Chapter 76: TLF2’s Official Release
Chapter 76: TLF2’s Official Release
Ughhh.
The result was the enormous crowd gathered in front of Radio Center, one of LA’s computer specialty stores. Brian McKenzie, a sales employee, inwardly groaned without realizing it as he watched the flood of customers gradually fill the store, which was usually so spacious that the staff complained it was hard to clean.
And every single one of those customers was looking for only one game.
“Where’s TLF2?!”
At first, the employees, including Brian, answered kindly several times, but after the same question repeated endlessly, they grew exhausted and simply pointed in that direction.
Fortunately, there was a large poster hanging over there and a huge stack of packages, so anyone who went near it could find it right away.
“One copy, please!”
“Yes, that’ll be fifty-seven dollars!”
Since everyone had come for one purpose, they did not stay long. And for that reason, the employees had to keep ringing up purchases busily.
“Max! We’re out of copies!”
“Hold on! Eric! Bring more TLF2, quick!”
“Yes, yes!”
Stores like this had also predicted TLF2’s popularity to some extent and stocked inventory, so it did not sell out the moment sales began. However, they had not expected the response to be this intense, so they had to endure what felt like a battlefield.
And even if they managed to hold out for a while, they had not prepared enough stock to satisfy every person who gathered like this.
They knew that selling more meant earning more, but game packages were not cheap items. If they overstocked too heavily and copies remained unsold, the losses would inevitably be severe. Because of that, their preparations had to be conservative.
“Brian! Take this and hang it in front of the store!”
“Huh?”
When Brian checked what Manager Max had thrown to him, it was a sign that said SOLD OUT. In front of “sold out,” the letters TLF2 had been hastily written in marker.
In the end, they had exhausted all stock before lunchtime.
Of course, Max had called nearby stores as well, but they seemed to be in similar situations, and no one had remaining stock.
“What? It’s all sold out?!”
“Here too?!”
When Brian struggled outside and hung the sign in front of the store, the gathered people poured out voices full of disappointment and anger, then slowly dispersed. A while later, the store returned to normal.
The employees let out sighs of relief, but instead of sitting down to rest, Manager Max hurried to the phone to place an additional order.
“Yes, yes. Please send another hundred and fifty copies of TLF2. No, two hundred. What? You don’t have any? Ah. Then for now, send whatever you can first. Yes.”
However, even Velocity, the distributor, had failed to predict things perfectly. They were also hurriedly producing additional stock, so Max could not secure the quantity he wanted.
Radio Center was quite famous in LA, so it had fairly high priority, yet this was the response. Other stores must have been in even greater chaos.
The afternoon returned to the usual state, but ordinary work was not exactly easy or pleasant either, and since Brian had already used up all his energy in the morning, he barely held on until closing time.
“Good work today.”
Although Brian was completely drained, the corners of his mouth rose without him realizing it. Part of it was the joy of leaving work, but another part came from the feel of the package in his bag.
It was the TLF2 package he had set aside and bought before the store opened that day.
In 2025, a store employee taking merchandise first might cause problems, but at that time, there were no particular rules preventing it.
Of course, it felt somewhat unfair, but as long as they were not taking large quantities to resell at a higher price, setting aside one copy to play personally was treated as a small employee privilege.
In any case, Brian left work with light steps, partly from exhaustion and partly from the thought of going home and playing TLF2.
Beep-beep-beep.
After returning home, instead of installing the game immediately, he connected to PC communication. Having personally experienced the heat of the open run, he was curious about people’s reactions.
(Translator’s Note: Open run — A Korean expression referring to crowds rushing in immediately at opening or launch time.)
[This is insane! What happened to everyone’s jobs? Did everyone just run straight to game shops?]
[I knew the anticipation was high, but I thought I was at a rock band concert.]
[Ah. I went to three places and all of them were sold out.]
[Damn it, shouldn’t they limit it to one per person? I saw some guy buying three copies.]
[I went to Radio Center, and that huge stack really disappeared in an instant.]
[Shit, it’s probably insanely fun, right?]
Brian read through the posts with one corner of his mouth curling up. Among them were posts from people who had visited the store where he worked, which made it amusing.
Then he added a post at the bottom.
[I work at a place that sells it, so I secured one for myself.]
Terms like teabagging or flexing did not exist yet at the time, but people were the same anytime and anywhere, so this kind of bragging was common even on PC communication back then.
After that, he refreshed a few times and checked the replies appearing under his post, then disconnected.
It was fun seeing reactions of envy and curses, but if he kept doing this, he felt like he would have to sleep without even trying the game he had gone through so much trouble to get.
Ten disks.
What came out of the package were ten diskettes. The rough capacity was already known through the beta testers, but some people expected it to change after optimization for the official release.
Some gamers might be fed up with ten diskettes or dislike the trouble of installing them, but to Brian, this seemed to speak of TLF2’s quality and the amount of content it offered, so he was actually pleased.
Loading TLF2.EXE...
Once installation ended, he immediately clicked the executable file. Most computer users still typed commands, but Brian used Astra-G, so he launched the game in a twenty-first-century style by clicking the icon with a mouse.
TLF2 had quite a large capacity and high system requirements, but Brian used a latest-spec 486, so he did not have to wait long before seeing Parallel Soft’s logo.
“Good. Good.”
And when he finally reached the title screen, he saw a familiar name with a “2” attached at the end, along with a design that looked clearly different. It unmistakably showed that this was the long-awaited sequel.
The early part of the game definitely felt similar to the previous title. However, it was not identical. The feeling of improved quality gave him satisfaction along with familiarity.
As he continued playing, he gradually discovered things that had not existed in the previous game. Among them, the one that left the strongest impression on him was Great Magic.
Brian had always liked mages. So even though mages had weak durability and poor sustained attack power, making them not very effective in the early game, he searched for and hired a mage companion from the start.
The companion he obtained had good durability for a mage and some physical combat ability, but this was not because Brian deliberately searched for such a companion. Rather, since it was early in the game and the level of mages he could hire was low, he naturally ended up hiring someone whose stats did not seem very mage-like.
Now I need to learn magic.
TLF had various paths for learning skills. One could go to a city school and pay money to learn them, but to learn something unusual or especially powerful, one had to obtain it through a quest, event, or as a reward for defeating a powerful enemy.
In one village, he received a spell as a random reward, but it was somewhat unusual.
[Goblinization]
It was a spell that changed the target’s race into a goblin.
“What is this?”
The first game also had many kinds of magic, but this one felt like it went in a completely different direction. And while it seemed simple, depending on how it was used, it looked like it could break past the limits of the system.
I could make someone learn abilities only goblins can learn, or turn an enemy into a goblin and neutralize their racial traits.
Moreover, its targeting was not limited to enemies or allies in battle. It could also be used outside combat, and even on NPCs.
Huh? Then couldn’t I immediately hire that half-ogre in Edin Village?
Among the NPCs he had seen while playing today, the character named Tinder had possessed the strongest abilities. As a human, to hire an ogre, one needed absurdly high charm, tremendous strength stats, or a special skill or item. But if the target became a goblin, the story changed completely.
Of course, as the racial value dropped, the character’s abilities would decrease somewhat, but since the character’s basic physical class was so high, it would exert tremendous power in the early game.
Excited, Brian learned it.
But this takes pretty long, doesn’t it? Three hours?
Unlike the previous game, the restrictions on learning were lower, but instead of acquiring skills immediately, there was now a system where acquisition time became longer or shorter depending on stats. It did feel slightly inconvenient, but it also gave a strangely realistic feeling, so it did not seem bad.
But this was too long. In this game, characters had lifespans, and three hours was almost close to ten years.
If this had been ordinary magic, he could have received an early correction and learned a few spells quickly, but Goblinization belonged to a different category.
However, there was almost no chance of obtaining another mage character right now, especially one with abilities far superior to this companion. He also failed to obtain any other decent magic afterward, so he simply kept the learning process active, and before he knew it, three hours had passed.
[“Kassadin” has learned “Goblinization.”]
“Oh?”
He had nowhere to use it immediately, but he still opened the magic window to check. However, the highlight effect that indicated it with an exclamation mark and light was displayed in a section labeled [Great Magic], separate from [Magic].
Until now, he had simply passed it over as something newly added, but he had not expected to confirm it like this.
For now, it seems similar to ordinary magic.
It was the same in that there was a magic list, a simple explanation, and a [Cast] button. But when he looked a little more closely, there was one thing in [Conditions] that differed from ordinary magic.
Ordinary magic had required stats, and for some spells, though not all, a character’s race, traits, skills, and so on served as conditions.
But Great Magic additionally required certain items.
Magic materials?
In other words, it was not something one could use immediately with mana alone. It required resources.
[30 goblin teeth, 1 bottle of mutating sap, 22 moonshadow mushrooms, 3 finger bones of the dead]
Brian was slightly flustered, but on the other hand, he understood. If special magic like Goblinization could be used freely just by consuming mana, the game might become a mess.
But the materials are too expensive, aren’t they?
Goblin teeth could be gathered by hunting goblins endlessly, and while moonshadow mushrooms were somewhat expensive, they were still obtainable if one gathered them over time.
But mutating sap was itself an alchemical item that was quite difficult to make, and to obtain finger bones of the dead directly, he would have to go to a dangerous area that was almost impossible to clear at his current level.
All this just to use one spell...
However, that difficulty only made his interest burn even hotter.
“Ah... I’m out of time.”
He stood up to take out a magazine containing strategies for the previous game, intending to look for an area where many goblins lived, only to realize that a great deal of time had already passed. He wanted to ignore it and keep playing, but he had already done that several times before and experienced hell at work afterward. So Brian had no choice but to leave his regret behind and go to sleep.
The next day, after returning from work, he immediately started the game again. Today, even the time needed to eat felt wasteful, so he moved his character while chewing on a hamburger he had prepared in advance.