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"I see," Francis said as he finished looking through the data shards that Jin and Hashimi had given him to purview.
"So you managed to compose the music necessary to keep most of the scenario emotionally charged, and you made good progress on character diversity," Francis said to Jin before turning to Hashimi. "And you managed to progress on environmental creation. All the caves and dungeons now have their base composites done?" he asked.
"Yep, just need to put them together depending on individual necessity," Hashimi said.
Francis shook his head. "Can't believe we're creating an entire asset library for this scenario," he said. "Usually it's using the assets in the library to make one." He paused and furrowed his brows. "This is going much faster than I expected it to be," he finally concluded before shrugging.
"You did the shouts and the magic," Jin stated, having looked through Francis's progress.
"Yes, the effects are embedded into the framework now," the old man said. "It's just lacking the visuals and sound design for the most part."
"Perhaps we can leave that for later," Jin replied. "Get all the physics working before worrying about the aesthetics." He looked at his two collaborators. "We've caught up now, so I think it's time to decide. What are our next steps?"
Hashimi spread out her arms. "Helgen's done for all intents and purposes. We'd say we would revisit it when the whole thing is complete and go over it again with a fine-tooth comb."
"The dragon could always use a bit more threat and danger," Francis spoke up. "I'm not completely in love with the current design. But as you say, let's leave it for later."
"You've both looked at the base," Jin said, referring to what was essentially the original game from his memory, which he'd stripped down a bit to show to his collaborators. "What's the most efficient next step to take?"
"I still think that chronology is important," Francis spoke up. "We finished Helgen, Riverwood and the area around it. Next up would be Whiterun if we continue with that logic. We have the inn, we have some characters, we have the dragon, and the companions. Let's just finish it up, playtest it as we did in Helgen and then move on to the area around it, before continuing to another city."
"How do we treat connecting elements?" Jin asked. "There are elements in Whiterun that only gain relevance later on, after other cities have already been explored. Such as the skyforge and Dragonsreach."
"There's the methodic approach and the artistic one," Francis said. "We can either complete it with the design assumptions we have at the moment, or we can leave out the elements that are only relevant later and come back when we're doing the associations, hoping that those associations provide additional inspiration."
"So basically leave out Dragonsreach until it's time to use it in the chronological order of the storyline and then fill out the blanks we left in," Jin muttered.
"It's such a bafflingly large project we're undertaking, we're bound to make mistakes regardless of any attempt to avoid it," Hashimi interrupted. "I think the important part is that we simply grind it out and revisit whatever we need to, when we need to."
"I have been sort of inspired to finish the Dark Brotherhood quest-line at the moment," Jin muttered, before shaking his head, unsure.
"Relying on inspiration to work will just delay everything in the long run," Francis cautioned. "Consistent effort is key to actual progress."
"You're right," Jin said, clapping his hands. "Let's do Whiterun then. Get it out of the way. One of nine Holds, 10% of the thing, basically."
"One thing I wanted to re-clarify," Francis suddenly muttered. "We already discussed that out of all the suggested combat systems, only the shouts and the magic actually make sense. The weapons and sneaking skills are something the experiencer has to bring with them."
"Yes, I agree," Jin said with a nod, not knowing where this was going.
"We sort of forgot to discuss skills such as blacksmithing, alchemy and enchanting, however," Francis continued. "The concept of metal armour is, of course, interesting; however, considering the non-utility of such a thing in real life, what is really the point of including it in the scenario?"
Jin stroked his chin.
He hadn't actually thought about that. In a world where armour and weapons were made primarily out of organic materials, what was the point of including a blacksmithing skill?
"There is no point to blacksmithing as a skill," Jin decided. "Leave in the blacksmiths, after all, non-cultivators do have a use for metal products, but having anyone waste their time on it would be counter-productive."
"Should we replace it with the real equivalent?" Hashimi asked.
"You mean like bone-working or armour-construction?" Jin asked, to which the girl nodded.
Jin shook his head. "I don't see the point. In the end, there are entire sects dedicated to these things. We will never be able to teach them anything about their craft and would just misrepresent it to others if we were to include it."
"And what of the Alchemy?" Francis asked. "All the ingredients you can gather in the scenario don't exist. That means the recipes aren't real."
"I disagree on removing it," Jin argued, knowing that if they altered too much about the original game, the structure would collapse, and he couldn't assure the quality. "At the end of the day, engaging with alchemy is voluntary. You can simply buy all your potions. Anyone engaging with the system would do so out of interest, at which point we can once again make the claim that they must be gaining something from the experience. If they didn't, then why are they doing it?"
"But if it's voluntary, then why include it at all?" Francis asked.
"It's fun," Jin eventually said with a shrug. "Just another mechanic to amuse yourself with if you like it." He'd been a spendthrift back when he'd played Skyrim. That meant he'd made his own potions for the most part. Time-consuming? Yes. Resource-managing as a fun pastime? Also yes.
"If it unlocks anyone's interest in real alchemy, all the better," Hashimi muttered. "Engaging with a false representation of reality can spark curiosity. Similarly, since we're not using real ingredients, we don't run the risk of confusing a real alchemist. They'll know it's fake." She shrugged. "Maybe it can even serve as inspiration."
Francis narrowed his eyes on the girl. "Thinking of Illusion Rooms as art is outdated thinking. They are a product!" he said somewhat passionately.
Hashimi raised her hands in defence before shrugging. "Why not both?" she asked cheekily.
"Questions on aesthetic philosophy aside," Jin interrupted. "What did you want to say about enchanting?" he asked.
"Well, we obviously changed the name from souls to life essence and made it so it can only be harvested from non-humanoids," Francis replied. "But in essence, enchanting proposes the same issue as alchemy. It's not real, and yet it's taking up space in our matrix."
"Neither is magic," Jin replied. "Or shouts."
"Yes, but those are direct effects that have their counterparts in true cultivation practice. You like being able to Fus Ro Dah someone into a wall in the scenario? You can learn an eerily similar spell in any sect library. The Heavenly Shout of the Wind Blast is a well-known combat technique," Francis explained. "Enchanting in reality does not work the way it does in the scenario you're proposing, and the results differ significantly as well."
"I understand blacksmithing," Jin replied. "But enchanting just fills out the scenario, gives the experiencer more to do, more freedom. Similar to alchemy, it is completely voluntary. It fills out the adventure. Craft your potions, enchant your weapons, it's the full package."
Francis crossed his arms.
"What's wrong, Francis?" Jin asked. "You're being even more of a devil's advocate today than you usually are."
The old man sighed.
"Your vision is great," he eventually said. "A full adventure experience. The opportunity to experiment with different types of spells before committing to the intense learning period of actually learning a real one outside the illusion." He blew out air through his lips. "Unfortunately, I ran some calculations while you were away."
He shook his head. "Even limiting the scenario to outer disciples, so basically cultivators who haven't even reached foundation establishment, we'll run out of space in the Illusion Room before we reach Winterhold."
Jin paused before sighing. "This was always going to be a potential issue," he eventually admitted.
Francis nodded. "I know, but it's only when we've actually created a certain amount of the scenario that I was able to scale it up to see how much space it would actually take."
"I was hoping it wouldn't be a problem," Jin muttered. "I see why you're so adamant about finding a few things to cut."
"The blacksmithing, I would urge you to remove, regardless. The enchanting, I would be alright with keeping if it weren't for this problem," Francis said.
"Stop flirting," Hashimi interrupted and clapped her hands. "Solutions!"
"The restriction lies in the Illusion Room artefact," Jin said, turning to the oldest of the three. "Is there an upgraded version we could use that would be able to contain more data?"
Francis slowly nodded. "Obviously, making a scenario for a core formation cultivator requires more storage space and thus a higher quality Illusion Room. However, core formation clients can also pay more. The cost would be prohibitive when we consider that our audience is only at the beginning of their cultivation journey."
"That's not a no," Jin replied. "Get one of those things, put in the scenario, run it in the library for qi condensation level cultivators."
"What's the point, though?" Francis wondered. "Illusion Rooms need to be replaced every now and again. Qi condensation cultivators, or rather, outer disciples, pay a smaller access fee to our library since their perception limits their options. We'd essentially be running a charity if it didn't just put us into debt."
"L'art pour l'art," Hashimi said with a pouty face.
"Shut the fuck up," Francis said while showing her the middle finger.
"What's the cost?" Jin interrupted. "What's the scaling? How much more does a higher-quality Illusion Room cost?"
"The ones we have in the inner ring cost little enough that a successful scenario generates a profit," Francis muttered. "Using a higher-grade Room on the level below us. It's really stretching it. Even if someone wanted to buy it, they'd likely balk at the price, considering you can only train outer disciples with it. With nobody to buy it and no profit to be made in the library, we'd be fucked. It wouldn't even have the steam to build a reputation as a luxury product."
"We have no brand," Jin realised with a sigh before waving the suggestion off. "Alright, next solution. How about making a part 1 and a part 2?" he asked.
"You mean, two separate Illusion Rooms for one scenario?" Hashimi asked as she pursed her lips. "We'd need a key to transfer the decisions from the first one to the second. I've never heard of such a technique."
"Me neither," Francis spoke up. "And if it doesn't exist, we'd have to create it." He sighed. "I'm not a pessimist, but that's an additional ten years to the timeline." He turned to Jin. "Cut some things. If we cut the non-combat essentials like enchanting, alchemy, a hold or two and some flavour stuff like the books… We might just make it."
Jin listened to his friend's words in an abstract sense, but his mind was elsewhere.
"What if we solved the issue of space, though?" he proposed. "What if we found a method to fit more data into an Illusion Room through an encryption technique?"
"What are you talking about?" Francis asked with a frown.
Jin's mind raced as certain parts of the video game industry came to his mind. Namely, loading screens. Rendering.
"Think about it," he started slowly. "Currently, scenarios and Illusion Rooms work on a one-to-one data point display method. You create a scenario in your mind and then input the data into the Illusion Room, where it all runs simultaneously. That makes sense when you have simple scenarios, such as fighting a singular enemy in a small space like a mountain or a field, or even a forest. But when we were making The Last of Us for the mortal army, we created a large world in which 99% of the structure was out of view and essentially irrelevant at any given time."
"That only worked because the sensory perception was severely downgraded for mortals. Less perception, less data needed for realism," Hashimi stated. "Our current project is useless if we can't make it work for at least the outer disciples."
"What if," Jin suddenly said. "What if we could make it work for inner disciples too," he said.
"How?" Francis asked.
Jin frantically ran to the chest in which he stored most of his possessions and pulled out a piece of parchment and some charcoal.
"What if we create a rendering model that decompresses data whenever needed in the scenario?" he muttered while he started scribbling, ideas flushing into his mind at a rapid pace. "Only 0.001% of the sensory input would have to be running at any given time as the experiencer moves through the scenario."
"How?!" Francis asked again, more urgently.
"Let's take a simple code, for example," Jin said as he tapped the parchment. "Let's assume that the model we are using to interact with the data is based on a simple multiplication by 100. Then the set of numbers I just wrote down." He pointed to the 12, 28,144 on the parchment. "Becomes 1200, 2800 and 14400. Now, let's assume that we are an experiencer viewing ten sets of numbers at a time. Technically, by simplifying the numbers but then de-simplifying them with the multiplication model, he can view a set of ten decompressed numbers at a time while the others remain compressed and thus take less storage. Sure, the model itself takes space, but if it can simplify a set of a million digits to 100.000 digits, then it is, in essence, saving about 89% of the data space." Jin grabbed at his hair and pulled in frustration.
"We need an engine that generates three-dimensional models from sensory input data points and compresses them to their most basic level, which would technically be in the form of 0s and 1s. This would drastically decrease the space requirements set on the Illusion Room, but would necessitate the creation of such a tool in the first place. This entire process needs to occur in real-time, and considering that higher level cultivators have higher levels of perception, we'd need more complex compression and decompression engines the higher up the chain we go. If we multiply the task of-"
"Jin!" Hashimi loudly interrupted him.
Jin paused and turned to the girl. "Huh?"
The dark-skinned woman looked at him with a worried look and gently put a hand on his shoulder. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"NO, NO!" Francis screamed. "LET HIM THINK, HE HAS A POINT!" The old man literally jumped up from his chair and wildly waved his arms. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS? IF WE CAN SOLVE THIS ISSUE FUCK THE SCENARIO, WE'LL BE PROMOTED, WE'LL BE RICH."
"I thought we were making a scenario?" Hashimi asked in a confused tone of voice.
"Technology always progresses the most when an ambitious project is stalled by a lack thereof," Jin muttered quietly.
"And oftentimes the technology is worth more than the product," Francis said heatedly with money signs in his eyes. He clasped a hand on Jin's shoulder. "My friend, I believe in you!"
"For the revolution?" Jin asked.
"For the revolution!" Francis shouted.
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Uh… It turns out Jin needs rendering software to fit the scenario into the Illusion Room. The genre has shifted to, recreating a programming language in another world?
News: Anyway, I have some news and the news is that I'll be taking a hiatus till September cuz I need a break. See you all again on the 1st. Bunch of reasons: I had rather bad luck with health over the past few months, summer heat is killing me so I need to reduce my workload and I'm going to visit my family for a whole month starting in a few days so I basically will have very little time to spend on the computer. I'll barely be able to keep updating the Patreon because I can at least schedule those updates now, but rest assured the chapters are getting written so there's no chance of this story being abandoned. Just need a six week breather.