“Powerpennies. What a stupid name for a crowdfunding site. Why not just call it “a tin cup in the subway?’”
“Shut up, Jason. That mistake with the ‘Doncella’ put us in a hole, and we need a way to get ourselves out,” Rich Glenford said as he slammed the driver side door of his rental. “We need to get back in the game, even if we’re a hundred years behind everyone else.”
“How the hell are we supposed to get to level 40!? The highest level player in the game is 19, and he’s likely been at it non-stop for weeks! Without Alyssa’s head start, we don’t have a chance of getting back to where we were!”
“Let’s go talk to this guy at least, okay?” Rich said. “He’s investing in qualified teams so he can complete a treasure collection. Maybe he’ll stake us.”
“Yeah, he’ll give us six thousand pennies, which is about what this whole operation is worth at the moment.”
Jason and Rich made their way across the parking lot of the four-star Chestnut Hotel. They were dressed in their best attempt at adult uniforms, which was to say they looked like a couple of Phoenix police detectives. Blue coat and tan slacks for one, gray wool suit for the other, and driving a car with square headlights.
The Chestnut was one of the many suburban destination spots for tourists. Like many Southern California attractions, it was parked among high-tech office buildings and unnecessarily wide streets in a land called Irvine, not far from Orange County’s largest technology park. This seemed to be the place where video game enterprises were most often born, so it wasn’t surprising to have yet another “Patron of the Paladins” emerging from behind the Orange Curtain. It seemed conservative money and its college-age children had combined to form the newest trend in business: Turning Kings and Conquests events into income.
The Chestnut was located in an impeccably well-kept and alarmingly green cluster of expensive real estate near two other recognizably-named chain hotels. The independent resort maintained an advantage over its competitors due to its more exclusive clientele. It was also never oversold due to its heavily restricted involvement with budget web sites and travel agents. Its key advantage was its ground-floor dining, which included two legendary restaurants and a 200-person-capacity buffet hall. Jason and Rich were headed for Winter’s, which was the trendy lunch spot for overpaid downtown office workers and the occasional entrepreneur. It was a luxurious affair, with round tables built in to swirling wood and upholstery couches that made the floorplan look like it had been designed by a calligrapher. During the day, 4K televisions showed soundless sports and news channels. The servers all wore flawless black tie apparel. The bartender’s outfit matched, hold the jacket.
Rich and Jason were showed to a table near the back of the restaurant by the head waiter. Joe Boyle was noodling on his phone as they approached. He was dressed in entrepreneur’s black on black, complete with a $600 silk tie.
“Rich, Jason, so glad you could come.” He rose and shook their hands in turn, then offered them a seat. “Order what you like. Lunch is on me.”
Rich and Jason glanced at each other. Even people who couldn’t afford Winter’s knew what a lunch tab could aspire to become in such an exclusive venue.
“What are you drinking?”
“Uhhh, we hadn’t planned that far ahead, I’m afraid,” Jason replied.
“No problem. Give us Orinoco Drafts all around in the after-hours glasses. Bring us a side of limes as well.”
“Very good sir.” The head waiter vanished the way only head waiters could when they were tasked with retrieving $160 worth of beer.
“So, tell me what you’ve learned so far,” Joe said, as he switched off his phone. It was a subtle gesture, but in polite high-tech society, it told the two younger men they had a millionaire’s undivided attention for at least as long as it took for them to talk themselves out of a deal.
“I won’t sugarcoat it, Joe. We’re behind. Maybe too far at this point,” Rich said. “I’ve got a plan to get us back in the race, but it’s going to take time and more than a little help.”
“Give me the 30,000 foot view after we order.”
The two younger men tried their best to look calm and reasonable as they perused the $80 steaks and the featured salt and pepper chicken salad for two which dressed out at a hefty $45 and had its own full color page in the wood-covered menu. This was not a place likely to become popular with gamers any time soon.
Rich ordered a ribeye steak lunch which included soup and salad and a healthy portion of Winter’s famous sauteed potatoes. Vegetable soup and a salad sprinkled with sesame seeds and vinegar-touched croutons arrived first. The server complimented him on his choice, given the Orinoco craft beer was the recommended beverage. Jason ordered braised short ribs, which included roughly the same side options. He chose the french onion soup and the egg-topped salad. A basket of six varieties of bread arrived. There were sour rolls, french rolls, sliced rye, pumpkin, buttermilk biscuits and croissants. Joe ordered the filet mignon and lobster.
After what seemed like at least four deliveries of meal courses, Rich took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. “Money making strategies in KNC have coalesced into four major approaches, with income possibilities to match. The people who started running as fast as they could to max level have all been slaughtered so often they’ve given up. It seems Fairly Unusual’s whole purpose was to discourage people from being gluttons. And boy did it work.”
“At first, it was plopping them down in the meat grinder false starting area, but only if they bypassed all the instructions and documentation and thought they could just start leveling for epics,” Jason added. “The ragequits went on for days. It was most entertaining. There’s practically a complete transcript of it on Orbit’s.”
“Which is how Wyland could justify making the first person to max level an instant millionaire,” Joe replied. “He already had gateways and bottlenecks in place.”
“Exactly,” Rich said. “Kings and Conquests will kill you dead as a bag full of doorknobs if you try to button-mash. With all the noise and the trolls weeded out, it left most of the game world open to people who were at least somewhat capable of independent thought. A lot of them formed merchants and crafting guilds and populated the city areas. They don’t get the big treasures, but they can grind out a lot of valuable accessories for other players.”
“What’s good about it is the idiots were the first to quit,” Jason added. “They thought the game was unplayable because it wasn’t just like all the other games. What they didn’t realize is the game rewards a reasoned, well thought-out approach. Kind of like this restaurant. People who just want a taco they can shove between their three chins aren’t making reservations at Winter’s. KNC apparently only punishes the belligerent. If you act like a reasonable human being, everything works just fine.”
“But how does that make us money?” Joe asked.
“Merchants and crafters that reach a certain level can build a shop the same way Founders can build keeps. A Kings and Conquests shop can be accessed from outside the game and through the augmented reality app. When someone buys something, they can pay using in-game currency or they can use real money. Fairly Unusual takes a cut. If someone who isn’t a player buys an item, they get a month of server time for free so they can use it in the game.”
“Believe it or not,” Jason added, “the most in-game money is being earned by people who make bottles.”
“Bottles,” Joe repeated.
“Glassmaking is the hottest crafting category up to level 20.”
“Well, there you have it, then,” Joe said. “How long would it take to open up enough shops to fund the venture you two have in mind and what’s it going to cost?”
“It’s probably going to take longer than the other strategies,” Jason replied as the server set his entree plate down in front of him. “Merchant and crafting income is steady, but slow.”
“The second option is unique bounties,” Rich said as he was presented with his steak. “That’s where we hire a player or team to go get us something valuable and then use the treasure station to fab it so we can sell it in the real world. The top bounty team so far has grossed about $600,000. Their top sell was a 1:60 model of the warship Actium, which they had enhanced by completing a quest to locate shipwrecks from a massive naval battle in one of the princess rescue scenarios. They had to buy the costliest materials pack to print it, but once it was done, they discovered the whole ship had 14 karat gold where all the normal metal fittings would have been installed. Sold for triple the materials cost. It also floats.”
“Wow,” Joe said. “That sounds rather more exciting than running a general store.”
“It isn’t without its risks,” Rich said. “The bounty team has to share the wealth if their henchmen get killed during the search. The third option is straight-up treasure farming, which is approved by Fairly Unusual as long as the coins are sold through a KNC shop. You have to enlist the help of a high-level merchant, but currency is always in demand.”
“And the fourth?”
“Well, nobody has actually done the fourth one yet,” Jason replied. “But it is the Mount Everest of merchant income options. A level sixty merchant can win a franchise from the Crown in one of the eight “nations’ and open an auction house. The player gets a cut of everything the auction house makes, but they have to guard it well because it can be taken over by other players if they defeat the merchant’s guards.”
“One guild has announced they plan to build an auction house into a ship and take their customers a mile offshore so if they blow up the auction house, they sink with it,” Rich added.
“And these are the four best ways to earn money in the real world from playing KNC? There isn’t one for going after Wyland’s car?”
“At this point, the risk vs. rewards calculus for getting to level 75 to win a Sovereign 7GL isn’t favorable. Not with the Level Niners out there.”
“Tell me about that,” Joe asked. “Why are all the high level players being targeted?”
“My theory is it is all simple sabotage,” Rich said. “The higher your level, the more options you have. I don’t think it’s about the car. I think it’s about getting and holding territory so players can exploit it to make money. The Ashelrian Casino was one of the best examples. If the guy who set it up had made provision for protecting it, he would still be making money and be a lot closer to a world-first max-level.”
“The Level Niners just took that model and made it mobile,” Jason added.
“Plus they get to loot the players they kill, which can be a quick way to pile up wealth, at least until you find yourself weighted down and unable to escape when the next thief happens along. There’s certain to be a backlash too. As dangerous as the Niners are, they aren’t invincible by any stretch. They also have a class balance problem.”
“Even so, that doesn’t sound appealing,” Joe said. “What’s it going to take to get you back into the race for the Fairly Unusual shares? All this other stuff sounds interesting, but that’s where the real payoff is.”
“We need a hundred thousand dollars,” Rich replied without even waiting a beat. “We need a treasure station and enough to hire three other players to round out a party. We’ll put every last dollar we earn right back into getting ahead of the leveling curve. If we survive the Niners, we’ll be in a position to block the No-Name-Games team when they make their move.”
“Assuming they find the real Safekeep,” Jason added.
“And what’s your strategy?”
“Normally, I’d say we could make the most if we hired a bounty team and went after every unique treasure and quest reward we can find, but that won’t scale the way we want it to, so we’re going to flip it around and become the bounty team,” Jason said.
“We’ll get the characters leveled, then we’ll hire players to operate them around the clock, hiring ourselves out as the premiere bounty team. We’ll take a cut of everything we find and be able to leverage our continuous in-game presence to out-earn the other teams,” Rich added.
“Won’t your hired players just steal all your gains?”
“Not if their income is tied up in the characters,” Rich replied.
“And we use in-game security options to freeze our inventory,” Jason said. “Every security option in Kings and Conquests has a separate password combination. Once inventory is frozen, your player can only buy or sell food, water and transportation until you unlock it again.”
“Clever. So how can I be sure I’m going to see my money again?”
“We have a Lishian Warknife ready to manufacture. Current appraisal on Orbit’s Gamer is about $6,000, so we’re already six percent funded. Think of it as a good faith gesture.”
“Get ten for it and I’m in.”
Rich shook his head. “We can’t do premium asks on items like this. Warknives aren’t unique. The higher-level gear will earn better.”
Joe took a drink of his Orinoco Stout and glanced at his phone before re-activating it. “Alright. I want updates from you two every 48 hours. I’m going to stake you in $20,000 installments, and I want half of it earned back before we move to the next installment. Screw up once, and you’re cut off. Understand?”
Jason and Rich nodded.
“Dead player characters are considered grade “A’ screw-ups. Don’t let it happen again.” Joe stood and finished his beer. “I’ll have the money wired to you this afternoon.”