Overlord demon lord tyranny

Prologue

YGGDRASIL is a DMMO-RPG released in 2126 by a Japanese Developer. According to the developers' website, YGGDRASIL was a game of exploration, and so many things were mysteries left unknown for players to discover on their own or in groups. It was a game where all you were told was the controls before being thrown into the deep end. In other words, the special thing about YGGDRASIL was the incredible amount of freedom given to players, compared to any other DMMO-RPGs out there.

YGGDRASIL requires an exclusive console to play, which records logs for the week. Though the game is full virtual reality, it does not provide a sense of taste or smell and has a limited sense of touch. Due to the lack of technology when the game was developed, facial expressions and artificial intelligence are not supported. However, there were statuses like hunger and thirst which existed among players and the mounts they ride on in the game.

The most distinctive feature of YGGDRASIL was its flexible system to allow players to freely make choices. Players could select numerous races, jobs and various tools, allowing for customization in the game. If a player were to use separately sold creator tools, they could freely alter the appearances of weapons, armors, interior data, character visuals, and advanced settings of their in-game residence or home. The customization system was really far-reaching and broad, even allowing basic programming.

When it came to Equipment in YGGDRASIL, one could equip magic items in the following slots: head, face, body, three pieces of jewelry apart from one's rings, underclothing, arms, hands, left and right rings, waist, legs and feet. One could not equip multiple magic items to the same item slot. While one could wear many magical items around their neck, only the powers from the item that had been last put on would be usable.[2] Even a suit of full plate armor only counted as taking up the body slot. Players could only put one ring on for each hand.

However, by using the power of a Cash Item, players are able to put a ring on each finger. A player could manipulate the game's database by using the creator tools and form original items. One could also buy appearances within the DMMO-RPG. Through doing this, a player is able to create an unlimited variety of original items. After a certain patch was updated into the game, players were given several ways to change their equipment' appearance without changing their gear.

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Momonga using one of the emoticons to express his feelings.
However, there are player characters from different races who are unable to make facial expressions in the game. In the beginning, YGGDRASIL characters had no facial expressions. As a result, a player's avatar could not change expressions to match their voice. At the same time, a character's mouth would not move with their words. Later on, external appearances were fixed.
Because of this, facial expressions were impossible to design, however, it was somewhat possible for a player's expression to change by using their own words. For example, it would not be that difficult for humanoid players. However, it is impossible to do so, since writing macros to move the faces of demi-humans and heteromorphic beings was extremely difficult. Instead, players can use their bodily motions to compensate for the lack of facial expressions in YGGDRASIL. Not only that, but a player can also touch their console to select various faces from one of the emoticons, using it as a way to identify the feeling and mood they have right now.

Nonetheless, the only way to tell how someone else was feeling was by their tone of voice. Producing a normal voice and minimizing the times one sounded different was not a skill unique to just a single person. When players had been depressed, someone else had also seen through how they had forced themselves to appear jovial.[3]

The game had a system where players could pay a fee in order to participate in a lottery to win a rare item. This would include a type of cash gacha within the game where players had the opportunity to cash in money with the chance of winning a prize.

Cosmetic skins were only released and made available in limited quantities. If one missed out on them, it would be extremely difficult to acquire them afterward. As such, players tended to buy up any new cosmetic item that looked halfway decent.

Along the way, a player could make and store a manuscript in book form in YGGDRASIL. After doing so, one could begin to read it like a book in a similar manner as the real world. There were people in the game who put official legal works whose copyright had expired into books, and sold them cheaply in the game's market.

On the other hand, YGGDRASIL developers did not provide any information about the game world's map, and they were also inconsiderate enough not to supply any news about the game's dungeons and things such as ore mining, food preparation or the raising of magical beasts. In a world like this, one had to investigate and discover things on one's own. In fact, even the items that one could and could not use could only be felt out through repeated trial and error on the player's part. There were walkthrough sites and news sites, but those sites only hosted a compilation of publicly known information or very untrustworthy rumors. YGGDRASIL was a game of exploring the unknown. Thus, any information one uncovered would be very valuable. There was no merit in publishing this valuable information for any stranger to view free of charge.[4]

More importantly, YGGDRASIL was the type of game where information itself held value with a great example being the World Item. The number of people who freely shared newly discovered information with others was small and they usually had to pay a price if they wish to know about it. The same could also be said with classes such as Eclipse that possessed a secret trump card. Although a lot of information had already been collected, most of it pertained to dungeons or other locations, and it was estimated that only 30% of the nine worlds had been mapped so far. During the final years of YGGDRASIL, the chances of reliable information being made public on the web was rather high.

There are endless discoveries (special classes, items, etc.) players could find and obtain through adventures, such as focusing on certain skills like instant death spells, etc. with one example being the Caloric Stone, a World Item among one of the hidden items discovered in the game. Besides World Items and skills, there are also apoithakarah, scarletite or other prismatic ores that were of the highest tiers in YGGDRASIL.[5]

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Game's Functions shown by Momonga before YGGDRASIL's shutdown
When it came to players, functions existed (Forced System Access, Chat, Call GM, Log Out, and so on) that they used in the game. For example, using the shout command or a GM call would put the player in touch with a GM almost immediately, and shows how effective the functions were. Another example is the chat channel, where players can look up recent news, like the shutdown of YGGDRASIL. In addition, players can open a system console and connect to the developers' website to inspect the official guild rankings.