Chapter 142: The Acceleration of Change
“Nothing can be done about it. Once there are more team members, the communication pathways rise sharply.”
Michael gave a bitter smile as he responded to Insu’s anxious words.
“Well, that’s true.”
When there were more communication pathways, of course errors, duplicate work, or missing information could occur during the transmission process. Insu knew that too, which was why he could not push the team members too hard.
And since there were many developers, code consistency also dropped, and there were conflicts caused by simultaneous work.
“Huh? The inventory window won’t open. Did something happen?”
Michael panicked when something that had worked fine until just recently suddenly stopped working, then turned to ask the team members.
“What? It was fine just now.”
“Ah! Wait a second! Kevin!”
Several team members checked it and their expressions stiffened. Fortunately, Joan seemed to recall something. She typed something on her keyboard, then called Kevin over, checked something else with him, and they typed together again.
Soon, she raised her head and spoke with a relieved expression.
“I changed the shortcut key mapping on the UI side, but Kevin changed the function name in the inventory system from toggleInventory() to openInventory(). The connection got cut off.”
“Ah, that’s... the function name was too vague, so I changed it, but I didn’t tell Joan. Sorry.”
There were also problems on the level design side.
“The variable names on the level design side are all different too. enemySpawn, spawnEnemy, createMonster... they all do the same thing, but the names are all different.”
Mark raised his hand as if he had been waiting for this moment and spoke.
“We should clean that up quickly too. If we leave it alone, everything’s going to blow up.”
Michael spoke with an expression that seemed to be breaking out in cold sweat. Somehow, it had run without causing conflicts for now, but this game was planned to have multiplayer. Once there were many users, especially when several people entered the same room and played together, conflicts would most likely occur and cause it to break.
After hearing about this anecdote, Insu seemed to think for a moment, then spoke with a slightly bitter expression.
“Still, we have no choice but to coordinate it somehow. We can’t reduce the number of developers, can we?”
“That’s true. Unless we’re going to develop it for years.”
Michael answered with an awkward expression.
Insu did not reply again, but he felt a strange feeling, something close to regret, as if the era when individuals or small teams of developers could challenge success with a dream had now passed.
Of course, indie game developers would still exist in the future, and some would achieve tremendous success, but the word “indie” itself meant non-mainstream.
From now on, the game market would become an industry centered on capital. That was not necessarily a bad thing, but diversity and creativity would inevitably be limited to some extent.
Still, even if it felt bitter, this was not a tide of the era he could resist alone.
After that, Insu spent one month testing and debugging, and they were able to finish the prototype test.
Japan, the United Kingdom, France, and other countries that could be called developed nations had only just begun investing in the internet. But investment did not produce results immediately, so in 1997, all of them still had single-digit penetration rates.
In Korea’s case, it grew rapidly due to intensive investment after the IMF crisis, but at this time, it was still below two percent.
By contrast, America alone boasted a penetration rate close to thirty percent. It was practically on the level of another world.
As a result, internet-related technology was also running at the cutting edge. Unlike other countries, where people were barely using modems to get a taste of what the internet was, DSL technology was already being used on a trial basis in America, and cable internet, while not exactly nationwide, was spreading around major cities.
“It’s finally here.”
He was talking about cable internet.
After the internet technician wearing work clothes with the Comcast logo left, Insu immediately sat in front of the computer and launched the browser with an expression full of anticipation.
“Oh!”
It was definitely fast. WET’s main page loaded in an instant. It felt almost like the internet from his previous life. Until now, the internet in this world was something where he had to wait forever while images slowly loaded bit by bit.
Curious about the exact speed, Insu went to a music site he often visited and downloaded an MP3 file.
‘Roughly around 200 kilobytes.’
The internet from his previous life that Insu remembered was usually about ten megabytes per second, so there was still about a fiftyfold difference.
Theoretically, the current cable internet could also reach up to four megabytes per second, but that was only theoretical. Considering the average level of communications infrastructure, having it reduced to one-twentieth of that was already something to be grateful for.
And 200 kilobytes only felt frustrating when compared to the future decades later. At this level, most of the businesses Insu had been envisioning were already possible. Honestly, even in 2025, it would only feel a little slow and frustrating, not unusable.
Even YouTube would run decently enough at low quality.
And considering that the modem he had been using immediately before this was about seven kilobytes, 200 kilobytes was twenty-eight times faster.
‘Investing in Comcast was definitely worth it.’
In truth, he did not know when cable internet arrived in LA in his previous life. It might have been around the same time as now. However, they probably had not been able to recruit subscribers as aggressively as they were doing now.
If there were many subscribers, infrastructure capable of handling them was needed to show the advertised speeds, and all of that infrastructure cost money.
If Insu were just an individual user, he would only need to care about the internet speed coming into his own home. But currently, he was running an internet company in America, no, a global internet company.
And aside from simply being fast, this cable internet was also important because it was always-on internet.
Since the computer was always connected to the internet as long as it was turned on, background internet services became possible.
Instant messengers, push notifications for mail, and other services made real-time communication possible. Automatic updates became possible, and file sharing could also be carried out more actively.
And since one gateway that had to be passed through to connect to the internet disappeared, the sense of distance between individuals and the internet became much closer.
It changed from something people visited when necessary into something that resided with them.
Moreover, this always-on connection also became the trigger for pricing plans to shift from time-based charges to flat-rate plans. And those flat-rate plans removed users’ sense of burden, leading to explosive growth in users and content.
Of course, that was something that would happen only after this service spread further and users were given time to become active. For now, there was not much to enjoy other than marveling at the faster download speeds.
‘Still, faster web surfing really is exciting.’
He had often enjoyed web surfing before too, but the internet speed was so slow that he needed to hold another book in one hand and browse slowly. Now, pages loaded and changed immediately, giving it a real sense of speed, like actually surfing.
Insu wandered around here and there like that, downloaded a few MP3 files, and enjoyed the speed of cable internet.
He felt like he had said something similar when 3D accelerators first appeared, but the quality of recently released games had risen considerably.
Before, he checked game magazines and the internet to grasp trends, but now, the feelings of a gamer who wanted to enjoy newly released games had mixed in quite strongly.
‘That too, and I think it’s also because I’ve stepped away from directly doing coding work and have more breathing room now.’
But it was also true that games worth trying were coming out.
This game, which he bought after hearing news of its release the other day, was also one he had been looking forward to quite a lot.
<Chronicle of Sephira 6>
It was a game released for the console called PlayStation, and it had been promoted with keywords such as the series’ first full 3D entry and cinematic presentation.
In truth, the PlayStation was a device released before 1994. It did have a GPU specialized for 3D, but its basic CPU and RAM performance were fairly low, so he did not have particularly high expectations for the game’s graphics.
‘But it’s better than I expected?’
The opening video was also quite high-quality, but that was not real-time rendering anyway, merely a pre-rendered video, so it was not that surprising. However, when he entered the in-game portion and saw that the backgrounds and character modeling had a similar feeling to that video, he was impressed.
Of course, due to the limitations of the era, they were angular and uneven, but the polygons were arranged well enough that they did not feel grotesque, and the characters came across clearly. The coloring was also quite excellent.
“The motions are smooth too?”
Even though characters of this level were moving, there was no noticeable stuttering, and it felt very natural.
It seemed they had squeezed every last drop of performance out of the console. Well, it was already a device that had been released three years ago, so a developer with a certain level of technical skill and experience would have built up their own know-how by now.
‘This is fun.’
Honestly, the combat was not extremely sophisticated or anything, but the presentation was quite good. The dialogue and story also seemed fairly deep, so it quickly pulled him in.
‘As expected of Final Fantasy, maybe?’
After seeing the previous entries in Chronicle of Sephira, he had already realized that this was this world’s Final Fantasy. But since there were many titles in the series, he had wondered whether all of them would come out that similarly. This one definitely seemed to be on the same level as Final Fantasy VII from his previous life.
(Translator’s Notes: Final Fantasy VII — A 1997 Japanese role-playing game by Square. It became famous for cinematic cutscenes, 3D character models, pre-rendered backgrounds, and its major influence on global RPG popularity.)
As Insu remembered it, Final Fantasy VII was evaluated as a masterpiece that elevated games into the realm of art by combining high-quality video cutscenes, cinematic camera work in in-game events that connected directly afterward, and a deep story built on strong characterization.
Honestly, he did wonder whether it was really to that extent, but compared to previous games, it certainly felt like it stood one level higher.
That must have been why it was able to sell fifteen million copies.
Insu could not completely abandon his usual evaluative attitude, but for the first time in a while, he was able to immerse himself and enjoy it.
Since the Spirit Project was a fairly large-scale update, they did not simplify the process and properly began development from the prototype stage.
“Let’s make about five entities first.”
“Yes. Then we’ll proceed with five entities.”
Noona Eunha’s team was already working hard to produce design drafts for the spirits, and the ones Insu had approved alone likely numbered more than a dozen. So making about five entities should be more than possible.
Things like character skills could be made relatively simply by modifying existing ones, but inserting a new stat such as Spirit Affinity required considerable caution.
And developing and adding gimmicks that had not existed in TLF Online, such as summoning rituals and capture, also had a high chance of causing bugs, so they needed to examine them carefully.
Fortunately, the development team members found this project quite interesting.
“They’re cute, so I like them.”
Noona Eunha seemed to like the spirits’ designs.
Also, Ryan and several others said they liked that adding story gave it a different flavor from the existing concept, while Emily said she liked how the spirits’ settings and quests felt like fairy tales or legends.
Overall, the reaction was that it felt fresh.
After the prototype was developed and applied to the client, they also conducted testing. It felt like it was leaning into a slightly mythological atmosphere, so he thought it was a bit heavier than Pokémon.
‘But considering TLF Online’s atmosphere, this side might suit it better.’
And even if it was heavier, the spirits’ appearances were expressed more cutely than expected, so they did not seem likely to get buried.
Considering that development was proceeding relatively smoothly, unless a major variable appeared, it seemed they would be able to update it in March, or by April at the latest.