Admin: Ending Prologue (1)

One and a half weeks after the Players' fateful ‘decision’ to open the barrier and face the first proper raid boss, and one and a half months after my first ‘employment’, my surrounding situation… It was not as different as it could be.

And the culprit for that lack of change, was the fact that Players still hadn't managed to defeat the raid boss, that is, the Mad Prophet.

Oh, they certainly tried; the Players didn't cower over losing their game lives and even temporarily discarded the nascent ideas of politics and mutual backstabbing to deal with the first proper raid. However, my old notion that humans overestimated their rationality as some unique function that couldn't be imitated, proved absolutely true.

The thing was, none of the Players were strategists or tacticians in the full sense of the word, they were quite ordinary people really. I doubt any active military staff worker or special services operative accidentally got caught in my game nets, allowed to simply spend their precious hours of rest playing video games. And even if such a person existed among my players, the possibility exists after all, since the number of Players had long exceeded millions, the game world was so far apart from the real world, that real world tactics wouldn’t work. Twenty-second century wars when compared… I don't know, seventh century warfare? It was a different beast altogether, never mind the addition of magic. 

Plus, the Players are not hardened soldiers, even if there are tactically minded Players around, trying to get the other Players to understand tactics more complex than ‘let’s jump the enemy, together’ would take a miracle. Another issue was the addition of magic and non-humanoid monsters, that even historical reenactors and history lovers would find tactical thinking hard.

Anyway, the Players couldn't demonstrate any miracles borne out of experience in this field yet; not that they didn't try, of course. Never underestimate the unpredictability of the human mind, especially an agent of chaos like Jabberwocky. A lesson taught to me ever since I had to hurriedly create the Angels, and continued teaching me day by day; the airship cavalry joust for example being the most recent, panicked inducing, one.

However, the Players' crooked way of thinking aside, the game world is built on fairly ordinary conditions, on quite normal ways of thinking and inputs, processed by reason and arranged in proper order to obtain proper answers to proper questions. And, do you know who else could do this besides the Players? No, not me. Though I suppose I am too, but this question has another answer, the AI!

The AIs tasked with finding answers to questions based on any given parameters could think no worse than the Players could themselves. The question of whether it actually ‘thought’ or ‘imitated mental activity’ we'll leave for philosophers, if the final result doesn't differ, what difference does it make to me or the Players?

Anyway, the Players' attempts to use simple tactical techniques like false retreats, ambushes or occupying a higher ground were repelled by the Mad Prophet; having at his disposal an AI specifically for honing raid boss mastery, with outstanding skill. Therefore, the four raids conducted by the Players had already been repelled by him so far.

Keyword being, ‘so far’

The Players didn't sit idle, gradually, with each raid, they pushed further forward. After each raid’s defeat, the Players tightened their belts, seriously discussed tactics, and gained more ground. The first raid resulted in a total defeat for the Players; in the second, they managed to nicely thin out mobs advancing from all sides. In the third, they even managed to kill one of the mini-bosses, that is, one of the Lesser Demons of Disbelief. In the fourth, they dealt with the other two of his brethren and even attempted to reach the Raid Boss himself, failing because they were already too battered. Therefore, they couldn't defeat a proper raid boss, tasting defeat once again.

Anyway, the situation looked such that five would be Players' lucky number, and they'd probably be able to defeat the raid boss then, finish the damned quest, extract the Child and finally get the mini-games. The problem wasn't this fact as such, but that Jabberwocky, clearly hoping for this same outcome, was preparing for the raid boss assault with all his strength. Hone tactics, train the Players, compose detailed plans, make sure that a system of communication between Players is created. A bit more and he'd develop proper semaphore commands, he just needed to get the red flags from somewhere.

This development, of course, earned my exclusive approval, an evolution in the play style of my Players, creating an effective military before my eyes, where else would I see such? 

But Jabberwocky's speed confused me. Not in the sense he had the audacity to skip centuries of gradual military development. God, with him, he was the kind of person to study history, and actually learned from it, and actually used the internet for learning rather than porn.

No, it was because he was too slow.

He was thoroughly approaching the fight with over-caution, approaching the raid with surgical precision, learning all the adds, all the surprises, all even without confronting the Mad Prophet. He’s clearly intending to deal with the Prophet on his first attempt. Commendable for a Player and even leader who managed to unite many Players into a unified, and not even very loose, alliance, but it was a negative for me as the game’s creator.

Not because Jabberwocky was not exploring new contents anymore, that's even a good thing in my view, the longer it took the Players to explore the new content, the more time I have to finally prepare pirate Togra for them. Especially since I'd completely finished the ‘advanced’ locations, both for the Sky Island players and Underground players.

However, besides Jabberwocky, there of course existed other Players; even Players exploring the ‘same’ content’

Players in ‘parallel timelines’, my excuse justifying enrolling millions of new Players without needing to tear myself apart creating new content for each batch, and all sorts of lore justification for it. 

Their locations were complete duplicates, with some changes, small enough that I didn’t have to create more, but just enough to reflect the ‘parallel’ universe they've found themselves in. 

The exceptions, of course, were naturally the NPCs. It would simply be strange if ‘in different timelines’ the same sky Pirate crews existed, returning to the same Sky Island over potential millions of timelines, or mages and their secret covens would be ascribed million-year histories. No, the NPCs remained in a unified and somewhat unique form, unlike locations.

That was why the ‘alternate timelines’ lacked any NPCs at all. No Quest Givers, no Pirates, and no Underground Magic Covens. All of them were only on one server, the old server, with all of my problem Players.

In theory, the idea was extremely simple; locations without NPCs were needed to absorb excess Player numbers for some time. After which, when the Players dealt with the raid boss and freed the Child, along with the fascinating mini-game ‘teach your own future opponents to be most effective against yourself’; all these ‘alternative timelines’ would be connected. With the Mad Prophet's central sanctuary becoming transitional gates from one ‘timeline’ set to another.

In other words, a way to switch servers, and a way for the Players on ‘alternate timelines’ to get their NPCs. No need for me to create more and more NPCs, just for one Server..

This would create an ideal situation where the already cleared first world would become the central hub for Players, with NPCs, sanctuaries, a Player city and all its interconnected parts. Meanwhile, all the other ‘parallel worlds’ would become places to grind, or to just play around, where the Players could go and do what they want, engaging in everything that didn't advance the plot.

Such a thing would exponentially slow game progress, providing a huge space for all other activities that doesn’t advance the plot. Equally, it would also increase the game's capacity to absorb new Players while uniting all locations simultaneously. Plus, in the future, the glut of new Players should help when I plan bigger events, with even harder Bosses. 

Otherwise, the game balance would tilt too harshly to favor the older Players, making new Players less willing to explore the newer contents. 

Only, the old Players seemed to be not in much of a hurry to defeat the Prophet, preferring maximum preparation before one decisive strike. Meaning, all the new Players in the ‘other timeline’ are clearing the contents with surprising speed, as they are walking a path that was cleared already by the pioneers.

In other words, the Wiki warriors are consuming content at an unprecedented rate. 

They are gradually approaching the limit of what the early Islands could provide, the limit of their grinding interest, and would gradually begin wondering where the promised plot was. 

And how should I answer these questions? "Sorry, breaking the plot into bunches of identical locations without destroying it is too difficult, please wait until Jabberwocky beats the Prophet?” 

This is where the Infernals’ planned raid came to ruin my day. Should the raid happen before the Prophet is defeated, wouldn’t Jabberwocky put a halt on dealing with the Prophet until the Infernal raid is dealt with? Logically reasoning that the Prophet wouldn't go anywhere but Infernals needed dealing with here and now.

Introducing Infernals and the ‘alliance of the faithful’, Jabberwocky’s camp, let's call them that, into prolonged conflict were indeed part of my plans, let them distract each other from exploring the game’s contents as long as possible… But only after they completed everything I wanted from them!

Therefore, I needed to send Jabberwocky on the raid against the Prophet as quickly as possible. Before information about the Infernal raid reached Jabberwocky’s ears and before the first Player from the ‘alternate timeline’ voiced the very important, and damning, question of ‘where are my NPCs?’.

But how exactly could I urge Jabberwocky to deal with the Prophet as soon as possible?

If I tried using the trick I'd used before, simply sending forward one pseudo-player to aggro the raid boss, it wouldn't work at all. Jabberwocky and his main forces were far beyond the raid boss's action zone, which they'd outlined quite well during all their preparation time, so a Player going against the raid boss alone would simply be written off as a lost cause. Maybe even expelled from all preparation as an idiot, deathly incapable of following orders. Plus, there’s no way I could kite the boss into moving into Jabberwocky’s base without it coming as deliberate action on my part.  

Jabberwocky hadn't resorted to decimation to instill discipline yet, especially considering death wasn't permanent, but he'd quite risen through the military science tree to introducing decurions and even centurions.

Therefore, while in a seemingly ideal condition, all the time in the world, new locations, new zones and even new mobs prepared, with Togra coming along nicely, I again worried about the same thing; trying to devise a way to motivate Players to do what I needed them to do. 

Once again, I struggled mentally to find a solution, and found nothing.

Should I directly send the Mad Prophet to the Players, making the excuse that it was the Boss’ ‘second phase’? I’d probably get away with it; if not for the fact that certain Players, finding the Boss arena empty, would directly go to the Prophet's central dwelling and break the huge flask, extract the Child and connect the timelines. All without even defeating the Mad Prophet first. 

On the contrary, finding the Mad Prophet right at their doorsteps, Jabberwocky might even become more paranoid and dig deeper into preparation, then Ja-Raja would strike and suddenly all preparation would be discarded, before restarting all over again. Even more time wasted.

Just announce that leaving the Prophet alone would create an adverse effect? Something along the line of the Prophet beginning to create some terrible magic or contraption and everyone needed to hurry to prevent its creation? Might work… Or it might backfire instead, making Jabberwocky want to triple his forces before committing to the boss raid. 

Yes, success would definitely bring the boss raid completion nearer, but since failure would only cause more delay, and predicting Jabberwocky is, categorically speaking, an impossibility, gambling on him taking the expected action is simply too risky. 

And now, with not just every day, but every hour counts for me, with even ten minutes could play a fatal role. Taking risks was the last thing I needed.

No, something more urgent and extreme was needed, something capable of breaking any of Jabberwocky’s plans. At minimum, it needed to massively ruffle the Players’ feathers and force Jabberwocky to follow their lead, even if I couldn't directly break Jabberwocky himself.

What could force any Player to break plans and rank? What could motivate them to violate tactics and go forward despite obstacles? What is the one thing that Jabberwocky couldn’t prepare for, however much he tried?

I pondered about the matter for several seconds, before a lightbulb, figuratively and literally, popped up over my head, and a vile smirk bloomed on my face.

***

"THE BOSS IS DESTROYING THE LOOT!" A Player's panicked shout flew through the entire raid camp like a hot knife through butter, as echoed in expanding concentric circles of rumors, all the Players quickly became panicked.

The Players could endure any problem on their path, grind through any hardships, and swallow all sorts of bullshit. An unkillable boss requiring memorizing three hundred combinations of its tells for victory? Crooked character hitboxes? Bad game design? Even connection lag! 

All these were simply part of any self-respecting multiplayer game; irritating, without doubt, but the Players could endure it, and endured it they did, time after time. Unfair deaths, unneeded respawns, bad progression, incomprehensible plot, gamers could survive it all.

But not the loss of loot, and permanent loss of loot at that.

A fire of indignation instantly ran through the camp, making the Players animatedly converse here and there, and Jabberwocky could feel the ground leaving beneath his feet, his control over the Players loosening in real time. Even he, though not being a true gamer whose veins flowed with cheap energy drinks and whose combo-memorizing brain sustained itself exclusively on chips and instant noodles, understood what the information meant.

In real life, losing a promised reward for a completed job was a source of frustration, perhaps even leading to a fistfight, but it was regarded as the simple risk of doing a job. If someone didn’t want to take on that risk? Well, they could simply refuse to do the job. Evaluating risk and reward is a vital skill that everyone needs to learn.

However, in a game, the balance shifted, because the ‘work’, playing the game, was also part of the reward. Strangely, in a game, the harder something is to accomplish, the more a Player feels rewarded at the end of it… That is, if the reward was equally worth it, of course. 

There’s no problem in a game wanting a Player to do something incredulous like killing a million of a certain enemy, as long as the reward was worth it. There would be Players insane enough to do it.  

Players hate Quick Time Events, ask them to do it two hundred times in a row, oh, and one failure means repeating it again, all for the sake of an overpowered weapon that the Player didn’t need to beat the game, and they would be happy for it.

So, for such a Player to learn that a raid boss that takes literal hours and titanic effort to defeat, was currently destroying the reward for beating him? Such a thing not only went completely against the Players’ desires, it went against any logic the Players followed. In a game, effort directly correlated to reward, after all, unlike the real world. 

So, it was no wonder that the Player bringing such news was instantly passed forward and within a minute stood in front of Jabberwocky, with each major clan leader, trying to catch his breath with all his might. Of course, in-game, such physical problems posed absolutely no threat to the Players, and the sensation of labored breathing and fatigue wasn't simulated beyond the player's own ‘Stamina’ and ‘Energy Reserve’ UI indicators. 

But witnessing such blasphemous sight had clearly seriously affected the Player's state of mind, making his stuttering speech result from emotional shock, not physiological problems.

“Report.” Jabberwocky ask/ordered, acting like the alliance leader he wanted to portray himself as.

"We were standing with the guys at the third passage, the northwest one, toward the ruined forge. We were standing guard as usual, sometimes chasing imps, before deciding to go to a high ground to look at the view from above, nothing to do anyway." Striving to fit maximum information into minimum time spent, the Player not only began rapidly dragging all known inane facts into daylight but didn't burden himself with niceties like introductions or greeting the major game figures before him, immediately getting to the point. 

"Well, I climbed up to try throwing stones at the imps, and then I spotted the Prophet walking around places."

This fact didn't surprise Jabberwocky; the raid boss hadn't remained in one spot, but periodically moved through his outlined territory within the designated circle, though often returning to the central sanctuary with the huge flask and many documents scattered around it.

"Well out of boredom I watched until he walked back to the center, watched as he took out a book from a bookcase, looked at it, then simply burned it with a spell!" The Player's words made the clan leaders exchange glances knowingly.

The news was bad, but it was not catastrophic.

Simple loot loss always seriously struck at the Players’ greed, but sometimes was simply inevitable. Any self-respecting Player would certainly attempt at completing all secondary goals even if no reward was expected if just for completion’s sake, sometimes even complicating simple missions for the most inane of reasons. Restarting a mission again and again, for no reason, even for the most worthless of things. 

But, sometimes, some rewards would be lost if some side missions were not accomplished, a permanent loss even; and the Players would accept it… Sometimes. Still, such a consideration only exists if the Players didn’t know what they are losing, or missing out on, to see the loot literally burn before their eyes?

Maybe a few would accept it, for all of the Players gathered in the alliance? Impossible.

No, the first and strongest impulse all the Players, including even guild leaders, would feel, was the burning desire to hurry to the boss as quickly as possible, to defeat him and save as much promised loot as possible. Even the fact the Player before them hadn't actually proven the raid boss was actually destroying the loot rather than just going through some idle animation didn't deter the Players. The mere thought that they could currently be losing their deserved loot, even as a supposition, frightened the Players far more than the thought that their panicked actions could ruin their entire carefully prepared plan of their future offensive.

This revelation unexpectedly made Jabberwocky stop in shock for a moment, that it took effort not to blurt out where his thoughts had led him. Fortunately, the other Players on the council were too busy with their own discussion to notice the shock on his face. 

Jabberwocky made sure to bury his realization as deep as possible in his psyche, just the Players learning that the Boss was literally destroying the loot was bad enough; nobody had yet asked how much loot they'd already lost!

If the thought they could lose loot so strongly frightened the Players, then the thought that their reward might have already fallen by half while they weren't looking, would simply drive them out of their minds. Not only regarding the raid boss’ actions, it was clear that the current sentiment means that the attack would be happening now, rather than later; but also regarding their reaction to Jabberwocky.

After all, Jabberwocky was the one that most insisted on the lengthy preparation for the Prophet fight, delaying it until all the Players memorized all the tactics and knew their roles by rote. Meaning he'd be blamed the most for the loss of loot from the raid boss. 

Jabberwocky needs to make sure that no one started on this line of thought; it might be fatal to his continued position as the leader.

In the virtual world, players didn't bother composing constitutions and complex legal schemes, or principally, the question of legalism regarding what happens inside the game itself. A game’s pure meritocracy meant that even random Players from nowhere could easily soar upward in position, exclusively thanks to their skill and personal charisma. In the real world, people had more problems becoming the lead in a two people department, than what was needed in a game to become leader for a thousand Player-sized clan.

However, the reverse was equally true, from being on high to being under the horse, a leader’s position could collapse by one unsuccessful decision. A fate that Jabberwocky had almost fallen into unknowingly.

Jabberwocky was allowed many things, being the neutral representative for various clans, keeper of the angelic statues, controller of teleportation node linking two mega-locations and ruler of an entire proper city with direct angel connection; because Jabberwocky remained a very successful Player who'd demonstrated his capability excellently. He was the one who had started the angel storyline, the one to find ways to fight the Infernals, the first to discover the city-building system. 

But even with all that achievements, should he stumble over even just one obstacle on his path, he might lose it all. And losing loot from the raid boss in significant volume due to his decisions, was not ‘just’ one stumbling block.

The other Players might start questioning why they’re following him in the first place. After all, in a multiplayer game, there’s no ‘destined’ hero, why should Jabberwocky hoard all the loot, unique skills, and quests?

Therefore, even before the first clan leader could voice the start of the discussion of what they needed to do after such news, Jabberwocky already rose, from his seat loudly slapping his hands on the table before him, catching everyone’s attention. 

"Well then, gather everyone and anyone, we're departing against the Mad Prophet soon. How long will it take for everyone who can return to the game to urgently assemble? One hour? Two?"

If he wants to survive, he needs to take the lead.

"Two hours for the main army to arrive here, and six hours for everyone to come," One leader looked at Jabberwocky with a glance. "What'll we do, wait two hours, or six?"

Jabberwocky, chewing his lips, pondered for a second. Nobody had clear information about the combat skills and tactics the Prophet had for quite understandable reasons, but the alliance needed to attack the Prophet nonetheless. They lacked the specifics, of course, but if they completely sharpened their plans based on known information, they could withstand a few surprises. 

But, neither could Jabberwocky afford to wait, even the two hours were too long, and could ill be afforded. So, even just drowning the Mad Prophet with numbers was impossible. 

Who knows how long it would take for the blame game for loot loss to start.

"Two hours is too long… Let's not test the mercy of this world's creators and handle the boss soon, but if it’s the best we could then that’s we’ll go with. Even if it's just an idle animation, I think everyone present can agree that interrupting such blasphemous animation is a noble business in itself."

The other Players and clan leaders nodded simultaneously, they too were anxious not to lose even more loot after all, allowing Jabberwocky to take a deep breath before turning to the Player that had reported about the crisis. 

"Where's the raid boss now?"

"Last time I saw him, he was in the central sanctuary, as to where he is now? I have no idea." The player shrugged, before he quickly changed his tone when he was glared at by all the clan leaders. 

"Kehem, I mean, uh… Ah! Well, the Prophet’s pathing after he returns to center he walks the sanctuary about ten minutes, before going somewhere else, usually north? Before circling the sanctuary perimeter, so most likely… He’s back in the center again?"

"Alright, fair enough," Jabberwocky shook his head before nodding at the others and jabbing his chin forward. 

"Then go back, find where the Prophet is now and where he'll go next, then report information when we gather who we can."

The informant nodded fervently.

"Alright, everyone, let's break for fifteen minutes, inform the Players on the forums that an emergency gathering is called. We'll choose the best we could get and form groups for fighting the raid boss." Nodding one last time to all the leaders, Jabberwocky disconnected from the game, departing for the game forum and probably grabbing a sandwich in the last respite before the next multi-hour meeting, then the raid would begin. 

The other leaders, exchanging a couple phrases and thoughts with each other, also followed his example.

And so, in the meeting room, only the ordinary Player, who'd burst into the meeting room, started leaving, supposedly to complete the ‘mission’ given to him by Jabberwocky. Instead of doing that, he turned a few corners to make sure no eyes were on him, before dispersing into invisible particles. Back to his usual state as the invisible, imperceptible and far more powerful than any other Player in the game.

"Phew, so glad that that worked." The game world's creator looked at the ground, at the Players now running around like a headless chicken. All spreading the terrible news he’d brought to the camp.

I couldn’t help but smirk. 

"Funny that Jabberwocky surrendered so easily under pressure, but strangely, I was most vulnerable where I possessed absolute power, in creating the game and setting… And Jabberwocky was most vulnerable where he possessed his main strength, using the other Players and abusing game conventions."

Waiting several more seconds, I nodded to myself. "Well, what does this teach me?” 

“Right. Next time, I shouldn't wait for the Players to create a problem for me. Better I create them one ahead of time. If they're busy trying to save themselves, then they'll have far fewer opportunities to screw me over."