​The good news is that book five is well on the way. I missed about three weeks dealing with a bunch of corrections for book one through four. By the time I got that settled, I came down with a nasty case of bronchitis that completely took me down for a good three weeks. I was able to get a little bit of writing in, but spent most of the time collapsed in bed. It seemed like I couldn’t stay awake for more than three hours straight. Finally though, I’ve started to feel better and the story is flowing out of me.
 
The good news is that I’m over 40k words into the story, but already I can see this is going to be another immense novel. It will cover the whole ‘rescuing Domenic’ from the PVP Alliance of Chaos Storm. While there is a lot of PVP action in the story, there is also a huge PVE (Player vs Environment) story going on within the world itself. I’m excited because of what that will bring into the series adventure wise, since the world is changing due to the decisions players are making in the training area.
 
Oh yeah, the training area which is called the Norden Region for being a part of Earth’s Nordic region and the entire current map is only the game’s training area. My current plan is for the base leveling range to be up to fifty for this area and basically players shouldn’t even leave the area until they’ve reached near that level. Outside of the training areas will be monsterville. Some monsters will be just that, individual monsters. Others will be tribes. There will even be entire empires of monsters that are living and doing their own thing within the world.
 
There are other training areas in the world. Basically any location that is a peninsula or an area that is off on its own. A good example of this would be Florida. These will be the other game start areas as the game opens up to the entire world to play. There is not set area for Europe, Asia or the Americas. Everyone will join where they happen to join that hasn’t filled up yet. The game’s world is a reflection of the Earth. I haven’t decided yet but I might make it an earth with the same continent structure that is basically 50x as large as our world. That part I haven’t decided yet, but it explains the Norden region and why it’s being used.
 
Story wise I have a good twenty novels if not more waiting to be written without any second thought. Many of the empires and cultures have already been formulated with more that are coming. I already have many of the cultures for Germany, Russia, Italy and Africa. That part of the adventure and exploration will continue while our intrepid heroes deal with old and new enemies. I’m really excited about some of these areas. I’ve been working on creating some awesome civilizations and slowly building the storylines to go with them. Some added fun will be mounts around level 40 or 50. Flying mounts around level 80 to 100 which will lead to a whole new development of flying races and civilizations. So yeah, there is really no end in sight as long as you’ll like the stories. (This isn’t for the trolls that like to keep a close watch on my sight, you can hate and not understand my storyline as much as you like. Thankfully, I have more than enough fans who love the storyline and adventures that I write.)
 
Some people have wondered why the leveling is so slow, but the truth of the matter is that the story is in the adventure and the exploration. Rushing to an imaginary end level to actually start playing the game seems to be all the rage nowadays. Old Dungeons and Dragons, Anarchy Online, EverQuest and World of Warcraft was about exploring the world. You leveled extremely slow which gave you time to go out and have an adventure and see the world. That in itself was the goal of these games. The idea that you’re living in these world. Not just hurrying up to the end content before you run to the next game.
 
You can think of Startum Ironwolf a little bit as the old Captain Kirk of Star Trek or Han Solo of Star Wars. He likes the ladies and he really isn’t put off by fur, green skin, pointy ears, tentacle hair, scales or extra arms and legs if they’re pretty and interested in him and vice versa. There had been some confusion about this to some readers, but I think for most Dungeons and Dragons or MMORPG players, this is nothing new. These games have always been about other races and species. It didn’t matter what male or female people were, everyone loved their orc, troll, tauren, minotaur, goblin, elf, dwarf, gnome and etc etc. There have always been Wolfkin, Foxkin, Batkin, and more that people have relationships with in a fantasy storyline or virtual kind of way. Maybe my choice of a centaur for a love interest was somewhat shocking to non-gamers, but it will definitely be part of the storyline in my world in one way or another.
 
There has been some comments about how could someone fall in love so quickly. I just chuckle whenever I hear the story. Many of the times this is being asked by people in their 40s and 50s. Obviously, they forgot how it was when they were in their early 20s. Everyone I know has fallen for someone in a matter of days. Felt that desire to marry this new person in their lives because they believe them to be their soulmate, only to find out a week later that there were personality differences that didn’t mesh as well as they thought they did. For better or worse, it happens to everyone at one time or another and is why Las Vegas has so many White Wedding Chapels. Luckily, most of us don’t fall into this type of trap, albeit a large number of people do every year.   
 
Anyway, now that I’m getting healthy the storyline is flowing and I’ll do my best to get book 5 out as quickly as possible. Figure a few months J