Mica continued, somewhat calmer. “For those of you unable, or unwilling,” she looked at Devin,” to review the statistics of this test, yes, this is a rollover circumstance. However, the dice have been cast and the server gods have claimed that this test is to be excessively arduous. So, Devin, the player per server count had been shifted from 32 to 64. So perhaps our nine testers are doing particularly well. Except, they are not. The aggregate completion settings are unique items only, not interlocking events. So, forty percent might read more like five percent for how much they have in progress to meet the exit threshold. Sung, tell us the player distribution.”

  Although distracted by her perception of the true competence and power of Mica, Sung took an extra second to compose her thoughts. She had discovered this situation, and the notes were on the screen. “We have no rollover characters in the keep. One character is in the tower, although he shouldn’t be. One player is focused only on PvP, rather than exploration. Six characters are stuck in a self-imposed or computer-aided loop. And two characters were transported into the game from an HSE fast travel, so they might not even realize they were going into an alpha test.” Since we posted explicit disclosures to avoid fast travel before the server shutdown. “So, this isn’t a well-formed small group. This is a disparate gaggle of individuals who don’t even realize they should be working together.”

  Mica jumped in, “And, to encapsulate the rest, because we are pressed for time, the settings are off.” Mica did something to the screen and additional data appeared in the white space. “It appears there is a glitch that these players only retain a portion of what they found the prior day. I’ll list that separately,” she said as a table of players and their overall attributes were listed below the normal curve.

  “Next,” she continued, “Rage. This server added a test case to allow ambiguous ‘rage.’ Rage will be added each day a player remains alive but not added that day if they die, almost as if death is a temporary release for them. The effects of this rage are also randomized to amplify the base emotions. In this case, most of the players are not even playing the game, but their rage is still rising. Sung, please describe.”

  “This is what I called the meeting about. The player in the tower logs out each game morning. The monument player completes the monument challenge and then jumps off the cliff shortly after. The player at the monastery just gets drunk each day. The Lighthouse player might have read Kafka’s Metamorphosis because she thinks she’s a moth. The players at the farms are happy exploring around the farms. The Bay player is apparently a serial killer practicing in a video game. And the city starters have not proceeded past initial clearing the city once.”

  “If you were to deduce, what would you estimate a full completion time to be, Sung?”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Sung did maths. “Twelve to twenty-four hours. I don’t know. Seems like a wild guess.”

  “We’ve laid our groundwork,” said Mica. “Now, I propose we figure our way out of this quickly. Before I continue, is everyone online?”

  “Except for George. I can’t get a hold of him yet.”

  “Let me tell you my proposal, and I will hear your objections after.” She paused for effect, which Sung drank in, leaning forward. “First, we pause the scenario. This is not normally accepted, and we require legal and medical buy-in. But we can buy ourselves game days if we pause the rage meter. It will seem like minutes to us, but already a game day has passed while we explained this situation, which we should have anticipated, to ourselves.”

  Mica looked at Sung, then, and it stung. But it was likely correct that they should have put better controls in place. Or at least delayed the play test until the next server upgrade.

  “If you choose not to, or we cannot pause the server, we influence the exit criteria. In this case, the criteria is set to ‘complete the keep.’ Although I understand that is challenging, I don’t understand why. Sung or Devin? Do either of you care to explain?”

  Sung jumped in over Devin. “The complete the keep mission is intended as a multi-group operation, coordinated by players from the city, the bay, the lighthouse, and the farms simultaneously. Since we don’t have many players at those points, it’s basically impossible to accomplish.”

  “So, let’s roll it back. What if we reset it to something they’ve already accomplished and let them escape now?”

  “I don’t think the server will allow that. We could try.”

  Mica wrote both ‘pause server’ and ‘reset server’ on the board. “How else could we solve this? Brett?”

  Sung hadn’t seen the server goblin’s movements, but he seemed happier than normal.

  “No, I don’t think we’ll turn this server off, Brett. But thank you for the suggestion.” Mica wrote it on the board, regardless.

  “Give the players a boon to overcome their challenges?”

  “Oh, Devin. You choose to participate. Okay.” Mica wrote ‘Give boons’ on the board. “That might be the most productive thing you’ve said. Anything else?”

  Sung raised her hand.

  “Sung. You don’t have to raise your hand.”

  “I’m not confident in this idea, though. We just let it run.”

  “Like, the game just goes until these players are exhausted mentally and physically?”

  Sung shrugged. “Yeah?” She winced when she said that, less convinced it was a good idea after raising it.

  Mica gave her a wink, “That was what I would suggest if no one else did. We’re still early enough that we can monitor and make decisions later.”

  A weight lifted from Sung. She wanted these playtests to work. It was necessary to get good data. And even data from a flawed test would influence how they implemented the game later.

  Mica walked around the room. Took a breath, thinking to herself. When she arrived back at the front, she said, “I’ll inform the COO {Chief Operating Officer} about this issue. Sung, you monitor the server progress, and give me updates every fifteen minutes or as something gets better or worse. Brett, you are dismissed. Devin, I’d like to speak with you for a moment. Those of you on Sung’s team online, I suggest you get into this office immediately and work through repercussions and other concerns immediately.”