Chapter 26: Chapter 26

Currently I had Artur, Julian, Johnathan, Harold, and Amy in my office. All were key members of Raven Games and worked on Project K. Except Harold who was also helping with the Malazan game.

"I know this meeting was not in the schedule but thank you for coming on such a short notice. We've come a long way since the beginning, and I can confidently say we are making something bigger than all of us. This game will become a part of history, and it's all thanks to you all and your teams." I said as a cracked a smile at the end.

I locked my sight on Artur who was seated with his legs crossed and seemed to be in deep thinking.

"You've been invited to work on another project recently, right?" I asked him already knowing the answer.

Artur nodded his head. "Yes, it is for the third installment in the Witcher series. I haven't agreed to anything yet though." He told me.

"Do what you think is best, the games main storyline is finished and so are some of the expansions we have planned for the future. But I didn't call you all here to speak about this." I said as I looked at Harold.

"We should be thinking of the next big thing. What comes after this project." I could see Julian wanted to speak but I raised my hand to stop him.

"I'm inclined to hear all your opinions, but I want to tell you mines first. Our game, Project K will revolutionize the way gamers view games. We are making something bigger than ourselves with this one, but the end of the story leaves the players on a cliffhanger, and hopefully wanting more." I paused for a second. "I've thought about having various single-player games that expanded upon the world we've built. However, after listening to the streamers feedback my thought process has changed. We should make a new MMORPG that continues the story but on a grander scale." I announced.

Artur raised his eyebrow. "What are you thinking?"

Julian spoke up next. "What can we do? What kind of combat can match what we have now? What kind of gameplay?"

Johnathan seemed to pick up on what I wanted and looked surprised. "You want to flesh our the world, don't you?" He asked me.

I nodded. "At the end of the story when all the regions are being ruined, the players escape. Left looking back at their home being destroyed as they drift off at sea. But where do they go from there? Our current map only covers a specific region and all the areas connected to it. However, how many continets are on our planet? Why must we stick to one small region? Let us shape the universe."

"Something of the magnitude would take years to accomplish, not to mention the resources necessary to do it. I don't know how much data would be needed off the top of my head, but depending on the scale it would increase dramatically.  Why would we create something so large for a few thousand players to play on at once. Something so grand would mean the world would feel empty." Harold explained to me.

I once again nodded. "That's the hard part, and why after this engine is completed I need you to start building the next big thing. Picture this, we have one server that's able to host millions of players at once. Would the world feel empty then?"

"That's insane, it's not possible. Even if it was everyone would move at a snails pace, that's just too much data for anyone to handle at once." Harold said.

I nodded once again. "True, but imagine this. One server is dedicated to host ten to twenty thousand players at once. We can accomplish that in time, but we need to expand beyond that kind of thinking. Think of each server as a supermarket, people enter and exit at will so its never at full capacity. We can do the same for the servers."

"Games already do that as it is." Harold said.

"Not exactly. We will have one giant server that hosts smaller servers. Each of those small servers will have a set capacity, but can freely be entered and exited at anytime. However, instead of simply calling them server one, two, three, etc. They will belong to regions within the game." I said before pausing a second. "Region A, B and C will all be on one server. However, each of those regions will be it's own server. So when players walk through the world they are crossing through servers freely moving their data from one server to another. It's always constant and while it will be likely for one region to fill up with players, it is also unlikely it will be full at one specific time. Due to the constant movement from the players to travel from region to region. So when one leaves another is entering, but as they enter another is leaving. What do you think?" I asked Harold.

"This...! I honestly don't know. I've never once heard of anything like this so I'm not sure if it is possible."

"It is, and I believe we can do it. This is how we will flip the gaming world upside down. After our reveal at PAX, I imagine there will be developers looking to work with us. But I would like it if you would help secure more engineers and Data specialist. This is an ambitious project, but once successful we will dominate the market." I told Harold.

He seemed a bit hesitant but nodded.

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"That does sound amazing, but that is something that would take years upon years to build." Julian commented.

"It will, but this project would take years to finish. What do you think is missing from Project K?" I asked him.

He shrugged. It was a difficult question to answer considering all the nee ideas that were put into that game. But there were some concepts I would like to have.

"Freedom. Project K gives players a lot of diverse options for classes and professions, but not the kind of freedom I'm speaking off. In game players are locked to the ground having to stay in combat, but what would be next? A system where players can freely move and attack as well. We take our current project but add on to it in ways gamers think is impossible. An environment with no invisible walls, all the terrain is traversal. But, instead of focusing our end content on PvP, we will enhance a players immersion experience to allow for better role play." I told them.

"It sounds really fun, but the story would need some time to be forged." Artur said.

"Not to mention the world. If we are going for something that large scale, we'd need to have a dynamic system. Continents with their own weather, changes in the terrain, and an evolving world." Johnathan chimed in.

"We can work with that. Are we staying in the setting of a medieval fantasy world, or will we go beyond that into pure fantasy?" Amy asked.

Artur looked at her. "Depends on the story. Will we have the old Continents and regions be primitive? So when players get to the new world they'll be surprised by the advancements made? Or, we could even do a dynamic twist having them play as their child who has been in the new world for some time now. "

"What are we going to do with what we've already built though? Will it stay or...?" Johnathan asked.

"We can keep it and have players be able to travel back to the original regions. With the ruined land everything will change and the creatures would be much stronger than before. I think we should save it for an expansion." Artur said.

"What about the races? A larger world setting should have a lot more races involved." Amy spoke up.

"Can we add in a side quest in Project K to hint at this? That the world is a lot bigger than what they see?" Julian asked.

The discussion of our future project carried on for a while and with everyone's input I can tell they liked where it was going. Even I wanted to see where this game would take us. We only had a bit longer to wait before the official launch of Project K, and at that time we would see how the world would react to it.

I wanted to open up more branches if it did well in North America. That way we could go global, but for now I was fine with the way things were.

After everyone left my office I went to my email. Mr. Evans sent me something so I opened it and found out that I was invited to the school play.

The elementary school has changed a lot since I got myself involved. It was still a public school, but the renovations helped it out a lot. The students enjoyed it and were just being kids. Even the members of the neighborhood got together to do some cleaning. They focused their attention on graffiti that had bad words on buildings, and cleaning up the trash in the area.

One of the retired engineers in the area even opened up a community center for teens and young adults. I was surprised by this but was glad it happened.

All in all things were looking good. But I haven't been back there in a little while so I wanted to attend the play. I opened my phone and was about to message Scarlett to see if she wanted to go.

However, I stopped and shook my head. Instead I asked Pheobe Tokin who was playing Cleo in H2O: Just Add Water. She was a young actress that I thought many of the children would like to meet.

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