Even though what he was about to push was only the first expansion, the amount of work packed into it was absurd.
Just converting the game into a real PC structure had been enough to waste half his patience.
Then there was the cleanup work around it. Then the first Maple Town map.
Even in 2D, even with the art polished but the detail density still deliberately restrained, the install size was already pushing several gigabytes.
That would not do.
After Leo left, Ethan did not slow down for a second.
There were five servers now.
He had already rebuilt all of them by hand.
Any one of them could have supported twenty thousand concurrent users without much trouble.
But current-era RPGs rarely claimed numbers like that unless they wanted to attract exactly the wrong kind of attention.
After a short pause, Ethan locked down part of the available performance.
That way the game would stay smooth without making the hardware look impossible.
Once that was done, he started dividing the server groups.
Maple Town Region: Solor Village, Zarku Village, Karoka Village, Milov Village, and Shugill Village.
Five villages.
Solor Village was the original server, the one Blaze King and the first wave had started in.
Solor was also the name of the old village chief with the permanently stunned face.
The other four were all new servers.
Not that 'new servers' was exactly right.
The structure was similar, but the maps were not identical.
The layouts were different. The encounter flow was different.
They shared a foundation, but they were not lazy duplicates.
Arcane Realm had been built from a real magical civilization.
In one of the human empire's subordinate duchies, Maple Town and those five villages had genuinely existed.
"That works," Ethan muttered. "Later, when the tech is strong enough, I won't merge servers the way normal games do. I'll merge territory. The map itself."
He leaned back, already following the thought further.
"Keep expanding it. Keep fusing the map. One day Arcane Realm won't feel like a game world anymore. It'll feel real."
Then he finished the update settings and pushed the patch live.
After that, he published the official website he had prepared in advance and tied it directly to the update.
Then he wrote the patch notes.
First Update Details:
[First, thank you to everyone who supported the crowdfunding campaign. We have already begun the company registration process and purchased new servers.]
[This update opens four new servers. The original server has been renamed Solor Village. The new servers are Zarku Village, Karoka Village, Milov Village, and Shugill Village]
[This update raises the concurrent-player limit. However, because the current maps are still limited in size and we want to avoid overcrowding, each village server will presently support up to 10,000 concurrent players.]
[As a thank-you to crowdfunding supporters, all backers can use their supporter code to claim an exclusive outfit and exclusive title from the village chief after the update.]
Second Update Preview:
[The next update will open Arcane Realm's first expansion, unlock the Maple Town map, and raise the level cap to 19.]
[The next update will also open the payment system. Arcane Realm promises not to sell stat items. Players will be able to purchase cosmetics and mounts according to personal preference.]
[The next update will convert the game from a browser title into a downloadable PC game. Players who have not yet registered will be able to create an account through the newly launched official website. One person, one account. Identity verification required.]
[The next update will open the market system, allowing players to trade dropped items freely. The market will charge a 5% transaction fee.]
The moment Ethan hit publish, the update notes appeared on both the official site and the game's login screen.
Because of the earlier GM notice, players already knew the mass disconnect had been part of a live update.
But only a few minutes later, when they saw what had actually changed, the entire player base nearly lost its mind.
You had to be joking.
The lag was gone?
There were now five village servers with room for fifty thousand players online?
Four new starter servers had opened?
The crowdfunding supporters got exclusive cosmetics and titles?
What the hell?
The players who had backed the campaign were instantly ecstatic.
The ones who had not felt like crying.
You could have said there were rewards.
You psychopath.
The game had tricked them twice.
First with the level cap.
Now with the backer bonuses.
The forum on the new official site filled with celebration, regret, swearing, accusations, and people demanding to know whether psychological warfare counted as normal monetization.
Then the mood shifted again.
Because once the first burst of noise passed, everyone saw the real point.
This thing was about to explode.
If Arcane Realm could already reach this level as a browser game, then once it became a real PC title, as long as the client was not garbage, it was going to blow wide open.
There were a lot of people who liked games.
There were not many good games.
Half the market kept putting out beautiful junk.
The other half kept dragging out old titles people had already loved ten years ago and asking them to feel nostalgic on command.
A genuinely new hit—a game that was polished, addictive, strange, and ambitious enough to light up the whole market—had not appeared in years.
Arcane Realm felt different.
It was fun.
It was ruthless in exactly the right way.
It felt alive.
And now it was promising a larger map, a higher cap, player trading, mounts, cosmetics, and a full PC conversion.
Quite a few players felt their scalp prickle.
They understood the implication immediately.
As long as the PC version was not a disaster, and as long as the first expansion did not ruin the momentum, Arcane Realm was going to become huge.
And a truly good online game was never just a game.
It was a market.
The whales would come.
The grinders would come.
The speculators would come.
Communities would form around class choices, trade, optimization, guild identity, and the simple human desire to show off in front of strangers.
Some people were cheap in real life and reckless in games.
Ethan understood that very well.
Once a product earned obsession, money could move with startling speed.
So the players with any foresight at all started acting immediately.
"Buying crowdfunding supporter slots. Register the account the way I tell you. Five hundred bucks per slot."
"Just made a group for Arcane Realm players. Anyone serious, add me."
"Anybody planning for the expansion? Need people who want to run content together."
"Arcane Realm is insane. I'm all in."
"New servers are live. Roll call for Zarku, Karoka, Milov, and Shugill. Bring your friends."
The new official forum was already overflowing.
Hundreds of posts in ten minutes.
The first real bucket of gold was almost here.
Ethan nodded once, satisfied, then turned back to his computer and resumed typing.
A real expert could compress and simplify several gigabytes of code into something leaner without gutting the experience. Done right, that meant faster client performance, shorter download times, and less strain on the player's machine.
Ethan was that kind of expert.
That did not mean he could relax.
He still had to keep checking everything, cutting waste out of the code, streamlining systems, shaving size wherever he could.
Even the current browser version would have been intolerable without that work. A map that large should have taken ten to fifteen minutes to buffer on ordinary hardware.
No sane player was going to wait that long for a browser game.
And this was only the beginning.
The next release would add the first expansion, the full Maple Town zone, and a more complete PC framework.
Even staying in 2D for the moment, the content footprint was already too large.
That meant he needed to start preparing now for the eventual move into 3D.
If the client became too bloated, he would lose players.
And lost players were lost money.
He worked until evening without noticing the time.
Around dusk, Leo came back to the house by cab and gave his report.
"I've got everything moving," he said. "The company paperwork should be ready tomorrow. The game approvals are stricter, but I should have those handled within three days."
"Good," Ethan said. "Nice work."
"Just doing my job."
Ethan glanced toward the windows.
"It's dark."
Leo followed his gaze.
"Yes."
Ethan looked back at him.
"Then why are you still standing there?"
Leo blinked.
Ethan added, "Waiting for me to buy you dinner?"
A/N: If you enjoyed the chapter, add it to your library and drop a power stone. It really helps support the novel.