When I woke up, I was glad that I didn't have a hangover.
'The stronger my body gets, the more resistant I'll be to this kind of thing! ' I thought excitedly as I realized this truth.
If this were only based on the strength limits of normal people, this statement might not be true, but when the body passes the limit of normal human beings, the limitations of normal humans are also left behind, and fortunately hangovers are one of them.
'I guess Runestone's growth yesterday must have been good, right? ' I thought as I wondered how many new Players had sent out invitations to friends.
|-----------------------------------------
| Game Status: Runestone
|-----------------------------------------
| Total Players: 3,671
| Players Online: 1,878
| Average Players Online (24 hours): 2,308
| Game Rank: Rank F
| Mana per Hour (Players): 1 unit
| Average Session Time: 5 hours
| Mana Stored in Game Core: 162 units
| Mana Yield (24 hours): 138 units
| Conversion Rate: 80% (New players who become regulars)
|------------------------
| Available Cards: 104 (Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary)
| Cards Used per Match (Average): 17
|-----------------------------------------
Looking at the statistics, a big smile appeared on my face.
'Seeing these stats go up as soon as the day starts makes my day start off so well. I thought excitedly.
Curious, I also opened the college rankings to see how the games were doing.
While Runestone was doing very well, with great growth, I think Evans has already applied the updates to his game to try to beat me, since his average Players today is much higher than yesterday.
The numbers showed Runestone with 1,878 players online in second place on the list, which if it had been yesterday, would have been enough to pass Evans' game which had only 1.7k at that time, but today his game had an incredible 2k Players online...
For normal Game Creators that number was already more than enough to earn the maximum 2 MP that an F Rank game could grant, but as we were in a competition, he was doing more than he normally would so I wouldn't take first place from him.
But I wouldn't leave it at that.
Even though I believed that Runestone's natural growth during the day might be enough to increase my number of Players enough to pass his game, I preferred not to risk it.
So I had an idea to implement in the game today and convince people to stay in Runestone as long as possible.
Since some Runestone Players were also Players who used Evans' game to train their knife-throwing skills, I decided to use something to get Players to leave his game and come to Runestone.
A weapon so powerful in the other world that Players began to hate it when they found out how it worked.
FOMO...
Or better described as Fear Of Missing Out, an unscrupulous tactic but one that if used correctly would be a powerful weapon for me in this Rank.
And my way of using FOMO in the game would be an event where only today's Players could get exclusive cards in the game.
Of course, to make this event work and be the most immersive and fun for the Players, I would need to think of a story for it.
As well as spending a lot of mana to make some exclusive cards for the event.
Considering the cost of the cards at 13 MP each, I could make a maximum of 15 cards today if I gave up absorbing 100 MP from the Game Core to increase my maximum MP.
The Game Core currently had 162 MP stored and I would need all of that, plus my 70 MP to develop the cards and program the way the event will work.
Even if I had to give up on increasing my maximum MP today, the publicity and prestige that Runestone would get from coming first as the work of a University graduate was very important, so I didn't hesitate and entered Game Core with my conscience.
The first thing I did was develop 15 cards with an ancient magic theme for the game.
Just to develop these cards, 195 MP were quickly spent, leaving me with only 37 MP to develop the rest.
'Luckily I've already used the Battle Pass system for Players to invite friends... that'll save me a lot of MP! ' I was relieved.
Using the aesthetics of a Battle Pass, I spread out the 15 cards I had developed as the basic prizes for this, with the last prize being a small decoration for the Player to place on their board.
This decoration could be seen by other Players and unlike the cards that could be won again in the future, this decoration was limited to those who completed this event today.
As the decoration was small, the MP cost of it was so low that it didn't affect me developing the rest of the event.
A portion of the MP also had to be spent on developing artwork to use both in-game and for promotion outside the game, after all, my tactic was to notify my Players who were in Evans' game and convince them to come to Runestone.
I started developing all of this at 07:20 in the morning, and by dedicating myself as much as possible to getting the most out of my System, all of these systems, even down to the user interface, were ready by 09:00!
One hour and forty minutes of development, 230 MP spent and a lot of reuse of resources to save MP, the event was finally ready.
Without wasting any more time, since time was of the essence today, I quickly put the Live event into the game and went to Whisper and FrostHaven Entertainment's other social networks to spread the word.
The company's accounts were reaching 1k followers, so enough players could receive notifications about it.
After writing and publishing this announcement, I remembered something and opened the streaming site, looking for Owen's stream.
Seeing that he wasn't online, I sent him a message with the FrostHaven Entertainment account asking for his cooperation in publicizing today's event and offering him a promise of a future reward.
I still had no idea what this future reward might be, but with time and calm I could think of something prestigious and satisfying to give him in-game that wouldn't cost me too much.
When I finished all this preparation and looked at the game's rankings, curious to see how it was going, I saw that the numbers had already started to rise.
The speed wasn't blazing, since a lot of people were probably asleep or working right now, but the amount of Players online in Runestone was slowly catching up with Evans' game, and that was a good sign for me.
- Natalie POV -
I had stayed up late last night playing Runestone after I got back from the dungeon I raided, so as today was Saturday, my plans for it were to just sleep late without worrying about the time.
But my plans were thwarted when my mother rudely opened my bedroom door to call me.
"Natt, wake up!" She said excitedly.
Startled by the sudden noise, I quickly stood up and pointed my hand forward ready to cast a spell.
Seeing that my target was my mother, I was confused and stared at her for a few seconds.
She was also surprised by my reaction and the two of us just stared at each other for a moment.
"What's going on?" I asked, annoyed at having my sleep interrupted.
A little embarrassed by what she had done, my mother laughed as she disguised her shame and explained.
"Natt, FrostHaven just posted on Whisper that a group of magical ruins explorers have just arrived at the Runestone tavern and that they've put up a quest board for other explorers to help them find ancient letters!" My mother said as she got more and more excited.
Listening to what she said, I could understand every word that came out of her mouth, but for some reason the combination of these words wasn't making any sense to me...
Seeing my confusion, my mother gave up trying to explain and just handed me her cell phone.
It's worth mentioning that my mother's plans to go back to her house were postponed after she started using my Player Core to play Runestone and especially after she started noticing the physical improvements she was getting from spending Mana there.
She said she wanted to stay to look after me, but I knew her goal was to stay to share my Player Core with her.
As I only played for an average of 6 to 8 hours a day, since I didn't have that much Mana available, I let her play as much as she wanted beyond that time.
She only had 4 MP to use for the day, so it was only 4 hours a day, but she loved it.
Picking up her cell phone and looking at FrostHaven's post with curiosity, I was surprised by what I was reading.
[Dear Players,
A group of explorers has just arrived at the Runestone Tavern with rumors about ancient magical cards that may be hidden in magical ruins.
They've put up a quest board in the tavern for anyone who wants to help in the search for these lost cards.
Each game you complete will earn you event points, with wins awarding 6 points and losses awarding 4 points.
Explorers will exchange points for some of the 15 cards they found on their most recent journey, as well as an ancient artifact that can be placed as a decoration on your board!
The event is only available until 23:59 tonight, so take the opportunity to play, complete quests and expand your collection. Good luck!]
Reading this notice, my eyes widened.
I'd never seen an event like this before...
Until now, the only way we'd guessed that the game would add cards would be in the next major update, but who would have thought that an event like this would come along?!
The post had an image of the 15 cards we could redeem as a reward, but no details of the effects of these cards, apart from an image of the beautiful artifact we would receive!
As soon as I saw this, my collector aspect started to bubble up and I quickly looked at my excited mother.
"Let's play!" I said as I got out of bed, completely forgetting how sleepy I was feeling.
////NunuNote////
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