Dungeon Core Online 42 Chapter 42

"I get more instances?" James had just finished creating a post on the Dungeon Core forum, letting other cores know what he had just found out about mimics, as well as the achievement for wiping a party with a mimic. He figured it was only fair to share his discovery with the group and knew the better relationship he gained with those gamers, the more secrets they would learn together. During that time, his rank 1 instance research had finished. To his surprise, the moment it did, more instances began to populate, surprising both him, and the adventurers.

"Mhmm. Each rank in instance research will increase the number of instances you can create by 5. It also increases the number of players that can populate an instance to 25." So, instance research not only was a way for him to unlock some really spiffy special mobs, but also to increase the number of instances, and therefore adventures, in his dungeon. More instances meant more experience, James was all for that.

"So, in theory, I can have an unlimited number of instances." James had gotten used to having 10 instances with 20 adventurers in each, for a total of 200 players at a time. This upgrade had just increased it so that now a total of 375 players could enter the first floor of his dungeon at a time. What's more, Rue had mentioned when someone entered his second floor, it would create a new instance of its own. So, did that mean he now had access to 15 tier 2 instances as well? While it would be a while before there were enough able-bodied adventurers to take on his second floor, James couldn't wait.

"In theory. The developers did give dungeon cores the option to manually set their limits on floor instances, both in how many are created, and how many adventurers can be in an instance at once. You obviously don't want a floor being overrun with more adventurers than you have mobs."

She had a good point, and James was glad the developers had implemented such a feature. He had played more than a few games where popular areas became oversaturated, usually making it less fun for lower leveled, casual players. The last thing James wanted in DCO was for players to stop having fun. Well, everyone but Dwight and his team. They were currently still on their penalty, and James had already set a dungeon alarm, to let him know if they reentered his floor after their hour penalty was up. He had more plans for them.

"I love this game." James whispered, grinning as he watched the instances continue to grow. Outside of his dungeon, he could see large groups of players rushing towards the dungeon entrance. Word had likely been spread that it was letting in more players. As he scanned the crowd, he couldn't help but laugh. Somebody had created what appeared to be a little shop at the entrance to his dungeon.

"What is that?" He turned his focus to it and had to fight back a laugh. At the top of the shop, the name The Dicken Shack was spelled out in bright letters. Sure enough, it looked like the shop was selling fried and baked dicken. Leave it to players to create a fast food restaurant at the front of a dungeon. Sheesh.

"How'd they make that shop so quick?" It definitely hadn't been there when they first all started entering less than an hour ago.

"Remember those building tokens that mimic bait group mentioned?" James grinned, the fight replaying in his mind.

"How could I forget? I wish I could watch that fight again."

"You can." Rue commented nonchalantly, before continuing. "Anyways, every player that loads into DCO, gets 1 building token. A building token can create a single story, single roomed building. Essentially, it gives players the ability to make themselves a tiny home." That makes sense. Because of the duration players were in the game, they would need places to relax and sleep. A lot of games had started implementing camping sets and other options into games, mainly because inns tended to fill up way too quickly.

"So that person used their token to create their house right outside of the dungeon, and turned it into a business?" That was actually pretty smart. Cooked dicken had healing properties, and oddly enough, carried a small buff if your entire party consumed some together. From James had seen, it was a 5% increase to atk and def for all party members in parties of 5 or more.

"Yup. And, as," Rue grinned, "D-Man, mentioned, you can combine building tokens in order to create larger structures." She pointed towards the trees, where a massive structure towered over the rest of the town. It had grown quite a bit since players started playing DCO, but nothing matched the size of the massive building. "That is an Adventurer's Hall. It's a special building that takes 50 building tokens to create. However, because they were the ones to build it, now all quests, and job postings, will go through that building. Whoever teamed up to make that, likely isn't worrying about coin anymore."

James nodded as he looked at the building. If he had to guess, that was a corporation or group of city officials that created the building. In almost every game, people raced to establish control on that level. Whoever controlled the jobs, controlled the wealth. Even if they were only taking a 10% cut of everything off players who accepted quests and job offerings, they would be making a pretty penny. Though, James was curious what type of quests existed currently. Did they auto populate based on the dungeon's mob types?

"You mentioned quests Rue? How do those come about?"

"Worried your second floor might be given away?" That was exactly what he was worried about. If quests populated the moment his floor was made, then they would know the mob type had changed. Where would the fun be in that?

"Don't worry, quests don't populate until the boss of a floor has been defeated. So, until the Terminus Rex falls, adventurers won't know what is on your second floor, save for from word of mouth." Ah, that made James a little more relaxed. He had an alarm set up for the portal and was still waiting for a group to pass through, so he could win the bet. Z's group had just finished off Old Man Jenkins again, but they hadn't passed by the barn, so it seemed they didn't know about the portal. As such, they had waited their five minutes, and been teleported out of the dungeon. James knew they would be back in an hour though, so he really needed some other unlucky group to stumble through.

"Good to know." James turned his attention away from the town, back to a random instance. He noticed a group in this new instance had teamed up with another party, to try and bring down Old Man Jenkins. Smart.

"So, what type of quests do they have? Are they auto generated based on mob and dungeon types?"

"Mhmm. The developers have a lot of generic ones in the game, such as Kill X number of creatures, return with X types of items. They left the generic quests simple, to enable the coding to be quick and easy. Which makes sense, given how many mob types there are." Rue chuckled darkly as she winked at James. Oh, he was well aware of the fact he was likely to keep getting crazy floor types. Oh well, it kept things interesting.

"Are there unique quests too then?" Most games had quests that could be time sensitive, or unique, based on specific triggers.

"You have played a lot of MMOs, haven't you?" Rue looked James up and down, and he wasn't sure if she was implying that as a compliment. Oh well, he was going to take it as one.

"Yeah. Let's just say, in a few games, I'm kinda a big deal." He crossed his tentacles smugly in front of his orb, though in hindsight, that action probably looked a lot less cool than he had hoped it would.

"Keep telling yourself that Glyax." She smirked at him and turned back to the dungeon. "Anyways, unique quests trigger after players have discovered secrets that each mob type and floor will have in it. Some of these secret quests can be triggered at any times, others are hinted at, or completely hidden, until you create the mob circumstances required, or hit certain research levels."

Oh, so he had a part to play in what quests unlocked? That was cool. "Got any examples of those for me Rue?"

"Psh, the big deal can't figure them out on his own?" Her smirk grew. James had brought that one on himself.

"Oh, going to be difficult today Rue?" James couldn't help chuckle as the pixie stuck her tongue out at him, before she started laughing too.

"Don't you know it's frowned upon for a lady to be too easy?" She shot him a wink and bit the bottom part of her lip seductively. For someone talking about not being too easy, she was sending mixed signals that James just couldn't handle. If he had a nose, he was sure it would be bleeding.

"You are such trouble." He commented. The group of 10 adventurers were doing surprisingly well against Old Man Jenkins. The boss was level 15, and what he could tell, the players ranged from level 8 to 11. However, they were doing good at communicating, and appeared to be taking advantage of their larger numbers to not only keep the boss constantly moving and changing aggro targets, but also keeping mobs clear of the fight. He was certain they would win.

"You know you enjoy it." Rue grinned and turned to watch the fight, before she waved her hand. A screen pulled up in front of her, and she drew James's attention to it. "Now, just because I'm nice. You want to rewatch the mimic fight?" Sure enough, the screen appeared to be a recording, paused right before Dwight's group opened the mimic.

"Wait. This game has recordings?" James had seen some games where you could record instances and gameplay. He silently cursed himself for not thinking to check for a feature such as that.

"The developers built in a records section in the game, which holds recordings for the past 24 hours of in game play. If you know the instance number, you can pull up certain instances, and watch everything that happened in them." She touched the screen and moved her hand across it, causing the video to zoom out. She then twisted it around, and zoomed back in, so they had a clear look at Dwight's face. "The developers secretly unlocked it with the hot fix, and it was part of the reason they added in the tentacle feature." She hit play, and they got to watch Dwight's full expression as the mimic ate him again. Oh, James was going to love this feature.

"Can we," he paused, as he chuckled darkly to himself. "Can we upload these to the dungeon core forum?"

"Why else do you think I'm showing you this feature?" Rue winked and waved her hand, closing the video. "Us enjoying the bullies' demise was fine and all, but sharing it to the rest of the dungeon cores to watch and enjoy as well? I'm all for public humiliation." James found himself like his pixie even more, as he pulled up his forum post, dropping Dwight's video clip into it. The other dungeon cores were going to love this.

Chapter end