Chapter 107: The Emergence of MMORPGs
Chapter 107: The Emergence of MMORPGs
<Press ALT+P to view information about your party.>
When Jamie followed the instruction and opened the party information window, there were all kinds of things unlike in TLF2.
Functions such as a button to disable Companion Mode, item distribution methods, and party chat ON/OFF settings made it feel like a much more proper party system to him.
He briefly disabled Companion Mode, but moving his character again to follow the other player became annoying, so he simply returned to Companion Mode.
The reason they deliberately separated the modes like this was partly for realism and freedom, but also to secure system flexibility for future content they planned to add.
For example, in boss raids, there were often mechanics where players had to split up and solve puzzles separately, such as stepping on designated areas according to assigned roles. If the party were permanently merged together, implementing such content would become difficult.
[Here we go!]
[Yep!]
Combat was simply the same as in the TLF series.
Moreover, since it was still the beginning, there were no companions or skills yet, so the battles were simple. If anything, because they still had so few companions, the advantages of party play stood out even more.
Neither of them had full nine-member decks yet. Each only had three-person parties hastily assembled from random drifters they picked up.
<You have obtained a Worn Club.>
“Yes!”
Item distribution was set to random.
In TLF2, each player’s game simply acted as the server, so different items dropped separately, and without any distribution system, each person simply got everything for themselves.
At the time, Jamie had vaguely felt something was strange about it, but because there was nothing to compare it to, he had simply accepted and enjoyed it.
Now, however, hunting together and dividing the dropped items between them gave a much stronger sense of reality.
It was not that the item itself suddenly felt physically real, but rather that it felt as if it truly existed somewhere in the world beyond the computer screen.
<Items are decaying. Once the circle around the edge of the item turns completely white, it will become waste.>
“Decay? It rots? Wow!”
After hunting several times and obtaining monster byproducts, this message appeared.
And when he actually opened the inventory, white lines had appeared around the outside of certain items.
Jamie had never imagined that objects inside a game could rot, so he felt both fascination and a strong sense of realism.
Then, after continuing to hunt for a while longer and accumulating quite a lot of byproducts, another message appeared.
<Sell your items to NPCs. Prices automatically change according to supply and demand. If you want profit, find out who buys at the highest price.>
“Seriously?”
Jamie was still only fourteen, but he had already learned basic economic concepts in school.
However, in most games, shops always traded at fixed prices like vending machines, so he had thought reality and games were simply different. Hearing that this had been implemented amazed him.
“It really changes?”
And when he actually went into town and tried selling items to an NPC called the Monster Byproduct Buyer, the prices did not look like perfectly fixed numbers. Then he directly witnessed the last digit decrease while he was watching.
Afterward, he sold all his byproducts too, and the prices dropped again.
Having spent a lot of time trading in TLF2, Jamie immediately realized that this system could create price differences between regions.
This could make trading way more realistic.
Trading in TLF2 had been quite fun too, but because the prices were fixed, once he memorized the prices and routes, it eventually became nothing more than repetitive grinding.
At least there were endless things to spend money on, such as purchasing relics, buying great magic materials, or replenishing troops and supplies in Strategy Mode, so those acted as motivation to continue trading actively.
Still, there was no avoiding the fact that the trading itself eventually became boring.
But if prices continuously fluctuated because of gamers like himself, it felt like it would never become boring like that.
Though it also seemed difficult.
[I’ll stop here for today.]
After roaming the world together for quite a while, his companion left after around two hours.
[I added you as a friend. Let’s play again sometime.]
[Ah! Okay!]
Jamie had not even known such a feature existed. He hurriedly searched through the menus, found the friend registration option, and added “LAHotMan.”
Then, when the other person disappeared from the game, he could see the status on his friend list change to Logged Off.
Should I stop here too?
He wanted to continue, but the communication fees scared him.
Not long ago, he had become deeply addicted to TLF2’s multiplayer mode, and after playing too much, the communication charges had reached eight hundred dollars. He had been severely scolded for it.
It was truly fun.
There was a unique enjoyment unlike that of other games. It felt as though he were traveling through another world.
He remembered feeling something similar when he first encountered games, but after becoming accustomed to them and understanding that games were ultimately just programs and all the characters inside were merely AI, he had forgotten that feeling.
But now, by connecting to the internet, playing with real people like himself, and realizing that this world operated through gamers, that forgotten feeling returned.
Even though this was only testing, it was also one method of gauging reactions in advance.
After testing began, Insu not only monitored the server connection numbers but also checked reactions on PC communication services and the internet.
At least the connection situation seems good.
The number of connected users had reached 150.
Of course, this was still the beginning of the test, and it was currently evening, the time when users would naturally connect most actively. Even considering that, however, this was a significant number.
From what Insu had heard in his previous life, among CBT participants, only a little over half usually became genuinely active players, and even at best it only reached around seventy percent.
(Translator’s Note: CBT — Closed Beta Test, a limited-access game testing phase involving selected participants before wider public release.)
But those users all connected at different times.
Of those, approximately sixty to eighty percent gathered during the evening peak hours, so even if he calculated using the absolute maximum values — seventy percent active users and eighty percent peak-hour connections — the result was only fifty-six percent.
That alone would already be considered an extremely successful figure.
But right now, the number had reached seventy-five percent.
And the actual reactions were positive too.
[Virtual reality has really become reality.]
[Basically it’s similar to TLF2, but playing together with other people is insanely fun.]
[It’s just a MUD with graphics. But the system is TLF2. Which means it’s the best.]
[Seriously, how did they even make this?]
[I’m definitely playing once official service starts.]
[When official service starts, we’ll be able to play with even more people, right? Then it’ll be even more fun.]
[Damn, I’m dead. Telephone bill apocalypse incoming.]
These were posts uploaded to WET’s community boards.
Now that the period where PC communication services were gradually being replaced by the internet had begun, there was no longer any need to search through every PC communication service individually to observe reactions.
Some PC communication companies, such as AOL, had already begun offering their own internet access services.
Huu...
Rather than feeling joy while looking at these reactions, Insu instead let out a deep sigh of relief.
He had run frantically until now, but he had constantly been anxious over whether the MMORPG he created would truly be as fun as he imagined and whether it would receive positive responses.
Of course, this was still only a closed beta, but the reactions were enough to melt away the anxiety he had suppressed for so long.
Unlike Insu, who was lost in emotion, the development team was overwhelmed with debugging work.
Especially because this MMORPG was both a new genre and network-based, there were many unfamiliar errors and bugs, making things even more difficult.
On top of that, the number of testers was over four times larger than TLF2’s fifty testers, reaching two hundred people, and since they had offered actual rewards, the amount of reports exceeded even that proportion.
Because of this, the development room itself had become utter chaos.
Insu had already stopped working as an ordinary programmer, but because of the atmosphere in the development room, he could not simply relax by himself. He even ended up carefully reading the mood and helping with debugging work to some extent.
The test ended on the scheduled date.
<Thank you for participating in the closed beta test.>
Afterward, they spent another four weeks on debugging and balance adjustments. Then, after conducting internal testing and stability testing on the revised version, they only began preparing for the open beta in mid-December.
There’s no way we’ll make it within this year.
Insu felt disappointed about the schedule, but considering that the original goal had already been to release within 1995, they had actually fallen far behind already.
The one fortunate thing was that there was still no news regarding other MMORPGs.
Even in his previous life, Kingdom of the Winds did not appear until the latter half of 1996. Still, since this was a different world, he remained cautious just in case.
But in truth, there actually were several places currently developing MMORPGs — or graphic MUDs.
And after hearing news of Parallel Soft’s TLF Online, they were falling into despair.
Drake, president of a company called MindCavern that operated a MUD named Shadow Runes in North America, was one of them.
“This looks doomed, doesn’t it?”
“...Probably?”
Leo, his colleague and the operator of Shadow Runes, had spent a long time searching through information about TLF Online uploaded online.
Compared to the graphic MUD Drake was making, it clearly looked more refined and possessed far superior gameplay.
If they collided head-on, it was obvious they would be crushed.
Drake could not even sit down. He continued pacing while thinking.
He had sensed the arrival of the age of graphic MUDs and developed his project so he would not fall behind, but he never imagined game evolution would advance this much all at once.
Then again, computer and network development really has been faster than expected.
To him, it had been quite a challenge, but looking back now, it had been far too complacent a judgment.
Until only recently, online games had mostly been text-based MUDs. He genuinely never expected an RPG game of this level to suddenly appear.
Still... should we release it anyway?
His game still had many text-based systems, so it would probably appeal somewhat to people with conservative tastes or hardcore MUD fans.
And if they set the price a little lower, that might attract some users too.
But it did not feel like it could truly succeed.
At best, it would merely survive for a while before quietly disappearing.
He could already picture himself shutting down the servers. Without realizing it, he bit down on his lip.
But rebuilding it from scratch would waste all the investment money they had already poured in, and he lacked confidence in covering the future funding required.
More than anything, he doubted whether they could even create a game capable of defeating TLF Online.
I guess we’ll have to seek investment after all.
It sounded strange to say that after admitting he lacked confidence, but this was a kind of escape strategy.
Now that TLF Online had revealed itself, it was only a matter of time before interest gathered around graphic MUDs.
When that happened, investment money would begin flowing in. Drake planned either to receive that investment and dilute the money he had personally invested, or simply sell the entire project at a high price.
And if they were lucky, maybe they could still create something capable of competing somewhat against TLF Online.
Because if we just sit still like this, there’s no future at all.
Drake began thinking of companies that might invest in them.
“As I’ve already said several times, open beta is practically the same as official service. More importantly, this will become the public’s first impression of our game.”
It was something Insu repeated every time they conducted pre-open-beta inspections.
And the fact that he had repeated it so often meant the inspections themselves were not few in number.
Partly because Insu was meticulous, but even more because of the nature of MMORPGs themselves.
Fundamentally, they shared real-time progression like reality, and because they were multiplayer environments where countless users interacted with one another, all kinds of bugs were inevitably bound to appear.