Chapter 105: Installing the Engine
Chapter 105: Installing the Engine
And as the game’s success intertwined with those settings and formed a fandom, it could also be said that this guided Blizzard into adopting user-friendly policies and systems. In turn, that led to the creation of the two Blizzard systems that Insu considered the most meaningful.
Those systems were Battle.net and the custom map editor.
Of course, neither of those systems existed in Warcraft II yet and only appeared in later games. But if Warcraft II had failed to draw positive responses from users, Blizzard probably never would have thought of developing systems like those.
I wonder if they’ll make a similar game in this world too.
For now, since the contract respected their autonomy, he intended to simply watch without interfering. But if they failed to achieve it, he might intervene or even develop it himself.
Because if nothing else, he believed Battle.net and the custom map editor were pieces that absolutely could not be missing from gaming history.
It was October, when TLF Online’s content development was nearly complete and they were just about to enter beta version development.
“It’s finally coming out.”
News that Astra 95 would release on October 25 spread heavily across various media outlets.
Naturally, discussion surrounding Astra 95 had already been ongoing for quite some time, and a beta version had even been distributed several months earlier, so they were mentally prepared.
And in any case, there were no immediate plans to convert TLF Online to an Astra 95 base.
“We’ll only port it after release, so everyone just keep working without worrying about it.”
Insu said this clearly because he was worried the team members would become confused and indecisive.
Of course, they would eventually convert it to Astra 95. But when TLF Online launched, Astra 95’s adoption rate still would not be very high. Releasing it exclusively on Astra 95 would instead result in losing users.
For now, they planned to release it on the existing operating system base first, then slowly transition while observing Astra 95’s adoption rate.
In fact, even Kingdom of the Winds had originally launched for DOS in 1996 and continued maintaining that version all the way until 1998 before gradually beginning its transition to Windows.
In any case, because Insu pointed firmly in one direction without wavering, the team members also avoided becoming scattered and confused, and before long they entered beta version development.
And on October 23 of that same month, the WET Business Team finally released its search engine.
In truth, the search engine itself had been completed three months earlier. It was only being released now because the bots had needed time to collect webpages before the official launch. They also needed time for testing, so Insu had already seen the engine functioning properly long before this.
Since the WET Business Team had its own PM, it was difficult for Insu to go there and ceremonially cut the first tape, but he was at least able to stand beside his mother and father and watch them perform the final checks before release.
Tap tap tap.
Seongcheol first entered the words “Parallel Soft” into the search bar. The browser seemed to load briefly before displaying a search results window familiar to Insu.
In truth, search results like these were no longer particularly unfamiliar. WET already had a directory-based engine that displayed results manually categorized by humans, and competing sites had similar systems.
But the difference was that this one was not made through human labor.
“Did bots really collect all this and organize it with algorithms?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
Seeing Seongcheol’s amazed and fascinated expression, Michael and Rajiv answered with broad smiles across their faces.
In truth, aside from WET, several crawling search engines had already appeared. But they had not progressed beyond the level of merely proving the technology worked.
Meanwhile, they had developed a fully commercialized product capable of showing quality surpassing human manual collection. Naturally, they could not help feeling proud.
Seongcheol then searched for terms like Astra 95 and Soviet market opening, and once again confirmed that the search results were of remarkably high quality.
“So now, as long as there are enough machines, it won’t matter how large the web becomes?”
“That’s right.”
In reality, if the web continued growing, there would still be plenty of things to do, such as developing automatic recovery logic as error rates increased, improving indexing structures, and building visualization and warning systems. But Michael understood the context behind Seongcheol’s words, so instead of bringing all that up, he simply nodded.
As Insu looked at WET now equipped with a search engine, he felt something difficult to describe.
After all, not only had they secured an early lead in the portal site era of the internet, they had now also developed a search engine and succeeded in widening the gap with their competitors once again.
And unlike AOL in his previous life or Korea’s Daum, they were not rushing into paid services. Instead, they planned to continue investing and prevent quality degradation caused by the exploding number of users, so under normal circumstances, they would not be driven from their current position.
(Translator’s Note: Daum — South Korean internet portal company founded in 1995. It became one of Korea’s major portal sites through email, community boards, search services, and online content.)
Moreover, since Insu possessed a vast amount of future knowledge, he had no worries about falling behind in the battle for content either. At this point, even if they could not yet be called Google, it was probably fair to say they had at least already secured Yahoo’s position.
No, since one of the major reasons for Yahoo’s decline had been losing the competition in search technology against Google, perhaps they had already surpassed Yahoo now that they possessed a search engine similar to Google’s.
People tended to rely heavily on visuals, so when they thought of Google, they imagined the clean UI with nothing but a search bar and believed that was the main reason for its success. Certainly, that had some influence, but the real essence was the difference in search technology.
“Good work. For now, go rest well according to the plan we made beforehand.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Seongcheol knew that the search engine was not the end and that email and many other things still lay ahead, but since he was giving them vacation time, he did not bother mentioning it.
The portal site and search engine market were only beginning now. They would need to run a long-distance marathon, and since they were already in the lead, there was no reason to rush and ruin their pace.
WET had technically already been released for a year, but only now had it become a true portal site and properly revealed itself to the world again.
The first beta version of TLF Online was completed.
“Open beta is practically the same as release, so we’re excluding that. This closed beta will also be conducted through external gamers, so this is our final internal inspection. We need to make it to a level where gameplay isn’t hindered.”
(Translator’s Note: Open Beta — Public testing phase where a game is made available to a broad user base before official service. In online games, open beta often functions similarly to launch because many users form their first impression during this period.)
It sounded like the same lecture he always gave, but the team members listened to Insu seriously.
Partly because of Insu’s leadership, but also because this MMORPG genre itself was a first for the team members, making them tense.
Thanks to that, the testing proceeded with considerable intensity.
And contrary to their worries, the bugs were not particularly severe either. Most likely because even during alpha testing, the entire development team had been tense and focused due to MMORPGs being unfamiliar, allowing them to catch bugs thoroughly.
After conducting internal testing for around two weeks, they simultaneously began recruiting gamers to participate in the closed beta.
The people in charge were QA Manager Daniel and the newly hired community management employee, Jessica Morgan.
“Can we really reveal it now?”
“Yeah.”
Even while writing the recruitment post, Jessica looked anxiously at Daniel for confirmation.
This was not her first time doing community work. She had experience working as an administrator on PC communication service boards. Even so, the word “confidential” still made her shoulders tense up.
[Recruiting Closed Beta Testers for TLF Online, a Full-Scale Graphic Online RPG.]
At this time, the word MMORPG still did not exist yet.
Instead, the word MUD was more common, but since only people already familiar with the term used it, they instead chose the phrase “online RPG,” which ordinary gamers could understand more intuitively.
And because “online RPG” at this time immediately made people think of text-only MUDs without graphics, they also had to attach the word “graphic” in front.
In truth, they had also wanted to attach the title of “the first,” but gave up because it could create controversy.
After all, graphic online games had existed before.
There was an RPG released in 1991 called Tales of Erathia.
But from Insu’s perspective, it was not a proper graphic MMORPG. Although several elements were represented graphically, there was no real field system, and both dialogue and combat used entirely text-based interfaces, making it little more than a MUD with a few graphical elements added.
Still, graphics were graphics.
Even in his previous life, there had been a similar game called Neverwinter Nights. Because of that, more proper MMORPGs like Meridian 59 in 1995 and Kingdom of the Winds in 1996 still were not officially recognized as the first even by 2025.
(Translator’s Note: Neverwinter Nights — Real-world online role-playing game released in 1991 by Strategic Simulations, Inc. and AOL. It is frequently cited as one of the earliest graphical online multiplayer RPGs.)
(Translator’s Note: Meridian 59 — Real-world MMORPG released in 1996, regarded as one of the first fully graphical 3D MMORPGs.)
“Did you post everything?”
“Yes. What about you, Manager?”
“I’m done too. Now we just wait for a while.”
Still, even if they could not use the word “first,” the phrase “graphic online RPG” alone was enough.
PC communication services and internet gaming communities exploded with reactions almost instantly.
[An online game?!]
[So this is what Parallel’s been making all this time.]
[MUD? Wait, if it has graphics, does that mean you can actually play an RPG online?]
[I thought after making something like WET they’d stopped developing games.]
They had not even done any major marketing. They had only posted simple announcements in game-related communities.
But Parallel Soft’s recognition and attention were simply too massive.
“The reaction is incredible.”
Jessica had experience managing PC communication service boards, so she immediately understood just how huge this response was.
“Seriously. It’s already been over two years since TLF2, so I was honestly a little worried.”
For quite some time now, all kinds of communities had been buzzing about Parallel Soft’s lack of news regarding a new game.
They had informed people through the homepage and similar channels that they were still developing games, but because MMORPGs were confidential, they could not provide proper details, making the impression too weak.
As a result, stories about them actively developing something failed to spread well, while all kinds of rumors instead appeared.
Among them were even conspiracy-like theories claiming Parallel Soft had already stopped making games but was pretending otherwise in order to maintain company value.
[Games are ultimately made by developers, and the number of developers is limited. If they’re carrying out a huge project like WET, then all the developers must’ve gone there, right? So naturally there wouldn’t be any manpower left to make games.]
There were even fairly plausible analyses attached like that.
However, TLF2’s popularity still had not declined, and because of the game’s nature, its lifespan was relatively long. Furthermore, two years was not such an unbearably long development period for games, so public opinion toward Parallel Soft had not deteriorated.
In any case, now that they had finally released information about the new game and announced beta tester recruitment already, all those complaints and rumors would disappear.
The recruitment period was ten days.
“Manager, is it normally this crowded?”
“It wasn’t small before either, but this time it’s especially crazy.”
The online population had definitely increased.
No matter how successful TLF2 had been, Parallel Soft had already been a famous game developer from before, and the gap since their last game had already exceeded two years. Rather than Parallel Soft itself gaining recognition, it seemed more reasonable to say the online population had increased.
In that short period of time, over six thousand applicants had flooded in.
But the number of recruits was only two hundred.