Beze felt her body being pulled somewhere, a momentary sensation that had become familiar over the past week. Accompanied by the loading screen of her now rapidly becoming favorite game, a tab that would lead her to the community board and then one that would connect her to the servers… Well, singular.
As she logged in to the singular server for the game, something that would change very soon in the future, most probably, as more people join in the game. [Titanomachy] is being strangely slow with the expansion of the Player base, but that's just fine with Beze,
Blinking her digital eyes a few times, it always amazes here how her artificial eyes made everything look perfectly crystal clear. Apparently it has something to do with connecting straight with her visual nerves? Well, she doesn't understand the science bit, and it's not important anyway.
After making sure that everything works alright, an inbuilt reflex more than out of any need, it has been perfect so far, she quickly slid from her real personality into her game persona.
"Good morning, everyone! Has the new game zone opened yet?"
"Good morning, Beze. No, we're still waiting," Yersinia approached her, currently the most prominent and famous mage in the game world, though no longer the only one. She looked Beze's current appearance over and respectfully shook her head, "You look quite brutal, I must say."
At these words, Beze blinked, trying to process what she meant by that, before spreading her arms and spinning around a bit to show her new armor off. She hadn't shown Yersinia her new equipment yet, the first proper light armor crafted by the game's leather-workers just yesterday at the end of her gaming session.
Seeing as it was made from the flayed skin of a 'Lesser Demon Driver', Yersinia was quite right in her judgment.
Beze was wearing the 'first' leather armor in the game, and as expected, it was not exactly the best designed one. While Alchemy and potion-making has been advancing quite steadily, leather working has just started, and so, to call her armor's design hodgepodge was perhaps putting quite kindly. And quite literal at that.
Beze's new armor looks more like that of a barbarian wearing their skin of slain enemies, rather than a follower of the first priest in the game, one that is acknowledged by an Angel at that. But aesthetic preferences could be discussed in the future when armor making becomes common enough.
For now, Beze could only be grateful that she got any armor at all, most Players around her used clothes wrapped in five layers around their bodies at best. Questionable protective ability and equally questionable comfort – only worn because neglecting protection in the game world was becoming an increasingly bad idea with each passing day.
"By the way, since you're here, the negotiations with the 'purples' weren't all that successful, I take it?" Beze wanted to ask her friend something important. That was why she was glancing around, wary of eavesdroppers… Not that there were any full-fledged secrets worth keeping at the cost of one's life, even if just in-game. Yet.
Gradually the importance of events happening in the game began to increase, and where importance increased, so did the need of keeping such information secret. Information is power, after all, and everyone wants to monopolize power.
"Nope…" Yersinia responded cheerlessly and shook her head, and that was quite bad for their faction.
The 'purples', a nickname given to a large alliance of Players gathered around one of the pirate schooners, 'Storm Conqueror', due to the boat's coloring. The Players who had joined this pirate faction, began wearing some purple item for identification, something many of the current factions began wearing when they had found a new monster nicknamed the 'rainbow demons'. Their remains made for quite the good dye, another source of income for the Alchemists.
And no one made any joke for the 'Storm Conqueror' to use the royal color, being one of the three largest factions, or gaming clan, in the game allowed a good deal of leeway. The fact that everyone already practically agreed that the Purples are going to be the one to start the oncoming war, also made everyone wary of them.
They were already behaving too loosely towards the other Players, bullying Players and killing the others. Already, a third of all in-game kills were attributed to them and their 'skirmishes' with other players.
Therefore, naturally, Jabberwocky, who could always keenly and subtly sense the changes in the air, sent an urgent diplomatic mission to them to protect his faction as much as possible from potential problems from their side. Of course, the Purples wouldn't dare to ruin a unique epic quest, destroy the first city to its foundations.
Should they try? The other factions and even the 'Free' Players would soon group up and make their life hell. A united front for the rest of the game against the Purple only had one outcome in the end.
But of course, they didn't need to act overtly to ruin Jabberwocky's day either. They could arrange a couple of 'accidents' for Jabberwocky and his town, and that might be all it takes to destroy the budding small settlement.
But still, it was not a worry unique to Jabberwocky and his followers.
The idea of the imminent major war between the Pirates, and their Player followers, is a subject that is increasingly occupying the Players' minds day by day. So much so that three-quarters of the Players had already joined one Faction or another, and from the remaining quarter, another three-quarters were creating their own groups.
These 'independent' Players were busy seeking the proper shelters, forgetting the whole 'main plot' of the game while seeking shelter from the proverbial storm. It left only a very small part of the Player base being 'solo' Players, loners one and all.
If it weren't for Jabberwocky, and his makeshift paladin order, and the fact that until the awakening of the last angel the other Players didn't want to completely descend into civil war, war would have happened long ago. No one wants to risk losing the opportunity for further angel awakening by accidentally destroying their statues, or by pissing them off. Something along the Angels not giving 'permission' for the Civil War.
Many such reasons were the dam that had held back the Players' desire of just killing each other for all sorts of reasons.
However, since the last Angel communication hadn't given yet another epic quest, instead leading to a rather long-winded quest of City Creation, the Players were… Well, they are bored. While gathering resources and quests had been entertaining, they wanted more. And since PVP will always be more interesting than PVE, that is indeed what they are going to do next.
Not that new quests wouldn't be interesting, it was simply the Tribal nature of Humanity rearing its ugly head. My team is better than yours, after all.
Naturally, under these conditions, Jabberwocky sent messengers to all the Factions, and almost all of them agreed that, for now, Jabberwocky's city would be neutral ground… Almost all. The Purples, being ravenous Pirates, have set their eye on the city, a city that is slowly reaching the threshold into its next level up. But even they wouldn't dare to just attack it so easily – at least not without defeating all the other contenders for the settlement.
The reason for the city's neutrality, besides attempts to preserve the place where the small group of merchant and crafter Players had moved, was the first creation of a Player created Shelter. A permanent one, one that doesn't need the spending of resources to maintain, and perhaps most important of all, a place where the Players can place their respawn point on.
No longer will the Player need to return to their Spawn point during character creation when they die, they now could just set it in the City. No longer do the Players need to travel half the map to return to the interesting ruin that had just killed them… At least if the ruin in question isn't so far away from the City's Shelter.
As expected of such a sadistic game that doesn't even give new Players starting equipment, the respawn mechanic only works in a limited radius away from the city. Of course, the maximum distance hasn't been discovered yet, as no one wanted to waste so much time just testing that by dying over and over again and being signed off of the game. And so, the dream of using it as a quick travel system, by suicide, is a still distant dream, or nightmare. Nor is it known whether the radius for respawning could be increased… However, even in just a limited form, it was a great development.
In general, despite having no more than three or five dozen people under his command, at the most generous count, Jabberwocky managed again to show his extraordinary talent and had become indispensable to all Players. It had secured him a certain level of immunity from approaching problems. Which was especially helped by the fact that among his subordinates, were the alchemists led by Jim. A Player for whom all this war business was just a distraction from his alchemy research. And Yersinia, the first mage, thanks to whom they managed to fish out a couple more big fish, that being mages, among the Players. Players who feared that they would be exterminated in case of war breaking out, as being too dangerous of a potential opponent.
So far, it was only mages that have the capabilities for ranged combat, while relying on not-at-all-free and not infinite potions. Sadly, no one has yet to find the Bowyer system, nor have they found any bows and arrows in the ruins, so the Archer class would have to remain consisting mostly of stone slingers… Or, at the worst case, throwers.
In general, if this were not a game but instead in the real-world, Beze could well say that ' the drums of war are beating. But since this was still a game, it was better to describe it without excessive pathos as 'the Players getting ready to rip and tear'. All that was needed was for Jabberwocky to deal with the last angel, which, apparently, was supposed to happen in the coming hours… And well, the dogs of war would be 'set loose'.
They no longer need to worry about 'oopsieing' an Epic quest after all.
Beze could only hope that their small town would be able to stay away from being the main battlefield of the war. After all, restoring destroyed buildings would be a long and very costly process, as just creating them in the first place was already a hassle and a half. She was not looking forward to doing it all over again.
Beze never thought she would have to carry so many bundles of firewood in a game about destroying Demons. She could see the reason why, of course. It is much easier to get attached to something, to appreciate its existence, when you are partly responsible for its creation. Even if their creations are more like misshapen hovels in comparison to the grand cities that any other MMO Developers could create, she instead found her city to be much better.
The developers were definitely geniuses who knew exactly what they were doing in this case.
Beze was really ready to die defending the home she had built with her own hands… At least, death and two hours of rebirth was much better than the alternative of a whole day of dragging woodwork back to restore the destroyed shack. And considering how many problems would arise if the central tent of the camp was destroyed and the city disbanded altogether? Beze knew that a large contingent of the Purples, the ones that had helped build the city actually, would almost immediately switch sides in case of a siege.
If just to avoid the hassle of rebuilding the city anew in some other place.
"I see," Beze sighed. "Did Bandersnatch at least mention when he'll show up?"
"He promised to arrive in half an hour… But he might get delayed again. Either way, they won't start without him," Yersinia smiled, then raised an eyebrow at her friend's put upon expression. Well, Beze did show up in her brand-new armor.
"Want to hunt some Demons and gain another level while we wait?"
Beze pondered Yersinia's idea for a few seconds before shrugging, "Sure, not like there's anything else to do… And it beats waiting here, doing nothing."
***
Peace, what a disgusting thing… Why are you guys being so passive!
Much to my dismay, the Players haven't been at each other's throats, they certainly wanted to… But by overusing my trump card of 'everything here happens for a reason!' I accidentally outsmarted myself and made the Players avoid lethal confrontations with each other. Or large confrontations at least, Player kills still happen here and there in small numbers.
But nothing like the Grand War that I have been surreptitiously leading the Players toward! Or at least that's what I tell myself, at least, that I had planned the budding war in the first place.
But no, my bloodthirsty Players, who had happily chopped up Demons to bits and used their bodies as ingredients, had suddenly turned Pacifists. After all, who knows how the angels might react and whether more demon worshipers might appear among other players!
Bah!
Speaking of demon worshipers, their numbers did increase, but the new ones had kept quiet about it. No one had repeated Double's feat, and if they did sacrifice other Players, it was either done stealthily or by masking it as a kill for the upcoming wars, for which I'm very grateful.
Without them, Players would still be too shy to properly interfere with each other's gameplay and just kill each other for a good bout of Player Killing!
In short, the Players were worried about how the Angels would react to their war, while I was worried about the Players being passive and bored! Over the past few days I've managed to handle the starting zones issue and even began creating non-starting zones, but I was still far from being able to release my players from their 'playground' into an open world.
No, at best, my creations right now could just be called a 'larger pen'… And by no means a finished one as well.
Meaning, I need to give the Players something to distract themselves and occupy their time!
And so, with just a hint of the lore, and a war brewing in the game, it suited my designs perfectly.
So why aren't they massacring each other! I've already given you guys ample reasons!?.
A War, where two or more sides send men after men to their deaths, not like the piddly 'skirmishes' or 'scuffle' for resource spots that scarcely happens. Sure, it was roughly in the direction I'd like to steer player relations, but not nearly the scale! How can players distract each other from the mismatched and patchwork of a gameplay loop my game has, if they're not at war?!
Fortunately, if the Players were not killing each other in droves because they feared the Angels' response, wouldn't I then have an excellent opportunity to help them with this problem?
I am the God of this world, after all, the Angels would do what I made them do. Just a little tweak to the 'message' and I'll let them wage war to their heart's content!
Especially since I know the Players are just itching to just kill each other for fun. All the Player Alliances, the proto-Guilds, the Pirate followers, have almost all prepared for the inevitable start of conflict… The difficulty is that I can't exactly send an Angel just directly saying something like 'now go kill each other'.
Well, I could, but the Players probably wouldn't appreciate such a lore and plot twist very much.
Therefore, while the Players prepared for war, I spent a long time preparing for meeting Bandersnatch and thinking about how to present the opening for the Game's first bloody war. And after long contemplation we, and by that I mean, I, came to a fairly simple but brilliant solution.
Use a simple game convention and turn it into part of the lore!
Initially, one of the issue I was having problems squaring out for the lore, was the reason why the Angels would tolerate the Players PK'ing each other. Especially when they're doing so in my Game's version of the Promised Land, when not all demons have been destroyed yet. And worse, there are Demon worshipers popping about, using the other PK'er as smoke screens for their existence.
The clue to solve this dilemma, funnily enough, came from watching the Players being skittish about the Angels. Angels who, in their approximation of the lore and from widespread media, probably wouldn't be all that keen on a Civil War between Players. People who were supposed to be their Champions.
Their aversion to pissing off the Angels, brought a simple question to the forefront, one that is so basic to the concept of a 'game' that it had slipped my mind completely.
How does the player resurrection system work?
The most game-like of all conventions, and yet most important for a game, especially an MMO. After all, just having one life in an MMORPG is way, way, too hardcore, so the Players probably paid no attention to this fact at all. Even if, for example, resurrection spells existed in the game, such things usually didn't replace, but merely supplemented the Players' natural respawn process.
No one who has ever played games would question their ability to resurrect themselves, even as a level one Nobody. It was so ingrained into their understanding of the world, that it didn't break their suspension of disbelief… Even if it was something that is, quite literally, unbelievable.
So, why not make use of this simple, and expected system to my advantage?
It was not like it would be the first time I did it, making use of gaming conventions as tools to expand the lore.
So I could use the same technique once again and have the last Angel summoned by Jabberwocky to casually mention that they don't mind war between Players… Because they'll be resurrected by the Heavenly System anyway, which means this war between them wouldn't be a bloody massacre, but just very active competition!
As for the dead pirates… Well, they're pirates, no one feels sorry for them – not even Angels.
After all, our Angels aren't avatars of forgiveness; they're veteran and elite soldiers, who had fought against Evil in the past. And clearly, they did not do so with kind words. So his plan would work!
Thinking of the very baseline of the world I had created, another fundamental part of the world's question, one of the most fundamental lore of the game, reared its head.
What are the Players? And where did they come from?
Returning to one of the building blocks of the world's lore, that of a War in the Heavens. Between the forces of Good, that is the Angels, and the Evil, the Demons, how would the Players fit in into that? It was supposed to be a War that had ended in a whimper rather than a bang, where the participants simply stopped fighting rather than defeating each other in some kind of Final Battle.
It was a War that was forgotten, lost to the sands of time.
So, what had happened in the time between that War and the emergence of the Players? Well, sprinkle in other nations and empires, both Fallen and Emergent, liberally place 'ancient relics from a forgotten time' and legends accumulated over tens of thousands of years. That would make for quite the grand lore, right?
In short, a complete set of standard fantasy mishmash… However, what part do the Players play in the grand tapestry that is still to be woven? Literally, as I had yet created this so-called tapestry, I'll just have the Players imagine that they are supposed to be a part of a larger story.
Making them children of prophecy would be quite stupid.
It would be bog-standard if it was the starting premise of the game, say, if their first quest was some kind of convoluted quest of 'self-discovery' of their destiny… Even if having thousands, and [Titanomachy] willing, millions of 'chosen ones' would be almost comical.
Sadly, their first appearance in this world wasn't 'waking up' in some starter village, but instead in an empty island full of Demons that they had to kill using broken furniture. Not exactly the best starting premise for the 'chosen one'.
Plus, they have already interacted with the denizens of this world, the Pirates, and the NPCs were not at all surprised by the Players' ability to resurrect. And since I am planning on using that ability as part of the lore, it would be important for the Pirate to already know about it as well, there is a War coming, after all. It would be quite ridiculous for the Pirates not to notice that they've killed the same Players over and over again. Or when some idiot insists on skipping the Pirates' starter quest and tries to barge on their ship without permission.
No, that ship, figuratively speaking, has sailed. The Players' ability to resurrect, must not be something special that needed to be remarked upon.
But making every NPC capable of resurrection… That would be simply foolish. In that case, I'd have to create more and more explanations about the NPC's ability to resurrect. And unless I make all the NPCs some kind of End Boss level threat, the Players would probably try to kill them over and over again.
Hmm, how about adding some kind of Item or Weapon that is capable of permanently killing Players? Some kind of stupidly rare Item that could erase Player accounts… It would just add to the game lore, really. Even if I could already taste the future salt that would be coming from someone using that Item.
In short, players had to be anomalies, but not too incredible and unheard of, so that Angels wouldn't generally mind what they do to each other.
And so, by my hand, my game's lore expanded.
And now, the Great War in the past erupted between conditional good and conditional evil, the battle was so cataclysmic that it broke the world, and they weren't even fighting seriously. Instead, the foot soldiers for each side were the mortals, with some Angels and Demons fighting here and there, the mortal races almost dying to a one. The strongest combatants from each side never entered the battlefield, instead their fight was across the world's fabric of space and time.
I'll blame any plot and gameplay inconsistencies on this, by the way – a universal excuse for all times, that's what that part of the lore is made for.
And so, with many mortal souls heading for reincarnation, with the fabric of time and space being used like a rage, the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation was fucked.
Firstly, the souls would be reborn in random places and random forms… Which would just be luckily fit the character created by the Players in the Character Creation. Furthermore, secondly, the time that it would take for these souls to complete their cycle of reincarnation would be shortened – from the countless years that it was before… To something that coincidentally is as long as two Earth hours. Something something, the 'incomplete' purification, shortening the time it takes for the cycle to complete.
It isn't exactly the most brilliant and elegant lore justification for a game mechanic, but it's workable, answered many questions at once, and sounded logical enough not to raise questions… For the first twenty seconds for the Lore Hunters when they ever discover this lore factoid anyway.
And to keep their attention after twenty seconds, I'll come up with some new details to use in the lore.
The fact that this lore tidbit opens up the possibility of NPCs that share the Players' capability of self-resurrection, raises many future possibilities. I could give some of my NPCs functional immortality – not all, but probably the most important ones. Not just for the sake of lore and game longevity, but as a measure of safety as well.
Now, while I am somewhat omnipotent and omniscient in the game, with the help of the outstanding AIs that 'somewhat' is less of a restriction, allowing me to process incredible amounts of information in a microsecond, I cannot be everywhere all at the same time. I'm not yet Omnipresent… yet.
I cannot keep my eye on the Players 24/7, and God knows the stupidity that they could get into. Me, and therefore [Titanomachy], have been very lucky so far that the Players, in their stupidity, hadn't killed any of the NPCs yet. But, it is only a matter of time, where artificial intelligence excels, natural stupidity prevails.
Imagine, for instance, Jabberwocky's first meeting with the Angel. What if, rather than listening raptly to the Angel's 'revelation' he instead had killed the Angel, what would have happened then? Well the game would have turned out very differently than the way it is now, and that is no way to make a game, where every random action of a Player determines the future of the game…
Actually, isn't that still the way it is now? Alchemy… Magic… a lot of other things have been added to the game just because some madman decided to…
Kehem! Anyway, while some randomness is good, having important NPCs dying because some random psychopath wanted to just try to kill one is a bad idea overall. Previously, I had used fairly simple psychological tricks to guide players in my desired direction – sometimes even successfully. But that is a center that cannot hold.
The problem with this approach was that I was just one person, no matter how enhanced my thinking speed compared to an average Player is, their number kept growing. Playing chicken, while my life hangs in the balance, is not a prospect that I find appealing.
In addition, of NPCs that could resurrect, I could now also insert in my own against! My always reviving agents, that could drop hints about lore and quests without having to risk dying permanently.
And right now, invisible to humanity, robots, and AIs would be infiltrating human settlements and studying their behavior up close, to later pass their experience to their brethren and turn it against the enemy. The Human Players… Though not exactly for exterminating them, or well, only of their game avatars. It would update artificial intelligence and NPC behavior realism with player interaction all in one package.
So right now, false Players walked among real ones, their presence masked by the constantly growing Player base. No one would notice any new faces, when they constantly see ten new ones every day, there wouldn't be any rumors about fake Players being bandied about… Even if that would be a fun plot point as well.
I could create engaging stories while making use of these against mine, interacting with other Players, gathering information that I could later use. In fact, I've already made some!
NPCs that I've created to give out important information to Players, fake Players that are now piloted by AIs, to great success, having integrated seamlessly to the Player communities. Still, they are a bit too simple for me to risk them playing actively with the other players. After all, the amount of shit that would hit the fan if these AI Players were found out, would be titanic in scale.
If that were to happen, I'd lose the excellent opportunity I have to manipulate the Players from within their community. After all, it is oh so very useful to have some of my agents, and sometimes even me, occupying some of the top seats in the 'Purples', fanning the flame of war. Anything to provoke players to war with each other.
Moreover, besides their loner tendencies and solo-leveling story, I gave these fake Players of mine the same leveling restrictions as other Players. One reason is so that they don't become over-leveled, another, as a good measuring stick to balance the EXP gain to EXP requirements for leveling up.
Plus, it would only help them blend in with the Players if they could be seen grinding… Huh, I have been so busy these past few days that it's making me remember the first few days of the game.
With Jabberwocky almost finished with the City's first building, the need to finalize the upgrades and the system for Settlement expansion became quite urgent. Another of the problem Players, Sturm, who had done the right thing, at least in my opinion, didn't bother with recruiting Players into his Pirate faction. Instead, he had chosen to convince the Captain to cast off and move away from where they were stuck.
Taking advantage of the fact that his Pirate faction has the only functioning, or at least, capable of flying, ship, Sturm has seen the benefit of not being in the middle of a Free for All.
Double, the only other Player in Sturm's Pirate Faction, was eventually accepted into the Pirates. Jin and his coven of alchemists had already researched all the currently available recipes as created by the AIs, and even my own hands for the few simple recipes that exist. Stuff like Mana Potions, or Strength Buff Potions.
Yersinia finally has some colleagues, who had started learning the first simple spells, and now the game has some ranged damage dealing options in the form of Magic Arrow. The other Production classes, besides the Alchemists, are also showing promise, leather workers were actively skinning killed demons, the first crude attempts at metallurgy and smithing are taking shape.
With the need of materials blowing up, the Bestiary of monsters, and what materials one can harvest from them, are expanding.
Sturm Stross had taken the number one spot as the highest leveled Player, Jabberwocky, busy leveling his clan, temporarily fell behind in his level progression. Sturm, achieving the colossal fifteenth level for the game.
In other words, slowly, the game was beginning to take the form of, well, a game.
And what I had long been expecting, and dreading, finally happened:
For the past twenty-four hours, the online player count hadn't dropped to zero.
This was perfectly normal for online games. Yes, there would be peak times and quieter periods, but due to different time zones for the Players, online games almost never dropped to zero. Sure, right now it was just twenty people currently online, a paltry number when compared to other MMORPGs, but it is still quite an achievement when taking into account where I had started from.
Not a week ago, when I was just getting drawn into this venture, not that I had much choice, there was no game. Thankfully, I was then informed that the game servers would be launched gradually and limited by time zones, to give me some actual opportunity to create the barebones of a game… Still, the way your current job had been delivered to you caused some bafflement – how badly managed was the game creating process for such a thing to be passed unnoticed until it is almost too late.
Quite literally, you had a single day to make sure that the [Titanomachy] name wasn't actually prophetic…
Back to what you were talking about originally – that grace period, where there would be downtime for you to work without having to worry about the Players' presence, has passed.
What did this mean for you in particular? Well, I suppose I should pat myself on the back for not letting down the hopes and dreams of my backers. After a week of continued success, the game is now no longer in danger of its plug being pulled.
Judging by the feedback on the game forum and the constantly growing number of players, I had, in fact, quite excelled in the endeavor. Which is somewhat of a surprise if I was to be honest with myself. After all, not everyone would be able to cope, let alone succeed when placed in my position.
And this thought will continue to warm my soul for many years to come.
But besides being a good reason to pat myself on the back, it also meant that the complexity of maintaining such a game was gradually increasing. I, for instance, had already lost the ability to handle game maintenance on my own; I needed to implement the AIs' help, alongside letting the Players hunt for the glitches, and other such 'mistakes'. If the AI found it, I could just erase it quite easily, if the Players found it? Well, it's just a feature, not a bug.
Still, my game is still too early, too raw to let the Players roam about freely as an Open World game… Most of all because there isn't any 'Open World' to explore yet.
At best, I could create another set of floating islands, just larger in size, along with a couple of extra details that would differentiate it from the other islands. Things like monsters that have higher levels, or a new variety of them… Things that I am already doing now that I think about it, I just need to create more of them. It wouldn't do for the Player base to stagnate after all, where the mobs become no longer a threat.
The Storms also, are quite the great stopgap measure as well, helping immensely with the problem of the still Online Players. True, I won't be able to use these storms indefinitely since the Players would become suspicious… Unless I decide to make it a world phenomenon with the ability for the Players to forecast future storms.
But as long as the settings remain constrained to the floating islands, my stopgap measure should continue to work, even quite the logical event from the Players' perspective. Especially if later I decide to increase the number of sky islands, it's not like the Players already know the totality of their number after all.
In any case, a week has passed since the beginning of my work in creating and maintaining the game world – an amazingly productive week, full of mistakes, decisions, and emergency tightening of screws when some parts begin to crumble… And no small amount of cursing, the antics of the Players. To be honest, it was a monumental achievement, no matter how unexpected or nervous it was for me when I first started. In the end, I physically couldn't help but feel some pride in my accomplishments.
Even if technically I was quite forced to do it, on gunpoint in fact, after I started, I still felt proud of my achievements one way or another.
Yes, I might laugh to myself at how crooked and patch worked the game had turned out, it is still my creation. If anyone were to deign to criticize it… I'll probably feel the desire to contradict them, to defend your achievements.
It's natural – indicating that, on some level, you're still proud of your achievements.
Similarly, no matter how much I joked about all my actions being created to buy time and how I hated the Players, it was fun. A sentimental feeling, of course, but the point wasn't about that, but rather that looking at such accomplishments right now before me, I felt the desire to continue my work.
And so, while you cannot be the sole judge, jury, and executioner over your work, [Titanomachy] cares not how you accomplish your goals, as long as the game continues to run, and the Player count keeps increasing. Despite that, you still have a mental checkbox being ticked.
Something along the lines of 'Main Quest, Stage 1 – completed'. Chuckling to yourself at how you must have been thinking about the game for too long for your unconscious mind to resort to such a thing, you decided not to dwell about it too long. You still have a game to run and create, after all.
Just because you have reached some kind of milestone, self-created as they might be, does not mean that this is the end of the road for you. No, it is just the starting point.
Now, with the path forwards open, I now have the opportunity to do something further – and it would be extremely foolish not to take advantage of it!