Chapter 94: Building the Server-Client Structure and Catching Their Breath
Chapter 94: Building the Server-Client Structure and Catching Their Breath
Perhaps because these physical limitations still existed, making sales difficult, a few years later they eventually released packages through distributors, and by Doom 2, they abandoned shareware entirely and sold the game only as a package release.
As a result, even other developers who witnessed Doom’s success did not pay much attention to shareware itself and merely regarded it as an effective marketing method.
Thanks to that, until ESD later emerged, distributing trial versions that allowed players to experience part of a game beforehand became almost standardized as a marketing strategy throughout the gaming industry.
But for Insu, who knew the future and was currently preparing a portal platform—or rather, had already gone even further and launched a portal site—there was no way this would not interest him.
Not only that, although in a different form, pushing multiplayer as the main content had similarities to TLF2, Insu’s previous title. Moreover, Insu was currently developing TLF Online, a completely network-based game.
There was no way he could ignore this game called Slayer.
The game itself is already a masterpiece that’ll remain in gaming history, and as expected, it really did come from Sandfire.
It was the same development studio that had previously released Hollow Warfare, the game similar to Wolfenstein 3D. Raiden Cole truly seemed to be a genius comparable to John Carmack.
I seriously want to recruit him somehow.
But that was merely wishful thinking. Raiden was not just an ordinary developer but the head of a game company, and judging from the reactions on PC communication services right now, it almost felt as though every gamer in the world was focused solely on this game called Slayer. There was no way someone like that would suddenly join another company.
If I could recruit him, we could probably advance the entire gaming industry by at least five years.
Some might say that was impossible no matter what because of the limitations of the era, but John Carmack’s level of technical ability had been enough to transcend such limits.
In fact, when Doom launched, the performance it demonstrated—real-time rendering on low-spec systems and LAN multiplayer, among other things—had been considered practically impossible by some experts.
[Fucking hell! How the hell did they make this?]
[Wait, this kind of rendering works on these specs? At this speed?]
[Did they shove hardware acceleration directly into the CD or something?]
Even on the message boards he was currently browsing, traces of developers with at least some technical knowledge and experience shouting in shock could be found everywhere.
Only after spending a long time on PC communication services was Insu finally able to calm down his excitement and longing.
As TLF Online’s development progressed, Hyein and Seongcheol checked the project’s progress while diligently recruiting developers.
They needed people with knowledge and skills that were extremely rare in this era, but Parallel Soft had secured high recognition, possessed sufficient funding, and above all, was located in California, the very center of the world for computers and gaming, allowing them to somehow find the people they needed.
“Wow! You’re really the team leader?”
“Yes.”
The new hire this time was a network programmer named Nick Hauser.
They already had Clayton and Rick, but development speed on the networking side had not turned out as fast as expected, and Clayton himself had requested additional personnel.
Nick looked like someone who belonged in a rock band, with bleached bridge highlights in his spiked hair and earrings, but he was a genuine genius who had graduated early from MIT and previously designed and built the network systems for a famous investment firm called Helix Capital Partners.
(Translator’s Notes: MIT — Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a major American university known for engineering, science, and technology.)
Insu wondered how his father had managed to recruit someone like this.
“Wow! This is my first time meeting a real genius!”
That was what Nick Hauser said to Insu.
Cold sweat unconsciously formed on Insu’s back. In truth, he felt he had only come this far thanks to the memories of his previous life, and aside from his age, he did not think there was anything especially remarkable about himself. Receiving admiration like this from an actual genius made the pressure explode inside him.
But unlike Insu’s own perception, results were what proved a person’s ability. At the age of eleven, Insu had already led multiple developers to produce three hit games, launched a portal site leading the internet age, and was now developing the revolutionary concept known as the MMORPG.
Nick Hauser’s career was certainly impressive, but very few people would evaluate his achievements as surpassing Insu’s.
Moreover, through his accumulated development experience and by leading a development team as its leader, Insu himself had steadily grown and now possessed enough individual skill that he would never lose to ordinary developers.
Because it was his own work, it was difficult for him to judge himself objectively. He had also spent all his time buried in development without opportunities to compare himself to others, while the level of the projects he worked on constantly rose higher and higher, preventing him from properly noticing his own growth.
Of course, Insu did have a vague sense that he had improved compared to before, but only that much.
“These are Clayton and Rick, who’ve been handling network development so far. Please take good care of them.”
“Yes, sir!”
Internally, Insu did not know what to do after hearing himself called a genius, but as the team leader, he could not show weakness in front of a newly hired employee, so he only displayed moderate humility.
The skill Nick Hauser demonstrated during the development process was certainly real. Of course, games and business systems were different fields, but because he already had experience developing server-client structures, he was able to provide clear direction in areas where Insu and the others had been struggling.
“Didn’t you say you weren’t very familiar with this field?”
But Nick was equally amazed by Insu and his development team’s capabilities. The level of the systems they had designed and developed before he joined was already remarkably high.
In particular, things like the API protocol were far more sophisticated and stable than the systems he himself had created previously.
“That was mostly Clayton and Rick’s work.”
“Wow.”
“No, all of it came from the team leader’s ideas.”
Nick gave a thumbs-up toward the awkwardly embarrassed Clayton. In truth, Nick himself had not joined without concerns. He liked games and found the new MMORPG genre interesting, so he came first, but he had not been sure whether the company truly possessed the ability to develop such a thing.
Of course, Parallel Soft had already produced several hit titles. But those genres had not particularly required advanced technical capabilities.
Though he did think their optimization quality had been fairly impressive.
But now that he had confirmed the abilities of the existing team, he no longer felt this project would collapse halfway through due to incompetence.
After Nick, more and more new personnel steadily joined, and by October, when development on the network systems was nearly complete, they had almost filled their target staffing level, bringing the development team to nineteen members.
The remaining final position was intended not for someone directly involved in development, but for operational management once the service actually launched, meaning their actual development staff was essentially complete.
As soon as the network system development finished, they immediately entered testing.
“Should we set the latency to around 300 milliseconds?”
(Translator’s Note: Latency — Delay between a user’s action and the server’s response over a network. In online games, lower latency creates smoother gameplay.)
“We’re planning to service the East Coast too, so add another hundred.”
“Yes.”
After hearing Insu’s answer, Brian immediately adjusted the test latency settings. Once the game had been rebuilt into a server-client structure, synchronization issues naturally became the very first thing they needed to test.
To handle this, they had implemented prediction algorithms, interpolation systems that inserted data between frames to prevent stuttering, time-based synchronization functions, and every other method available to them. But the actual results during real gameplay could only be known through testing itself, making the tests absolutely essential.
(Translator’s Note: Interpolation — System that inserts calculated intermediate data between network updates to smooth movement and reduce visible stuttering.)
However, unlike in 2025, when the internet had become widespread, infrastructure in this era was still underdeveloped, and there were no VPNs, proxy servers, cloud-based testing environments, or other programs capable of running simulations.
Because of that, the only available method was manually inserting artificial latency. They also added functions that randomized the minimum and maximum values so the latency would fluctuate unpredictably at times.
It was a primitive recreation of the instability found in real-world network environments.
“Huh? The character positions don’t match.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Ah. Now it’s synchronized again.”
All kinds of bizarre problems emerged during these network tests as well. Basic issues included mismatches between the coordinates sent by the server and the character positions shown on the client. There were also interpolation errors where a character moving normally would suddenly jump somewhere bizarre before crashing, as well as packet loss causing commands to vanish entirely.
(Translator’s Note: Packet Loss — Network issue where transmitted data packets fail to arrive properly, causing missing commands or synchronization errors.)
Honestly, in the beginning, they became frightened wondering whether they could ever make the system work properly at this rate.
Still, as they stubbornly solved the issues one by one, the disastrous state gradually improved. After nearly a month of endlessly playing whack-a-mole with bugs, they eventually found themselves looking at a functioning server-client system.
“Okay! Cleared!”
Even though Insu raised a thumbs-up with a bright voice, the team members did not cheer. They merely managed faint smiles with exhaustion written all over their faces.
They had finally created a game that actually functioned in an online environment. But that did not mean development was finished. They had only just completed the basic framework. Now they needed to fill it with content.
Moreover, they still had to implement systems that only existed in online environments, from basic chat functions to various in-game communities. None of that would be easy.
“So before that, let’s take a short break. Starting today, everyone gets three days off.”
The previous projects had finished within relatively short periods, so it had not mattered much. But TLF Online had started back in June of last year, and now it was already approaching November, meaning more than a year and four months had passed. By the standards of their earlier projects, enough time had already gone by to create an entire game.
And the condition of the team members was far from good.
Everyone had dark circles under their eyes and looked as though something inside them had burned away completely. People who had joined more recently, like Nick Hauser, were in somewhat better condition, but even they clearly showed signs of drained energy and motivation.
I’m reaching my limit too.
Insu was young—so young that he somehow managed to endure—but the pressure of being the team leader added extra weight, making things difficult for him as well.
Before burnout arrived, they needed to properly shake things off once.
And soon it would become 1995, then move toward 1996. Insu did not know exactly how the future development schedule would unfold, but since 1996 had been the period when MMORPGs began appearing in his previous life, he had set the project’s development deadline as the end of 1995.
That meant there was now a hard deadline hanging over them, and to meet it, crunch mode might become unavoidable. If he did not want to see casualties then, he needed to recharge the team members now.
“Casualties” was admittedly an extreme exaggeration, but it was not entirely a joke either.
Without revealing these sinister thoughts outwardly, Insu sent the team members off with a bright smile.
As soon as vacation began, Insu immediately slept in. He usually slept enough already because he wanted to grow taller, but perhaps because fatigue had accumulated, or because he had exhausted too much motivation, he could not regain consciousness properly.
Only after noon had long passed did he finally manage to open his eyes.
“Uuugh...”
He had slept so much that he momentarily forgot human language. The reason Insu could immediately sleep in once vacation began was largely thanks to his parents. If not for their support, he would have had too many things to worry about and manage even during vacation to truly relax.
“You’re awake?”
“Yes.”
When he went out to wash up, his mother greeted him and prepared food for him. Since it was already noon, he had planned to simply eat lunch together with everyone else, but she insisted he must be hungry and told him to eat first. It might have sounded like a suggestion, but in reality, it was not something he could refuse.
Especially because of the memories from his previous life, Insu found it extremely difficult to refuse whenever his mother fussed over him like this.