Chapter 20

It’s an elf, right?

Expecting twenty-first-century-level character customization from this era’s 2D graphics and a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tiny development team would have been impossible.

So the in-game character models for each race were mostly identical, with only a handful of different illustrations.

Because of that, recognizing races just by looking at the in-game characters was not very difficult.

Yep. Definitely.

When Wooseong opened the Status Window, it displayed [Elf], and among the traits was [Human Hybrid].

He carefully examined the other traits and stats.

Actually, in this game, it was difficult to confidently judge a character’s potential purely by low-level stats. Players only truly learned a character’s capabilities after leveling them up.

Still, traits themselves could be checked immediately. And if a character started with relatively high stats, there was a fair chance their growth potential would also be strong, making it at least a rough indicator.

But Wooseong had only been playing the game for four days, and this was his very first descendant character, so he still did not fully understand the systems yet.

So after deciding the character looked “pretty decent,” he simply continued playing.

Once his race changed, the game suddenly felt completely fresh all over again.

And the burden of having ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to start over was surprisingly light, since resources from the previous generation could be inherited, allowing him to skip repetitive early-game sections quickly using money and items.

Before long, he was fully immersed again.

And so the adventure of “ElfSupreme,” descendant of “RPGBest,” began.

At first, when The Land Of Fantasy released, Insu was incredibly excited.

Naturally so.

Across both his current life and his previous one combined, this was the very first game he had ever created that was now standing before the public for judgment.

But in reality, there was no way to immediately know whether a game would succeed the moment it launched.

Because of that, Insu gradually regained his composure.

Besides, this world still lacked widespread internet adoption, meaning information spread far more slowly.

And since Insu was merely a first-time developer with no reputation whatsoever, the game’s success depended almost entirely on Hyun Soft’s marketing and word-of-mouth.

They said at least three months, right?

Through his father, Insu asked Hyun Soft how long it would usually take before they could judge whether a game was successful.

Apparently, three months was considered relatively fast.

If things went badly, it could take an entire year or more.

I can’t just waste time waiting around.

This was a critically important era where computers were only beginning to spread and computer gaming itself was just starting to rise.

A single step forward now would matter more than sprinting later.

Normally, the rational approach would have been to observe reactions to the first released game, establish strategies based on those responses, and then apply the lessons to the next project.

But Insu had already glimpsed many of the “correct answers” from the future.

And because he possessed a firm long-term vision, there was no reason he could not begin planning immediately.

It’s still too early for online games, isn’t it?

After releasing one RPG, his thoughts naturally drifted toward MMORPGs.

But the timing was still too early.

In the United States, the first ISP providing internet services to individuals appeared in 1989.

Meanwhile, Korea did not begin ISP services until 1994.

This world is probably similar.

Maybe things would progress a little faster here.

But even if internet adoption started one or two years earlier, it would still take additional time before infrastructure reached the point where MMORPG services became realistically possible.

The Kingdom of the Winds was around 1996, wasn’t it?

(Translator’s Note: The Kingdom of the Winds (Baram / Baramui Nara) — Korean MMORPG released in 1996 by Nexon. One of the earliest graphical MMORPGs, inspired by Korean historical fantasy themes and kingdom-based online gameplay.)

Even before that, text-based MMORPGs already existed.

Games known as MUDs, or Multi-User Dungeons.

MUDs, huh...

Those probably already existed in this world too.

But before ISPs, MUDs were mostly played by limited groups inside research facilities such as universities, and they were often used partially for research purposes rather than purely for entertainment.

Commercial MUDs aimed at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the public likely still had some years left before appearing.

The title of “first” is tempting though.

But MUDs were simply too niche.

The people who played them apparently enjoyed them greatly, but the total number of users was tiny.

It’d probably be more effective to just make another strong single-player RPG instead.

And if The Land Of Fantasy exploded in popularity, then the resulting IP power and publicity alone would already be enough.

Besides, MMORPGs benefited heavily from first-mover advantage.

Simply releasing them at the right time would secure a powerful position.

Yeah. MMORPGs are probably something to think about around 1993. Roughly three years from now.

And three years was plenty of time to develop games.

If things went smoothly, he could probably complete around two titles during that period.

If I really squeeze myself dry, maybe even more than three. But what should I make?

Ordinarily, since MMORPGs were his ultimate goal and his previous title was already an RPG, another RPG would have been the obvious choice.

But Insu had other plans.

Maybe I should try making a simulation game this time?

This was not some random detour.

The truth was that MMORPG development itself required strong simulation-design capabilities.

Insu wanted worlds that felt truly alive.

Idealized MMORPGs in novels and comics often depicted worlds where NPCs thought like humans, formed societies, and created history themselves.

But creating something like that was impossible.

Perhaps that sounded overly absolute, but at least until the year 2025, the year Insu died in his previous life, such systems still existed only in fantasy.

So instead, Insu planned to use a more realistic method to imitate that feeling as closely as possible.

Of course, NPCs conversing exactly like humans was impossible.

But a world that continuously changed even without player involvement, while also responding to player actions, should be achievable.

Insu’s idea was for factions to automatically wage wars according to systems and rules, causing territorial changes and generating events dynamically.

It might sound grand, but simplified, it was similar to Koei’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms series: assigning values like population, economy, and development to each faction and letting AI-controlled forces fight automatically.

Then the resulting changes would be reflected back into the game world.

The core simulation would run server-side, with only the results distributed to users.

And eventually, players would be able to influence the simulation directly through gameplay.

Though honestly, Insu still was not sure whether that level of implementation would actually be possible.

And because economics were important in MMORPGs, he also intended to place heavy emphasis on economic systems.

Then would it become a game about wars and trade?

Since he planned to reuse many of these systems later for MMORPGs, he also wanted to include adventurers as part of the world structure.

The amusing thing here was that unlike MMORPGs, the adventurers themselves would be AI-controlled.

Maybe players could hire these adventurers to solve problems inside cities, improving public order and productivity, while the adventurers gathered resources through exploration and supplied them back to the city, influencing the quantity and market price of specialty goods?

And because those adventurers would also consume goods themselves, city tax revenues would naturally rise.

In this simulation, players would begin as the lowest rank of medieval fantasy nobility, a knight, and could eventually rise to duke, king, or even emperor.

Feudal relationships would also exist.

And I could implement this later in MMORPGs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too, letting players become nobles who heavily influence the world itself.

The more he thought about the idea, the more interesting it became.

And since it’s fantasy anyway, maybe I should include massive spells usable only by rulers of factions instead of individual characters?

They could spread curses over enemy cities, cast devastating meteor magic, or raise armies of undead corpses through necromancy.

There could also be climate systems causing abundant harvests or famines, with magic used to summon rain or enrich farmland through lightning.

The biggest concern, however, was the combat system.

Turn-based strategy games usually relied on moving units across chessboard-like grid tiles.

At first, that style could feel interesting.

But over time, it became painfully repetitive.

Part of the problem came from repetition itself.

Another issue was that once players grew strong enough, wars were often decided strategically before battles even began, meaning players were forced to waste time moving units around merely to witness an already obvious conclusion.

If the visuals were spectacular enough, maybe it would still remain entertaining.

But grid-based turn systems generally had fairly simplistic visuals.

And even flashy visuals eventually became repetitive too, making heavy investment into them feel wasteful.

Maybe I should simplify battles into calculations instead?

But if wars simply boiled down to “a war started” and “you won,” that would feel hollow.

Even if detailed logs were displayed, players would still feel dissatisfied if they could not meaningfully contribute.

So the solution Insu conceived was removing battlefield screens entirely while splitting combat calculations into ten stages, giving players small opportunities to intervene during each phase.

And this is where commander stats come into play.

But if commanders only used fixed numerical values, battles would become too predictable.

So to introduce unpredictability, he decided commander abilities would function as coefficients combined with dice rolls, producing variable outcomes.

At its simplest, there could just be a single Command stat.

Or commanders could have specialized roles, such as high martial prowess, assassination traits that weakened enemy officers, or high intelligence enabling schemes that directly damaged opposing forces.

The visuals would be extremely simple: just dice, commander portraits, and text logs with numbers.

But despite that simplicity, it still seemed capable of expressing commander abilities intuitively while preserving unpredictability.

Good. Write that down.

As Insu enthusiastically piled more and more systems into the design, he suddenly froze.

He remembered how, during development of The Land Of Fantasy, he once cursed his past self for becoming overexcited while writing the original design document full of endless systems.

Still, there’s no point making games “easy to create” if they aren’t ambitious.

At this point, all Insu could do was pray that The Land Of Fantasy sold well enough.

Only then would he be able to hire employees and finally dump some coding work onto other people.

“Ah. Right.”

Then, while thinking about sales, he suddenly remembered something he had nearly forgotten.

Overseas expansion.

Even during initial development, he considered making an English version.

The size of the global market was simply too different.

Should I start working on the English version first then?

Still, there was one awkward problem.

If he did it now, he would have to translate everything himself because he lacked money.

And honestly, he did not feel confident.

He could speak English, but only at the level where he could barely hold conversations and play games. He could not guarantee quality translation.

Besides, without any reputation whatsoever, would the game really sell overseas no matter how fun it was?

Because of that, he believed it would be smarter to first build success domestically and then use those achievements as leverage when approaching foreign distributors.

Maybe I should just wait for now.

After all, The Land Of Fantasy possessed graphics slightly ahead of current hardware adoption and systems anywhere from several years to over a decade ahead of their time.

Its shelf life would be long.

Yeah. For now, it’s probably best to just focus on planning another game instead.

Planning was fun.

Honestly, this stage was always the most enjoyable part.

Imagining the games he wanted to create and effortlessly building systems inside his head felt like indulging in pleasure without responsibility.