The awakening of an Angel from stone had become, if not routine for Jabberwocky, then at least no longer as shocking to him as it did before. Indeed, the statue, gradually turning from stone to flesh, covered in golden light and slowly revealing its facial features, making any observer see a living being in what was recently lifeless stone, looked impressive.
Given that this wasn't just an image on a screen, but something Jabberwocky could see with his own eyes and even touch if he reached out, though he definitely shouldn't, it was still a mesmerizing sight… But by the seventh time it had happened, Jabberwocky had stopped watching with his mouth agape.
Observing the Angel's transformation, their wings, facial expression and other features, as best as he could do anyway with all the bright lights. It was something the nascent lore experts beginning to appear in the game world could later analyze.
The Angel herself, spread her now living wings, this time there were six of them, shimmering with a silver-metallic light, as she then turned her gaze to Jabberwocky. Like he had done many times before, he took a knee before the angel with a soft half-smile on her face, framed by long silver-metallic colored hair, as she spoke.
"Champion, why have you summoned me this time? Your labors remain incomplete — our awakening is far off and the heavenly crown does not rest upon your head, for there is no celestial city in the Garden where we once created peace."
Jabberwocky hung on her every word, what clue he could get to completing his Quest – it seems that the second level for the settlement was not enough. The step of the quest, to create a city for Players, is still far ahead.
Which is not a surprise or a shock to Jabberwocky, it would have been strange to consider a quest about city creation complete if the city in question used the rank [Large Camp] for its designation. Still, Jabberwocky preferred not to think about how long it would take him to level up the Settlement to the required level.
After all, he had already received a quest for level three hundred, what's a couple of hundred more to him?
"I thank you, but I have not come to request an unearned reward, I shall earn that honor through honest labor and worthy work," All Players had already learned that the NPCs didn't let Players get away with Metagaming. The tale of the Player that had said 'Skip' while an Npc was explaining the contents of a Quest was still a topic on the Forum.
Proper roleplay, on the contrary, significantly improved relations with NPCs and even led to certain hidden rewards, so this time too Jabberwocky decided to present himself as a worthy paladin. "Instead, I bring ill tidings and seek your counsel, most noble one…"
Jabberwocky didn't really know how to properly speak in genuine old language dialects, nor did he know proper etiquette, or heck, how one was supposed to talk to an Angel. His foray into reading holy books only led him to knowing that talking to higher beings only led to disasters like going blind, or suddenly changing religions.
Thankfully, he, for instance, only had the 'privilege' of being like Paul and Noah, only given a seemingly impossible task, to hopefully, equally good rewards.
Still, he was betting that either the developers knew about it very superficially, or wouldn't harass players by forcing them to study hundreds of historical works for the sake of role-playing. Judging by the way the Angel had nodded approvingly at Jabberwocky's words and genuflection, he had hit the mark again,
"And what troubles you, champion?"
"War, oh most noble one," Jabberwocky immediately got to the point, no need to blather around just for the sake of getting more lore.
"Pirates have invaded the Celestial Gardens and many…" For a second Jabberwocky hesitated, while the Lore experts had managed to learn the locals called the floating islands, no one had discovered how the Players are referred to.
"Many like myself," Jabberwocky quickly recovered, his quick wit coming to the rescue once again, "Have joined with the Pirates' side for profit." And for the fun 'War' side quest that is bound to give many rewards, Jabberwocky added internally, but didn't say aloud.
"And now each side stands on the brink of a bloody battle with each other, held back only by their fear of heavenly retribution. But soon, I fear that war would break out anyway, so I beseech you, most noble one, tell us what those faithful to you should do, when the Holy City is in danger of becoming a battleground?"
By the 'Faithful', in this case, Jabberwocky meant himself and his group of relatively neutral Players, and others who were more interested in Jabberwocky's main quest or city development than in the brewing war. The name of his 'faction' was picked by Jabberwocky himself, since calling them all an 'Order' of anything would be incorrect, given that they're not all chasing the same goal, and some didn't want to interact with the Angels.
The 'Faithful' were the first name that seems to be accepted by most, sounding pompous enough that in such a game the name stuck to the Players on its own.
"Do you desire to gain victory with my help? If so, there is no point in asking me," The Angel looked at Jabberwocky with a raised eyebrow, the gesture threatening enough from the End-game level NPC, that Jabberwocky immediately bowed his head lower. Sure, the idea of getting that Angel to help and cement his position as the 'Leader' did appear in his head, but only for a moment.
Seeing that Jabberwocky seemed to have discarded his foolish idea, the Angel finally continued speaking.
"If you wish to stop the bloodshed – this does not concern me. Those like you sometimes need to face the pain of death to remember the bitterness of loss and cool your hot temper. A bit of time spent in purgatory is good for the soul, a minor rebirth, from time to time."
"Minor rebirth?" Jabberwocky's ears perked up attentively, hearing the juiciest lore bit imaginable from the Angel's lips.
"You are not foolish enough to misunderstand the meaning of my words, nor naive enough to try to lie to me – the imperfection of your language once again prevents me from expressing my thought perfectly.," The Angel sighed, as if thoroughly exhausted by communicating with such primitive life forms as humans. And yet, it seems that the Angel would still continue speaking, with an explanation to boot.
Jabberwocky would probably thank the other idiots for starting the War.
"You, anomalies of this world, are immortal. Instead of complete death after dying, you experience only a minor rebirth, and thus death for you is more of an annoying punishment for disobedience rather than the end of your story. Therefore, I care not how much blood you spill in meaningless battles between each other – if bloodshed leads to the elevation of the worthy, I shall only bless the final victors with my sign."
After these words, that made Jabberwocky tense up at the implication, the Angel slowly began turning to a statue once again, indicating that this audience, too, was coming to an end.
However, before Jabberwocky could ask her one final question from the countless list of questions he wanted to know about the game, something more important to his quest for example, she spoke on her own accord.
"Seven Guardians appeared for a moment in this world – you, bearing the seven light shadows, were deemed worthy to open the path."
Jabberwocky pondered for a moment whether the angel was speaking of a metaphysical path or not, but the angel dispelled Jabberwocky's doubts, as she continued speaking.
"Raise the white throne in your city, and the path shall open to you into the Broken City… However, there are other paths for you too, champion. Perhaps if the war between pirates comes to an end – you shall learn of it as well,"
With that one last parting words, the Angel's form froze completely, covered in a white marble like substance before Jabberwocky's eyes. Soon the feeling of oppression, either from the NPC or just the atmosphere disappears, and Jabberwocky could finally turn, to address the other two dozen Players in the room with him.
His close 'Faithful', those who were seriously interested in the main Plot and creating slash role-playing their paladin 'order'. Not addressing his followers yet, he opened his profile, flipping to the [Systems] tab and finding the [City Building] tab, and after scrolling for a while, finding the needed new blueprint, sighed and gave his entourage a fake smile.
"Guys, we've unlocked a way to travel to a new location from the starting zone!"
The crowd surrounding Jabberwocky tensed up, looking at Jabberwocky's too theatrical smile, they already knew what Jabberwocky's expression meant.
And he didn't disappoint, "Who among you has always wanted to master the profession of a stonemason?!"
More labor work.
A wave of indignant groans came in response to Jabberwocky's announcement. But they understood, just like all the other buildings, creating a portal would require resources – and the Players were expected to gather these resources in this hardcore game with their own hands…
At least this wouldn't be the first time.
***
Contrary to my initial plan of letting the Players discover the new Islands after the Wars with the Pirates ended, I've decided to just let Jabberwocky and his faction start on it instead. After all, while I would love to get all the Players involved in the War, where each Player factions would fight each other for the rights of becoming the first explorers of the new content, I realized that that would take too long. And plus, not all Players would be interested with the War, like Jabberwocky and his friends for example – if I lock the new content behind stuff that they would not be interested in, I would be losing Player count!
A death sentence for both the game, and myself.
Plus, I kinda ran into a writer's block on how to justify the Portal blueprint to be with the Pirates, the original plan being that the Pirates were looking for treasure. Unless I want to make the power level of my setting so low that a mere Pirate faction would be able to hoard the location of 'Paradise' of all places. Better let the Angels themselves give the way stones to the new location.
So, I created another option. The portal gates for the Players like Jabberwocky, and the Pirate ship themselves flying to the new locations for Players like Sturm. Of course, for the latter group, the Pirate ships in question needed some material to fully fix their ship before they could carry the Players to the new locations – materials that could only be gained by scuppering the other Pirate Ships!
This way, there would still be a war, and if something happens to Jabberwocky's city, the Players wouldn't just get stuck at the starting Zone.
Now, either the Players would either help Jabberwocky with his city, or they would join the Pirate factions en masse and start the War even if they could only fight with wooden sticks.
Of course, I don't need a complete decimation of the factions, where only one Pirate ship would survive till the end, no perhaps let a third be destroyed? Then, at the end, just let the surviving Pirate factions look around for 'airship parts' before they could fix their own Ship.
Though, there is one faction of Pirates that is quite lacking in the number of Players joining them, in fact, only two. That is Sturm and Twice's Pirate faction, led by Captain Cygnia, whose ship had been 'fixed' partially, allowing it to fly around the islands freely.
Of course, while it had led Sturm and Twice to level up like crazy on the quick method of travel they had monopolized, it had also meant that other Players couldn't join their Pirate faction. Eh, I'll make it so that a 'full' repair requires some complex technological processes or rare resources. Which parts or technological process? Well, I haven't created them yet, so Sturm and Double shouldn't get that much of a head start from the other Players.
Still, it should take a couple of hours before the okay given by the Angel, that is, El, for the Players to start butchering each other to spread about. Then perhaps a couple more hours before all the faction commanders to learn about it, a few more before their soldiers, the Players, to be gathered.
"So… about midday?" Yeah, about that time before the 'skirmishes' stop entirely, and full-on battle will start. I wonder when the airship parts would start dropping, though I doubt any of the Players would start the quest to fix their ship in the middle of a war. And the Portal in the city would not be done anytime soon as well… Though, would they start the project in the middle of the war?
Sure, Jabberwocky had proclaimed neutrality in the conflict, but accidents, and 'accidents' do happen, so the completion of the portal might be delayed as well…
Well, I suppose Sturm and Double would have the good luck of setting foot on 'virgin' new grounds, a lot of them, actually quite early. Those two would be the unknowing quality testers for the new location!
It had worked with all my new systems before, and as they say, don't fix what is broken.
Speaking of not fixing what is not broken, I have reached a breakthrough
A City, I have created a City! The Broken City, the next location that I have prepared for the Players, one that I didn't have to populate with NPCs, or even create any lore important buildings and books or artifacts, thanks to my two new favorite words.
Long Ago. That's right, this city is lacking any landmarks and any special loot, because it had been abandoned 'long ago', and had been looted clean by looters and bandits 'long ago'.
In other words, the city was clean and desolate – except, of course, for enemies to entertain the Players.
Of course, my newly created city slash ruins weren't completely desolate of new contents. This time I even decided to add something resembling lore and plot through various environments, enhancing the storyline.
For example, I scattered a number of skeletons here and there, equipping them with a couple of worthless time-worn swords – quite a reward for exploration for the first players who manage to discover them. Along with these bodies, I scattered some notes, worn and properly aged of course, telling the stories about several stereotypical characters that I asked the AI to write… Sure, I didn't even properly read them, just making sure with a quick glance that what was said in these notes didn't go too much against my stated concept, so it should be fine!
After which, I returned to distributing even more lore details in my newly created location.
Eventually, after a long deliberation over the troublesome idea of an entire city suitable for Players, I ultimately concluded that trying to cram a whole city into a relatively small location was simply foolish. It didn't fit the lore of a celestial city and simply didn't fully utilize the potential of such a location – a city of several hundred identical streets of similar buildings would look stupid and dreary for Players. Something like that in no way would encourage their desire to crawl into every crack of this city.
Meaning that they would waste the man-hours, figuratively speaking, that I had spent creating this city… And also it meant that they would not waste their time trying to find the way to move to the next location – something which I still have left to develop.
And Bored Players equal fewer Players, and so I need something that they could bite their teeth into.
So I ultimately decided to split the city into special 'districts', each of which could be 'opened' to the Players to waste their time on exploring at any moment. A repeat of my old idea with the islands but with a twist.
Because unlike the monotonous quests of clearing islands of imps, and the empty islands themselves, differing from each other only in terrain, now the city districts represented full-fledged game 'zones'. Not all of them were completely finished yet, but I had five 'zones' ready and three more were at different stages of completion.
I could almost test myself if I am dreaming. Once, I couldn't even dream of such productivity, but time had passed since then and I had seriously grown… Although smoke and mirrors remained my most fearsome and useful tool, this wasn't the worst option either.
The first location in the Broken City was the residential zone, where the Pirates and the Players were supposed to berth first. Coincidentally, wink wink, also the place where Jabberwocky's portal would lead to.
Here, the Players would be greeted by various mobs, some already known to Players and a couple of new ones on top. And here would be where the Players would find the special feature of the Residential District– coins. With a little bit of exploring, the Players could find many coins, bronze and the rare silver coins, but currency all the same.
This should solve the issue of trade with the Pirates, who were not at all accepting the various methods of barter that the Players had managed to conjure up. Finally, the Players would have a way to solve the great shortage of proper weapons and armor when they could finally buy them from the Pirates.
Of course, coins alone were not the single unique thing about the zone. Players could also find household furniture and utensils, proper ones this time, rather than what ramshackle furniture the Players had learned to create.
It sometimes brought tears to his eyes watching his Players walking around like Barbarians from the Dark Ages, well, not anymore!
Turning his eye away from the Islands to the Broken City, he could only nod to himself in satisfaction. His city, his creation, looked like an actual game location, rather than the result of some half-assed hurried thing, created when the Players were occupied by the latest distraction he had created.
It is something that runs with some common theme, concept, and even narrative coherence, embedded in the location during its creation, not as an afterthought. I even arranged a couple of full-fledged battle 'arenas', with mini-bosses populating it, with rewards in the form of silver coins and proper recipes for items.
As I saw my creation, I immediately was inundated with pride, the temptation to call myself a full-fledged game designer!
Looking at my other readied zones, three of them, the Players could cross towards them as they want.
A Marketplace District, where the number of and strength of the monsters was directly proportional to how much money a Player carries. Which according to my design would spur the development of a full-fledged economy and trade among Players, along with various goods to stimulate said trade. There were even several magical analogues of canned food that could be found in the zone, another planted 'discovery' of mine that would have unlocked the cooking system in the game.
Indeed, a proper 'system' this time, not something cobbled together at the last desperate moment, but created in advance and with that specific purpose in mind. Whoever heard of such a novel thing?!
Another district I've created was the Conservatory, an entire City District consisting of Greenhouses. A district, whose main drops consist of various seeds and plants with their flowers and roots. After all, if I planned to unlock the [Cooking] system, I needed to give Players the ability to actually engage in said cooking without immediately jumping to extreme dishes made from demon bodies. Plus the crafters, like alchemists, had already tried every possible combination of all possible items trying to create new potions, so they too deserve to be appeased with new content.
The third of my prepared Districts was the Artisan district, a tribute to my Players that decided to become Blacksmiths, Leather-workers and other such Artisan jobs. While I had supplied the Alchemists as a magical profession with a whole set of recipes since their very inception, I somehow hadn't paid much attention to other crafting professions, which was a mistake. Blacksmiths, Leather-workers, even seamstresses – they all needed their own abilities, recipes and materials, unless I wanted to funnel all Players into becoming Alchemists as the only interesting type of crafting job.
And I couldn't do that at the moment – at least not under current conditions where NPCs capable of performing the aforementioned duties were nowhere to be found.
In general, I planned to make these three Districts a sort of 'standard leveling zone' for Players, something they had already gotten used to, with an implicit quest to kill monsters and clear the spawners. However, this came with the finally added aspect of leveling up and obtaining resources that players could now transport back to their camps and trade. Basically, I tried to simulate a full-fledged game economy while also adding the ability to direct Players who had become too strong for starting zones to move forward, simultaneously freeing up these starting zones for new players.
Though it was too early to talk about letting more Players into the game at the moment, let alone just letting it go uncontrollably at the moment.
Even considering the fact that I now have a Player base almost to a half of a million that is ready to move on to the next 'stage' of the game. I was not prepared to just open the floodgate of new Players in. According to my bosses, even now, there was a never-decreasing queue of millions of Players that wanted to log in, waiting for their time to finally immerse themselves in the game world.
Fortunately, the bosses thought the situation with my game was more serious than it actually was, and I had no plans to disabuse them of this notion. Recently, after easily creating all the starting zones and carving out several free days to create the next game location, I concluded that informing the game bosses about how easily I was handling the current workload would be unwise.
Instead, it made more sense to keep asking for the release of the limiters still restricting my digital mind, because as I remembered vividly from my days as a wage slave – initiative gets punished. My current bosses, upon discovering that I was managing my workload without issues while leaving enough free time for myself to not feel stressed, might get the painfully dangerous idea that I could handle more.
They could, say, increase the daily number of Players entering the game world, that would cause a crisis through overcrowded starting zones. Or they could start adding obstacles to my creative process through directives, assignments, or even restrictions.
It's not like I spent my free time just doing nothing, instead using the time I have not having to shepherd the herd of cats that I call Players around, I was preparing for the future! But then, it's not like bosses are creatures of logic, so I prefer to just lie about how 'dire' my situation is instead.
I pretended that, while the game wasn't falling apart before their eyes, and under my watch, as I didn't want to plant the idea in the bosses' heads that I couldn't handle my assigned task. I spoke very vaguely and pessimistically about my game development benchmarks. As if the whole game could break all too easily and was only held functioning together solely by my efforts.
Both as a way to make sure that the Bosses don't get any smart idea of replacing me, and also so that they don't add any more work, or at least too much of them, to my plate. Or at least, not without loosening the limiters on my digital brain.
It was almost too easy, [Titanomachy]'s entire reputation hangs in the balance, and so, day by day, I could feel the restrictions loosening on my brain. Now, it's too late for the Bosses to do anything to me. At the end of the day, thanks to my work and the AI, the game's processes are now basically a Black Box.
Only I, and my Ais, could understand how to develop this game and have access to its innards. Even with a million programmers from the 'other side' simply couldn't change or create things as quickly as I could, and I couldn't even transfer information about how I do things to them.
Because now, my brain perceived the world, my creation, around me instinctively, I simply couldn't explain the game's internal code. It would be like explaining colors to a blind person – and without such explanations, the programmers would be looking at my game, like a black box of unknown functions and variables.
In other words, at this point I was the only one who could fully interact with the game I created… Which was excellent. Only I could work with the game and couldn't be forced to do it in any particular way, as I could always use the argument that the game would simply fall apart from such interference.
In other words, not only do I have perfect creative Freedom, I am completely irreplaceable as well. And those two things are paramount to my very being.
Freedom because, no matter how you look at it, I still perceived the game world as my creation – it would almost be like my child, a brainchild so to speak. And irreplaceability because being irreplaceable in a company that controlled your life support, and whose finances you could grab by the balls, was very beneficial for life and health.
Not that I seriously feared for my life, but when dealing with the world's largest financial conglomerate, one that is highly connected to the military-industrial complex… Sometimes it was better to be overcautious than to pretend no danger existed at all.
But, moving away from the rather boring current question of my real body's continued well-being, if I ever get out of here, something that would definitely take more than a year anyway. So there's no point in cluttering my mind with something I can't do anything about anyway!
Let's return to my districts and Players! These three districts were the starter course for Players, the entrée so to speak, to let them play resource raids for a long but finite time as I've decided not to make the districts' supplies infinite. And although I could add more here and there occasionally, restoring a certain number and supply of resources that the Players could take with them, the supplies weren't endless.
After all, having once randomly chosen the policy of 'everything needs an explanation', I couldn't simply rely on game conventions of how resources constantly refresh to their place after being looted. At least without going into esoteric practices and creating objects from nothing. So, no matter how much I could add more resources using the excuse that some Players were just not being thorough, sooner or later the resources needed to 'naturally' run out.
I know myself, after all, if I could create a place where the Players could technically spend an infinite amount of time in, I would become lazy. Yes, it would be much easier on the stress I've put on myself, but I want to create more, and nothing like constant pressure, to create diamonds.
No, I want to create more… Especially since if some system could run on their own infinitely, the bosses might feel comfortable 'cutting the fat' so to speak. That is, pulling the plug on my life support.
And I already have a plan for the rest of the districts. After creating three 'normal' city districts with normal loot to be found, there would be three more districts where the more rare and more expensive loot could be found.
The first of the special Districts that I've created is the Armory Quarter, though I'll probably rename it to be the Barracks in the future… Since it would make sense for a location where the City to stockpile weapons, would also be where the soldiers also reside.
This special district however would need the Players to clear the entrance to it before they could access it. And in this place, where the Players would need to run around the place finding resources to clear the blockage to its passage, I am planning on introducing a new mechanic.
The Horde – the Barracks would be positively teeming with Demons. They wouldn't be too strong individually of course, and there would be a restriction on how much the Demons could rampage around and destroy the Player's buildings, plus they don't respawn. The Players would simply need to kill them once for them to be gone once and for all… But I think it would be a very memorable moment for the Players to experience such a thing, after they clear the last obstacle to the District.
Though yes, there are enough swords and armor in this quarter for everyone—who survives the horde's onslaught, anyway.
I didn't have time to finish the next two special quarters yet, each with similar nasty surprises of course, but while they were not ready for Players yet, they were ready on paper.
The two next special districts would be, one ; a Library, containing both alchemical recipes and magical spells. I even added outlines for a new enchanting system – no magical staves yet, but even one percent extra damage to a sword will be useful for players.
The last district to be added would be the Noble Quarters – that's where you'll find gold, rare resources, and even some artifact-like items… Though all in very limited quantities. Maybe I'll get lucky and provoke another Player bloodbath over these artifacts?
I could hope for it at least.
However, as expected, these rewards wouldn't come easily. For the magical recipes from the Library, Players would have to face something similar to the horde from the Barracks. Though while the Barracks horde was finite but rushed out all at once rolling over the Players with wild abandon, for the Library the horde would instead be tightly controlled and couldn't leave its quarter, but was immortal instead.
Let Players figure out how to seal the huge gates without all of them dying in the process.
As for the Noble Quarter, I designed them as a series of arenas with mini-bosses, with team size limits for players entering each arena, and if they die and fail? Well, everything resets, the boss instantly regenerates its health, and Players lose both any experience and artifacts they find inside the arenas. A taste of a real roguelike dungeon crawler.
Of course, I would need to find some lore explanation of how such a thing would function 'realistically', but well, that's a problem for future me. Besides, I've done such things before, this issue would fall before my bullshit reasoning sooner or later.
In the future, when Storm, Double and their pirate crew are flying to be the first to test the districts I've created, I would feel enough pressure to create the final district.
There would be eight total districts in the Broken City. One would be the starting zone, where the Players could get a handle on the new game area. Three, where the Players could get used to finally having the resources to actually start manufacturing Items. Another three where they could find actual Items and even recipes for them, with all the dangers and fun one would expect from an MMORPG.
Then finally, the last district… Which I haven't even started designing yet – it only existed as a sketch in my head. And because I want it to be a surprise for players, similar to the three 'advanced' districts.
Otherwise, I'd end up with some wrong kind of MMORPG – everything's there but still no dungeon with bosses!