Chapter 51 - Patent?

Day 10 after game launch.

Many new things were found in the game which meant there was exploding of promotions to pull more people in. Exactly the situation the gaming company wanted. They had taken great pains to see it running. If nearly 20 million players joined the game in a single day, that was indeed a worthy achievement.

Not all the workers in the company were happy, though! Sonja's department finally saw a fine 'applying for patent' invention / discovery.

Yes, Saachi started with his first step. He sent preliminary details of his 'Nth guild'. He had experience as bottom feeder and knew expectations of those people. His party members were all elites and they had generously shared their woes and weals. Royo even had a important officer position in his previous guilds. He had built guilds from the scratch multiple times.

He used all that knowledge and started the idea of 'Nth guild'. To those loners, the lifestyle players, even an average Joe in gaming. An NPC would be manager of the guild. To maintain the guild and to pay salary of NPC, a part of daily guild quests rewards would be used. With the buffs of being guild members and working within guild building, their completion rate would increase, thus more products would be produced which meant more money. Doing quests within town limits, their lives would be safe too. Paying NPC would not pinch much. The offer would be only till player reached level 20. If they want to remain in the guild, they would have to upgrade the guild or else join other guilds or stay freelancer.

Sonja liked the concept. The AI managing the game also okayed it. Now, the problem of patent and royalty.

Her old assistant who was temporarily demoted, rushed in , " I think there is a breach somewhere."

Sonja glowered. If the matter was not serious...., yeah, he would not have barged in just like that, he knew her habits well.

"Where?"

He shook his head. " No idea. You know that part of forum, the hidden gamble system?"

" The guess game? What happened there? Don't tell me, these gamers could predict the story and won with highest odds?"

Inspite of reliving his life again, Saachi was still an outsider. He did not even know about the hidden gems inside the forum. They were made to hook up the jaded guild leaders and owners. One of them was guess and gamble.

One had to predict or guess something in the game based on their knowledge. The AI would fix the odds and betting would begin - credits or game coins. Guesses like lots of PK will happen, players will start exploring level 4 maps within 1week, would actually have negative odds. Guesses like Durability of weapons are calculated in this way..., there are hidden attributes like...(more odds if named more than 3 attributes), the players can't leave the village till they find...., going to town has no relation to player level, heck, even guesses like there will be hidden profession like ...., history or back story would be something like..., the plot of this quest would progress like ....., all these would net different odds.

It should be noted that the AI had won more than it lost. It was matter of pride to game developers that they have done something beyond normal or expected.

And now... someone was winning? What did that mean - it meant someone had told the details of the game, they had breached the NDA. Why was Sonja so sure that it was done by people and not by hacking? Oh, please! The company had paid millions to ensure even hacking of minutest part would not happen. The white hat hackers, hidden immortal hacker, even the AI. Sonja had full belief in all of them. So this breach was human made, no doubt.

But when she saw the guesses made, she blasted her assistant. The prediction had nothing to do with game itself but on player behaviour. The player who had a philosophical handle name called 'So-phi' made multiple prediction on player behaviour.

Dungeons would be discovered within a day. AI had given it negative odds.

Average player level would fall by 2 levels within 2 days. Wow!

The first clear on dungeons would not be declared within 2 days. Good belief in the game.

The players would not permit announcements regarding instances - finding or clearing.

The prices of consumables would increase by 3 fold by day 2. - Okay, now the player even commented on how much it would increase.

The PK would turn highest within day 4. - Now, this is just nasty.

Projected graph to reach level 10 would have steep downward curve, then steep slope, then the curve will move parallel to current graph . - Now, what sort of prediction is this? Sonja paused.

The assistant, whose job was hanging in line yet did not know about it, quickly mentioned, " This graph is the reason we believe it's a breach. If you check farther, you can see this person would always atleast 1 type of graph every time he guessed and his guesses are correct 90% of times."

Sonja looked into the next file which showed the player's previous guesses. The preparation and reasoning just saved the assistant's job. " Fine, I'll discuss it with Darell and Sin. You start preparing about this patent thing. Ask the coders how long it would take to include it into the game as the game AI has given permission."

Assistant just nodded his head. Darell was one of the heads in charge of one of the AI and Son was responsible for security. Both were people of exalted status and most of the people would not be worthy of listening to their names. But both had quirky personalities which made talking business with them a big headache. Thanking the heavens for getting easy job, he escaped the office