MMORPG: Genesis

Is it a bug?

As John opened his eyes, he saw that he was still lying on the reclining chair but there were now four female elves surrounding him and an elf child in a picture all looking at him with concern. 

"John what happened?" Alea asked as she saw him open his eyes. 

"I died." John said in a slightly dejected voice. 

"What?" Asked all of them. 

"I died in the starter village." John replied, making them all gape at him. 

"How can you die in the starter village? I thought it was supposed to be impossible, I mean the whole village is classified as a safe zone." An unknown female elf asked. 

She was as beautiful as all the other elf women with blonde hair and green eyes. 

"Ah, introductions." Tanelia said before saying. 

"John, this is my assistant and advisor Saida Yinphine." 

"Saesa omentien lle Saida Yinphine" (Translation: pleasure meeting you Saida Yinphine) John said to Saida who smiled before returning the greeting. 

"Saesa omentien lle John Michaels" 

"Anyway, John how did you die in the started village?" ELmyre's voice asked from the nearby picture. 

"Ugh, it's embarrassing." John groaned. 

"All the more reason we now want to hear it" Elmyra said with a cheeky smile. 

John looked at all the beautiful elves giving him curious looks before saying. 

"Fine but I need some water." John said before getting up and going over to the bar where he pulled a cold bottle of water out of the fridge before drinking some. 

"Does anyone else want something to drink?" John asked, trying to change the subject. 

The four elves shook their heads before Thasinia said. 

"Stop stalling and explain." 

"Fine I died in the Weapons Hall." 

"That tells us nothing, you're not supposed to be able to die there, it's still in the safe zone, we need more information." Thasinia snapped, clearly getting impatient. 

"Fine..." John said before telling them all what happened since he first got to the training hall, how he got too caught up in the training and lost track of time until finally he died. 

By the time he finished the female elves had gone from impressed at John's level of focus to laughter at the fact he worked himself to death. 

"Ah I'm dying here I can't take it, this it's too funny." Elmyra shouted from her picture as she rolled around on the floor crying tears of joy. 

John just scoffed before drinking more water. 

After a few minutes of laughter, they all calmed down and Tanelia asked. 

"So, what happened after you died? Did you lose a level and your stat points like normal before being transported to the nearest re-spawn location?" 

"Mostly, I lost my one level I had gained and went to a graveyard after re-spawning; however, I did not lose my stat points." 

"Really? Did it tell you why?" Thasinia asked intrigued. 

John thought for a moment before saying. 

" A notification said something along the lines of, since I had died in the starter village, I would not get the logout penalty or have any of my stat points reduced." 

All the elves were silent for a moment thinking except for Elmyra who was jumping around saying. 

"You worked yourself to death, you worked yourself to death." 

A moment later Saida spoke. 

"Is this intentional or do you think it's a flaw?" 

"Hmm I'm not sure, it does not sound like Tia to keep any flaws in Genesis, she fixes them as soon as they are discovered." 

"What am I missing here?" John asked. 

The elves looked at each other before Saida explained. 

"You see John, we have never heard of anyone dying in any starter village before because you're protected as a new player." 

"Once you go out of the starter village into the forest outside Yesta Village for example you can die just like any other player where you will lose one level, the stat points equivalent to that level and also a random amount of gear, gold and loot in your inventory before being looked out of Genesis for twenty-four hours." 

"Inside the village your HP cannot be harmed by anything, even if someone tried to stick a sword through your gut nothing would happen because an invisible barrier would appear and protect you while knocking the individual who attacked you back."

"Even npc's won't attack you in the starter village, the worst they do is kick you out."

"Once you get permissions from the village leader to leave the starter village by completing his quest and transport to Thamethalas you can be killed anywhere in game except in a room you booked from an inn which is classified as a safe zone or other random safe zones you may stumble across like in the bigger dungeons." 

"The fact that you found a way to die that does not cause you to lose your stat points is an incredible thing, this means you could go out and grind a level from killing mobs or doing missions to get the stat points then train in the weapons hall until you die and go back to level zero without losing your stat points, theoretically you could gain an infinite amount of stat points without leaving the training hall." 

"I see that's a lot of work though, I mean how many hours was I in Genesis for and the majority of it was spent in the weapons hall." John said before asking 

"How long does it take before you die from hunger in Genesis?" 

"Six hours." Thasinia said before continuing. 

"Someone would have to grind out a level before going to the weapons hall and training there non-stop for six hours before restarting over." 

There was silence for a moment before Alea spoke. 

"There has to be a limit for this or it's a bug, do you think we should tell Tia?" 

"Yes, we should," Thasinia said straight away, getting everyone's attention. 

"We all know Tia's philosophy on cheating and taking advantage of bugs in Genesis and not reporting them will get an equally harsh punishment." 

"You do remember what happened to that Dwarf who found a bug to make infinite gold right?" 

"I don't." John said as the elves nodded. 

"A dwarf found a rather out of the way npc that wanted this one item that you could buy for dirt cheap in the local town, the npc was willing to pay over ten times the amount you brought it for." 

"So, this Dwarf spent days going back and forth buying and selling this one item and making crazy amounts of gold until Tia noticed his strange influx of gold and after investigating punished him." 

"How?" John asked. 

"First she took all the gold he made, then she banned him from Genesis for six months, and finally when he could log back in, he learned that he had a mandatory quest to repay back all the gold he made from that one npc with interest, any gold he made after that had fifty percent of it automatically go to the npc."