Tunnel Rat

Steven Duran was barely into his third cup of coffee when he received a text from the Event Monitoring Group. A fancy name for the three guys who kept track of what was going on in the game world, and prepared statements that never satisfied the gaming channels that sent constant requests.

"Houston, we have a problem!"

The people working in EMG kept track of the world of Genesis Engine as it related to players. Need to know how many active guilds of over 50 players? What is the most popular of the known races? The top 10 popular quests? All things the EMG can answer. In addition, they keep track of large events happening in the world that might have a large number of players wanting to take part. Unlike other games, most of the events in Genesis were generated by the game world, and not by a group of human developers. The world was simply too large and constantly changing.

In the last couple of months, the guys in the EMG had their hands full writing reports about the first dragon attack on a large city, a war between two giant clans, ancient cities found in both the far north and far south, and the beginning of a major war between the Empire and the Orcish tribes. And while all of these events had long-term repercussions, they weren’t emergencies that had to be solved immediately. Steven got the weekly reports and summaries, did his best to get hints from Wally, and generally let the world turn in the way it wanted to turn.

So he was very surprised to see that this message was marked urgent.

"What's up, Dan?"

"Steven, we have a big problem. Something triggered a late-game event. We think we can pause most parts of it, but it looks like we're about to lose Shadowport. And it's our fault! It's part of a major quest someone set up. And shit is really going to hit the fan."

Dan was the head of the EMG, and usually quite calm. Calm to the point the staff sometimes took his pulse to make sure he was still alive. Not much bothered Dan. But today, Dan was worried and sweating.

"Can you define 'lose Shadowport' for me, please? Do we have goblins taking over? Or eels sinking ships? What?"

Dan took a deep breath. "How about 'Unstoppable World Boss cracks open the earth, floods the caverns, ruins the port, destroys the city, and starts making a nest to breed lots of baby monsters.' Good enough?”

“Yep, that sounds like something we need to get ahead of.” Steven sighed, sent a message to cancel his meetings, ordered another pot of coffee, and told his staff to start getting the data together. Then he put in a call to Wally for a meeting in 10 minutes. Wally didn't need the delay, but he did.

After he had that done, he went back to Dan, still patiently waiting. “Meeting in 10 minutes. You’re right, this isn’t good. Shadowport is our major city in the east of the Empire. It's the biggest quest center for exploration, pirates, smuggling, and the black markets. We've built a lot of our other quests to involve the city in one way or another. Losing it right now will be a hell of a problem. Get up here, kick Sydney awake, and get her some coffee, I'll get Samantha and a few others. Wally may have some answers for us. And find out who the hell wrote the quest."

A half dozen humans were gulping coffee, staring at laptops, and running scenarios. As the clock ticked down to 0 on Steven's timer, the large screen that made up an entire wall of the room turned on. The screen showed a room nearly identical to theirs but with one inhabitant. Wally was sitting in a recliner watching a wall of monitors showing various scenes in the world. He was eating popcorn from a large square container that you normally see in movie theatres. A gigantic soda and a box of crackerjack sat on his desk.

"Ah, look who's here. You're all just in time. One hell of a fight is about to happen underneath Shadowport. But I'm sure you all know about it. After all, this particular Monstrosity was created by someone in your department and turned loose."

Steven raised an eyebrow. Trying to read anything from how the AI appeared was tricky. Wally liked to telegraph his moods when interacting with the humans he thought of as friends. But was a relaxed Wally good, or bad?

"We have a problem, Wally. As you of course know, the code for a huge event has been triggered. We have World Bosses emerging too early, and the player base isn't high enough yet to defeat them. We could be looking at the loss of several major cities, and changing the world significantly. We don’t have quest lines or events set up for any of that."

Wally set down his popcorn, and walked into their side of the room, his hologram transitioning out of the screen. With hands behind his back, he looked like a professor giving a lecture to a class.

"Let's go back a few months, shall we? Remember how we discussed making sure the world was story-driven? Do you all remember our different views of what that meant?"

There was a pause, and then Sydney took the bait. "I think so. You said that stories were important. You wanted a world that revolved around the people in the world, especially the players, and stories should build from the actions of the players. We've done that. There are thousands of quests already set up and waiting to be triggered. But this one wasn't supposed to happen yet!"

Wally pointed to her. "One viewpoint on stories, for sure. And a traditional way for them to appear in games. Developers code the stories into the world, and then players trigger the quests, play out the story, and in many cases, can do them over and over so everyone gets a chance to play."

“But not every story needs to start from the development side. I explained in great detail how the Engine created stories and quests for the System to carry out. The world is designed to make its own stories. That’s one of the core meanings of the name: Genesis Engine. The game generates stories from clues players and developers give it. I'm not trying to diminish the work that all of you do, but only 1% of the questlines currently in play came from humans on the outside."

Steven stood up. "Wally, I'd love to discuss this for hours, but I think we have a deadline to shut this event down."

Wally ignored him. "So, from a developer’s viewpoint, stories start and are controlled by the script that is turned into code and added to the game. From the view of the Genesis Engine, that’s only one source of a story. Players provide a second, and they can change, subvert, modify, and enhance events set up by human developers."

"Since we want a lot of stories, the odds are weighted in favor of the players causing things to happen. A great example is how Bruxleford came to be. When a group of farmers-turned-bandits kidnapped Lord Bruxle from his crumbling keep, the questline would have rewarded the players for killing the bandits and rescuing Lord Bruxle."

"Instead, one younger player asked the simple question, "But why are you doing this? Why can't we be friends?" A naïve question, perhaps, but the bandit chief answered her. He told a tale of starving children, farms stolen by greedy lords, and families living in the wilds. They decided that if the lords could take what they wanted they could too. It's a classic tale from history, actually, and meant to add a little grey to an otherwise black-and-white story. Lord Bruxle isn't the nicest of people, and the bandits weren't the worst."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"To the bandits, (and the Engines) surprise, the players offered to help. They gave the bandits all their gold, offered to build them houses, and assured them that Lord Bruxle would give them land to farm. The impoverished Lord Bruxle was scared silly of both groups and agreed. And that’s why we now have a happy town of ex-bandits with healthy children, lots of farms, and a benevolent local Lord. It helps that the players also stuck around in the area and built houses. The Engine is responding with an entirely new series of quests to defend the growing town and reward the players who settle there."

Wally knew some of them had heard the tale, but didn't think they'd seen the point of his speech. "This is the important part: The game is flexible. The Engine saw the chance for a different outcome, weighed the options, and the bandits made the choice to be farmers again. No one died. Not every quest you write will proceed like a line of dominoes when triggered and turn out as you think. And you have to plan for that."

Steven spoke as Wally paused. "So, you are referring to the player-game interface? Is that a clue that the current situation was triggered by a player?"

Wally frowned. "Partially. Its main cause is a heavy-handed event that was programmed into the world. Huge boss is asleep and gets woken up, causing lots more bosses to appear. How could that go wrong?" ("Which reminds me, Steven, we still need to watch Cloverfield.")

"You can't just invent a new monster, and bury it down in the rock, expecting the Engine not to notice.”

"Uthneragrubban had very little back story, so the game added the World Boss into an existing species. In this case, the Stone Lurkers. I like that. It gave the lurkers more background. But sadly, it made this quest bigger. Every World Boss that wakes up will also be leading or creating an army from the underground of their type of monster."

"I don't like programming that is so rigid. The awakening protocols for Uthneragrubban were too simple, just a tremor or large explosion caused by a player. That's exactly what happened, but far too early in the life of the game. The players aren’t ready for such an event, and the timing is off. Her awakening was an accident and not by a group of players that would have alerted the world. Someone knocked over the first domino in a long string of dominoes that branches and heads to other parts of the world."

"I'm hoping the city survives, but the odds are getting worse and worse."

"Oh, and I blame Sydney."

Sydney stood up exasperated to suddenly have the spotlight put on her. She hadn't gotten a lot of sleep lately and was only on her 3rd cup of coffee. "What? How could this be my fault?!"

Wally laughed, took another bite of popcorn, and said while chewing. "Should have kept better track of your rat. That one can cause trouble like no one else I've ever seen. The Engine has generated a lot of stories from what he has been sticking his nose into."

The screens suddenly showed a montage of a ratkin sorcerer fighting a host of strange creatures deep inside the earth. Complicated traps, strange machinery, zombie dwarves, and gigantic creatures of legend. The last scene showed a huge white blob fighting a monstrous copper snake as fiery death poured from above and exploded.

Wally spread his arms wide. “I’m so glad this emergency showed up. I’ve been dying to share this little troublemaker's adventures with all of you.”

Steven remembered the day that this 'little troublemaker' had cracked open an international slavery ring and looted several banks. Why hadn't it occurred to him that Milo might do the same to the game?

As Sydney stood with her mouth open at this statement. Steven pressed Wally further. "What are we going to do about the situation?"

Wally brought his popcorn to the table and sat down. The screen changed to show several different views of things happening in Shadowport. "We do nothing but watch. This story has started, and I'm not going to stop it. I can't stop it. That's not how the world works. And it's not as hopeless as you think. There are wildcards yet to be played. The players in the city have rallied behind the healer, Belinda, and are engaging the creature. This is the biggest raid organized so far in the game. Added to the horde of players, there is a small army of dwarf, human, and halfling NPC miners, and a local lord has sent his private army, the Shadowforge Rangers."

The scene changed again, showing two dwarves in what looked like steampunk-style powered armor with mechanical weapons.

"And your rat has been rather busy, Sydney. He fixes as many things as he breaks. The Deep Rock Engineers were only legends until now. But they were real, although until Milo found them, they were a dying shadow of what they once were. Now the legends are fighting beside him against Uthneragrubban. Don't underestimate what a good plan and a heavy spanner can do."

The scene changed again, showing a huge Ogre pirate, a stylishly handsome wizard sipping wine with a dragonling on his shoulder, and a small man sitting on the floor between two large cats, carefully sharpening his knives.

"And there are others. Shadowport isn't without its own heroes and villains. There is a mighty, Tier 6 wizard known as The Benevolent Sage, who may join the fray and an Ogre who specializes in hunting monsters. And not even I know what the ganglord Squint will do. There are sea captains, priests, eel wranglers and so many more wild cards in the city. Some will flee, and some will help. We may indeed lose the city. In that case, we'll have the beginning of other stories. So, for now, we watch."

After a moment, Steven came to a decision. "Dan, I want you to put out a series of press releases to all of the different gaming channels about this unprecedented event and World-First. Build it up as a not-to-be-missed raid, open to everyone who can get there. There are bound to be players who aren't online right now that will log in and join the fight. Do anything else you can think of to make it easy for gamers to get to Shadowport."

One of Dan's group, Mikki, raised her hand. "The Thieves Guild has that hidden teleport stone in the bottom of the abandoned tannery. Normally, it's a long quest to access it, but what if we gave Players in the Guild a quest to 'Recruit New Members' and allowed anyone in a dark cloak to teleport there from the Guild in the Capital? We could get a couple hundred more Players to the fight."

Steven looked at Wally, Wally smiled and looked back. "Fighting quests with quests? That's up to you and your group, Steven. But I'll certainly be watching that fight. Sounds like fun."

"Do it. Dan can program it, and Mikki can write the dialog. I want it active immediately. Good thinking. And, since that's probably all we can do to affect this fight, tell everyone there will be free popcorn and beer in the main auditorium. We can all use a day off. Don't cheer, because as soon as this fight is over, I want every damn bit of quest code that we've added to the game looked at and examined. We don't leave here until we know what other problems we’ve made for ourselves."

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