Where Are the Ranking Rewards?
A former ranker by the name of MurimBuilder — the same player who'd stolen an Anomalocaris-class Battle Carrier from the Zenobia Empire fleet and spent months on the run from that faction — had posted an explanation thread. Thanks to that post, the situation cooled down remarkably fast.
[Image of a toad blowing another toad's head off with a gun]
Next.
More precisely, the calm only came after the users who'd been watching in silence held a public roasting of the ones who'd become friends of the forest.
Either way, browsing the gallery had given me a much clearer picture of the new rankers.
"So Koenig is the skill player, and Monalisa is all ship power? Hmm…"
"It feels like they each took half of you, Commander, and glued themselves together," Jessica said.
"…Is that it?"
She wasn't wrong. The gallery itself kept saying ranks nine and ten looked like rank three split clean down the middle.
[Image of an evolution blueprint splitting in two]
The structure is just like that.
Rank 3 gets both the physical stats AND the ship power.
Strip out the physical and you've got Rank 9.
Strip out the ship power and you've got Rank 10 lmao
The reactions were lukewarm at best — halfhearted, underwhelming — but the fact that people were saying it at all was enough. I nodded along with Jessica's assessment and filed it away as basically correct.
Anyway, having roughly sized up the new rankers, I was just about to get back to my own work when—
"Argh."
A fresh message chimed in with a cheerful little jingle the second I tried to focus. I scowled, wondered what it was this time, and checked it.
> Administrator Notice
> Former administrators Sorimseung and Arto have been stripped of their admin positions due to insufficient qualifications.
> In their place, Koenig and Monalisa have been appointed as the new administrators.
> All administrators, please take note to avoid any future misunderstandings regarding admin status.
"Ahh."
"Huh. The admins swapped out faster than I expected," Jessica remarked.
"You're telling me."
The armbands had been replaced barely a few hours after the event rankings went up. I had to admit — when it came to this sort of thing, the staff moved fast. With that settled, I decided to finally get back to what I was supposed to be doing.
And that, of course, meant the pure joy of base-building tycoon mode and resource gathering.
But just as I was about to sink into it, Jessica suddenly seemed to remember something she'd forgotten.
"Ah!"
She let out a short cry of realization. I was starting to feel like every single time I tried to do anything, something interrupted me. I looked at her with a question on my face, and Jessica tilted her head, delivering the line in her usual calm, matter-of-fact tone.
"By the way, Commander — is there no ranking reward this time?"
"…Huh?"
Ranking rewards were delicious. Now that she mentioned it…
Why, in a notice stuffed with every other scrap of information imaginable, was there no mention of ranking rewards?
Devs. Are you seriously dropping the ball right here?
The rest of the player base seemed to clock the missing ranking rewards at roughly the same moment, because the gallery's hot topic promptly swung toward demanding them.
[Compilation of ranking reward proof screenshots from previous events.jpg]
Did you forget?
You're supposed to deliver the rewards on time and do the bare minimum.
How do you swap the armbands with surgical precision, process the rankings, and then just… stop?
[Image of a toad smashing down a smiling toad]
Actually if you're as mad as a 1,000-year vet hit upvote lmaoooo
With rankers and nobodies alike lighting up the gallery, the global chat, and even private messages, public opinion went fully ablaze. Roughly five minutes after the fire really caught, the staff — clearly panicking — fired off an emergency notice complete with typos and scrambled to put out the blaze.
<<< "Legacy of the Ancient Empire" Reward Notice >>>
We apoligize, Commanders.
There is currently an error preventing ranking rewards from being distributed.
We will resolve the error and deliver the rewards as soon as possible.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to all Commanders.
But for all the urgency radiating off that notice, no actual rewards dropped on the spot. Our gallery full of professional clowns only settled down four hours later — once the error was fixed and the rewards finally went out.