“Well, if there isn’t with the viewers, there sure is with us,” Peter grumbled. “We haven’t had a chance to catch a breather in ages, but we also haven’t really been able to control that on our end of things either.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, breathing out a weary sigh. “It’s been either do or die nonstop for the last month. This break with Carver isn’t what I’d call ideal, since we have no idea where they’ve gone to or what they’re doing, but damned if it hasn’t helped with burnout.”
“Then we’ll take what we get in stride,” Paul stated, offering us a consoling nod.
“Are the viewers saying anything else that we should know about?” Peter asked curiously. “Good or bad.”
“Not really,” Paul replied confidently. “As a whole, people are really enjoying everything you guys do, and the feedback is still overwhelmingly positive. Of course, there are still a few vocal outliers here and there, but you can’t please everyone.”
“No,” I agreed, knowing full well how futile that endeavor was from a few of the game projects that I worked on before Ascend Online had been released. Trying to please everyone often ended up pleasing no one, which often ended up with the project being abandoned at a loss. “Any standouts among the vocal people though? I’d rather not wait to address something until it’s a full-blown problem.”
“Eh,” Paul grunted thoughtfully as he brought up his hand to his chin and rubbed it. “There was one particular thread about how you, in particular, Marcus, seem to forget about your abilities from time to time. They apparently thought you could have gotten away from Carver during your clash in the forest by blink stepping away or using your Jump spell, instead of—and I paraphrase—‘being lazy and just walking up to him and dying’. Apparently, they took that as reason enough to not watch anymore.”
“Good riddance, then,” I replied with a snort. “I mean, sure, I look back at that battle and try to think of what I could have done differently, but ‘just blink stepping’ away isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially not when the fighting is that thick.”
“Yeah, those are pretty much my thoughts, too,” Paul said with a shrug. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I don’t suppose we could head these things off by just telling viewers that we’re looking for generic praise and compliments in our reviews?” Peter asked in a slightly sarcastic tone. “Along with things like wanting to name firstborns after us, how they finally can experience joy after watching our feeds, you know, stuff like that.”
“Ha, if only!” Paul replied with a laugh. “But unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way.”
“Boo.” Peter grunted, reaching down to grab a pastry. “Were there any others?”
“Honestly, not really past that,” Paul said, reaching up to scratch his head in thought. “If I really dig deep, I recall a handful of posts grumbling about that you guys haven’t learned any new abilities in a while outside of skill points, or more specifically aren’t trying to learn new abilities.”
“They have to know it’s not exactly that simple, right?” Peter asked in between bites of his treat. “We’re not exactly in a main hub or city where we can get training from people or buy spells. Plus, you can’t just decide that you’re going to learn something at the drop of a hat. You have to at least know a little bit about what you’re trying to learn, and even then, the game has a pretty big say in if that even works too.”
“Oh, believe me, I know that,” Paul replied with a shrug. “But…the follow up on that feedback was that you guys should essentially do the same thing Mozter did. Spend some time watching other people’s feeds, see what they’re doing, then try to copy moves you see there.”
“You mean stream snipe from other feeds,” I said, referring to a term that had been around long before I was born, but one that was likely going to re-evolve in the light of Ascend Online’s popularity. In essence, it involved watching a feed that was being posted by a streamer and purposefully using that feed to either cheat the person doing the streaming or somehow gain an unfair advantage.
“In essence, yes, but in logical practice, also no,” Paul countered, shaking his head at the negative connotation the term brought on. “Because you still need to do the work to actually ‘learn’ the ability within the game, which as with everything I’m seeing, is likely going to take a time investment on your part. Basically, all you’d be doing is seeing what sort of abilities or maneuvers are possible in the first place, then trying to reverse-engineer them.”
“That is true I suppose,” I replied, pausing to sip my coffee as I considered the man’s point.
At its heart, learning a new ability involved repeating the motions associated with it until they were firmly imprinted in muscle memory. Having a trainer that already knew the ability was the best way to learn it quickly since they could correct any mistakes being made and give the trainee guidance. But failing to have access to a trainer, just knowing that a certain ability existed at least gave us a starting point to try to work out the discovery ourselves.
Which as Paul had so aptly put, would most likely take a substantial time investment to reverse-engineer.
“It isn’t too different than if we saw someone using an interesting ability in-game already, Marc,” Peter said, no doubt sensing the general track of my thoughts. “Except that we can cast a wider net looking at other feeds. Not to mention, trying to memorize these moves in reality and then carrying them into the game is going to be a trick unto itself.”
“That is true too,” I agreed, the idea becoming somewhat more attractive as I gave the matter more thought. However, as I did, a follow-up realization promptly dawned in my mind causing me to frown. “Though, I’m thinking now though, if this meta approach works for us and we can learn abilities this way, then we’ll have to start taking pains to make sure that we don’t give away anything interesting on our own feeds. Mozter was already enough of a copycat.”
“That he was, and I’m happy he’s decided to go play the game elsewhere,” Peter said, the dark elf in question not having been seen since his defeat in Twilight Grove. “But at the same time, he copied your general build and spell use, rather than all of your abilities directly.”
“I guess,” I replied, offering the man a shrug. “It’s a good idea at any rate, and I can’t wait to try, assuming we even find the time to fit that into our schedule somewhere…”
“There is that,” Peter agreed.
“I’m sure that you will all manage as best as you can if it’s possible,” Paul said smoothly, knowing our concerns all too well. In the recent weeks, we’d already asked him to censor out certain parts of the Twilight Grove and the Nafarrian ruins from our feed, as well as everything regarding the building and development plans for Aldford. The last thing we wanted was for other players to get an inside look at our defenses or secrets from outside the game.
“Just let us know what we can do on our end of things to keep whatever you need to have hidden or excluded from your feeds,” the man went on to say. “We’ll do our best to keep any creative abilities that you guys happen to have under wraps for as long as possible.”
“Thanks, Paul,” I replied, giving the man a smile and a nod as I considered how we could make the most of that particular bit of information he’d given us.
I knew I hadn’t exactly made the best use of the Open Minded trait that I’d started the game with, getting far too caught up in managing Aldford or one of the other countless events that had marked the last two months, but maybe I could start making up for lost time and start working on it in the days ahead, assuming, of course, I could find the time to do so. At everyone’s urging, I’d done my best to delegate the running or building of Aldford to others, but all that had done was leave me with more time to find other things to occupy myself with.
“No problem, Marcus,” the producer stated with a nod, oblivious to the rapid train of thoughts that had passed through my mind. “After all, we’re here to help any way w
e can.”
“Hey, speaking of help,” Peter interjected, sitting up in his chair as he spoke. “Did you have a chance to look into that stuff that Heron and I sent over a while ago for the other guilds around Coldscar?”
“Yes, we did actually, and we’ve managed to narrow it down to a few solid candidates,” Paul answered, reaching out to pick up the tablet he’d left on the table. “Give me two seconds, and I’ll send it to the monitor.”
“Sure,” I replied, using the opportunity to reach out and grab another doughnut and wash it down with another sip of coffee, seeing the scantily clad dryads that had been left on the monitor vanish. A second later, they were replaced by a handful of guild logos and names.
Working off our earlier idea to build up the region surrounding Aldford, we’d decided to follow through on our plan and looked into some of the guilds that had settled around Coldscar, with the intention of extending invitations to those we thought would be good neighbors. However, on our first attempt, we’d managed to find nearly three dozen guilds that seemed to fit the bill at first glance, leaving us more than a little bit overwhelmed at the choices that we’d had. So, to help with that, we’d enlisted Paul and his company, Ætherworld Productions, to help scan through our selections and help vet them.
“So, I suppose I can start this off by saying that the situation around Coldscar has continued to deteriorate based on what I’ve seen in the feeds,” Paul began, placing the tablet in his lap as he spoke. “A few of the guilds you’ve given me on your list have already left the area, either striking out towards the Fens of Swyn or just straight out into the wild. Three have also completely disbanded, with some of their members getting absorbed into other guilds in the area.”
“Great!” Peter exclaimed happily. “That means whoever’s left has to be decently strong but also a bit desperate.”
“Which is what I focused my efforts on,” Paul agreed, having shared Peter’s mercenary attitude since the very beginning. “Though for some of these guilds, you might have a hard time convincing them to leave one warzone for another—even if things have calmed down a bit between you and Carver right now. Many of them are simply on the edge of burning out.”
“I can understand that; we’re really no different,” I said grimly, the familiar exhaustion still hovering at the back of my mind. “But just having one or two decently sized guilds in the area around Aldford that we can trust would also convince Carver that it’s too dangerous to keep bothering us. We’d finally be the ones with a number advantage.”
“You could be right,” Paul said. “But, fair warning, moving is something you’re going to have to sell them on pretty hard.”
“Or…” Peter began, waving the paper Paul had just given us in his hand. “We give them an offer that they can’t refuse.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, glancing over towards him.
“We pay them in cash to come out and settle in Aldford,” Peter said with a devilish grin. “What do you think it’d take to convince someone? A few grand maybe? We can spare it. Plus, in-game coin too if we have enough time to finish minting it.”
“Is that even legal, though?” I asked, not entirely sure how I felt about Peter’s suggestion. Bringing in real-world money into something like this seemed like a way to create an unfair power dynamic between the parties involved. “The last thing I want is to have CTI coming down on our heads for manipulating the game from a meta point of view.”
“As far as I know, it should be fine,” Peter answered without a missing a beat. “Some of the really big guilds have started posting jobs for people with certain skills, such as logistics or even public relations, and they are offering to pay them a real-world salary in addition to supporting them within the game. Depending on how we spin it, we would essentially be hiring an entire guild as mercenaries or providing relocation incentives for new immigrants to the area.”
“Huh,” I mused thoughtfully as I considered the argument. Being able to hire people to fill specific roles that we needed around Aldford would be helpful beyond measure, and I could easily see a whole new jobs market evolving if CTI didn’t raise a stink about it, allowing even more people to make a living playing Ascend Online that didn’t rely on streaming income.
Have DPS, will travel, I mentally quipped with a small grin as I nodded at Peter, seeing that there was a great deal of merit to his idea. Assuming that it’s legal, of course.
“Do you think you’d be able to get Andrew to look into this for us?” I asked as I looked over towards Paul, referring to the lawyer that had helped set up Virtus as a corporate entity in reality. “I’m not sure how it might suit us in getting these guilds to come and settle here, but I think that we might be onto something here big picture wise. Filling roles that we need done in-game the same way we’d hire someone for a job is an attractive idea.”
“Yeah, I can definitely see that,” he replied, clearly curious to know the answer to our question too. “I think we’re all going to be excited to find out what the answer is. If we can, though…I think I’m going to need to expand my staff pretty quickly. There’s going to be a ton of opportunity there.”
“No kidding,” I agreed, vaguely feeling like the three of us had just released a genie from a bottle and had no idea of what it was capable of.
“Anyway, getting back to this,” Paul said, motioning towards the screen with his head as he changed the slides on the screen, which now showed two faces side by side. “I’ve managed to narrow your list down to two larger guilds that I think would be great fits, plus a handful of smaller ones that look promising as well.”
“That’s not bad,” I said as I read the two captions beneath the two headshots, one of them identifying a black-haired Eberian as Mithaniel, Guild Leader of Lionheart with the other being Janus, Guild Leader of Legion, a brown-haired half-elf.
Pausing for a moment to stare at the two pictures for a few seconds, I nodded and shifted my gaze back towards Paul.
“Tell us about the Lionheart guild.”
Chapter 8
“Your success or failure at this point no longer concerns me.” I heard a man’s voice echo through my headphones, the familiar tones causing me to bolt upright in my chair and my eyes widen in surprise. “While your service has been impressive thus far, I see no reason for me to intervene. As it is, I have already loaned Edith into your service, and you have damaged her.”
“Holy shit, is that who I think it is?” I whispered softly to myself as I clicked to rewind the feed that I was watching, getting a perfect view of Sawyer and another woman I knew to be named Molly, my heart suddenly racing in my chest. Restarting the feed, I watched the segment once again, hearing the voice fill my ears once more. “What are the odds…”
Much to my shame, it had taken me ages to finally get around to watching the entirety of Lazarus’s feed in detail, having been derailed by everything that had happened over the last few weeks. All I’d done was a handful of simple spot checks throughout the feed that Lazarus had given me, focusing largely on the aftereffects of his adventure in Eberia and his interactions with Stanton in particular. A short-sightedness that I was immediately starting to berate myself for.
“Damn, it is him!” I exclaimed as I paused the feed once more, having allowed it to play up until the point where a ghostlike apparition wearing a mask and robes came into view, standing in the middle of a courtyard along with several other people. “It has to be! I’d never forget that voice!”
“Who is what, Marc?” I heard Peter’s muffled voice call out from outside my headphones, prompting me to pause my feed again and turn towards him, spotting him sitting on the couch across the room. “Why the hell are you yelling all of a sudden?”
“Because I think I just heard Graves’s voice in Lazarus’s feed,” I replied, pulling the headset off my ears.
“Graves?! Damn, I’d forgotten about him!” Peter exclaimed as he stood up and moved over towards me. “What is he doing in Lazarus’s feed?”
“That sure does sound like Graves’s style,” Peter said dryly as he looked at the screen. “But are you sure though, man? People can sound all sorts of ways in recordings, could be a random person or even an NPC that sounds similar.”
“Yes…no? Ugh, I don’t know, maybe?” I said, glancing back again at the feed, then towards Peter once more. “Whoever this talking ghost thing is, they’re also wearing a mask, so I can’t see their face to be sure.”
“Hrm, so much for an easy solution,” Peter said as he dropped into a nearby desk chair and glided over towards me, his hands indicating for me to pass the headphones over. “Let me have a listen.”
“Sure,” I replied, handing them over to Peter and sliding out of the way for him to better see the screen. Waiting for the man to get settled, I restarted the particular segment that I’d been watching, seeing his eyes narrow in concentration.
“Hrm, shit, that is pretty close to what I remember him sounding like,” Peter replied a few seconds later. “And you’re right with whatever happened here with Lazarus and the others. It kinda sounds like he’s in charge of this shitshow.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I’m still not completely sure that it’s him. Only that it sounds like him.”
“Me either,” Peter stated while motioning to the computer. “We have our old feeds, right? Try pulling Graves talking from something there. We can compare it and see if it’s just our imaginations.”
Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Page 10
