New updates and rumors regarding JIN HO were flying in the air as the launch date came nearer. The advertising were ramped up. More and more people joined the craze. Some news people were estimating that come next Friday evening- nearly half of the world's population would go to bed early and be inside JIN HO.
Nia found many times directly or listening to talk of students in between classes. Not everyone who had unique starter package could open on the day of registration. The supercomputer was using some sort of system to decide who to open their packages- whatever the type of package it might be- a basic starter one or the costliest one. Those who had chance to open the packages kept on posting and started the momentum for their glory.
Maaya was right. The animation and graphics while opening of unique starter package was more beautiful than other types. The monetization of videos and articles had already started, even before the start of the game. Such was the craze. The famed beta testers were releasing different details about the game. Be it the most basic thing like attributes or the more advance thing like high level maps.
The publicity team of JIN HO were very efficicent and very greedy. They wanted to pull in all types of people into the game- be it bored grandpa at home, serial fanatic housewife , a blue collar worker with 10-12 hours duty a day, a white collar worker who could come home only late at nights, a college going student ready to challenge the world, a lifestyle worker who was struck at threshold or bottleneck, a brand owner who wanted to expand the area of influence, true fanatic gamers, gamers who played for money, gamers who played for fame, gamers who played to be in pinnacle, gold coin farming companies, game guilds- they were not ready to let go of anyone.
The credit to coin conversion or vice versa was to be restricted till next patch or till all the parameters were satisfied. [probably players going out of novice village or similar area, may be class advance. If the AI is money hungry then till a rare item is put on auction or till certain percentage of players had passed the basic threshold and now could earn coins independently without system's support- in other words after leaving the system protection of novice village.
The company had released a teaser of a typical novice village. The View count had reached millions within first minute. The think tanks, the professionals looked through each frame to glean extra details which might help their team/guild to become first/mightiest.
The setup looked like a medieval village with few hundred people settled in. The teaser followed few notable people like shop owner, blacksmith ,tailor on their daily routine.It looked like they could barely hang on as a single village. The environment was harsh. The glimpses of monsters were terrible, capable of inducing nightmares.
This was in contrast to the second teaser released next day which showed another novice village which was doing okay at least. To end it, they even added caption- Your fate shall decide which village you shall protect. [Yes, PR department. We are silly that we could not imagine the scenario without your prompt.]
JIN HO forums had two parts- one maintained by the company- where it would release the tidbits, the juicy morsels to tempt the mortals. The other portion was purely for players. This claimed over 99% of forum. It was written in BIG BOLD WORDS that each player was responsible for themselves. the moderators who only ensure that topics were related to the game. Moderators had to overwork with a single deciding criteria. Imagine how much time and effort and extra people would be needed if the moderators had to ensure that there is no bullying, or scamming.
The forum had different sections so that you could search for relevant details easily. It also had numerous pages where one could follow the people in those pages.[You guessed right again! It costs money to open a new page and even more to maintain it. it would cost extra to make it conspicuous.]
The celebrities had their pages. They would pay through the nose to ensure publicity. Even the famous guilds followed this bandwagon. All had their own pages showing off their prowess to the newcomers. As if that was not enough, 'Supreme Gamer Guild' started new way of hyping which was caught up by others within few minutes. They started advertising So-and-so archer of this game has joined our guild. The two time winner of 'Honorable guardian' had joined this guild. This famous person has joined the guild.
Never mind the fact that there is no guild in the game at the moment, heck, there was no game at that moment. This logic did not stop the publicity drive and everyone started pushing this cart everywhere. Suddenly there were discussions of which player should join which guild and why. Did no one know that the player would join a guild based on the contract money and benefits or rarely other factors? Everyone knew it, but no one talked about it. Instead they thought of various teams with OP players. A fantastic mage coupled together with micro managing healer. A formidable necromancer aided by sturdy 'stone guardian'. The combos were endless and so was the topic.