SOLVED. Science Fantasy - they live in a game like World of Warcraft until they. Spoilers. [s]

[Katharine (Ventureadlaxre)]

There was a town that instead of having actual jobs (some did), lived most of their lives in a World of Warcraft-like game. And if you died you lost it all and became poor. The main character in the book decided to become a girl character (in the game) and went on this adventure.

The main character and his friends kill (view spoiler)[a dragon at one point and then they shut down the whole game at the end. (hide spoiler)]

It was like a network, and occasionally the 'NPCS' (remember it was a MMO-like simulation/game) would be used by the network so the network man could talk to the main character, and the magical network man wanted to be shut down. And there were like public arena matches where people who were wronged or wanted to protest something fought instead of holding trials.

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I'm posting the above for a friend, so I may be delayed as I go back to ask him whether your suggestions help :) I've asked him whether it's Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and it's apparently not.

[Katharine (Ventureadlaxre)]

Ahh, never mind! It's apparently Epic by Conor Kostick.

I shall edit the thread to the solved area :)