Chapter 1058: New Game, Plus?
<span style="font-weight:400">After the proper measures had been taken to defend against memetic entities, the days began to pass rather calmly. While I did my training in the instanced world core that Aurivy gave me, the others were all working on their own projects. Chelsea was studying the creation of a new world, while Ashley was working on her next game.
<span style="font-weight:400">The game that she had chosen to produce this time could be called more of a sandbox, akin to the game that Dana had designed a long time ago, or World Seed. In this game, there would be no NPCs, and the development of the world was left entirely to the yers. However, there was one system that Ashley wanted for the game that caught me by surprise.
<span style="font-weight:400">The game that she was creating used a cultivation system, but one that was integrated into the game’s main level system. The system was called Skill Master, and awarded participants skill points as they leveled up or trained themselves. They could spend these skill points towards a domain of their choice, designing the skills that they wanted so that the system could assign a price ording to thepatibility with the skill tree and itsplexity. Once they had spent a certain number of skills in a single ‘skill tree’, they would unlock a skill option called ‘Apotheosis’. Buying this skill would allow them to be a deity with their skill tree as their domain.
<span style="font-weight:400">When Ashley told me about the system, I had habitually looked it up, noticing that its price was a full ten thousand points. Ashley assured me that it was fine, because aside from this system, the only other system that she would be purchasing for the game was a dungeon system to provide yers with ample targets. Moreover, the dungeon system was only one thousand points.
<span style="font-weight:400">Taking into ount the ‘packaging fees’, that brought the estimated price game to a total of fifteen thousand. This was vastly cheaper than Fragments of Acidia, which had gone for almost ny thousand points in total. I asked her if she had a good enough crafting system and other supplementary systems to help flesh out the game, and she assured me that she had taken care of that.
<span style="font-weight:400">By packaging the item files of Digital Conversion as crafting recipes, following the crafting add-on that they had previously installed, they wrote a much weaker version of this system. Like this, they were able to save on the cost of getting a new crafting system from the market. Once they had all of the code put together, the game would be ready to publish. Unlike World Seed, this was a game that held the capacity to produce gods. At least, whenbined with the technology to synchronize the real user with their game ount.
<span style="font-weight:400">After Ashley exined the concept of the game to me, as well as the systems involved, I briefly returned to the Admin Room and opened up my chat. Sarah and the others had all been a big help when it came to advertising myst game. It was likely thanks to them that a total of thirty Keepers had bought World Seed so far, giving Ashley enough points to begin production of another title.
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<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: How’s it going?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Hey. Did you hear?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Hear what..?
<span style="font-weight:400">Aerial: Corona was defeated in this month’s game.
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<span style="font-weight:400">When I saw that message, my eyes went wide in surprise. I had never spoken with Corona before, and only knew that she was a female Keeper that had been forced to reset at one point. She was only at the first rank when I joined the guild. But, sure enough, she was no longer listed as a member of the guild.
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<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized. Do you have any ns?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: There’s not much that we can do. Her opponent was a Keeper at the third rank, and we don’t have anyone at that level. The best that I can do is put out a bounty.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: A… bounty? Keepers can do that?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: It’s not something done often, because it costs a lot of points to do so, and it depends on the credibility of the one issuing the bounty. If they’re unknown, nobody would ept the bounty, even if it was posted. But people know me, and they know I can pay. I’ll be issuing a bounty of one million points to whoever can avenge Corona.
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<span style="font-weight:400">My eyes shot wide once again at the size of that bounty. One million points,bined with whatever the Keeper would get from defeating the enemy Keeper, was an incredible sum. I could see many people tempted to act on this bounty. If I had the power to do so, I’d even want to get in on it.
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<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Who was the Keeper that defeated her?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Savage.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Savage? They were my first defense. Assuming that they haven’t changed strategies, their main attack force was a ck slime that could reproduce and infect the body of other creatures to convert them.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: That’s good to know. They’ve likely expanded beyond that point, though. That was back in the first rank, in which you don’t have to worry about divine opponents much. However, if they followed the same theme, their slimes should have be divine monsters. Also, there should be other monsters to worry about when initiating an attack.
<span style="font-weight:400">Oldbeard: If they started with a slime race, they’re probably aiming for a gctic terror build.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: That’s right. Slimes and insects are the best types to do that.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: There’s one other thing that I remember. The slimes that came to my world used a type of verbal magic, which should be runic. Even if the slimes themselves have changed, that fact should have remained the same.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Thanks, I’ll be sure to include that with the bounty information. Since we know the foundation of their magic system, people will be able to more easily specialize against them.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Sorry, didn’t mean to hit you with all of this heavy talk. Was there something you wanted to ask about? You don’t hop into chat that much.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: I’ve been spending a lot of time in my world, so it can’t really be helped.
<span style="font-weight:400">Oldbeard: Why not get the Keeper Chat system?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Wha?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: It’s a cheap system that some Keepers choose to get when they stay in their world for long periods of time. It lets them ess their chat options while descended. Of course, it is entirely disabled during invasions.
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<span style="font-weight:400">I blinked in surprise, not remembering seeing a system like that. Was it one that required a certain rank to purchase, or had I just overlooked it? Given that there were millions of items on the market, either one was entirely possible. Pulling up the market, I saw that it was only worth five hundred points, so I immediately decided to purchase it. This would let me stay in touch with the guild more often, without needing to return to the Admin Room regrly.
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<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Well, I’ve got that now. But either way, I came because my team is preparing another game, and I wanted everyone’s opinions on one of the systems, if that’s alright?
<span style="font-weight:400">Ariel: Oh? Another one? I’ve got to say that World Seed turned out better than I had expected. It takes a bit of getting used to, but the trees can grow into major powerhouses over time.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: For a first game, I’d say it was a good sess. Anyways, what’s this system that you want to ask about?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: It’s called Skill Master, a game-type cultivation system. Has anyone heard of it?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Yes… I’m familiar with it. Are you sure that you want to use this one?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Is there some problem with it?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: I wouldn’t quite call it a problem. However, there is a detail about the system that isn’t inherently obvious. If a yer with it dies, they lose all of their umted skills and have to start over. That is the ‘tribtion’ of the Skill Master cultivation system, and why it is listed there rather than a normal skill system.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Additionally, monsters in a world with that system will be more powerful as time goes on. Any monster spawned in the world has a chance to have ess to their own skill tree, and if they do, they will have skills created by the yers. So, if a yer makes a wind sh skill, there is a chance that any monsters spawned in the future will possess that skill. The more skills there are avable, the higher the chance that a monster will have one.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: That’s… certainly a risk factor. If someone ascends to godhood with this system, will they still be able to create their own divine abilities normally, or will they be restricted to doing so within the system’s methods?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Once you have godhood, you’re able to transcend the rules of the world to some extent. While you can continue to invest skill points via the system to more easily solidify an ability, it isn’t required. Additionally, if you want to start working on another domain after the first, the price is exponentially higher.
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<span style="font-weight:400">I nodded my head in understanding when I heard that. Honestly, the fact that working on another domain was possible was surprising already. I made sure to pass this information along to Ashley while asking my main question.
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<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Do you know howpatible the game system is with technology meant to synchronize the avatar and yer?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: There shouldn’t be a problem. Any memorized spells or techniques should be automatically read and added to relevant skill trees. There was one time when a master mage in my world entered the game, and because he had so many mastered spells, he was immediately given the chance to be a God of Magic. With this system, domains like Magic or involving certain weapon types like Sword be far moremon.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: However, I should remind you that any skills gained in the game are still lost upon the death of the avatar. That means that they won’t be able to be taken out to the real world anymore, even if the yer’s main body has already started using them.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Because of that, most yers stop ying the game after they gain their first domain, because dying would cause them to lose it, unless they had enough additional skills mastered in that domain to immediately reim it.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: That sounds harsh… but I can understand why the system’s price was rtively cheaper if that is the case.
<span style="font-weight:400">Ariel: Anyways! When are you nning to release this game? You’ve gotta let us know, right?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: My team has picked out all of the systems that they want to include, they’re just working on putting everything together. This is going to be a full sandbox, so it shouldn’t take too much longer.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Not experimenting with making NPCs yet?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: I’m not really that confident in doing so. My team is still rtively small at the moment.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: That’s fine. I didn’t make my first NPC until my fifth game, and I ended up scrapping it because the NPC was just a self-insert. When I realized how bad of an idea that was, I got rid of the whole project.
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<span style="font-weight:400">My brow twitched when I heard that. Certainly, putting yourself as an NPC in the game would be horrifying, because it would give anyone the ability to analyze your skills. In a world where anyone could be out to get you, there was a greater need to ensure secrecy.
<span style="font-weight:400">Still… I was surprised to hear the name Savage again, after so long. And the fact that they had defeated a member of my guild. Though, in doing so, they had incurred the wrath of a rich Keeper with many friends… so I didn’t envy them in the slightest.