Admin: Angels and Demons (2)

Actually, speaking purely from the perspective of conserving energy and time, I could place exactly the same enemies in the newly created demon caves as the Sky Islands. The same demons that poisoned the lives of new Players in the Sky Islands, now on the angelic side of the game, would also be poisoning those underground.

After all, the demon worshipers in the game, like the Infernals, could also exterminate demons, and the demons themselves didn't particularly demonstrate brotherly love towards them. Instead of siding with the Demon Worshipers, the Demons continued to attack them and serve as a source of both experience and materials for the Players. 

Well, the Demon Worshipers are attacking the Demons to a significantly lesser extent now, they instead were quite steadily gaining experience, and even gathering materials, from killing other Players… 

Thank god that the big bosses decided to give the game a Mature rating. Firstly, it saved me from having to play babysitter for Players in an even greater sense than what I’m already doing now. And secondly, I didn't have to explain the reason why I’ve allowed for the reprocessing of killed Players into crafting materials. 

That was another bullet dodged, after introducing the first physical constants, Players discovered that the human body wasn't the best material available to them, and stopped doing that sooner rather than later. The internet isn't currently filled with videos with clickbait titles like ‘ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL, LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THIS GAME!!!’. 

But as expected, a couple of ceremonial bone knives and one grimoire covered in human skin already exist in the game. Pretty standard equipment in a game actually, it's just that in other RPGs, the Players aren't usually shown the complete process of creating such items.

But perhaps sending a message and inquiring about such a thing to the guys upstairs will still be necessary someday. Except I'll try not to phrase it in a begging tone, which would surely be refused, but in the same tone in which I was ‘asked’ to deal with the additional armada of Players. 

In this dance of ‘questions whose answers are known in advance’, two can play at that game!

However, corporate maneuvering aside, adding demons once again to a new zone seemed somewhat petty to me. On one hand, Players need constant new content, and on the other, I'm already tired of constantly observing the same enemies everywhere… But then, trying to fit in with the theme and just scattering all kinds of angels throughout the new location was foolish. The Angels in my game were the conditional ‘good’, so to have the Players fight them, would too strongly incline them towards the side of ‘evil’. 

And I didn't limit the combat abilities of the Infernals, of the Demon Worshipers, only to now give them a million new recruits.

The period of thinking, a good long three seconds, also reminded me that I would need to create new NPCs for the new Players. And this time I couldn't send them pirates… Unless, in addition to celestial Sky Pirates, I introduce underground ones…

After pondering for a moment, I decided to shelve the idea of magnificent underground submarines, undoubtedly of dwarven make, and return to a slightly less wild idea. Comparatively speaking, at least.

What would I be putting in my newly created underground labyrinths? Well, as a reflection of the celestial locations, let's introduce mines on one side… Then lava waterfalls in this direction… Forests? Plenty of glowing mushrooms and lichens, standard practice for fantasy caves, would do.

Deep canyons and crevices, blocking free travel between all the zones, and as an analog to my ‘storms’ to drive all the Players to shelters – lava eruptions that would blanket the surface. We could also have some kind of poisonous gas emissions, but that would too strongly resemble the storms on the Sky Islands – let's save that for the future.

Also… Some crystal caves, and… Spider's Lair? In fantasy, spiders, and caves go hand in hand, despite the fact that in reality they don't intersect that often. Well, maybe not, but I don’t really want to research that, as the spiders that do live in caves, are fucking huge, nightmare fuel.

Well, if I’m going to create cave locales, I'll also have to introduce more beasts as mobs for Players in this location. Some spiders, huge underground worms, bats… And what else?

I pondered for a moment before deciding that for such a Demonic habitat – if that's what it would designate it as in the future, and not just ‘some’ caves, such opponents weren't particularly fitting.

A brilliant idea suddenly pierced my mind, making me snap my fingers. "Don't know how to explain something? Say it's magic!"

So, many, many years ago, when the war between Demons and Angels took place, all the Demons had left, practically emptying Hell… Or the Underworld, I can figure out the vernacular later. 

The Demons left behind many artifacts and places of power, and of course, mages couldn't leave such a place without thoroughly checking for anything they could carry away, and whatever was bolted to the floor? Unscrew and take it away. The same happened with the Angelic gardens, right? So it was the same with the demonic caves!

But unlike the Sky gardens, vulnerable to celestial pirates, the demonic caves also became a convenient location for establishing permanent bases for various magical institutions. Especially small covens that simply couldn't survive on the surface. Their constant magical experiments, therefore, spawned many strange creatures around the underworld, and also caused many strange anomalies, the resolution of which will open the passage from one cave zone to another. 

A simple reskin of the basic quest about destroying the ‘corruption’ on the celestial islands in all its glory, but different enough from the original to not look just like a copy.

This will also remove the question regarding NPCs and factions in this area – those same magical covens would do. And specially, they would also be capable of teaching the Players magic.

Though, how to balance that? The Players on the Celestial Island would riot if the Players that spawned in the Underworld could easily get magic while they had to toil in backbreaking experiments.

It would also be quite unfair if those on the Islands only get Pirates while the Underworld Players get entire Magical Covens…

Alright, a bit of an adjustment… Okay, all the renowned mages who were supposed to rule the covens, sensing disturbances in the fabric of reality, as in the arrival of Players in these starting zones, after gathering all the best artifacts and all kinds of research, immediately waved goodbye to their half-trained apprentices and all sorts of non-magical service personnel, and quickly fled away… Somewhere, I’ll decide the particulars later. Anyway the Archmages, the actually trained mages, all left, only promising to write letters to their apprentices. 

In this situation, of course, all these senior mages turned out to have rather unpleasant personalities…

Adding a twist – in reality, the Underworld was all, in fact, a restricted zone and the covens were criminal, or at least operating in the grayest area of the law. They were actually studying magical anomalies themselves rather than searching for demonic artifacts, which is why they easily abandoned their covens and apprentices, because they weren't really friends at all, just a gang thrown together by circumstance, pursuing more or less coinciding interests. 

Still, the half-trained apprentices can trade in various minor provisions and a couple of magical secrets they know, just enough to precisely bring the Players in the Underworld up to the level of their ‘celestial’ colleagues. 

Really, what a genius idea, the ‘criminal’ Sky Pirates, and now the Illegal covens of mages – the parallel is great. And to make it even better, I can immediately start preparing the Underworld Players their own version of the battle for Ship Parts. 

A struggle for all sorts of teleport components to organize passage to the next underground location.

In general, the parallel with the sky islands was very solid, which pleased me – and yet, would it be enough? A Million a day is a boggling number, after all. So what could I create next?

The number of landscapes I could use in the Underworld’s setting was limited, even my factions, the Demons, and Angels, the two main factions of my game’s lore, were already taken. I’ve already used the locations of the Heavens and the Underworld. 

What other Fantasy races and locations could I create next?

Following this logic of creating locations, I would need to introduce some kind of magical forest with illegal bandit camps covered by an impenetrable veil, and then a scattering of oceanic islands with an eternal storm around the edges… 

I pondered this problem for a moment before waving it off, deeming it as unimportant for now.

All problems should be solved as they arise – if I panicked every time about my future problems, I would never deal with the current ones.

So back to locations in the Underworld – how about… A Gemstone mine? Or is that too similar to the mines and crystal caves?

Decisions, decisions…

***

"Well, here it is," Bezé spread her hands wide toward Jabberwocky, showing with almost the pride of a discoverer, the huge opaque dome before her eyes. Jabberwocky, casting a suspicious glance at her, approached the dome and tried to push it with his hand, and yet his hand didn't move from its place, just as the dome was not moved. The dome felt like dense nothingness under his hand, like a repelling air current preventing him from moving his hand.

Pulling his hand back, Jabberwocky turned his gaze to his ‘chief deputy’, who also happened to be his personal bodyguard, before asking an important question. 

"Well, then… What is 'it’ specifically?"

"I don't know," Bezé shrugged carelessly, "But we've reached it."

"That, I can see," Jabberwocky replied without malice, before raising his hand and trying to knock on the dome, to which it didn't react in any way. Jabberwocky received no sound or dull thud in response, so stepping back he finally looked upward towards the top of the dome, to estimate the size of the dome before shaking his head. 

Given the complex architecture of the ruins and the city – it would take half an hour or more to reach the other side of the dome.

Of course, the huge dome of a sickly purple color was visible from the very place where Jabberwocky and the teams of Players that followed after him appeared, passing through his portal. Still, the dome’s size could only be appreciated up close, as it was too far from the Players' arrival point to do so before. 

However, at least it was visible, which in turn served as an excellent landmark for the ever-arriving groups of Players trying to clear the ruined city of its demonic hordes. And now, after about two weeks, the Players had finally cleared enough of the ruins to be able to make their way to the dome. 

Jabberwocky, of course, decides that he should examine it up close first.

"I assume we don't have any definitive information about what this dome was supposed to be?" Jabberwocky asked, already half knowing the answer, before looking at the dome again, trying to determine if he could see anything inside the dome.

"No, but many assume it's a barrier," Bezé shrugged, then examined the dome herself. "Half think there's treasure inside, while half think there's an enemy, a boss of some kind. Everyone, of course, wants to break through the barrier."

"Well, at least it's clear that this is a barrier, and unlikely to be just a random monument." 

Jabberwocky took a couple of steps backward, trying to see if he could see anything if he changed the angle of his observation. Seeing nothing, he turned around, eager to get back to his group. 

"Inside there could be an enemy, or treasure. Or perhaps neither – there might be a contained anomaly, a new NPC, an artifact, or an anomaly resting until the time comes, and the dome would open by itself."

"Whatever it is – everyone wants to get inside," Beze shrugged, acknowledging Jabberwocky's point and her complete indifference to this information. "Though nobody knows how."

"If it's something story-related, and it's almost certainly something story-related, then most likely it requires quest items. Say, some kind of keys or deactivatable seals," Jabberwocky pondered for a moment about how this usually worked in other games, and then about how Players would react to it in this game.

"Whatever it is – as soon as one of the Players makes the first move to open the Dome, everyone will gather around the Dome and start camping around it, waiting for it to open. Whether it's an artifact or an enemy – everyone will want to be first."

"Jealous?" Beze, joining Jabberwocky as he walked along the relatively cleared path, examined the high windows of the buildings still standing around her with a critical eye. 

"This is an MMO-RPG after all, with the most advanced combat system in… history, probably. Everyone occasionally wants to run around and hunt enemies with their own hands – while you hardly ever do that. Being a settlement administrator in an MMO-RPG isn't that fun, is it?"

"Not really," Jabberwocky shrugged, although he couldn't say he never wanted to just unwind and run around, shoot a couple of imps with the newly released first bows in the game. 

"Besides, everyone always needs me. Someone starts plotting, someone wants to discuss access to resources, someone discusses the border between factions…"

"Sounds boring," Beze shrugged, although she was ‘formally’ Jabberwocky's deputy, more often she acted exclusively as his bodyguard and combat backup, and therefore often went off to fight other Players or hunt imps herself rather than be stuck administrating things. Not to mention, she had participated in three raids against the Infernals – an achievement not every player could boast about. Mainly, because the Infernals leveled up too quickly and level one Players would simply serve as XP for them without bringing any results to the battlefield. 

So, the Infernals became the first full-fledged raid with restrictions both on level and equipment required from Players before they could participate. "Sounds like a regular job."

"I wouldn't say regular… After all, outside the game, I'm not a mediator between political associations, heh." Jabberwocky chuckled, imagining himself in a formal suit and horn-rimmed glasses, arriving at a meeting between ministers to act as an intermediary in their disputes. 

"And honestly, I can't say I enjoy it, it wasn’t like I bought the game planning on reading reports, but I also can't say I don't like it. Besides, at any moment I can still say that the office is closed for the day and take a sword in hand and go hunt some imps."

"Fair enough," Beze shrugged, something she has been doing many times in this conversation. 

"But I don't think I could stand doing all this business in a game. I get enough of constantly writing applications, declarations, and reports in real life… If I had to do all that in a game too – I just wouldn't play it."

"On the other hand, you're walking with me now as my bodyguard, instead of running around farming other mobs, no?" Jabberwocky pointed out an important detail to Beze. 

"Being a Bodyguard is actually a job in the real world too – and I wouldn't say that it's the most interesting of jobs. In fact, having an interesting or exciting job is the last thing that a bodyguard wants…"

"That's…" Beze paused for a second, stopping in her steps, before hurrying after Jabberwocky's already retreating figure. "That's different."

“Different how?”

"I actually enjoy being a bodyguard, and I can go mob hunting anytime," Beze hastened after Jabberwocky, to which he responded with a nod. 

"Well, I also didn't say I don't like doing my job. Besides, I can also head to farm mobs at any moment… I just don't do it," Jabberwocky replied calmly.

However, a small seed of doubt sprouted in his mind for the first time after this conversation.

No one could say that the game wasn't detailed enough, or that Players didn't take it seriously, or that nobody wanted to play it — the game hadn't even reached its nearest popularity peak to suggest that its popularity might decline, or stabilize and plateau.

And in itself…

Weren't there too many warning signs in this very fact?

***

I had to sacrifice some books and lore elements to create the Player’s starting zones in the Underworld, but I was willing to make this sacrifice — for the Players, the storyline, and a proper location. It would be caves, of course.

The thing is, I had already prepared two and a half such locations for the Players to explore before I was given the news that a whole million players would visit me in the next 24 hours. The ruins of a grand archaeological camp, a sanctuary, and an unfinished location of a massive demon invasion into an angelic abode.

After the players finish exploring the Shattered City, they'll immediately need new content, which I've been preparing all this time. But the more I’ve created, gradually, the range of possibilities for new locations has been decreasing more and more regarding what I could still offer them within the floating islands setting. 

I've already given them starting locations with various landscapes, and already given them a ruined city with multiple zones. And since I wasn't planning to let them into the birthplace of all storms or allow them to figure out the cause of my most successful invention lately, or give them magical artifacts and spells that I haven't fully developed yet — I’ve thought of three. 

A temple, an archaeological camp, and a demon invasion site… And that was all I could think of. 

Gradually, I realized that the floating islands theme had exhausted itself, and I needed to radically change the setting if I wanted to create more locations. I planned to do this while the Players would be dealing with the three new locations I’ve created. 

This should have been able to buy me a month of time, which would be enough to transition to a new full-fledged mega-location in the form of Togra and its surrounding territories. This in turn, meant that I could gradually start feeding Players not only endless gameplay but also lore. 

And what location is better suited for this than an old abandoned archaeological excavation camp?

However, due to the creation of magical covens in the Underworld, I had to remove approximately half of the ‘archaeological journals’ from that area and give them to the NPCs as ‘new lore information’, while I contemplated my next move.

The new locations, consisting of numerous large caves with various ‘climate zones’, somehow an underground location has climates… Magic, let’s go with that. They looked very good and ready to welcome the new Players, but I wasn't fooling myself – nothing was eternal in the face of the Players' persistence when confronted with new content. 

Of course, given previous experiences, I could manage to lead the Players by the nose for a long time, but this wouldn't solve the problem of the millions of new Players arriving one after another. Creating a full-fledged mega-location like Togra under such conditions would be difficult, if not straight impossible — not to mention that I would need to somehow connect it with the demonic caves I’m creating right now. If creating one ‘Togra’ is barely possible, creating two is definitely not.

And this doesn't mention that the next million players would follow shortly after — and these million would also demand a new location… And then, the next million.

In other words, I needed some kind of distraction for the Players — not only for those locked on the Sky Islands – after all, those guys have the Ruined City, a place I’ve created with different zones, loot, and mobs, including a couple of new bosses. But also for those who were trapped in the Underworld… And potentially for all the subsequent hordes of Players, while saving as much time as possible, which I should hoard like a dragon, so that I could develop larger locations that could absorb more Players.

The ideal option for me would be, of course, to use already created assets and use the creation kit called Copy and Paste, saying that all the similar locales were different parts of existing locations. And that the Players had greatly underestimated the size of both the sky islands and Underworld. 

But, this solution was so lazy that I didn't even want to think about it lest I’ll be tempted. 

Besides, even assuming the possibility of such a thing, the complete coincidence of all landscapes and islands being the same, down to their terrain, would raise many questions. The AI, of course, could adjust some parameters slightly, to make each copied locale slightly unique, but the general pattern would be recognizable in nine out of ten cases.

My Players are just that autistic.

Moreover, let's say I can claim that the mages in the underground caves worked with sky pirates and were generally connected to Togra, after all, if they themselves were half-criminals… It would work, but to make it so that every location connects with Togra, to make Togra some kind of hub location? And creating mega-locations one after another...

I pondered about it for a moment before I was interrupted by a message from the Messenger that Players had disabled the first seal of the barrier hiding the first full-fledged boss of the game. I, of course, immediately teleported to the event location.

Only to see standing over the seal, gradually fading from its pre-programmed animation, was a girl who was already familiar to me – Yersinia, the first mage. She was nervously looking around, while her battle group formed at a decent distance around her in battle formations, well, an idea of a battle formation at least.

They were carefully watching the animation, the inscriptions of random runic symbols gradually ceasing to shimmer with their whitish light. It was as if they were worried that something was going to happen as soon as the light fully dimmed.

However, they worried in vain. I wasn't such a villain as to summon new opponents on the Players' heads after disabling the seal. I was a much worse villain, I want to lull the Players into a fall sense of security. 

After all three seals are disabled and Players break down the barrier, that’s when the portals will unexpectedly open at the locations of the seals, spawning hordes of new monsters until these portals are closed. All the while, the strongest Players would rush to fight the boss. 

They'll be hit from behind by these released hordes of demons. 

Eat up, players. One wonderful event after another.

The event would mark the first time the Players would experience a full-scale raid, rather than the skirmishes they had before. A full-scale battle and the weight of a real raid, not the standard five-on-five skirmishes they've had all this time. 

A little taste of real warfare, of Players versus mobs. 

The outcome, of course, was predetermined, and the mobs were programmed to stop before they could destroy the Players' camp and capture their portal. I’ve built emergency measures into them for such a case, to avoid becoming the cause of them drowning in salty tears. At the very least, I want a better reason than just my petty desire to get revenge on the Players for all the problems they've caused me in the past. 

After all, even my desire for revenge had its limits. Causing such a severe paradigm shift would be bad for my future cooperation with the bigwigs of the company that ensured my existence. 

But giving players a taste of real hardship? While also giving myself a couple of extra days to work on other locations? That suited both me and the Players, most probably, just fine… Players who, admittedly, didn't know about what I’ve just volunteered them into.

Oh, right, talking about the future, it’s good that I remembered something that I’ve missed – I still needed to somehow connect the Players to the Child that would soon appear after defeating the main boss of the Broken City. Ideally also finalize with the temporal anomaly event, where the more Players participate in simulations of the past, the better it would be for me. Ten million players doing my work for me is better than one million.

Suddenly, a brilliant insight struck my mind and I hit my palm with my fist. 

“Eureka!”

A great idea just came to me, on how to use Copy and Paste, and yet not be accused of being lazy!

Immediately, copies of both the sky islands and the underground caves came into view, with some changes, of course, but not enough for anyone to mistake the created locations for something completely new.

No, I certainly didn't give up and decided to simply copy the same locations over and over, nor did I decide to create different servers to distribute Players to their own gaming corners… Although my bosses would probably have accepted that too, I’d rather not resort to such an easy shortcut. I do have my own pride in my creation, after all.

A game with a single mega-server was much more unusual and interesting, unique it could even be called, than a dozen different servers for one game, copying the way other games do things. 

No, I did something much more ingenious.

The temporal anomaly and the storm following it would become the reason why Players would start training different races in various types of combat and teaching them the peculiarities of their behavior. And the reason for this would be that they had accidentally torn the entire game timeline and can now ‘peek’ into the past of the game world.

In that case, why should I struggle and invent many completely different game zones, when I can use existing ones, edit them slightly, and tell Players that they are ‘looking’ into the past of the same locale?

Usually, time travel was the laziest and most unpleasant plot twist that an author could use, unless it was put at the forefront of the narrative from the very beginning. Everything in the world could be explained by time travel and, usually, introducing it into the plot inherently broke the entire plot and all the problems established in it at the root.

But here we had an MMORPG, fantasy, timelines were introduced into the setting early enough, and besides, they didn't directly affect some general plot of the game… Though not because of any creative intent on my part, but simply because the plot is not even written yet. 

In general, it all fits into the idea that the world was cyclical, and that the Angels are adherents of this cycle, while the Demons tried to destroy it. So what does that mean?

It means I'm clever and found an elegant solution to a problem that would have consumed any other developer in my place in indecision, without resorting to completely cheap tricks of direct location copying.

Which means I could pat myself on the back for a good five seconds before proceeding to arrange future locations from the past.

The main thing is not to forget to make a list and timeline scheme for myself later. Otherwise, I feel, not only the Players that would be confused about the peculiarities of my own setting – I would be as well.