Word to Mr. Helbig: Far be it from me to correct an awesome author such as yourself, and believe me your novel Team Newb, Sun and Shadow Online, makes me believe that you're an awesome author or, since this is the first of your works that I've read, at the very least an author who wrote an awesome book, but BRO...
It's not Newb, it's N00b, and those aren't the letter "O" they're zeroes to show the whole wide world just how much value a n00b has.
*SIGH*
Ah well. I guess I'll get over it, because this was a REALLY good book.
So what's got me so excited?
Usually when I read a LitRPG, the main character starts out with at least an idea of what the problem is and an idea of how the game works. Not so much this time. Our hero, Lucas, isn't even planning on entering a game. He starts out the book trying to get away from a game that his father designed (the titular Sun and Shadow Online) and then things take a turn for the dark side and he has no choice.
I like this main character though. He's got a high degree of mental toughness and enough brains to think himself through a problem. He doesn't give up even when all seems to be lost. He learns the game quickly (for a n00b) and levels somewhat quickly-ish. I mean, I feel like I probably could have out-leveled him playing WoW, but I've been playing for close to a decade and I know the game. I've played both sides and I know the starting areas and quests really well. He doesn't have that and if he kills more bunnies than he REALLY needs to, well he got a couple levels out of it.
Of course, one does not adventure alone if it is possible to avoid doing so. For the vast majority of hardcore vets out there (that didn't start a game during the beta or on launch day) there was someone who helped them figure things out. I did my first raid in WoW after a woman named Edie (in the guise of her toon Persifinee) helped me figure out where to go and what to do to level my character. In Lucas's (COUGH, I mean Horus, his in-game avatar) case, that happens to be a small group of friends named Alizia, Decronas and Olaf.
They're all n00bs too, and he helps them as much as they help him (since he does have experience with other games) but as with any Massively Multiplayer Role Playing game (let alone one that's conducted in Virtual Reality) there is an awful lot to learn and Decronas in particular seems to have friends who know things. This is big because it enables the team to venture out into the world sooner and to be better equipped when they do it.
I don't do spoilers, so I'll just say that there is a very good reason that all of the characters, but in particular Horus, need to make gold quickly. I find their "kill everything you can and loot everything you kill," type strategy to be the one that every single n00b ever has used to increase their bank balance. Seriously, even most Dungeons and Dragons campaigns start out with "Go over there and get rich" as the incentive to start adventuring. Gold and gear are the motivation to have a good time, but there is something I wonder about.
It would seem to me that Horus, at least, has played other games and would have a working knowledge of how craft skills work in general. And yes, I know that you won't get rich with beginning craft skills in any game that's more than a few months old, but I'd be starting out learning something. That's how I became a WoW millionaire (well that, and way too many solo runs of old raids to get cash quick) and you'd think he'd try it, but not so far. Then again, there is a sequel so maybe there? I dunno, I'd just like to see my boy doing something to help himself when he desperately needs it. You'd think Decrona would get it too, since she has all of those contacts feeding her information. That's just me whining though and sitting around crafting doesn't add a whole lot of action to a novel, so maybe that was a better way to go? Maybe?
Speaking of action, I love the way fights work. Team Newb is set in the future so the tech is a lot more advanced than what we have now. I love the thought of targeting specific vulnerable areas (tabletop RPG players would recognize this as a "called shot.") to maximize damage in an MMORPG. I love the creativity of the players as they figure out how to defeat some of the enemies they face. I've never seen an online setting where some of these strategies would be possible, but they work great and they make sense. The reader just has to keep in mind that Sun and Shadow Online is a game of the future. There are features that have been added over the last century.
Speaking of World of Warcraft, I have to wonder if Mr. Helbig hasn't had a max level character or sixty-three himself. I get the sneaking suspicition that he's seen the Horde trash Goldshire before moving on to an all out assault on Stormwind once or twice, or maybe died a couple of times defending it. And the way he uses quests as a primary way of leveling is very similar to that in WoW.
Then again, the way his bind points work looks more like Everquest as does the amount of downtime (he skips over it unless there is something going on during downtime) he includes. No EQ player will ever forget the frustration of FINALLY beating that freaking Goblin Whelp and then taking five minutes to get his HP back so he could fight a giant rat. Mark my words, it happened. A lot. Two words: Newbie Log. Everyone who ever played an Dark Elf in EQ just laughed. The rest of the EQ players are remembering seeing the words. "You are hungry. You are thirsty." pop up in their chat box while their HP wouldn't recover and wondering why. Yup, happens here.
And I guess that's really what makes Team Newb (N00b!) work: There's enough differences here to make it feel like a game you haven't played and just enough similarities to make it feel like a game you could play. I love that aspect of it.
I'm leaving out much of the meta-story and that's really the important part of Team Newb but I don't want to spoil too much and there's a lot there. Trust me though, anyone who has played an MMO knows that Real Life Comes First. There's always the guy who can't make raid because his wife is making him mow the lawn that night, or the woman who didn't manage to make the potions this week because she had to babysit, or the ranger who didn't have time to craft the good arrows and is stuck using the cheap vendor junk...
*SIGH*
Real life MMO playing is often about avoiding the meta-story, but trust me it's there. And it's in Team Newb too. Try it. You'll like it.
Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Jerkins of Please Don't Kill me
Team Newb: Sun and Shadow Online
M.Helbig
Self Published, 2019
Team Newb: Sun and Shadow Online is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no cost to you.
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