Chapter 82: Grand Magic and Multiplayer Mode
Chapter 82: Grand Magic and Multiplayer Mode
But whether it was because Parallel Soft’s balance was so exquisitely tuned or not, Eric’s party was just slightly lacking in ability to clear things effortlessly.
It felt like they might succeed if they just slammed into it enough times, but this game was fundamentally Hardcore Mode. Once a character died, that was it. The game itself did not end, but the player would move on to a descendant, and companions could not be revived unless one paid an extremely expensive and difficult price.
To revive someone, you’d need Grand Magic or an artifact or something like that. But if you already had the capability to obtain those, you’d probably be targeting places like the Demon Castle instead of trying to clear somewhere like this.
There were save points, of course, but saving was only possible at inns and similar locations, meaning players would have to keep defeating enemies and traveling back to town repeatedly.
Not only was it troublesome, but because the game included character lifespans, the time spent traveling back and forth also meant aging. Considering that, this method was actually less efficient. It would probably be better to just grind normally and grow stronger during that time.
Should I just give up?
Still, while this was a useful niche to exploit, there was already an enormous amount of content to enjoy in the game, making him wonder whether there was really any need to rush this much.
Especially since he had only recently earned the title of [Knight], he was curious about what he could do with that rank—particularly whether things like conquest wars similar to MFN were actually possible.
But in the end, Eric still wanted to quickly learn and use the “Grand Magic” spells.
The previous game had already displayed exceptional gameplay quality, almost as though the fantasy world itself had been transformed into a game, and the adventures within it had been thrilling. However, the “Grand Magic” system added in this installment gave Eric—both a gamer and an aspiring developer—even greater shock.
There was certainly fun in using overwhelmingly powerful attack magic to defeat enemies that could never normally be conquered at the player’s current level, but more than that, the true appeal came from bypassing impossible situations through methods that felt almost like cheating, creating the sensation of genuinely using “magic.”
Moreover, because the previous game existed, many players already had a solid grasp on what could and could not normally be done, making the thrill of surpassing those limitations even more intense.
Eric himself had previously obtained a Grand Magic spell called “Desertification” and gained tremendous benefits from it.
As the name implied, the spell transformed a designated region into a desert for a certain period of time. At first glance, it seemed useless, but Eric, as a TLF veteran, quickly found a practical application.
It could eliminate monsters’ terrain bonuses.
After considerable effort, he prepared the spell and transformed a nearby swamp into a desert. The illustration that played while casting Grand Magic was impressively dramatic.
Then he hunted a frog-like monster called “Spawn of Cruol” that inhabited the region. Normally, these creatures received a thirty-three percent combat bonus on swamp tiles. However, because the surrounding area had become desert terrain, the bonus disappeared. Furthermore, because they actually suffered a twenty-five percent penalty on terrain such as deserts, their effective strength dropped to 43.6% of its original state.
They became less than half as strong.
Thanks to that, Eric experienced explosive growth for three straight hours.
That was when he truly tasted the exhilarating power of “Grand Magic.”
And after getting excited and looking things up through PC communications, he discovered all sorts of incredibly fun spells.
There were combat-oriented spells like “Dragon Slayer,” capable of dealing critical damage to even gigantic dragons in a single strike; “Descent of an Angel,” which summoned an angel capable of opposing demons; spells that inflicted continuous damage across an entire field region; and even “Meteor,” which could exterminate all life in a designated area.
But beyond combat, there were also teleportation, race transformation, gold creation, weather manipulation, and countless other bizarre effects.
To implement all these “Grand Magic” systems, the developers had suffered tremendously.
The implementation principles themselves were not particularly difficult, but bugs exploded everywhere as a result.
Because of that, Insu and his development team had ultimately failed to implement every idea they originally envisioned. From the players’ perspective, these systems looked like ingenious mechanics that shattered limitations, but in reality, they were the result of practical compromises.
In any case, after agonizing over it for a long time, Eric once again failed to resist the temptation of fast growth and the fun inherent to multiplayer itself, eventually clicking:
[Multi-Realm Link]
Within the multiplayer mode’s lore, it was described as an ancient spell used to summon adventurers from other worlds.
[Beep—beep—beep]
Despite supposedly casting ancient magic, the telephone dialing sound effect somewhat shattered the immersion compared to the otherwise convincing illustration, but it could not be helped.
And once players became accustomed to it, even those sounds started to feel atmospheric.
The server interface itself was simple. At the top was an image resembling ancient text carved into a weathered stone tablet reading [Adventurers from Other Dimensions], and below that was a list of dimensions labeled with the names of various American regions.
Alaska
Alabama
Arkansas
Arizona
California
Colorado
.
.
.
Unlike PC communications, it featured a clean graphical interface. That was possible because the server structure itself was extremely simple, the interface could be included directly within the game package, and the game’s existing resources could also be reused.
The regional division existed because of response speed. It would have been ideal to display ping values, but because the system still relied on dial-up modems, ICMP-based ping commands could not be used. Measuring input delay individually was also unrealistic under the current network environment.
At the very least, providing physical distance information based on the regional data contained in phone numbers was the best available solution for reducing player frustration.
Eric had once connected to a player from another region out of curiosity, only to nearly die from frustration due to the terrible response speed. This time, he obediently connected to the LA Dimension where he himself was located.
[1st Playthrough Lv.25 Just Looking to Hunt Together]
[2nd Playthrough Lv.32 Looking for Dungeon Party]
[Lv.40 3rd Playthrough Corpse Grave Let’s Go]
What the hell? Already on a third playthrough?
It was not impossible, but considering the game’s release date, that basically meant the player had done nothing except play the game nonstop. Eric considered himself a fairly hardcore gamer, but this person felt like the real thing.
That probably also meant they were extremely powerful, but he still did not click the room.
Occasionally there were players willing to carry others for free, but most people wanted to receive benefits rather than hand them out. Moreover, multiplayer mode consumed enormous expenses in the form of phone charges on top of electricity and time, making people even stingier than usual.
And in the first place, Eric had come looking for companions, not to join someone else’s party.
Unless there’s someone heading to the Rock Kingdom.
He looked around briefly, but nobody seemed to fit the bill. So he immediately created a room. Time literally equaled money, so he had no intention of sitting around idly.
Perhaps people who enjoyed online gaming during this era found it even more thrilling precisely because every second cost money.
[2nd Playthrough Lv.30 Heading to the Rock Kingdom]
He had barely finished creating the room before he immediately heard the click of someone entering.
Eric had not created a separate username, and apparently the other player had not either. These names were not IDs stored on the server anyway—they were merely labels attached at the front of chat messages sent through the game client.
[Hello.]
[Yeah. Hello. You saw the room title, right? What playthrough and level are you?]
[Yep! Saw it. 2nd playthrough, level 32.]
As time passed, the differences in player specifications would naturally widen, and later players would likely start checking much more detailed stats, but for now, this was sufficient.
[Then let’s go.]
Another small spell-casting illustration appeared.
Part of it existed for immersion, but the primary purpose was to hide the transmission of connection packets and synchronization processes required before the game actually started.
Because Eric was the host, his loading finished relatively quickly, but it still felt like more than a minute passed before the other player finally connected.
By twenty-first century standards, that would feel unbearably slow, but by current standards, it was actually fairly fast.
Of course, even in the twenty-first century, people who frequently used automatic matchmaking in low-population games might not find this particularly bad.
[I’m in!]
[Yep. Hold on a sec. Let me arrange positioning.]
Character positioning was the host’s authority, but if the host arranged things too selfishly, the guest could simply leave, so it required caution.
Moreover, unlike single-player, multiplayer required both players to vote on whether to accept the battle results after combat ended.
A player might dislike the other’s performance, feel unfairly positioned by the host, or encounter severe issues caused by unstable network conditions, potentially resulting in disastrous battle outcomes.
Naturally, rewards were distributed only after voting. Otherwise, players could endlessly replay battles until favorable rewards appeared.
Some might think repeated replaying would not matter much, but little things like that could gradually accumulate and drain interest from the game itself.
[Looks okay?]
[Yep. For now. Then let’s go go!]
[Yup!]
Good.
He finally stepped into the Rock Kingdom instead of merely observing from the entrance.
For some reason, his heart pounded.
The newly recruited companions definitely had sufficient specs.
Still, he was nervous about whether things would actually go according to plan, especially since the strategy itself was fairly risky. The only reason he could move forward this confidently was because multiplayer mode allowed them to revert before death.
Although, strictly speaking, that was not really an advantage unique to multiplayer mode. Even single-player, despite being Hardcore, still allowed saving and loading, so it was more accurate to say multiplayer simply offset the penalties.
[Host, you must’ve played quite a bit of TLF1 too, huh?]
Apparently the other player had guessed as much after seeing someone attempt the Rock Kingdom at a level far below what was intended.
[Yep.]
After chatting a little, Eric learned that the other player was leveling up specifically to perform better in wars. Apparently the noble lord he had sworn fealty to was an AI that loved warfare and kept charging into conflicts everywhere.
[If I do just a little more, I think I might even become a Baron.]
Once battles entered Strategy Mode, ordinary adventurers rarely contributed much unless fighting with only a small number of troops, so they generally were not used as units. But conversely, in small-scale battles they could become quite powerful, and when assigned as commanders, they could support armies from outside the battlefield through skills.
Just as the tension gradually began fading during their conversation, enemies finally appeared.
<Entering Battle>
The enemy party consisted of Golems, Statue Priests, and Rock Villagers.
The moment battle began, they concentrated all attacks on the single Golem with the highest attack power.
It sounded simplistic, but this was actually the core strategy of the Rock Kingdom: exploiting the enemy’s slow speed to eliminate the most dangerous target immediately through a preemptive strike.
Oh! It worked!
If Eric had been alone, his firepower would not have been enough, but combining his character with his party member’s character finally gave them sufficient damage output.
Because players could only use their strongest characters, it also became viable to run a dual-mage composition—normally avoided in solo play due to poor versatility.
With the Golem eliminated in the very first turn, the enemy priest never got a chance to heal it, while the Rock Villagers possessed only melee attacks, meaning they could do nothing except pound away at the tank characters Eric had positioned on the front line.
They were technically the weakest enemies in the opposing party, but because levels were king, they still hit incredibly hard.
Even so, the team could endure it somehow.
And that was enough.
Eric continuously restored health using items and magic while counterattacking and defeating the enemies one by one.
<Victory>
It works!
Of course, they would need to repeat the process several more times before being certain, but securing victory in the very first battle filled him with confidence.