Chapter 153: The Predetermined Champion and the IP Management Team’s First Work
Chapter 153: The Predetermined Champion and the IP Management Team’s First Work
“Player Xiao, it’s like there are two of him!”
“Yes! How can he throw bombs toward Player Tyson while dodging and running away from Player Riven!?”
No matter how talented an expert was, it was not easy to build fundamentals equal to someone who had practiced systematically with proper training, a coach, and a manager. Furthermore, Xiao’s own talent was not inferior to theirs.
As Riven and Tyson slowly began getting pushed back, they started pulling out the strategies they had kept hidden.
However, to drag any idea into reality, the effort to match it was necessary. This was why so-called hidden secret techniques were often useless.
“Ah! It looked like Player Riven was trying to do something, but he’s trapped between the bombs he threw himself!!!”
In the end, Riven, who had tried to force a technique out of impatience, made a major mistake. Still, as expected of an expert, he improvised and kicked a bomb away to create space somehow. But Xiao did not miss that opening.
He planted a bomb right in the gap Riven barely made.
“Ahh!! It’s checkmate!!!”
A single groan, likely from Riven’s fans, echoed through the arena.
“Uz! Stop the boar from coming! I’ll block this side, so you block that side somehow!”
“Got it!”
To prevent the opponent from gaining a chance to turn the match around, Xiao threw bombs wildly to block the path of the boar charging toward the burning weasel. Uzkaran also seemed to sense that victory was right before them and desperately bit at the boar from behind.
“Ahh! Time over! Player Riven has finally turned into charcoal!”
“Ah, but the game isn’t over yet! Player Tyson doesn’t look like he’s given up either!”
Of course, that was only what the commentators said. In reality, the game was already over here. Tyson struggled in his own way, but unless he had the skill to win 2-on-1, it was meaningless. No, he was already slightly behind even in a 1-on-1 situation, so there was no way he could endure.
In the end, the boar, trapped among bombs placed on three sides, could do nothing and turned into a ball of fire.
[Victory!]
“We won!”
Xiao could not read the word that appeared on the screen, but he knew exactly what it meant. Before he realized it, he clenched his fist and shouted.
It was hard to say it did not feel real, because the difficulty of the match they had just played still remained vivid.
[Player Xiao, Player Uzkaran? Please come out.]
The two were exhausted, and overwhelmed by the feeling that they had finally won. They sat blankly in front of the game machines, breathing hard, until the call came through the transmission tube and snapped them back to their senses.
“Waaah!!!”
And what greeted the two when they came outside was an enormous roar from the audience. Before, only some of the audience had cheered for them, while others supported their opponents or merely watched. But now that they had won, it felt as though all the cheers belonged to them.
“Thank you! Thank you!!”
Xiao bowed deeply to the audience and answered like that.
Afterward, Xiao and Uzkaran received the prize money and returned to the Nuchin Kingdom, where they literally succeeded in turning their lives around by buying houses and land. In the Republic of Smite, it was simply a fairly large sum of money, but in the Nuchin Kingdom, it was enough to raise an entire household.
However, they did not quit being players just because they earned money. Of course, they were bound by contract and could not quit immediately, but even without the contract, and even apart from money, they had begun wanting to feel the journey toward victory and the cheers of the audience again.
This tournament produced many people who became serious about games. At the same time, the term “professional gamer” was born and began to be used.
In Xiao and Uzkaran’s case, they had already been making a living by playing games, so they could have been called professional gamers even before the tournament. However, beyond just them, a precedent had now been set for players to earn money through games with corporate sponsorship. Seeing the possibility in that, more people began devoting themselves to games.
Ras was sitting in front of a computer and playing a game.
However, the place he was in was not his home. Nor was he relaxing and enjoying himself. He was currently in the IP Management Team’s office, testing the newly released game.
Right in front of him, watching nervously, were a thin man with glasses and a fat Gnome. They were the development team leader and the IP Management Team’s software development general manager.
It’s good.
He had already rejected it twice. Although he had entrusted it to another development team, it was an important IP, and to Ras, it was a game with its own meaning and attachment, so his evaluation was rather strict.
The game he was currently playing was Land of Adventure 3.
Since it was the game with the largest number of people waiting for a sequel, the IP Management Team had begun development on it first. Also, among the developers, quite a few wanted to make it, so the development speed was not bad.
Because it was so famous and had many fans, the developers’ understanding of it was also considerable. However, because Ras was so strict, it had not passed easily.
At first, Ras also wondered whether he was being too harsh. To be honest, what they first showed him was not exactly bad. However, considering the expectations of gamers waiting for the sequel and the value of the name “the first RPG,” there was no way he could treat it carelessly.
That did not mean the games they had made before were strange. No, if anything, they had reproduced the original very faithfully. The problem was that they were too faithful.
It was practically Land of Adventure 2 with a graphics patch. Of course, they created new characters and a new story, but perhaps because they lacked ability in that area, it was merely passable and left too weak an impression.
At the time, Ras thought that perhaps some people might have wanted exactly that, but if they intended to continue the series, he believed there needed to be at least some minimal change.
So he instructed them to recruit a new story writer and presented several ideas. He could have told them to figure it out on their own and redo it, but telling them to improve without giving them direction would very likely waste both time and money. Also, Ras happened to remember a game he had enjoyed in the past and wanted to add some of its elements.
“Don’t think too hard about it. Just adding one distinctive feature should be enough to give it a fresh feeling.”
“Yes...”
Ras explained his idea to the thin man with glasses, the development team leader named Azex, who still answered with a completely lost expression.
“Then how about this? Give it more realism. I always thought the magic in games lacked realism.”
“Hmm. That’s true.”
Azex seemed to think for a moment, then nodded. On Earth, where magic itself did not exist, perhaps people could accept mages firing off magic endlessly as long as they had enough mana points. But in this world, there were surely people who felt that was awkward.
“So make it so that using magic requires gathering various materials, like real magic.”
“Ah...!”
“There are plenty of ways to obtain materials anyway. There are byproducts from defeating monsters, and players can gather minerals or plants. Those systems were already prepared in the previous game, so it shouldn’t be difficult.”
The game Ras had remembered was a game from the 1990s called How to Become a Wizard.
It was a game where players enjoyed the process of cute wizard apprentices traveling the world and learning magic. Ras had found it extremely fun at the time as well.
However, it was not without flaws. It focused so heavily on learning magic itself that once the player actually learned the magic, its use was somewhat limited. Of course, there were efforts to give it purpose by adding quests and story, but the reward felt weak compared to the time and effort required to obtain magic.
But if this was inserted into the Land of Adventure system, the effort spent learning magic could gain the justification of being used to defeat powerful enemies.
At the same time, it could add realism and become another form of free quest.
There was also the fact that magic spells with different names but similar effects could be given individuality in a different way. Even if the effects were exactly the same, if the acquisition method was completely different, then there would be a reason for both spells to exist.
“Also, this lets you raise the acquisition difficulty tremendously, so you’ll be able to add powerful effects that were difficult to include before.”
“Ah. That’s true!”
This was a little farther from realism, but for example, magic that often appeared in works involving magical imagination, such as “instant death” magic or “invincibility” magic, had been difficult to implement in games because of balance issues. However, if the difficulty of obtaining that magic was made absurdly high, so that players had to gather materials for several hours to use it once, then it would become possible to create a scene where a powerful boss was defeated in one hit by instant death.
“Or you could create hidden stories too. For example, add resurrection magic, and if the player revives a hero who disappeared in the past, a new story appears.”
“Ahh!”
When Ras said that, Azex widened his eyes behind his glasses with admiration, wearing an expression that suggested something had come to mind.
After returning and devoting himself to development again, the prototype he brought after the Bomb Special Forces tournament ended was the game Ras was currently playing.
Since nearly two months had passed, Ras thought it took a little long. However, after seeing the result, he understood.
The elements he thought would not be easy had almost all been implemented. Moreover, there were even parts Ras had not specifically thought of.
For example, in order to obtain various magical materials, there needed to be a corresponding variety of regions and terrain, and they had implemented that into the map, making the world richer.
Even before, the world made with Hammer Computer graphics was not bad, but now it felt as though realism and vitality had been added to it.
“Good. This is good.”
Ras looked at Azex and nodded. He was quite satisfied. In truth, since he had entrusted it to another development team, he had not expected much, but at this level, it seemed worthy of bearing the name Land of Adventure.
Although Azex had made the game fairly well, he must still have felt anxious, because his reaction to Ras’s response was more relief than joy.
That was understandable. The IP’s reputation and fandom were both tremendous, and Ras had already rejected him twice.
“This is fun. Golden Creation.”
Using the test-only Golden Creation magic included in the build, Ras created gold, sold it, and equipped himself with gear. Being able to buy the best equipment available from the shop right at the start felt strangely enjoyable.
“And the market system is good too.”
“Ah. Thank you! I referred to the Sea King system!”
Azex had tried to create something new beyond the advice Ras had given him. However, creative ideas did not come easily. So, as an alternative, while looking for something from other games that could serve as a reference, he took inspiration from the word “realism” Ras had mentioned before and created the market system.
As Azex said, it was almost identical to Sea King’s trading system. Each village and city had local specialties, and their prices changed over time. Also, when the player bought or sold in bulk, the prices changed accordingly.
Just now, when Ras sold gold, the price changed little by little from the beginning to the end.
Of course, trading was not the main content of this game, so compared to Sea King, the number of villages and cities, as well as the types of goods being traded, were much smaller. However, since players could now earn money through trading if necessary, those who enjoyed Land of Adventure would be able to experience a wider variety of gameplay.
Footnotes:
Translator’s Notes:
How to Become a Wizard (마법사가되는방법) — Korean PC game released in the 1990s. The title is referenced here as Ras’s inspiration for a magic-learning system based on gathering materials and progressing through apprentice-style magical training