Admin: City, War and Paladins (5)

By the end of the day, it was still too early to declare that the ‘Purple’ faction had collapsed with finality.  Despite the conventions of

By the end of the day, it was still too early to declare that the ‘Purple’ faction had collapsed with finality. 

Despite the conventions of the game world, and the many assaults from many other groups, they remained one of the strongest factions, if not the strongest, with thousands of members. Even as its members were beginning to be logged out of the game forcefully by getting killed by other Players, the most one could say was that the ‘Purples’ were under pressure. A few islands and strategic passages of theirs might have been lost, pushing them closer to the corner bordering the Celestial Jungles, which were already half-purified of their initial corruption, but they are still a force to be reckoned with. 

Terrible for sure, but not catastrophic.

Still, the emerging trend was undeniably unfavorable for them. 

By orchestrating a few ‘betrayals’ within opposing factions, solely to cover up a critical flaw in my own AI directives, I’d unleashed a cascade of aftereffects. The mere idea that their closest allies might suddenly turn on them had sparked outrage among the Pirate team leaders. 

I won’t pretend that I don’t understand their reaction – betrayal stings the most after all, but in my opinion, the Players were overreacting.

If this were one of those old-school games, with real-money investments and direct admin contact for top players, such intensity might make sense… But not here, not now.

That line of thinking did make me wonder, how is [Titanomachy] planning to monetize this game? Sure, the base game and its hardware weren’t cheap, but given what I knew about the project’s costs – game and hardware sales alone wouldn’t cover development costs even if every human on Earth bought a copy.

Not even with the upkeep required for this behemoth of a game running, let alone… say, keeping me alive.

Merchandise and subscriptions? Maybe, but at best that’d allow the company to break even on their investments, and that’s assuming a large percentage of the Player base would pay for merchandise. I’d never heard of any media product relying primarily on those, they were always just ‘supplementary revenue’. 

Would they force me to churn out DLCs later? Slap in-game ads everywhere? I prayed they wouldn’t make me implement a gacha system, I’d have to design it from scratch, along with loot tables, ability modifiers, and all the rest… Plus the loss of Humanity involved in creating such evil.

Well, those are worries for future me, and for the future bosses as well, but they are nothing more than idle musings now, and it’s not like I’m involved in the Marketing department. Then again, there’s not much to do about the Game world, things have been winding down now, with the battles over with, and the Purples licking their wounds.

Ultimately, the prospect of future potential betrayals had agitated the Players far more than I’d anticipated. 

For the first time, the loosely organized groups of Players began discussing formal structures, and through my omnipresent gaze and AIs, I watched in the front-row seats as the first chaotic overtures of a Guild, evolved. 

Instead of haphazardly appointing ‘that guy’ as their leader and just doing whatever with bare ideas of their roles, Players actually started dividing jobs. The first hints of guild essentials roles are emerging — crafters, resource gatherers, commanders, combat groups, and, perhaps the fastest growing role, internal security. 

It looked absurd against the backdrop of the game's current ‘tech level’, where sharpened bones passed for innovation, yet historical anthropology wasn’t wrong: primitive anarchy was giving way to tribal structures. Perhaps calling them ‘Tribal Clans’ remained a stretch, but fledgling groups are now eyeing each other warily, the carefree unity of players teaming up for fun was fading, replaced by suspicion: 

Was that Player planning to sacrifice you to their demonic patrons? Was always on the forefront of any Player's mind when meeting a stranger now.

Which is funny to see, since there aren’t even many demon worshipers among the Players right now. I've only created thirty so far, to observe how a small group of them would operate in this world with their abilities. However, the mere idea of a special group of Players who could kill you for personal gain has somehow provoked far more paranoia among Players than the concept of entire hostile factions like in other MMORPGs.

Not sure if such a thing is a positive, but I'll count it as one for now and later inform management that the outbreak of paranoia was exactly my intention.

Truth be told, I don't remember history well, especially its archaeological aspects, yet right before my eyes I'm witnessing the consequence of Player factions gradually isolating themselves, the emergence of separate settlements. Not the ‘top-down’ one like I had ‘implemented’ for Jabberwocky, but organic ones – spontaneous settlements for storage areas and makeshift barter markets.

Of course, Jabberwocky’s settlement was already somewhat set up with warehouses and trading posts, but despite its ‘neutral’ status, Players currently avoid going there. 

After all, leadership should remain close to their centers of power, that being the throngs of Players under them, and far from enemies. Neutral grounds don’t mean much when, to trade, entire armies needed to park around the city for the leader's safety, especially given the growing isolation and budding paranoia among the Players.

That would just make it so that Jabberwocky’s settlement ground zero for a massive war. 

Well, and the thinking goes, if the leaders aren’t safe when trading or going outside their centers of power, then the people directly beneath them, the lieutenants, are also not safe. So on and so forth, until it makes no sense not to just create a settlement of their own. Which would need trade, a supply chain… And now a settlement is formed, and pretty much every large ‘Guild’ has their own settlement. 

Which displeases me.

Frankly speaking, having the Players stop exploring and redirecting their energy into building bases would've thrilled me as an admin a few days ago – a perfect way to slow their progression. Yet this happens exactly when I don't need it! 

There’s already a city that I’ve prepared, I had even started leisurely designing the final boss there. I was scripting NPCs meant to train other NPCs through player interactions while accumulating experience for future use, expecting players to reach the city within a week or two. This is more than enough time to build the next location and start fleshing out lore slightly deeper than ‘there was a war, then everyone died.’’. 

Just as I began relying on players' relentless drive as an advantage… They decided to make trouble again. Ironically, by defying my expectations, and fulfilling a desire I no longer have.

But what can I do about it? Send an angel to lecture them, to chastise them for not exploring new territories? Aside from the impossibility of suddenly introducing yet another unknown angel, I also don't actually want the Players to ditch their civil war completely and rush to conquer the ruined city as well. I still need that week or two of peace of not having the Players drain my meticulously crafted city of new content. 

The Player count has grown too large that a unified surge could be ignored.

Players require a goal, but not one that would extinguish their war or enable a collective momentum – a balance where they share developmental direction without overwhelming me. 

And throughout history, such equilibrium has only been achieved one way — through a common enemy…

The only problem was that under current conditions, I couldn’t use NPCs to pressure the Players — I couldn’t find any plausible reason to suddenly send an entire wave of mobs at them out of nowhere without narrative justification. As for using my Fake Players, there were simply too few of them, even if I decided to orchestrate an internal rebellion among the Guilds. A rebellion of a dozen seemed pointless.

So, I needed a common enemy among the Players — one I could still steer in the right direction, control, and, most importantly, use to unite rival player factions against them… But also not so powerful that it actually makes all the Players move in the same direction, that is, against them. That would just be the same problem with a different name.

I need something more like an attack dog, deployable to intimidate Players when needed, while not so dangerous that the other Players would still be biting at each other’s heels.

Well, there’s one idea, one that has proven its effects in other games…

After twenty seconds of deliberation, and finding no answer except one, I opened the voice editor console.

Well, really — just thirty demon-worshipers and not a single high-ranking one among them, nor any openly demon-worshiping societies. Who could make a better hunting dog for me than an ‘Infernal Kingdom’?

Besides, with everyone building their own bases, why shouldn’t the Demon Worshipers have their own too?

***

Ja-Raja had never traded stocks or dealt with securities – he was, of course, ambitious enough and accustomed to taking risks on his path to power, even in real life. But only to a certain extent, the notorious volatility of stock markets and debt instruments struck him as too unstable relative to its potential gains. 

Today’s events weren’t exactly equivalent to stock trading, but in Ja-Raja’s view, they came close.

For instance, he’d taken a risk by accepting Fourth’s offer, a risk that had landed him in his current predicament. And his situation was dire, despite how it might appear to an outsider. 

News of Ja-Raja exploiting an insider, a traitor, within another faction had only reached rival factions near the end of the day, leaving them little time to react. So, the damage, so far, was quite limited… But tomorrow, they’d respond. 

His faction, the ‘Purples’ had only remained the strongest because other factions couldn’t find a good enough reason to unite against them, after all, they were all fighting for the same limited resource, ship repair parts. So, banding into a singular group to attack another faction to destroy their ship, would only mean fighting each other in the end when only a single ship could be repaired. 

Naturally, no one had resorted to Machiavellian or underhanded tactics yet, this was just a game after all – but the more people joined a group, the less trust anyone deserved. That was just common sense. But still, no one wanted to lay suspicion willy-nilly, as that way lay internal fights as everyone started pointing fingers.

Plus, the simple trick of pitting two enemies against each other before finishing off the winner, is so obvious that accusations of treachery would still be seen as suspicious. That was why Ja-Raja had thought the idea feasible.

True, by agreeing to Fourth’s offer, Ja-Raja had gambled, but he’d initially reasoned the risk was justified — he only needed one solid squad to infiltrate the enemy base, capture their ship, and return. After that, his collusion with the traitors would be forgotten, and buried by the fact that he would leap ahead over the other factions. He would have a ship of his own, after all.

The winners, as they say, are Kings, while the losers are Bandits.

But the plan backfired. 

Maybe the enemy had anticipated this maneuver, or had simply happened to keep a few squads near their base. Either way, his small, elite, attacking force met overwhelming resistance from Players and the pirate crew alike, turning them into Swiss cheese in short order. 

Worst of all, word of the incident spread, and Jabberwocky, sensing opportunity in the game’s current petty political instability, helped other groups organize, fanning the flame even. Now a coalition of Players is turned on Ja-Raja, united in taking down the one who struck first… Before then turning on each other, it was the only reason the ‘Purples’ is still a thing and not just a memory.

In the end, Ja-Raja had resorted to tactics condemned across all cultures – colluding with traitors, even the fact that it was all just a game didn’t soften the blow. 

Ja-Raja had taken a gamble and lost – and it was truly a major loss, even just the minor wave of attack that had happened before the coalition had disbanded had made him lose control over four islands. A small loss it might be when compared to his holdings, but it was just one wave of attack he had barely fended off. 

Tomorrow, three more waves could come to swarm him. 

And when the Players in his faction realized that everything was collapsing catastrophically, they’d scatter from his command – especially the Players rushing to join the winning side before they close recruitment. Betrayal was universally scorned, but expecting loyalty from groups less than a week old was laughable.

Now, Ja-Raja pondered how to spin his inevitable defeat into something useful — if not victory, at least survival for his faction. After all, many might still want Ja-Raja himself in their ranks later, but the stigma of ‘that loser guy’ would cling to him, making it hard to find a new foothold.

Truthfully, he was a recruitment specialist, not a warlord, politician, never mind a strategist. Every plan he could make to escape this mess ended with the same conclusion – there isn’t one. He’d lost this match. 

His ‘best’ move, at this point, was to gather whatever resources remained and flee first before his faction crumbled on its own. Abandon his own guild, as it were.

He thought about the decision he had to make… For about five seconds before shrugging. He might miss being the big boss, but as he had thought before, it was just a group that was a week old, he wasn’t that attached to it.

Resolved, Ja-Raja turned to exit his field tent, he needed to stash his gear somewhere hidden before logging off for the day. Tomorrow, he might not get the chance, especially under the watch of the Players returning to fight. 

But before he even took a step outside, a faint chuckle snagged his attention. It was a grating, creaky sound, like rusty hinges, clawing at his eardrums.

Ja-Raja flinched at the sound and spun toward the noise but saw nothing in the tent’s dim light. Was it an assassin? How could one even enter his tent without him knowing?

There was only one entrance.

The laugh echoed again, closer now… As if the source was standing right behind him.

“No need to panic, or someone will notice, and I doubt you’d want that… wouldn’t you agree, oh ‘Leader’?”

Spinning around with a leap, Ja-Raja saw nothing. Ja-Raja quickly guessed that an NPC, a Demon, had come for his soul. Unless some lucky Player had found an Invisibility skill, magic, or potion, there would be no one else that could be speaking to him now.

A memory of a forum post caused him to relax somewhat. It was from an anonymous forum user, as expected since they were definitely a Demon Worshiper, describing how a ‘Demon’ had contacted them.

“So, you’re offering me a deal?” Becoming a Demon Worshiper was not ideal, but if no faction would take him, he’d milk his ‘lone wolf’ status to its fullest. Maybe even link up with the other cultists – if he could find them, at least.

“Offering? Hmm. I offer victory, you speak only of scraps.” The demon’s voice was repulsive yet magnetic, like a sound you’d hate to hear but never forget. 

“Or has it all been forgotten? Erased? Meaningless? Your ‘toy soldier’ game ends with your first defeat – a general reduced to a beggar?”

Ja-Raja grimaced, admitting that he had screwed up stung, even in a game, but pragmatism overruled pride. He wouldn’t speak glibly or, worse, insult the Demon. After all, everyone had learned that the NPCs weren’t ‘just’ NPCs. He seriously considered the offer. 

“What exactly are you proposing?”

~A Contract.~ The Demon’s voice echoed, from the left to his right, appearing all around him, making Ja-Raja involuntarily flinch as he started turning around, trying to find the Demon, eliciting a barely audible sneer from the invisible interlocutor.

~You need power. I require sanctuary. Your enemy is on earth, mine is in the heavens. And we both want to get rid of one annoying priest.~

At the reminder of the main cause of his defeat, his bungled plan notwithstanding, Ja-Raja clenched his jaw. Jabberwocky, he had undoubtedly been the main reason for his defeat. 

Even without leading the enemies himself, it was his words that turned the entire allied army against the ‘Purples’. With a little bit of luck, Ja-Raja could have repelled a couple of enemy attacks, at worst, he would only lose an island. 

But, Jabberwocky, taking advantage of his ‘neutral’ status, used his honeyed words to destroy the only threat in the game to his budding hegemony. A miniature of real-life politics in virtual conditions.

“What must I do, and what will this give me?” Having already made his decision, Ja-Raja still tried to learn the contract terms before signing it in blood. But, instead of a clear answer, only received another mocking sneer instead, as expected really from a Demon.

~You reincarnating children of this world hold such biased prejudices against Demon Worshipers, those who can harvest souls from their victims for power.~ The Demon spoke in their echoing voice again, though this time Ja-Raja was prepared and showed no reaction. 

~What if I grant this power not to one, but ten? A hundred? Perhaps every one of you?~

Ja-Raja paused in thought, such power wouldn't instantly strengthen his army, but every battle, every enemy’s death would mean his faction grows stronger while their foes weaken. It was a direct power-up, as opposed to the indirect way of winning battles against Players give. 

Within days, even inside the hole he had been pushed into, he could overturn the situation and repel his adversaries.

True, this also meant Ja-Raja could no longer abandon this path without deleting his character entirely, and diplomacy would become meaningless, at least for months, until enough Players and factions emerged where even such a ‘devil's bargain’ might seem acceptable.

“I accept.” Though in the end, was there any other choice? Seconds ago, he was already ready to abandon his faction. Ja-Raja had decided long ago to join the Demons’ side as soon as the offer was given.

If he was to lose – he'd do it spectacularly.

***

Ja-Raja didn't impress me much, he’d accepted my offer without considering how other players might react to his compliance, or whether I'd turn those same Players into demon worshipers after him. After all, no matter how unique my offer seemed, not everyone would agree. 

Thankfully, I quickly realized this and avoided the issue, though I developed a strong bias against Ja-Raja because of it. Still, his predictability made him convenient.

Finding a counter to Jabberwocky was essential, and the ‘anti-church priest’, a Demon Priest so to speak, archetype served perfectly as his polar opposite. The fact that I disliked Jabberwocky ensured I wouldn't overly assist him in destroying the Demon Priest completely – turning attempts to curb an overzealous Player into outright vengeance would backfire.

Besides, I'd already considered a counter in-built to the faction. Players would hardly rejoice at being mass-converted into demon worshipers against their will because of Jabberwocky, and by design, a faction filled with Demon Worshipers would have internal factions that would be hard to control… For now. There’s a chance that a charismatic leader could do so, and a Faction that could get more powerful with more conflict could get out of hand in the future.

Well, we’ll consider that eventuality for later, I’ll think of something to ensure the demon worshipers don't become too dominant. Fighting an immortal, respawning enemy you can't weaken – one who grows stronger and saps your strength with every kill, with nothing you can do about it, is a subpar gaming experience.

But, again, a problem for future me, now I actually need to implement it.

So, all the Players identified by the AI as members of the ‘Purple’ faction, I might need to create some kind of roster in the future to make this easier, will receive a message upon their next login. An offer for them to come under demonic patronage. 

The message will outline the benefits and gently persuade them that many others like them are joining — a large, vivid red pop-up window announcing…

The Creation of the ‘Demonic Kingdom’! That should grab their attention… Even if just a handful of demon worshipers among the Players felt like too many to me.

Back to the game, and the nominal new leader of the Demonic Kingdom, and I could see Ja-Raja nodding as he glanced around at the empty tent around him. Likely checking if I was nearby. A fruitless endeavor, admin privileges means that I am completely invisible.

Seeing that there would be no more disembodied voices, he logged out after accepting the offer, his part in the whole thing done.

Mine however was just starting.  

Checking the log-in chart, by this time yesterday, the number would have been a nice, relaxing, flat, zero. This time, the number of logged in Players stands at a charming, even, a thousand. 

Much lower than the normal Player count across the whole game world… But these were 1,000 Players who hadn’t left — meaning my minimum active player base was now a solid thousand.

Fortunately, these 1,000 players weren’t a unified faction, sticking around longer to seize territory from other Pirate factions – they weren’t bold enough to take such steps yet, and the emerging tribal-clan like structure didn’t encourage it. 

I’d need to monitor things, though, to ensure no one tried exploiting this setup to build their own ‘Roman Empire’ among the local ‘barbarian tribes’. I could see some enterprising Players logging in for days at a time, so that they could get ahead.

It’ll probably be Jabberwocky again – and I have no plans to make him stronger or more influential than he already is. 

One reason I needed Ja-Raja was to create a proper counterbalance to Jabberwocky. Thankfully, given Ja-Raja’s rather sudden monumental shift in status, he seemed to have forgotten Fourth’s role in the whole mess – he had retained his current standing, so I kept influence over the Purples…

Later, I could even engineer an internal split if the Demonic Kingdom grows too powerful. 

Demons are antagonists; making them stronger than the angelic protagonists isn’t wise.

Well, that’s a problem ‘solved’, onto the next one.

Sturm and Double had delved into the ruined city again, testing my skills as a location designer – judging by the ‘excitement’ the two had, it seemed to be adequate. I’d already tweaked a few overly easy areas to be harder and buffed some challenging zones – more spectacles to keep the Players busy a bit longer, but not too much either. 

I don’t want a ‘water level’ fiasco on my hand.

A quick check of my ‘potential problems’ table, one I’d created because I’d accumulated too many issues to track mentally, flagged a few non-critical ones. For example, it seems the Players were nearing the limits of the crafting system that I had created. 

Crafting Players who’d read guides on primitive anthropology and ore processing were hastily assembling makeshift furnaces – meaning I needed to design a blacksmithing system… And toss a few new alchemy recipes their way. Turns out, they’d even started a shared compendium of recipes on the forum. And after pooling basic knowledge, they tried deducing universal rules for reagent interactions. 

They struggled heavily, of course, I’d slapped those recipes together haphazardly, with no coherent logic, but I stole a couple of their ideas for future use. Wait, ‘stole’? I didn’t steal anything, – the alchemists just cleverly uncovered rules I totally coded into the game. 

Let them feel smart.

And looking at the table for the next issue… I found nothing?

For a moment, I wondered, could this really be all the problems the game is facing? Not every crisis needs to chain into an endless parade. If I’d resolved the massive AI rebellion, maybe, just maybe, I’d earned a brief reprieve from constant chaos. But that cannot be all of them, right?

Then a blinking message from my monitoring AIs about ‘suspicious’ Player activity shattered that delusion. I’d vastly overestimated my luck reserves.

Teleporting invisibly to the source of the AI’s concern, I cursed. This group of Players had clearly waited for the Player count to drop to run their experiment, even timing their login for this exact moment. What was the experiment?

They’d decided to steal the angel statues.

Up to this point, Jabberwocky hadn't considered gathering all the angelic statues he’d in his settlement. As my main ‘rival’ and a contender for the title of game ‘co-creator’, he at least lacked my omnipresence. 

And thank goodness that the absence of an in-game chat, which I’d forgotten to include, was even welcomed by the Players, as it now limited the speed of information spread. If they could also control all players in real time, I’d be in a losing position against this cunning opponent.

But the real issue wasn’t that. 

Players had decided to steal the angel statues, something simple enough that human curiosity drove them to it. Why? For ransom, fun, or to grant their faction a divine patron? I didn’t know, nor did I care much. I had no plans to stop them, either. 

It was an amusing, Player-driven event. Let the other Players handle it. Worst case scenario, I could unleash my Fake Players to crush their resistance if they disrupted the game.

The problem lay elsewhere, I’d overlooked the simplest thing. 

The statues were indestructible, sure, I’d account for accidental smashing, or even if some Player decided to put a chisel to it. But it was heavy, and rather unwieldy to carry to boot.

And so, when the group of troublemakers decided to carry the angel statue across a suspension bridge, as expected, they dropped it. Sending the angel statue plummeting into the abyss… And I had not created a system where a statue could re-appear.

Now a statue, one of the very limited number of them, had vanished into the abyss, witnessed by two dozen onlookers as baffled as I was, all staring in shared confusion.

“Well, shit…” I sighed, watching the scene unfold, then sighed again.

Alright, brain and lifted limiters, don’t fail me. Time to hastily brainstorm how to stop Players from wrecking the main quest…

Before I’ve even designed it.