guide on the internet!
The game is set in a classic swords-and-sorcery world, and our starting zone is a dungeon called the Eternal Kingdom.
The game starts us off in the Eternal Kingdom's core hall. Before spawning, you get character creation — go nuts — but since goblin is currently the only race, there's only so much you can do. My advice: don't burn time in the character creator. Wait until the game matures and more races open up.
There are currently only two NPCs. Unclear whether they're functional NPCs, story NPCs, or both.
One is the dungeon blacksmith, Simba — a dark iron dwarf with a bit of a temper. You CAN freely interact with objects in the smithy, but I strongly advise against touching anything in there, because the NPC will beat you up! So far the smithy sells no weapons or armor — but you CAN buy food there. Yes, this game has an eating mechanic: skip meals and you'll start feeling hungry after a while. REALLY hungry — very realistic — with full-on whole-body weakness symptoms. Food costs copper coins, and to get copper coins you complete quests, which pop up right in front of your face for the accepting. (pic)
The second NPC is the Lord of the Eternal Kingdom dungeon, His Lordship the Demon Lord Sharlock! (pic)
Based on my hands-on testing, this Demon Lord Sharlock is the liege we all swore allegiance to — status-wise, roughly a faction leader from World of Monsters. He's currently the only NPC who hands out quests and quest rewards. Oh, and there's one more functional facility, the dungeon core. Sometimes Locke (that's Lord Sharlock — I'll just say Locke from here on for convenience) isn't in the dungeon, and you can turn in quests and collect rewards straight at the dungeon core. Its name is "Bru." It has never once spoken, so I can't tell whether "Bru" counts as an NPC or is just a fancy quest board.
Since the game's still in CBT1, two NPCs is what we get. Some of you will think that's too few — but considering this game's VR is brushing up against 100% realism, slower development elsewhere is understandable. Besides, an epoch-making MMO like this one is all the more meaningful with us players helping build it.
Next up: game systems.
The devs haven't published detailed system docs — just some world lore and a dungeon intro — so everything below is my own careful observation, deep analysis, and bold speculation. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Point one: the game currently has NO HP bar, no mana bar, no stat points, no character sheet. Since I haven't been in combat yet, I can't say whether those show up mid-fight. I'll have a definitive answer tomorrow once the new zone opens and I go push the content first thing.
An official-page copy appears here without permission; reading the author's published chapter supports the person who wrote it.
You can, of course, pick whatever name you like — no symbols or punctuation, letters only. It displays over your head in green.
Point two: this game breaks from the classic tank/DPS/healer trinity. No fixed classes, no character levels, no XP bar, no skill points. But given the swords-and-sorcery setting, we'll presumably be able to learn skills and power up through copper coins or other channels later. In other words: which skills you learn and which direction you grow is entirely up to you — no class concept is going to box you in. Maybe my goblin will end up swinging a staff and a longsword, a battle-mage straight out of legend!
Some people won't vibe with that, but personally I think it's one of the game's biggest strengths. The whole pitch is 100% real, 100% free — so letting us steer our own combat-skill development, picking whatever fits our tastes and talents, is exactly what 'realistic' ought to mean.
Of course, how it actually plays out depends on what content the devs roll out down the line.
Point three: the quest system — gotta give this one special attention. At first I assumed the quests worked like every other game: pre-written code, fixed triggers. After playing the beta, I can tell you: nope. This game feels like a computer running a real-time simulation. What quests get issued next depends entirely on the dungeon's development. Need more miners? More mining quests. Need more haulers? Hauling quests. And so on. Once a job type is saturated, those quests stop offering. Don't worry about running dry, though — the dungeon's only just started development and there are TONS of quests. I played over twelve hours today, and aside from some time spent poking at systems, I spent basically all of it mining and hauling. I call it: grinding coins!
At first I thought this repetitive questing was way too mechanical. Sure, it pays out plenty of copper, but you could wall-charge me headfirst or roast me in a furnace before I'd keep doing that forever! But then... okay, fine, I retract everything I just said!
Yes — this game feels SO real that even mechanical coin-grinding is a freakin' blast!
Point four: currency. Everything players have touched so far is copper coins. No clue whether silver and gold sit above copper, but I'm guessing yes — I spotted Locke tidying his coin purse and saw something gold and shiny in there. Looked like gold coins. Right now copper buys exactly one thing: food from blacksmith Simba. Once the dungeon develops, we'll surely be able to buy other goods — weapons, armor, healing potions, that kind of thing. Stay tuned.
Point five: it's a high-freedom MMO, so we've got to talk sandbox. So far: you can pick up anything you can physically carry and permanently change its position. You can mine with a pickaxe anywhere the Lord has zoned for mining, permanently altering the terrain. Areas outside the Lord's zoning? I tried digging. Failed. Seems to be a hidden rule — players have a very hard time defying the Lord's direct orders. Actually, when you're standing in front of the Lord, you feel this aura of pressure, this overwhelming urge to obey. Might be a goblin-race thing. No telling whether that changes once stronger races unlock.
Point six: resurrection. It's an MMO — combat deaths happen, and players care a LOT about death penalties. I personally tested it in today's beta. Yes, I was the brave soul who wall-suicided. Full disclosure: I was at 100% pain, and my head STILL aches. The pain in this game is uncomfortably real. After death, you're force-ejected to the game's prep screen. Once your body's repaired, you respawn. While you wait, you can browse the official forums and the forums — and only those two.
Point seven: whether beta spots can be bought, sold, or shared. Whales, don't even dream — no cash shop or top-up channel has been found in this game so far, and beta spots can't be traded or shared. The game requires a gaming pod, and the pod locks to the person who registered the moment they sign up — only you can use your pod, nobody else. So if you were planning to share pods or flip beta spots, give it up.
As for my method of dying — wall-impact — there's no penalty beyond a short wait after death. But today another player went straight into the smithy furnace and burned to ash. His character was gone. Like, GONE gone. He had to create a whole new account to get back in.
So based on current intel, the death penalty depends on the condition of your body at death. If your corpse is repairable, no special penalty. If it isn't — say, incinerated — you're rerolling a character. Moral of the story: when you die, do your best to leave a recoverable corpse. Outside the dungeon, ALWAYS travel with buddies. If you die, they can haul your body back to the Eternal Kingdom — because as far as I've seen, Locke is the only NPC who can repair flesh, and players can't do it yet either. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
So yes, death carries real risk and real penalties. Cherish your lives, people!
Anyway, I've rambled long enough — this was very much a stream-of-consciousness dump, so fill in whatever I missed. It's late, well past midnight, and I need sleep. My YouTube streams are paused for a few days, because I'll be busy playing Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom. Gotta run — I'll read the comments when I'm up. The new zone opens at seven a.m. and I intend to be FIRST in line to push it. Night, everybody!】
Sharlock mainlined the entire OP in one sitting. He remembered this 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 guy pretty well. The review still felt bizarre to him — they worked hard, asked no wages, and yet the post was wall-to-wall incomprehensible nonsense that left Sharlock deeply troubled. At times like this, all you could do was sigh at the culture gap between two worlds. Sharlock truly could not understand.
【You're SURE that NPC photo isn't just cosplay?】
【Is the game really THAT photorealistic?】
【WHY DON'T I HAVE A BETA SPOT!!】
【Can't wait! Hurry up with open beta!】
As for the comments below — skeptics, the awestruck, people dropping their Discords, more people dropping their Discords, folks crying and begging for beta accounts, people ready to bankrupt themselves for the privilege of coming to the Eternal Kingdom to work for Sharlock — the reply count was already a thousand floors deep.
Sharlock patiently read floor after floor of replies and reviews, but the floors were stacking up way faster than he could scroll. Somewhere past floor five hundred, he looked ahead at the hundreds of unread pages, and threw in the towel.
Fun as it was reading the forums — both forums — and watching these otherworld players run their mouths, a whole mountain of dungeon business was still waiting on Sharlock. Like, for instance: getting blacksmith Simba started forging iron tools, weapons, and armor!
══════════════════════ DUNGEON LORD'S NOTE ═══════════════════════
ShadowBlade's guide thread is glorious: an adjustable pain slider from zero to 100%, plus the disclaimer 'Says the guy who tested respawn by face-checking a wall.
Very sincere advice!' Would you play at 100% pain for authenticity?
Ratings fuel chapters! If you're hooked, drop a 5-star rating and a review — I read every single one.