11 Chapter 11 (1/2)
Chapter 11
”So, I just assign the points as I see fit?” James was looking at Old Man Jenkins upgrade screen, eying the options available to him. When it came to upgrading his boss mob, the developers had apparently wanted dungeon cores to have as much freedom to upgrade as they wanted. That was nice and all, but it meant a boss could either become extremely overpowered, or rather underwhelming, depending on the dungeon core's choices.
”Pretty much.” Rue had summoned another table and was pouring herself a drink. If James had to guess, she was probably thinking this process was going to take a little time. She was probably right.
”Can I undo my choices, if I don't like them?” Some games let you freely assign and reassign upgrade points, so that you could try out different builds. Other, less forgiving games, locked in your choice the moment you made it. That meant mistakes you made in your early levels, would continue to haunt you as you moved forward. James had once played a game that had a mechanic like that. He spent 30 levels worth of points going into a tank build, before he decided he wanted to play a mage instead. It took him a long time to get the levels into his magic to make him a formidable mage, but at least he could hold a giant tower shield to hide behind while he was leveling.
”For now, your choices will be locked. As you grow as a dungeon, there will be a way for you to reassign points in your mobs, but that will be later down the road.” She took a sip of her drink and smiled at him. ”So, don't mess up.”
”Thanks.” He turned back to the screen, eyeing all of his options. If they were going to be locked, he needed to really put some thought into the process. Some of the options to upgrade were basic, such as increasing his mobs hp, mp, atk and def by a %. He noticed that the percentages for each option seemed to stack though, which would make the boss scale rather quickly. For instance, if he put a single point into the option labeled Improved Health, the hp would increase by 10%. The next level increased it by 20%, the third by 30%, and so on.
For a second, James was tempted to just put a point into each of those options, to increase his bosses base stats another level. However, two things stopped him from doing that. First, he had no idea how adventurers would fare against his boss early on, and he didn't want to increase the difficulty right away on them. Second, the gamer inside of him was screaming that there were better choices to be made, than just improving basic stats.
”Do I have to use all of my points right now?” He saw a few options he liked for upgrading, but he didn't see 5. And if he didn't have to spend all of his points right away, well there was no reason to.
”Ah, are you afraid of commitment?”
”No. But I don't want to make any mistakes if I don't have to.” He was trying to approach this task as logical as possible. What was so wrong with that?
”You know the saying, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” She took a drink, holding eye contact with him the entire time she did. As she set the drink down, she slowly ran her tongue across her lip. ”Why not take a chance? It could be fun.”
James was pretty sure his AI was using his teenage mind against him. He was also pretty sure it was working. ”You are a terrible influence on me.” James grumbled as he turned back to the upgrade screen.
”I just want you to have a little fun. You seem so uptight.” Rue let out a light, musical laugh, as she took another drink. ”Maybe you should have a drink, take the edge off.”
”What exactly are you drinking?” She had been pouring the drink out of a teapot, so he had assumed she was drinking tea. Now though, he wasn't sure.
”Try some, if you're curious.” She held her cup towards him, and he just stared. He was a floating orb with an eye. He didn't have a mouth, his voice just echoed from his orb as he spoke. They sat in silence for a few moments, before Rue let out a laugh, and took another drink. ”Oh, right.” She poured more of the liquid, which he was certain was alcoholic, into her cup. ”More for me then.”
”I have a drunk pixie. Great.” James mumbled as he turned back to the task at hand. Because of how immersion worked, players could actually get drunk in game. A lot of people actually enjoyed that fact, because they could drink, be merry, and get drunk, without any risk to their actual bodies. James had learned to stay away from liquor, after a rather long night of drinking and gambling in Warcraft Universe, that saw him losing a good amount of coin, and his favorite pet. It had taken him three months to get another one of those pets to drop.
”I'm not drunk.” Rue took another drink, and a small smile crossed her face. ”But I'm sure I'm getting a good buzz right now.” Because developers were always trying to make AI completely indistinguishable, James had found that the AI could also get drunk in games. Some players would purposefully try to get NPCs drunk, in order to get discounted prices on wares, and sometimes it was even a required tactic to unlock secret quests. James was pretty sure, his pixie getting drunk while she was explaining dungeon creation to him, was not the best idea.
”How about you try to stay sober until we finish completing the dungeon?” James had been feeling good about his dungeon creation so far and was confident he was going to finish the basic set up of his first floor, before the players started playing. However, he would hate if his pixie got drunk and forgot to mention some important detail to him.
”Buzz kill.” Rue waved her hand, and the drink and table disappeared. ”Are you happy, oh mighty Glyax?”
”Delighted.”