If alliances were pre-arranged, then the players must have agreed on specific meeting spots before entering the game.
For example, Ian and his two former allies had agreed to meet at the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing.
It was only because his allies quit that he changed his spawn point to the Riverlands.
But while his team fell apart, other teams hadn't. They would be sticking to the plan, heading to iconic landmarks like the Inn at the Crossroads or Chataya's Brothel to link up!
Driven by the "First Blood" mission, those pre-arranged allies just transformed into walking loot boxes.
Sure, some players would see the mission and get paranoid, refusing to show up. But humans never lack a spirit of adventure—or greed.
As the saying goes: "With 20 percent profit, people get itchy; with 50 percent, they'll take a risk; for 100 percent, they'll trample all human laws; and for 300 percent, they'll commit any crime, even at the risk of the hangman's noose."
And what was the profit margin here?
Setting aside the Attribute and Skill Points, the 3,000 Gold Dragons alone were astronomical. With that cash and two S-Class NPCs, a player could easily raise a private army of a hundred men.
In a game where resources were notoriously scarce, what would it mean to secure such a massive windfall on day one?
It meant being practically untouchable for years. It meant escaping the threat of the bottom-three assassination mechanic. It meant playing the game on your own terms.
There was no reason for players not to take that gamble.
"But... that brings us back to the second problem!" Ian forced himself to cool down. "Identification. How does one player see through another player's disguise?"
"Let's assume two allies meet at the agreed spot. With the First Blood mission active, they aren't going to just blurt out the secret password, right?"
"They'll be cautious. They'll try to test each other while hiding their own identity."
"But it's not easy to bait a paranoid player. Everyone here passed the qualifiers; they're elites. They won't expose a weakness easily."
"From a game design perspective, if the devs set it up this way, they must believe players can identify each other. That means there's a tell—a flaw that we all have, but we're ignoring."
Ian suddenly thought back to the background story. According to Annie, the background was there to help players camouflage themselves.
But clearly, the devs didn't want players to blend in perfectly. They wanted them to spot each other and fight.
That was a contradiction.
Unless there was a problem with the background story itself?
Ian quickly closed his eyes, opened the Support System, and re-read his background bio.
He actually found a small glitch.
He didn't have a surname.
As a commoner from the Vale, not having a surname at birth was normal. But his story said he was knighted. That meant he was eligible to take a surname (or at least a "Stone," "Rivers," etc.).
Yet, his name was still just "Ian." That was unusual.
However, that was a minor detail, hardly a smoking gun. Plus, that might just be a quirk specific to the Hedge Knight class, not a universal flaw for all players.
"Right. All players... For the identification to be consistent, the flaw has to be something shared by everyone, or at least the vast majority. What is our common denominator?"
What trait was obvious enough to give everyone away?
"It's not like we all bunny-hop when we walk, right?" Ian paced around the room. "This is a realistic world. Bunny-hopping would kill your stamina bar in five minutes."
As he paced, his eyes suddenly landed on the pile of gear in the corner.
A bastard sword, a nasal helm, a gorget, an old chainmail hauberk, mail gauntlets, and greaves.
In a flash, the character creation preview image popped into his mind.
"Fuck! The starting gear! It's the loadout!"
The starting equipment for each class was identical. And 90% of players likely picked one of the five competitive classes Ian had identified.
This meant that right now, every player looked exactly like the preview model in the character creator—except for their face!
The Traveling Merchant was the most obvious walking target. Four servants, four old pack horses, two carts, and seven mules? That specific setup was basically a neon sign. (Though, smart players would realize this and ditch some assets immediately).
Next was the Hedge Knight. Owning a full set of armor that usually belonged to a landed knight, but having zero squires? That was an anomaly.
The Shipwrecked Pirate and Brotherhood Hunter weren't much better. One carried throwing axes, the other a Yew longbow—both distinctive items that would stand out in a crowd.
The only class with decent camouflage was the Sellsword. Westeros was full of mercenaries, and their kit (leather armor, short sword, dagger) was generic enough to blend in.
But for everyone else? If they showed up at a pre-arranged meeting spot, the moment they saw each other, they'd have that moment of recognition—Wait, I know that texture pack.
"That was the real purpose of the background story!"
The devs made the character creation process incredibly complex with hundreds of options to distract players. They wanted players to focus on how different their backstories were, so they would overlook the fact that their appearance (gear) was identical.
They programmed the AI to explain the background story as a tool for "camouflage" to gaslight the players. It created an anchoring effect, making players confident that they were well-hidden.
The human brain tends to latch onto the first piece of information it receives. Because they were told they were camouflaged, they didn't look for the obvious flaws.
Even Ian had missed the gear issue at first!
Since the organizers couldn't interfere once the game started, they laid this trap beforehand. They rigged the start to trigger an immediate bloodbath to spice up the show.
"Damn it!" Ian gritted his teeth. "I didn't realize that in a 100-player Battle Royale, the first enemy wouldn't be the other players... it would be the devious devs and their setup!"