Chapter 172: People Begin Awakening to Network Play

A bank...

Since this was a completely different direction from the businesses he had run so far, Ras was not entirely free of unease. But he felt it could work. More than simply having enough competitiveness, he felt confident that he could overwhelm the market.

That was only natural, since Ras knew several concepts from the future and already had the foundation needed to realize them.

Just implementing internet banking alone would provide overwhelming convenience. After all, this was a world without credit cards or ATMs, where everything was handled by bank clerks.

Of course, since computer penetration was not very high in this world, the number of users would be limited. But Ras was only trying to create a bank for the sake of an electronic payment system anyway.

He had no intention of becoming a massive banking conglomerate that would replace existing banks, so it did not matter much even if it was only a small-scale bank used by a limited group of customers.

In an extreme case, even if people perceived it not as a bank but as a new service that merely provided electronic accounts, his primary goal could still be achieved.

But now that I’m thinking of it as a bank, I’m starting to feel greedy.

“Um... Chairman?”

“Yes? Ah!”

Ras, who had been completely buried in thought, snapped back to his senses at Martin’s cautious voice.

“Sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment.”

“No, it’s all right. But as for this proposal... what should we do with it?”

At Martin’s words, Ras turned his eyes to the proposal Martin was holding. Then he smiled faintly and spoke again.

“Proceed with it for now. I’ll think of a separate method for the banking side.”

“Yes, understood.”

After Martin left, Ras picked up his pen again and began drafting plans for a bank.

First, I’ll need to develop the electronic system and ATMs.

He expected the electronic system itself would not be too difficult. His company was already producing and selling enterprise network equipment and systems.

A banking system was not fundamentally that different. Even money was only numbers when treated as data. Of course, the security issues would need to be strengthened.

However, he could not be sure about ATMs. As far as Ras knew, they had already been developed on Earth in the 1960s, so creating them should not be impossible. But Ras had only used them and knew nothing about their principles, so they would have to build them from scratch. That meant he could not predict how long development would take.

Especially banknote recognition. I have no idea how that works.

Of course, thinking about it logically, it probably identified size, paper material, ink type, color, shape, and so on through some kind of method, likely sensors. The problem was how to do that.

Ras scratched his head and thought for a moment before deciding to simply entrust it to Meta Hardware. It felt like an extremely vague order, but he did not know much about machinery, so it could not be helped.

Unlike the electronic system, the ATM was not strictly essential, so he decided to think of it more lightly.

“Understood. For now, I’ll look into the requirements for establishing a bank.”

After finishing the rough plan, Ras called Ustar. Ustar was quite surprised by the word “bank,” but after hearing the detailed plan, he nodded.

That was only natural, since while he could not say much about the financial side, the online system itself was clearly something revolutionary that could appeal to users. It certainly had business potential.

And even if the bank itself did not work out, the electronic system and ATMs had the potential to become truly remarkable products. Thus, while admiring Ras, Ustar burned with motivation, determined to succeed in development.

Littlea was a twenty-two-year-old university student.

Since the Republic of Smite used a volunteer military system, twenty-two was usually the age when students became fourth-years and prepared to graduate. Of course, in this country too, quite a few people took leaves of absence due to tuition or other issues, but Littlea was not one of them.

Compared to Korea, the university enrollment rate was extremely low here, and many people attended university not merely to find jobs but because they genuinely wanted to pursue further learning, in line with the original meaning of higher education.

Even so, once graduation approached, they still had to find jobs and enter society, so it was normal to worry about employment at this age.

But Littlea was a little different.

His behavior was driven more by curiosity than by practical reality.

Littlea had taken interest in truly many things so far. When he was young, it was magic. After growing a little older, it was novels. Around the time he entered university, his interest in science fiction and advanced science technology grew, so he enrolled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the Department of Computer Engineering.

Fortunately, it suited him. He maintained fairly good grades, and recently, he had begun taking interest in games and networks.

The reason was obvious. It came from Arcade Game Land, which he had visited with his friends, Meta Soft’s masterpieces, and Spirit Space.

Spirit Space, in particular, shocked him.

The sight of people using a network to escape the restrictions of time and space, communicate, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠form a kind of society within it was exactly like the scenes from the SF novels he had enjoyed long ago.

Moreover, online games, including MUD Games, seemed to show him right before his eyes what virtual reality, which had only existed in imagination, might look like.

Naturally, Littlea became deeply immersed in those games for a while, and later, he began to want to create something like them himself.

And since Littlea was a computer engineering student, he was fairly good at programming, so he immediately threw himself into it. Other people might have weighed various factors first, but Littlea had always been that kind of guy.

First, he thought about what kind of game he should make. Then he decided to create a strategy game, his favorite genre.

After Ras released Sea King and Civilization and War, a considerable number of strategy games were released.

In reality, war was nothing but tragedy. However, there were probably few men who had never imagined conquering the world with a powerful army and capable generals.

Perhaps this was something that existed on an instinctive level. That was likely why, despite knowing it was tragic, humanity had repeated it endlessly throughout its long history.

In any case, Littlea liked strategy games. And even before this, he had imagined something similar. How fun would it be if, instead of facing a stupid computer, he could compete against other people like in versus games at Arcade Game Land?

But once he began planning, he realized it would be impossible to transfer the kind of game he had played directly into an online format.

First of all, strategy games themselves involved a lot of calculations. On 8-bit hardware, even running a single-player ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠game was already burdensome, so if other users’ data was added on top of that, the hardware could not endure it. Moreover, this kind of strategy game had especially many interactions, so the more users there were, the more resource consumption would inevitably increase exponentially.

There were also many other obstacles, such as long playtime and the large amount of data that needed to be transmitted.

Littlea sat cross-legged in front of his computer, tapping his head with a wooden ruler as he thought. Then, one by one, he began coming up with solutions.

First, he minimized the graphics. Since he had enjoyed MUD Games, this was one of the measures he could easily think of.

It was a shame to lose impressive graphics, but impossible things were impossible.

He also boldly decided to omit the tactical portion.

Perhaps that could be one of the fun parts of a strategy game. But at the same time, it was also the part with the most interactions and the heaviest resource consumption.

It needed improvement somehow. At first, he considered simplifying it, but it seemed too shoddy, so he decided to omit it entirely.

This method also had a precedent in Civilization and War, so he was able to think of it relatively easily.

The next point to consider was the play method.

First, the sequential turn-based format used by existing games was impossible. A computer could calculate everything instantly and quickly return the turn to the player, but if humans had to pass turns back and forth, the playtime would obviously stretch endlessly.

However, real-time play was also difficult.

On Earth, there had indeed been online strategy games made in real-time format. These were so-called web games such as OGame or Tribal Wars.

However, those games had the same problem Littlea had thought of.

You can’t play a game all day, can you?

Because the game was real-time, the side that kept paying attention had the advantage, causing playtime to stretch endlessly. Of course, those games had proposed their own solutions. When making something or taking an action, they set the required time long enough that once a command was given, the player could leave it alone for several hours.

But even so, the side that paid more attention still had the advantage, so plenty of players barely slept and woke up every hour to keep checking the game.

Thus, after much thought, Littlea decided to add action limits. Players would act by using action points that charged over time.

Of course, if the charge limit was too large and players could save up several days’ worth of points to play all at once, the gap between players would grow and the sense of urgency would fall. Therefore, he planned to set it so players would need to log in two or three times a day to avoid exceeding the limit.

In fact, this method also existed on Earth.

ArchMage, which could be called the first web game, used precisely this kind of method. This was likely not because ArchMage was more considerate toward players than OGame, but because in the early days of the internet, average connection times were not very long and there were not many people who enjoyed such games, so it had no choice but to choose that method.

In any case, since Littlea was developing in a similar environment, it could be said that he found a similar answer.

Littlea chose alternate history, which was familiar to him, as the game’s background. In Earth terms, it would be called fantasy.

Most of the strategy games released so far had used this kind of setting. The fact that Civilization and War, which could be called the first turn-based strategy game, used an alternate-history setting likely had a major influence.

So Littlea added magic to the system, in addition to building structures, producing troops, and invading others.

However, since tactics were omitted, he could not have players directly exchange attack magic in battle like in a role-playing game. Instead, summoning magic, buffs, debuffs, and similar effects became the main focus.

The use of magic also worked realistically: players had to gather magical resources before they could cast it. Attack magic was not entirely absent either. There were strategic-scale spells that could be launched at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠enemy nations.

It was the kind of thing where using something like Meteor could devastate the opposing nation. Of course, if such magic was absolute in power, everyone would ignore troops and only throw magic at each other, so he also considered defensive measures.

I can add facilities like magical barriers or defensive magic.

Aside from that, Littlea included plenty of simple content that allowed player interaction, such as resource trading systems between players. Since the game did not use graphics, most of it was text, and exchanging data was all it needed to do, it did not consume many computer resources.

He became completely absorbed in creating the game, and five months later, he was able to upload it to Spirit Space’s homemade game board.

< Chronicles of the Magic Continent >

Ras had a strong interest in newly released works, aside from the games he created himself. That was true from the position of a game company chairman, but he was also interested as a gamer.

He checked computer games, console games such as Talados, and even Spirit Space’s homemade game board almost every day.

After all, he already remembered finding several useful games from that homemade game board.

Springtime of Life really was a masterpiece...

Ras entered the board today while thinking that. Then a new game caught his eye.

The title was quite simple and clichéd. But homemade games themselves were not common, so Ras welcomed it and immediately moved the mouse over.

Is it a role-playing game?

At the very least, it was definitely not the dating sim he had been expecting.

Footnotes:

Translator’s Notes:

ATM — Automated Teller Machine, an electronic banking machine that allows users to withdraw, deposit, or transfer money without a bank clerk.

Internet Banking — A banking service that allows financial transactions through a computer network.

OGame — A German browser-based science fiction strategy game first released in 2002, centered on building planets, gathering resources, fleets, alliances, and long-duration real-time play.

Tribal Wars — A browser-based medieval strategy game first released in 2003 by InnoGames, centered on village development, alliances, and real-time attacks.

ArchMage — An early browser-based strategy game from the late 1990s, known for turn/action-based kingdom management and magic-centered warfare.