Admin: Ending Prologue (5)

How to tame a mob? In my head, it didn't seem like the most complex system I could imagine. 

In short, it should look something like this: find a mob, don't aggro it, use a couple of abilities like ‘soothing melody’ to raise a mob's internal stat to an invisible number marking the ‘tame-ability threshold’, with some level of randomization of course, then give it some conventional ‘treats’ using the ‘tame’ ability. Limit the allowable level of the tamed mob to the Player's own level, as well as the number of mobs they can tame to their Skill level, and there we go a Taming System is created. 

Simple, unpretentious, and it should work — is anything more needed under current conditions?

Perhaps it was just personal experience, but I had a feeling that something more needed to be added. 

Because while the taming system itself could be made without much fuss, a much more delicate problem followed; what is to be done with the tamed mobs?

A level-one Player who got one imp under their command, already had a significant advantage over any other level-one Player who didn't. Considering that in this case, the Player's creativity wasn't limited by an artificial ‘intelligence’ stat like for the mob's, a tamed mob sent to perform simple work would increase production speeds two-fold. Even if it was just by carrying mined metal from one place to another. In combat, a tamed mob could be placed in a chosen spot, and suddenly a resentful little bundle of code and claws would be rushing at a Player's back in an ambush.

The Taming System, while simple to implement, would crush the balance of power to pieces.

So, what is to be done then?

First, implement limitations on intelligence level of the tamed mob, make it so that there would be a limitation to what kind of jobs they can do. Second, a clear restriction: no tamed bosses, that's the stuff of nightmares. Third, add another filter, ‘understanding’ the Player orders to their tamed mobs would be filtered through the mob's internal intelligence stat. I don't need horses that differ from self-driving taxis only by the fact that they snort. God forbid, some Player gets the idea to tame a sentient mob… So let’s make that impossible too.

All things to make sure that the Player thinks of the Taming system as a good aid to their game, but it creates problems just as it solves them.

On top of that, hmm… On top of that, we'll add the ability for them to level up. 

If a level-one imp remains level-one forever, then Players will start complaining about it for sure. But, the tamed mobs would gain no skills from leveling, and no bonuses from equipment; it needs to be more modest. Can’t have the tamed mobs be a replacement for a Player, after all.

Hmm, maybe that is too strict, I want the Players to waste time on this System after all…

Okay! So, I’ll make it that leveling the Tamed Mobs will increase their stats, by their owner's choice, while making available equipment for customizing them further. Should I make it solely Player-created equipment, or do I make them ‘drop’ from the treasures or enemies?

Hmm, something to be decided in the future…

Next, maybe the Tamed mob would gain a new ability every ten levels? The need to level them up will also keep players in the game longer—it's not enough to level up yourself, you need to level up your pet too. Go on, grind for another three hours…

A thought began to itch in my mind that I was heading somewhere wrong, as if I had seen a system like this before, and I focused on that line of thinking. My instincts have never guided me wrongly before.

The Players need a limit on the number of pets they could have, say, one every ten levels, and the ability to release less beneficial pets to make room for more desirable ones…

The itch in my head grew stronger, and I blinked.

I had invented a gacha system for my game, haven’t I…?

Instantly, a vision appeared, a future after I would implement the system, my superiors nodding, convening a general meeting. And in just a month, I would receive a memo from them that a revolutionary system had been implemented in the game… Something stupid like ‘Angelic Intervention’, the name would be something along those lines, and for just ten angel shards, players could try their luck and get a new pet, a special skin, or even an ‘Experience Blessing’ that would level up their pet!

And for just one hundred shards, you could get a guaranteed pet! Though its rarity would be random, don't worry, a small, modest real money transaction would give you a whole eleven angel shards, and using one hundred shards at once guarantees you a rare pet or higher! Of course, considering you'd have ten left after a hundred pulls, you wouldn't just leave these unused shards wallowing in your inventory and decide not to spend more, would you?

The vision was so vivid that it was almost as if I had lived through it personally.

Strictly speaking, it’s not like I’m against a gacha system. There’s really only two things that make me stand against it.

First, the fact that my game would become a pay-to-win game, where one’s ‘strength’ is decided by the size of their wallet, and the willingness to open it. Second, that it would be insanely addictive. Make the price for the ‘shards’ cheap enough, and it would be an incredibly strong pull for Players, attracting and tempting anyone. 

Of course, for the gacha to succeed even more, it would be best to change the Imps' and other monsters’ appearance to that of anime girls, or at least anime boys, but that wouldn't be hard to manage. 

But, even without that important piece of the puzzle, the gacha would still work and be incredibly addictive.

And although, strictly speaking, I had a neutral stance on the appeal of gacha itself, I would neither blame nor encourage the Players’ desire to spend half their monthly salary on the rarest cosmetic for their pet. I was in fact only averse to the very fact that money would give some Players an advantage over others. I didn't escape my life into a virtual space with concrete and more-than-fair progression just to strip away this last bastion of escapism from other Players.

So, the Taming System undergoes a massive change from its current state. 

No more independent pet leveling; the pets would level up with their master, but the experience is now split between them. A pet is a strategic, long-term investment, one the Player must be absolutely sure about before investing in it. Of course, the ability to release their pet at any moment and reclaim the experience, should smooth the edges of risk a bit. But as having a Pet effectively half the Player’s levelling speed, it still slowed the player's development, relative to those without a pet. 

Next, rather than depending on level, the number of pets would be tied to intelligence, and the taming ability itself to charisma. No more distinct rarities or cosmetics, and if a pet is killed, it respawns. The more pets, the more the experience gained is fragmented, and taming is done only by one's own hands, and of course, no pet trading! 

This would hammer right into the hardcode Players, let pets form a special bond with their Players.

True, the fact that some tamed mobs would be better than others couldn't be removed simply for the sake of progression itself. It would be too foolish to leave a starter imp on the same theoretical level as some ‘celestial dragon’ for a level five-thousand Player. But here, too, we'll stipulate that when one pet is replaced with another, all the experience previously gained by the pet will transfer to the new one. 

Hopefully, implementing such features would stop the Higher Ups from demanding the implementation of a gacha system. 

Of course, I could just say ‘no gacha, because so-and-so’, but the less I get into arguments with those who hold my brain in their big, cozy basements, the calmer my soul feels.

Therefore, having laid out the system in its first approximate working framework, I shifted my gaze back to the unfolding events in the gaming world.

Strictly speaking, the idea of taming mobs didn't first occur to the player nicknamed ‘Grave’, but, as often happens in reality, no one had gotten around to testing their hypotheses first. Their time had mostly been spent on levelling up, then either getting swept up by Jabberwocky or Ja-Raja. There was always so much to do that the Players, sparkling with ideas that would surely plunge me into despair, sometimes simply didn't find the time to engage in yet another blind goose chase.

All in order to, hopefully, find another ‘hidden’ piece of the game world.

Therefore, recently, it was just this ‘Grave’ person who first managed to carve out time to test his hypothesis. 

As one of the demon worshipers, when Ja-Raja and his horde attacked, he captured a level-one player and took him away with simple words slash threats. Grave promised that they wouldn't force the captured Player into anything, he just wanted to test the hypothesis of taming mobs. Of course, the implied threat of death and losing progress, if said Player didn’t come along, didn’t need to be said.

Luckily for Graves, the Player nicknamed ‘Tsvyetmyet’ - weird name, Non-ferrous metal, but then again it’s normal when compared to some others.

Anyway, Tsvyetmyet, finding Grave's proposal interesting, didn't resist either and went with them without struggling. In other words, the terrible act of capturing living slaves turned out to be an invitation to an experiment from the captor to the captive. In general, just as most of the successful raids and captured Players on the other side, this is another very convincing act of role-playing. 

After all, it’s practically impossible to ‘capture’ a Player who can always press the Log-Off button, or just choose to ‘respawn’ themselves, one of the first anti-frustration methods I’ve implemented. There’s every risk that my Players could get stuck on some kind of unrendered scenery, or just ‘fall’ into the abyss and get stuck when I get stuck developing this mess of a game. 

And so those Players who didn't like the idea of being captured simply pressed the respawn button and appeared in the central camp, or any other chosen respawn location. The resentment toward the Infernals was now fueled only by the loss of their personal grinding spot and a two-hour wait in the resurrection queue. Thus, the Players that were ‘captured by barbarians’ are those who found it interesting.

Strange Players who decided to role-play ‘captured by barbarians and a heroic escape from them’, and those who were tempted by a completely different idea, as in Tsvyetmyet's case.

So, right now, sitting in place, Tsvyetmyet watched with some disapproval as the imp continued to attack him. He wasn't tied up, but he didn't move to defend himself either, continuing to watch the imp try to turn his body into a scene worthy of a second-rate slasher film. 

The sensation from the natural-looking wounds couldn't even be called properly ‘unpleasant’. 

After all, no government would approve the full transmission of sensations to a Player's brain; too many problems were associated with it. From the possibility of reclassifying the game as a torture game, to the desire of Players to live entirely in this game, truly achieving what all sorts of opponents of interactive entertainment had been screaming about for so long. Making video game Players confuse reality and the game. 

The sensation Tsvyetmyet felt was more of a signal that ‘something is wrong here and here’, than a real feeling of pain. At most, it’s on the level of how a person might feel a pebble stuck in their shoe. The sensation of ‘pain’ wasn't even fully ‘unpleasant’, just a signal that various parts of his body were feeling and behaving strangely compared to their usual. 

True, this sensation was spreading across most of his body and was accompanied by a truly horrifying sight: blood, exposed muscles, broken bones, the picture of a monster's brutality against a defenseless victim.

The imp, leaping back from its unmoving victim, sized it up, clearly aiming for a new strike, while Tsvyetmyet opened his status screen, trying not to look at his own body too much and not create unpleasant associations in his mind that could greatly worsen his perception of the current situation. He stared at his remaining twenty health points before speaking up to Grave. 

“After I respawn, I'm going home. I'm not coming back here.”

“Yeah, I got it,” The supposed ‘tormentor’ who'd set the imp on Tsvyetmyet, Grave, replied in a calm, if slightly annoyed, voice, completely unfitting for the scene of a gruesome murder and torment. 

“Maybe I'm doing something wrong?”

“Have you tried feeding it something?” Tsvyetmyet closed his status page, once again looking at the slowly approaching Imp, which couldn't fathom the idea that its defenseless victim wouldn't resist their own murder.

“With what?” Grave spread his hands, showing that they’re empty. 

“As you have no doubt noticed, we don't have many gardens here, and I don't think it'll eat jungle vines. Just doesn't fit their appearance, don’t you think?.”

“Maybe try the meat of other imps?” Tsvyetmyet asked the most logical question, causing Grave to blink and break into a smile. 

“You're right! Everyone got so hung up on killing and cramming that no one's developed cooking yet…”

The demiurge of this world, me, however, watching this scene, took a deep breath, trying to control my desire to drop a meteor on the Players before returning to contemplating the situation before him.

The cooking system, huh? Actually, I’m surprised that I hadn’t been forced to create it before, I suppose the Players enjoyed other things more.

“Anyway, no one's seen imps eating other imps yet, so I'm not sure if it'll work… Damn, you’re one voracious monster, huh?” Grave shook his head, as the Imp leaped forward and plunged its claws into Tsvyetmyet’s body, making him look away. It was not like he was especially queasy from gore, of course, but watching some monster tearing a human body apart was still unpleasant. 

It was unpleasant even in simple games, where it was just images from behind a screen, let alone one in my game, where the Player’s avatar is your own body. Personally perceivable, and the sensation matched the image of the monster trying to rip you to shreds, leaving huge, bloody furrows on your body. 

So it was no wonder that Tsvyetmyet had no desire to look at such a picture for a second more.

Then the Imp attacked again, and again, and finally, one final attack depleted Tsvyetmyet’s HP, and toward the rebirth he'd been expecting.

That was why he spotted the moment when Grave’s expression, suddenly, turned elated.

“It worked!” Grave's exclamation just as his screen started turning black made Tsvyetmyet smirk.

“Write on the forums how it went!” Tsvyetmyet managed to rasp before a panel hanging in front of him, dispassionately indicating his death and just as calmly counting down the time until his next rebirth.

Grave, left alone with the Imp and the Tsvyetmyet’s body, which had been turned into a bloody mess barely recognizable as a human form, extended his hand forward. 

“[Taming]!”

A moment later, a barely visible shimmering haze covered the Imp's figure, changing its internal parameters and reassigning it from the AI responsible for mob behavior to the newly appointed AI in charge of pets. Then, in the [Systems] tab, Grave found the [Taming] tab he was so interested in, to the point that he had basically committed War Crimes if it had happened in real life.

An instantly triggered script also informed Grave that he had received the trailblazer achievement for said system. However, Grave's first priority was not to enjoy the view of it, but to go to the menu of the newly tamed Imp and click on the most important line in it.

“Alright, now you're Big,” Grave smirked and raised his hands in what he thought to be a cool pose, but in my opinion just looked kinda pathetic with the Imp right next to him. 

“And let the heavens tremble. For Big and Grave is coming for them!”

***

Moving my attention from the new Tamer, I instantly switched my attention to the non-existent Cooking system. 

Indeed, it was surprising that no other Players had yet tried to ‘unlock’ it, though, in fairness, it was worth noting that unlike wild beasts, slain demons didn't look like something edible. At least not while they’re level one and without trying to urgently advance their internal ‘demon worship’ parameter. 

But the mutated beasts in the dungeon? I could totally imagine the Players trying to roast a [Giant Rat Meat], like true denizens of RPG games, and the panicked AI trying to get an answer from me on whether it should do something about these Players before the meat turned into complete charcoal.

However, in this case, I faced a certain problem due to the fact that I couldn't simulate the sense of taste in the game, at least not without violating twenty laws that even the [Titanomachy] probably wouldn't break without a very good reason. In that case, simulating things to a ‘near-hardcore’ level was much more difficult. 

If a player couldn't check the readiness of a dish, and moreover saw no visual difference between them, at what stage they were, raw, half-cooked, cooked, or charcoal, the necessity of maintaining the right temperature and cooking time would undoubtedly seem like an unnecessary complication of the recipe. With equipment production, everything was easy and understandable; poorly cleaned leather fit worse, a poorly made blade was more fragile, and a crooked bow shot askew. What's the difference between two food items if they are cooked differently, if not the taste? One works worse, and some doesn't work at all. 

In that case, how does cooking differ from alchemy? It's a bit strange to use rice, boar meat, and wild berries to create a potion, of course, but if ‘cooking’ would become just a subtype of alchemy, what is their main difference?

If I make the dishes’ effect much weaker but much longer-lasting…

No, then alchemists won't experiment with duration and increase it, and such experiments are already underway.

Make it much easier, availability wise, for everyone? But alchemy is also, theoretically speaking, available to everyone. Of course, in practice, an alchemist is more likely to stay away from the front lines and pore over experiments and the study of the invisible, even to me, since they're made up, properties of various ingredients. But nothing prevented an alchemist from suddenly deciding to take up sewing, or a tailor from experimenting with brewing the first explosive potions, probably with an equally explosive result.

My mind grappled with this problem, but no matter how I twisted with it, I couldn't come up with any good compromise. It would be strange to make some kind of explosive powders from food ingredients, and just as strange to call the process of producing some new equipment ‘cooking’. But everything that came to mind that could be called cooking, that is, eating an object after is quite similar to potion-making, but isn’t, simply had to have an effect… 

That is, since I’m already copying a lot from the Alchemy system, maybe I could just copy it wholesale? Make it weaker, maybe less costly, but essentially it would still be the Alchemy System all over again.

Possibly limit the effect that one could gain from ‘Cooking’ be effects on Health, Mana, and Stamina? But then… What would be the point of having multiple recipes, then? Make it so that adding one specific ingredient, cooking it for a specified amount of time, increases health regeneration by 5.6 and mana by 5.5, and another dish prepared another way did the opposite? Perhaps completely insane min-maxing PVPers would one day become interested in such a difference… 

But for now, I didn't even have min-maxers, considering that Players didn't even know what worked, how, and why it worked – because I myself had no working system for it.

And so, after a long and joyless brainstorming session, I decided to turn my thoughts one hundred and eighty degrees and work at the current problem from the opposite direction.

If no ideas were coming to mind, other than the bare-bones cause and effect of a Player eating a dish and getting effects, after all, I can't call any other action cooking, then how can I implement this idea without making it ‘Alchemy, but the potion is called a dish’?

Maybe make the effect take effect gradually?

No… that's just Alchemy, just with an extra bow on top.

Lower the requirements needed for each dishes’ creation? No, that would kill the whole idea of hardcore gaming, you can't have a system for forging in the game and right next to it the idea of ‘throw in three fish and get fish soup’.

I racked my brain even harder, before a brilliant idea pierced my mind.

“You are what you eat, aren't you?”

What if instead of full-fledged instant, or delayed, effects, I implement a system where the Players would undergo some changes through what dishes they consume?

For example, that Player who tried the Rat soup or shishkabob? Why not give them a growing bonus to poison resistance? Very slowly, say, one percent increased resistance for a couple of dozen consumptions, with the requirements for increased growth gradually demanding more and more skillfully prepared dishes. 

Moreover, more complex, multi-component recipes will be valuable because they would allow the Players to get the desired effect from several ingredients at once. And higher-tier ingredients will give a more noticeable stat growth, and generally provide more significant bonuses.

Additionally, I'll introduce two Stat caps to encourage Players to use the Cooking system, to make the prospect of levelling the Cooking skill that just much more enticing. A soft cap, which will be introduced into the game as an incentive to cook well and also dedicate time to it. And a hardcap, so a player can't forcibly eat everything they need and go jumping three times their level on other players and monsters. 

The hardcap will be on the frequency of just how many dishes a Player could eat, perhaps a daily cap, so that the Player can't get too many additional stats at one time. Plus, there would be a cap on just how much a Player’s stats could be boosted, maybe tied to their level. That way, a Level 1 noob couldn’t just one shot Jabberwocky, for instance, after gorging themselves on food.

But, more importantly, this would cause the frontliners to slow down, as they suddenly had another system to hone their edge on lest their lead shrinks because they don’t want to engage with the new System.

It will also force them to log in more often and engage in these grinding activities; the bosses will be happy, and they won't think about any gacha for a healthy period of time. Thank me, Players, I gave you a way to progress and reduced the potential further monetization of the game. 

“I did this all, for you!”

Of course, no Player heard my proclamation.

With these last thoughts, I started working on implementing the System before I would forget about it. 

So, rats will give a little extra health, spiders poison resistance, and imps…

The memory returned to the first boiled imp that became an explosive potion in my alchemist's hands, and I nodded.

And imps – fire resistance…

***

When my consciousness emerged from my workflow state, the in-game day clock was already drawing to a close, a fact announced by the falling Player online count. Fortunately, no Player had discovered the cooking system yet, and strangely, I felt a little… disappointed by that.

To be precise, the longer it took the Players to consume through all the available content, the easier it was for me as a developer to go about my business. It meant fewer opportunities for them to pull something new, something I was completely unprepared for, and more time for me to focus on my own tasks. 

But alongside that, I felt a strange sense of disappointment, as if I had created something worthy of praise but couldn't show it to the critics.

In a strange way, I had entered into a symbiotic relationship with my Players. After all, all the content I created was for them, and creating content that Players wouldn't discover or explore felt… unnatural.

I mean, of course, one day the Players would explore everything I’ve, and the last thing I wanted was another sudden surprise from them finding yet another gaping flaw in my work. But at the same time, I had almost… I've gotten used to it. Maybe not exactly something that I would want or search for, but I felt a strange emptiness when the Players weren't breathing down my neck. For them to patiently wait on the sidelines for me to deal with some problem they hadn't yet been able to pick up, feels… Well, unnatural.

Shaking off this strange, almost contemplative state of mind, I returned my gaze to the game. The online Player count had dropped significantly, but the days when the game remained practically deserted were long gone. Despite the significant drop compared to the peak hours, the numbers were far too high for me to even suggest not keeping an eye on them.

Many Players who remained in the game world were doing much the same as they did before; some went off for another batch of imps, some tried to brew a new potion, and some hammered away on their anvil, learning the science of medieval blacksmithing firsthand, one blade at a time. They fight not against mobs, but against slag impurities in the iron being prepared for a sword or other kind of weapons, who would later use it to hunt a brand-new mob.

Even a few high-ranking Players were still online. 

Maybe it was their day off, or maybe some of them decided they could afford a couple of hours less sleep than usual before their workday. I was well aware of how such a feeling worked, from my own experience. Just ‘one more turn’ before suddenly the sun was already peeking from the horizon.

In short, my game had long outgrown the threshold of just another game and now deservedly occupied the position of another time and effort sink for Players. I never paid attention to the financial reports, of course, but I could imagine what it would look like just from the Player count. 

Ten thousand online Players was already a sufficient indicator for a game to be deemed ‘alive’, a hundred thousand pointed it to be of cultural relevance. So what’s about my game? When even on its activity ‘through’, there were still a million Players online? 

If I were a major shareholder, I would have opened a bottle of champagne right now, just to match the ‘spirit of the celebration’.

But I wasn't a shareholder, let alone a major one, and I still had a mountain of work to do. So far, for Togra, I had only picked a location and a rough theme of a ‘sky pirate capital’, so it was much too early for me to celebrate anything.

On the other hand… I could simulate sensations, couldn't I?

Therefore, extending my hand and focusing on my memories of the time I celebrated my friend's wedding, I summoned a glass of the champagne I had once enjoyed so much, holding it out before me.

Thoughts immediately began to swirl in my mind. Champagne was usually drunk for celebrations, which meant a toast was in order, but what exactly could I drink to this time?

To my work? Without false modesty, I'd say I had done a good job over the past few days, but it was too soon to relax. I may have created a full-fledged system that Players hadn't even touched yet, but it was a matter of a couple of days before the first Player got their hands on my creation. And then again, the eternal arms race against the Players would continue. 

You drink to a job well done when it's all done, or at least when you've reached some important milestone. This is not a milestone, just yet another flagstone on the path I’m paving.

To the Players? As if I'd drink to those who constantly make me run and jump, spinning like a squirrel in a wheel.

To the company? Well, I might have felt some sentimental attachment to it, they were, after all, the main reason for my continued existence, but it was primarily a mutually beneficial business partnership. And whether they would uphold our agreement in the future when they no longer need me? 

Well I would only find that out in that distant future…

So, after swirling the transparent liquid in the glass a few times, I smiled and took a sip. 

“Well, here’s to the game, my perfect creation!”