Robb and Jordan reached the rest of their team by coordination and semi-athletic crowd navigation. The crowd at the Fairly Unusual booth was impossible, but Amy had spied a set of parallel tables where row after row of cheap PCs had been set up. One was inexplicably open, so she pounced on it like a hungry leopard. It was a good thing, since about nine other people arrived a half-beat after she landed in the folding chair. Moments later, the rest of Team No-Name arrived with most of its membership desperately out of breath. It seemed the law of video game fitness was still in effect. Either you could be a level 40 druid, or you could be in shape. There was no third alternative. At least until the rumored augmented reality add-on was released, of course.
Amy was only partially paying attention, being somewhat distracted by a video announcement on her phone about the deadline for submissions in the first night costume contest. Suddenly the PC snapped on and booted to a Kings and Conquests logo. That was impressive enough to draw the attention of everyone in a twenty foot radius who had ever used a PC seriously. There was a musical fanfare and the sound of heralding trumpets. Seconds later, a login screen for the game appeared. The same sequence of events replayed itself on dozens and dozens of other screens. Tables were arranged in semicircular rows around the edges of the Fairly Unusual booth. Now that there was something on the screens, the PCs became the main event.
Amy clicked on the “begin” button, and what appeared next drew a storm of noise, suggestions, counter-suggestions and questions from the group of people who had gathered around. Some were from Jordan’s team. Most weren’t. Amy heard the noise but couldn’t discern what anyone was saying, so she navigated on her own.
The range of choices was complex enough to be intimidating, even for someone quite conversant with role-playing games in general and the conventional feature set of massively multiplayer titles. The graphics were stunning. Options for player race and ability were fully stocked. It seemed Kings and Conquests would give players options for moral alignment preference in addition to more than seven hundred player abilities which combined in so many different ways it would be literally impossible for anyone to navigate them all in the few minutes they had at the Supercon booth. Voices barked from all directions.
“There’s a discernment ability!”
“There’s a race that changes from animal to human at level 10!”
“Can you go back to animal?”
“What about the nere- nereshi? Ooh! Ooh! There’s an aquatic race!”
“How can they have an aqua– Wait, they level up in the water? Underwater? How is that possible? Is there a whole other game in the ocean?”
“There aren’t any classes! Wait, you can make a class, wait wait, you can be a class but only if you pick the right combination of abilities and then you have to train levels in it to get the other ability–”
People were trying to read the screen and the promotional materials at the same time. Flash bulletins were going out to every social media site known to man and presumably more than a few unknown to man while the luckiest human beings alive got the first look at the player selection screens. Photo flashes were going off everywhere. Music thumped from somewhere nearby. Finally Jordan climbed over several confused people and plopped a folding chair down next to Amy. He was already amped on energy drinks and flying at about 110% afterburner.
“Okay, Robb is recording just me. He can’t point the camera at the screen and we’re live so you just have to tell me what I have to do to make a fighter. Just a sword guy. That’s it.”
“What race?” Amy asked. “There are 34 of them.”
Robb looked around the camera with an expression of bald incredulity.
“Say again?”
“Thirty-four!”
“Okay, just make him human.”
“That’s boring!”
“Then pick a number, add three and use that! Who cares!? Make them one of those water guys!”
“I’m picking the cat race.”
“Fine. Make him a cat.”
“And she needs the sword wielder ability, but you can’t get that until level 5.”
“We– I mean she can’t have a sword until level 5? What are– is she supposed to fight with?”
“The cat race has claws and teeth. They fight hand to hand first.”
“Hence why we picked cats,” Robb said.
“Right,” Amy replied. “Now, here’s the track to sword wielder. You have to pick strength or speed training first. You need four levels in one or the other or two levels if you train both.”
“That’s backwards.”
“No, if you pick both, you are level capped. You have to specialize if you want advanced skill in one or the other. It also determines which kind of sword skill you start in when you get to level 5. There’s also four different kinds of swords.”
“The min-maxers are going to be so pissed,” Robb chuckled.
“You can’t min-max this game,” another fan shouted over the music. “Mathematically impossible!”
Amy shrugged.
“It’s going to take us hours to get a character together!” Jordan wailed.
“Just choose the mutant sorcery ability! Then you can use dark magic to grow a character randomly, right there in your alchemy lab!” The same fan at the next computer seemed to know far more than he should, given the game had been revealed to the public about 12 minutes ago.
Amy scrolled and scrolled. Almost all of the abilities were greyed out. The names were almost enough to frighten the players into devoting their every waking moment to unlocking their secrets. Jordan almost spat his soda all over the table when he saw “Deathfire Sorcery” and “Insidious Subterfuge” complete with animated icons in the “must be level 35" category. Finally she found “Mutant Sorcery.” It was an obsession category skill, which meant the character would not be able to level any other skills until it reached level 8, at which time the game apparently considered the player to have “mastered” its obsession.
“There’s a warning! Read it!” Jordan barked.
“This skill has unpredictable and uncontrollable side effects and is not recommended for new or inexperienced players.”
“We’re never going to leave home again, are we?” Robb asked.
“Not as long as my character is uncontrollable and unpredictable until level 8,” Amy replied. “But she’s still a cat.”
“I think it’s permanent,” Jordan replied. “With this thing you’re unpredictable for the whole game.”
“I found my first skill,” Robb said.
Jordan watched as Amy continued playing with the character creation screen. There were so many options it was almost a game within itself. They hadn’t even reached the initial equipment area yet. There was no describing the feeling of anticipation and adventure. It wasn’t just like looking through a tiny window into another world. It was literally looking into another world.
Chapter Five
Dramatic music accompanied the camera swooping into the lens flared newsroom. A logo spun into center screen and the host of the self-titled Cavanaugh on Business Report launched the evening’s broadcast.
“Good evening investors and entrepreneurs! Cavanaugh here with what you need to know now.” The camera cut from one $20,000 smile to another. “Tonight, live from Malibu, California, the scene of the GamesWest Supercon, we’re joined by Eric Thomas, CEO of Interactive Partners LLC. In studio, we have senior investment analyst Julie McMasters and Quarterly Net’s own technology reporter Jack Nueva. Eric, we’ll go to you first. What is the top story from GamesWest and why is it Fairly Unusual?”
Eric laughed like a blow-dried douchebag right on cue. “Well Bill, from the moment Garrett Wyland arrived on the front sidewalk, the talk of the convention has been their upcoming multiplayer title Kings and Conquests. They seem to have put the controversies behind them and are now busy inciting more.” The picture switched to B-roll as Eric continued. “There was a surprise announcement of a playable demo last nigh
t, and by all reports, the game is much further along than most analysts expected.”
“Let’s talk about that, Julie. The Frozen Cat subsidiary set up by Fairly Unusual to run their crowdfunding campaign is now the 14th most profitable company in the industry this year if we measure by gross income. How could the developers have a playable demo if they’ve still got a week to go on their first 30-day crowdfunding campaign?”
“Obviously, they had been working on this project for some time before they decided to start raising money for it. Their public relations campaign was so low-key it bordered on genius. You had to track down what they were doing. That made the media curious, and that just created a feeding frenzy. The results speak for themselves. Whoever came up with this should get a bonus.”
“Kind of like a treasure in their game, right?” Jack said with a grin. Julie tittered like she had dropped her drink.
“Exactly. I think they are doing a tremendous job of keeping enough information available to fans while also maintaining an air of mystery. I think that’s doing a better job of selling the game than anything else.”
Facts about Fairly Unusual were superimposed in the lower third while the pundits spoke.
“Jack, you’ve been covering the games business for a while. How can a developer generate this kind of interest in a game nobody saw until 24 hours ago?”
“Bill, they’ve raised nearly $150 million from fans so far, and there’s no reason to believe they can’t make it to launch day in the black if pre-orders and the IPO they just announced come together as quickly and as easily.”
“Eric, have there been any more details released about the public offering– next week, is it?”
“That’s right, Bill. A spokesperson from Fairly Unusual held a come-as-you-are press conference last night outside the 3D animation panel and had information packets available for us. Shares are being underwritten by Blue Sky Capital Group. Fairly Unusual will be offering 40% of the company at an initial valuation of about $90 million. Based on their cash position alone, we expect the share price to do well out of the gate.”
Bill Cavanaugh paused a beat and turned to Jack. “Doesn’t this sound like just another reckless tech IPO, Jack? Too much money chasing too few products again?”
“I have to admit it does seem like a big rush. I’d like to think it isn’t a one-company bubble like Aquatic Systems last year, but it’s hard to ignore the hype. More than a quarter million people have handed money to this company. Some of them paid more than a hundred thousand dollars for the equivalent of a super-premium account in the game. These are the true believers, Bill. I think they’ll carry the company through, even if they stumble a couple of times before release.”
“Jack brings up a good point. Normally games like this take years and years to develop. They have all the problems of a major film franchise combined with all the problems of building a small spacecraft. Their budgets are thin and their schedules are thinner. I think we should expect a bumpy ride even if the crowdfunding, convention and IPO go the way they want.”
“And with that, we’ll close tonight’s bulletin. Up next, where should you put your retirement money if you plan on being laid off for the fifth time in a year? You’ll find out after the break.”
Chapter Six
Jordan Hall had never been more tired in his life. He was sprawled nearly unconscious on a massive hotel-quality king-size bed. The other half of the bedspread was covered with open, greasy and half-occupied pizza boxes. His feet hung to the floor and he was fully engaged in an imaginative re-interpretation of the room’s ceiling pattern. He tried to think about the game and everything that had happened in the last three days and he simply couldn’t cause his brain to process any new information.
To one side Amy was sitting with her notebook computer at the all-purpose desk absently scrolling through her Instabyte feed. Her non-gamer friends were oblivious, but at the same time, there was only one subject under discussion on the gaming side of her Insta-list. Robb was parked in the corner next to the built-in refrigerator. The only sound he made was when he opened another energy drink. He was busy reading the hundreds of pages the No-Name Team had printed out containing the fan-base’s best guess at the KNC rules and features. Dave and Marc were in the next room playing an indie space battle game on 60-inch display attached to the room’s included SabreStation console.
“This thing has turned everything on its head,” Robb muttered. “And we’re sitting in a hotel room eighteen floors above the biggest event in gaming history.”
“I can’t believe they actually plan to launch with 34 races. Every one of them has a special ability! They all have home territories. There’s an aquatic race. Five subterranean races. A sky race. Two symbiotic races! A ghost race!” Amy exclaimed. “More than five hundred player abilities that can be used in almost any combination! There’s no way they could balance all this.”
“You heard Wyland at the keynote last night,” Marc said as he stalked through the scattered clothes and suitcases to get to the refrigerator. He stopped and posed dramatically. “Balance is a prison, and we’re going to help you make your escape!”
“And the crowd goes wild,” Robb muttered. “It sounds good, until people start crying because they picked the wrong abilities and get stomped.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Amy interrupted. “The min-maxers are out of business. It would take a building full of accountants to untangle all of these abilities and come up with the best combination.”
“No character classes,” Marc said as he stepped over the loot bags, cradling his soda. “But if you pick the right abilities and use them properly, your class manifests, like a proc! Absolute genius.”
“I can’t believe we did nineteen videocasts in two days,” Jordan said in a “not-quite-inebriated but close enough” voice. “The most I ever did before was three, and that’s only because the second one wasn’t encoded right.”
Everybody’s phones went off at once. Four people scrambled to find theirs. Jordan lazily reached for the nightstand, hoping he wouldn’t have to sit up. He absently wondered if he had the strength to escape the building if it caught fire. Then he realized he wouldn’t be able to reach the door even if they were attacked by a giant praying mantis _while the building was on fire.
“Summoned?” Amy asked out loud. There was a gentle knock on the door. Robb climbed out from under his sheaf of Kings and Conquests arcana to see if he could navigate to the door without crushing more than a few pieces of luggage or the suddenly priceless souvenirs. He opened the heavy five-star-hotel-sized portal and froze. Outside were four of the most attractive young women he had ever seen in his life. They were all dressed as medieval peasant girls with long dresses and aprons. The leader was a doe-eyed brunette whose top was holding on for dear life against the pressure of her saucy curves.
“May we speak with Jordan Hall?” she said in a voice that made Robb think a small garden of daisies and wildflowers had just grown around his feet. He nodded and looked back into the suite for help. Amy, Marc and Dave had roughly the same expressions. Amy was likeliest to regain her powers of speech first, so she went to fetch Jordan.
Chapter Seven
Kacey Gossamer was ostensibly one of the NNG Videocast’s more successful competitors. She was the personality and owner of the Questing Heart Show which appeared on most streaming services every Saturday night with a regular roster of guests and a new topic in the world of video games. Although her show had been migrating to mobile and consoles of late, there was no credible way she and her producer could ignore the hype surrounding KNC on the PC.
Like many of the more local Internet video channels, Kacey’s attended GamesWest with a press pass and a full schedule of news shows, interviews and features. She had to travel half a state with her entourage from Northern California to Malibu, but once there, she blended right in with her platinum blond hair and fresh-faced energy.
She was interviewing the Mad Cupbearer, as he had come
to be known. Fitz Breaker was a part-time comedian and part-time industrial process consultant from the Bay Area who made his living saying outrageous things on other people’s Internet shows. He was the guy who barged in to sleepy weddings and made them more enjoyable for everyone. This time, he was wearing a Friar Tuck outfit matched with a green bowler decorated with shamrocks.
“So let me get this straight, Fitz. You think all this–this big production is meant to distract us from what’s really going on?” Kacey asked with her best “please don’t get me kicked off the Internet” look on her face.
“I think Garrett Wyland is the consummate pitchman, Kacey. I think he is a flim-flam artist of the highest order and all I can say is I’ve got massive amounts of respect for the man.”
“Why do you say that? They’ve shown us their technology, their demo– they’re even going to award a new car to the first level 75!”
“This guy is going to usher us in to a world of government-controlled video games for the next 500 years and I think he’ll be laughing as he does it.”
Kacey gaped.
“Think about it. Out of the clear blue sky they start raising millions. Everyone goes insane. They turn the hype knob to 11, announce an IPO and start making that saucepan bubble. Everyone knows there’s nothing behind the curtain. Garrett knows what the rest of the industry doesn’t want to admit! They don’t want the game. They want the hype. That’s what they’re paying for. They want the show! They want the glamour and the bright lights and the hot chicks surrounding the booth! Even the amateurs! All the game can be after all this is a disappointment.”
“So what you’re saying is this is all some kind of fake game or something?”
“I think they’ve got the beginnings of a good idea there, but I’ve been doing this for a living far too long, Kacey. You’re looking at three million man-hours just to get the foundation poured for the blueprints we’ve seen. Wyland can’t manage that. He can get out of a car on television. That’s all he has needed to do up to this point. The company almost got busted for hiring working girls to staff their booth. If you think that was accidental you’re as delusional as the people who buy the stock two months late. Everything they do is designed to get media coverage, and nothing else. That’s their business model. They turn stupidity into money, and there is an unlimited supply of stupid on the Internet. It’s one hell of a lot easier to make money that way than building video games.”
Overpowered: A LitRPG Thriller (Kings and Conquests Book 1) Page 3