Massively Multiplayer Read Online Free PDF Page B

the floor.
    Vitus Calloway was staring eagerly. "Quite takes one's breath away, eh what? Charming! Completely charming! What's that bit over there?"
    Wolfgang glanced. "That's the Chill Swamp. Brokenheart territory. That's a Western server, one of ours down in the basement as a matter of fact. But those Adventurers don't look nearly flash enough. I'd say they're probably doomed." Even as he said it, the lizard-man in the screen swung again, neatly decapitating one of his human opponents.
    "And over there?"
    "That's the Serpent Court. It looks like Ahken-Set is issuing judgments today. That's one of our Eastern servers, located in Athens. We must be monitoring it for redundancy."
    The younger Calloway wore an expression of interested avarice. The Calloways’ accountant seemed still stunned by the noise and images swirling around them. "How many of these rooms are there?"
    "There is only the one in this building, Ms. Forthwhit. But there are others at each of our global server centers. Seven in all. The game, as a whole, is very, very large, and very complicated. That's why you pay me so well."
     
    The elevator spat them out into a hallway on the sixth floor that was mercifully silent after the control center’s Niagara of noise. Rooms branched off in every direction, some empty of everything but humming equipment, others like miniature versions of the chaos on the eighth floor: a few virlos with technicians reclining in them, or a handful of people gesticulating and arguing around a single holographic display. Wolfgang directed them into an unused conference room with a single vast window overlooking the water.
    "This is my conference room. That's my office just through there, but it's a mess right now. Last minute reviews for the software release tomorrow." Wolfgang sat down in a comfortable leather chair and his guests did likewise.
    Henrietta Forthwhit turned immediately to the elder Calloway. "Are you quite sure that–"
    Vitus raised an imperious hand. "Now, now, my dear, I know it's a bit much all at once like that, but I think I know best. I've seen it before, don't you know, and if I didn't think that the project needed a firm hand...well." He trailed off mysteriously, giving Wolfgang a sphinx-like smile. "Wouldn't want to be spoiling the surprise. Wallace, the lad's been involved with the update project, from our New York offices, but why don't you bring us all up to speed, eh? Tell us how things look from your end."
    Wolfgang nodded, comfortable once more in his role as tour guide.
    "O.K. Regular updates are critical in entertainment-oriented netvironments. Without them, the average user cycle is between six and eighteen months. You get your long-timers, but by and large, people want new content, delivered regularly. We’re in luck with Crucible, since a good deal of the content is user-created.”
    “How do you mean,” interrupted Forthwhit. “Are they paid for content creation? Is it part of your regular accounting?”
    “Er, no,” Wolfgang admitted. “They do it on their own. For fun.” The accountant raised a skeptical eyebrow. Wolfgang sighed
    “And how does that work out?”
    “Well...it greatly increases the sense of variety in the game environment. It also lends a natural competitiveness to the system -- each country wants to out-do its neighbors, both on the corporate level and within the netvironment itself. We’re a distributed netvironment, seven control centers spread around the world to serve our clients the localized mythology for their region, and there’s a good deal of playful one-upsmanship in content design, storyline advancement, that sort of thing. Our Japanese server team gets a kick out of egging the Japanese players on against the South Americans. That sort of thing.”
    “Games within games, eh Wallace,” smiled Vitus Calloway.
    “We like to think it’s done with, uh...good will.” Wolfgang was aware that he must sound lamely fainthearted to the notoriously ruthless