Ready Player One

Metadata

  • Author: Ernest Cline
  • Full Title: Ready Player One
  • Category: #books

Highlights

  • Items in the OASIS had just as much value as things in the real world (sometimes more), (Location 470)
  • The OASIS credit was the coin of the realm, and in these dark times, it was also one of the world’s most stable currencies, valued higher than the dollar, pound, euro, or yen. (Location 471)
  • The school’s strictly enforced dress code required that all student avatars be human, and of the same gender and age as the student. (Location 476)
  • People rarely used their real names online. Anonymity was one of the major perks of the OASIS. Inside the simulation, no one knew who you really were, unless you wanted them to. Much of the OASIS’s popularity and culture were built around this fact. Your real name, fingerprints, and retinal patterns were stored in your OASIS account, but Gregarious Simulation Systems kept that information encrypted and confidential. Even GSS’s own employees couldn’t look up an avatar’s true identity. (Location 485)
  • When I’d first enrolled in the OASIS public school system, I was required to give them my real name, avatar name, mailing address, and Social Security number. That information was stored in my student profile, but only my principal had access to that. None of my teachers or fellow students knew who I really was, and vice versa. (Location 490)
  • Students weren’t allowed to use their avatar names while they were at school. This was to prevent teachers from having to say ridiculous things like “Pimp_Grease, please pay attention!” or “BigWang69, would you stand up and give us your book report?” Instead, students were required to use their real first names, followed by a number, to differentiate them from other students with the same name. When I enrolled, there were already two other students at my school with the first name Wade, so I’d been assigned the student ID of Wade3. That name floated above my avatar’s head whenever I was on school grounds. (Location 492)
  • Todd13 scowled and his face actually turned red—a sign that he hadn’t bothered to turn off his account’s real-time emotion feature, which made your avatar mirror your facial expressions and body language. (Location 514)
  • He was about to reply, but I muted him first, so I didn’t hear what he said. I just smiled and continued on my way. (Location 515)
  • The best thing about it was that they could see that you’d muted them, and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it. There was never any fighting on school grounds. The simulation simply didn’t allow it. (Location 517)
  • Then, one glorious day, our principal announced that any student with a passing grade-point average could apply for a transfer to the new OASIS public school system. The real public school system, the one run by the government, had been an underfunded, overcrowded train wreck for decades. And now the conditions at many schools had gotten so terrible that every kid with half a brain was being encouraged to stay at home and attend school online. (Location 535)
  • There were hundreds of school campuses here on Ludus, spread out evenly across the planet’s surface. The schools were all identical, because the same construction code was copied and pasted into a different location whenever a new school was needed. (Location 544)
  • All of my teachers were pretty great. Unlike their real-world counterparts, most of the OASIS public school teachers seemed to genuinely enjoy their job, probably because they didn’t have to spend half their time acting as babysitters and disciplinarians. The OASIS software took care of that, ensuring that students remained quiet and in their seats. All the teachers had to do was teach. (Location 820)
  • It was also a lot easier for online teachers to hold their students’ attention, because here in the OASIS, the classrooms were like holodecks. Teachers could take their students on a virtual field trip every day, without ever leaving the school grounds. (Location 823)
  • Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation (Location 843)
  • A lot of OASIS users didn’t care about their avatar’s power level or bother with the gaming aspects of the simulation at all. They only used the OASIS for entertainment, business, shopping, and hanging out with their friends. These users simply avoided entering any gaming or PvP zones where their defenseless first-level avatars could be attacked by NPCs or by other players. If you stayed in safe zones, like Ludus, you didn’t have to worry about your avatar getting robbed, kidnapped, or killed. (Location 876)
  • It was the dawn of new era, one where most of the human race now spent all of their free time inside a videogame. (Location 1049)
  • While a class was in session, the simulation prevented students from accessing any data or programs that weren’t authorized by their teacher, to prevent kids from watching movies, playing games, or chatting with each other instead of paying attention to the lesson. (Location 1056)
  • Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. (Location 1077)
  • I fell out of my folding chair and landed with a thud on the floor of my hideout. My OASIS console tracked this movement and attempted to make my avatar drop to the floor of my Latin classroom, but the classroom conduct software prevented it from moving and a warning flashed on my display: PLEASE REMAIN SEATED DURING CLASS! (Location 1198)
  • “Shit!” I blurted out in frustration. The classroom conduct software filtered this out, so neither Ms. Rank nor my classmates heard it. But another warning flashed on my display: PROFANITY MUTED—MISCONDUCT WARNING! (Location 1223)
  • I silently wished (not for the last time) that the OASIS was like an old adventure game and that I could save my place. But it wasn’t, and I couldn’t. If my avatar died here, it would mean starting over with nothing. (Location 1376)
  • There was always a trick to beating a computer-controlled opponent. At a game like this, a gifted human player could always triumph over the game’s AI, because software couldn’t improvise. It could either react randomly, or in a limited number of predetermined ways, based on a finite number of preprogrammed conditions. This was an axiom in videogames, and would be until humans invented true artificial intelligence. (Location 1448)
  • There turned out to be a huge market for games that allowed people to play a leading role in one of their favorite old movies or TV series. (Location 1980)
  • The visor drew the OASIS directly onto my retinas, at the highest frame rate and resolution perceptible to the human eye. The real world looked washed-out and blurry by comparison. (Location 3379)
  • The Olfatrix smell tower in the corner was capable of generating over two thousand discernible odors. (Location 3384)
  • Standing there, under the bleak fluorescents of my tiny one-room apartment, there was no escaping the truth. In real life, I was nothing but an antisocial hermit. A recluse. A pale-skinned pop culture–obsessed geek. An agoraphobic shut-in, with no real friends, family, or genuine human contact. I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified videogame. But not in the OASIS. In there, I was the great Parzival. World-famous gunter and international celebrity. People asked for my autograph. I had a fan club. Several, actually. I was recognized everywhere I went (but only when I wanted to be). I was paid to endorse products. People admired and looked up to me. I got invited to the most exclusive parties. I went to all the hippest clubs and never had to wait in line. I was a pop-culture icon, a VR rock star. And, in gunter circles, I was a legend. Nay, a god. (Location 3491)
  • Besides, now that everyone could vote from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists. (Location 3521)
  • Since the dawn of the OASIS, thousands of elderly users had come here and painstakingly coded virtual replicas of local arcades they remembered from their childhood, thus making them a permanent part of the museum. (Location 3800)
  • Several NPC employees stood behind the counter, tossing dough and slicing pies. (I turned on my Olfatrix tower and discovered that I could actually smell the tomato sauce.) (Location 3843)
  • If I’d been hungry, I could have ordered a real slice of pizza at the counter. The order would have been forwarded to a pizza vendor near my apartment complex, the one I’d specified in my OASIS account’s food service preference settings. Then a slice would have been delivered to my door in a matter of minutes, and the cost (including tip) would have been deducted from my OASIS account balance. (Location 3847)
  • “We’re gunters,” I said, trying to fill the awkward silence. “We live here, in the OASIS. For us, this is the only reality that has any meaning.” (Location 4246)
  • One of the dropcops reached over and slapped a visor on my face. I found myself sitting on a sandy white beach, watching the sunset while waves crashed in front of me. This must be the simulation they used to keep indents calm during the ride downtown. (Location 4788)
  • In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given. (Location 5601)
  • “I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?” (Location 6393)

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