After discussing this, the director kept me in his office talking for another hour.
At least the subject changed from my personal life to Game Creating overviews.
As I had already given my colleagues tips involving a few small points in their games, I had no problem talking it over with the old man, just being careful to stick to more basic tips.
Even though these tips seemed very basic to me, to the people of this world they weren't, so he was satisfied with the tips I gave.
When I finally got back to my room, my phone had a new contact by the name of 'Director Samuel Prescott'.
He asked me to add him and when I graduated, to call him so we could sort out the rent for the apartment.
Having agreed to the proposal, I just added him and went back to my dorm.
Looking at the clock and seeing that it had been almost two hours since the update had been released, I was curious to know how Runestone was growing.
'When I finished updating, Runestone had 364 Players online, has it gone up to 400 Players with the new update?'
Opening my game's back-end program, I was shocked.
|-----------------------------------------
| Game Status: Runestone
|-----------------------------------------
| Total Players: 477 -> 658
| Online Players: 364 -> 488
| Mana per Hour (Players): 1 unit
| Average Session Time: 4 hours
| Mana Stored in Game Core: 23 units
| Estimated Daily Mana Yield: 22 units
| Conversion Rate: 80% (New players who become regulars)
|------------------------
| Available Cards: 104 (Common, Rare, Epic)
| Cards Used per Match (Average): 17
|-----------------------------------------
The number of Players online has risen from 364 to 488! An increase of more than 100 Players online!
Considering that Players couldn't stay online all day like in my other world, being restricted by the amount of Mana they had, raising the average number of Players online so much was very good!
Looking at the amount of total Players going up by 181 just in the two hours since I released the update showed that my idea worked!
Excited, my tiredness even disappeared as I quickly entered my conscience into Game Core to see how many people had come via the friend links.
Unfortunately, this information could only be accessed through Game Core, as the back-end system was not developed by me.
The first thing I looked at was how many of those 181 new Players came via friend links...
| Players with Registered Friend Links: 144
Boy... adding this feature really was a great idea, just by handing out a nice invitation skin to the Players they'll be promoting the game for me completely free of charge!
After seeing this data, I was curious to see a statistic on the percentage of Players' invite Battle Pass level...
|-----------------------------------------
| Level 1: 55 players
| Level 2: 35 players
| Level 3: 21 players
| Level 4: 13 players
|-----------------------------------------
'Hmm, it makes sense that a few players have managed to convince a lot of people to join the game, especially considering that it's only been two hours and the game only counts a player's participation when they play 10 Casual Matches.. . I wonder who the player is who managed to reach level 10 of the Battle Pass?' I was curious.
Using my Game Creator permissions I quickly found his in-game Profile and his Federation Player Profile.
Surprisingly, I had searched for this Player's profile before!
What caught my attention about him was not his funny name, but that he is currently the Player with the highest Rank in the game!
The only Player with Platinum Rank, with an astonishing winrate of 79%.
I was just curious how he managed to invite so many Players so quickly...
'Maybe he's just a popular person in the real world? ' I thought as I shrugged.
After checking the numbers and the excitement of so many new Players joining the game wore off, the tiredness I had built up returned, making me rush to my bed to finally get a good night's sleep.
I knew I had a lot to do, whether it was improving the system of friends being able to visit friends' taverns, or even developing the remaining cards among the game's original cards.
That was work I could only do when I was rested.
I was angry, very angry.
My friend invitation card was at level 9, the nine people I'd invited to the game had quickly accepted to test it out too, the problem was that I had no one else to invite so that my card would rise to level 10!
Inviting nine people was already extremely laborious since the population with magical talent is only a minority.
Even if I wanted to invite my friends from school, it wouldn't do any good, as they don't have the mana to play Runestone.
The nine people I invited were just my dungeon raiding group mates and their friends who raided dungeons with us from time to time.
After inviting these people, my list of possible guests went to zero...
“Damn, I need something sweet to calm me down!” I said in frustration as I disconnected from Runestone and went to the kitchen to find something sweet to eat.
Arriving in the kitchen, my mother, who was preparing a pot of tea, looked at me in surprise.
“Tired of training, Natt?” she asked me with a calm smile.
“No... I just got a bit frustrated, do you have anything sweet to eat?” I asked as I looked around.
Although this was technically 'my house', I hadn't been used to living alone for a long time and the habit of asking my mother if there was anything to eat hadn't gone away yet.
She noticed this but didn't comment on it, just smiling and opening one of the cupboards as she took out a packet of cookies filled with morando.
Smiling at the sight of my favorite cookies, I felt my frustration subside and I gave her a hug.
I didn't buy this packet of cookies, so the only person who could have bought it is her.
“Thanks mom, that's why I love you!” I laughed after the hug and started eating the cookies with her in the kitchen.
“I knew you'd want something sweet at some point.” She laughed.
“What about you? Tired of watching your Korean dramas?” I asked with my mouth full of cookies.
“Don't talk with your mouth full...” She argued with me as she raised her hand jokingly. “But yeah... I guess I got tired, I've watched all the dramas I'm interested in, since I have nothing to do and your dad's coming back from a trip in two days, so I thought I'd leave tomorrow.”
I felt bad hearing that... but there was nothing I could do about it.
It's not as if I could ask her to move in with me and leave my dad alone at home.
Thinking about how much fun I was having at Runestone while she sat alone in the living room bored, I started to feel guilty.
“Thanks for coming to stay with me these days, Mom.”
She smiled at that and replied. “Silly girl, of course I'd stay with you.”
Thinking it was my responsibility that she was so bored, I tried to find something more fun for her to do.
Then I remembered something.
“Mom, you also have Mana inside you, right?”
A person's magical potential is usually passed down from parent to child.
My father has great magical potential, so much so that he was taught by my grandfather from an early age, but he was never very interested in magic, abandoning it after he became an adult.
Confused by my question, my mother looked at me suspiciously for a few seconds.
“You're not thinking of convincing me to become a Player and go with you to dungeons, right?”
Surprised by her reasoning, I quickly denied it. “No mom, I don't want you to go to dungeons, I only asked because I thought you might be interested in playing the game I'm playing now, it's a lot of fun!”
Hearing what I said, she looked at me confused and skeptical. “Fun? Natt, I don't find swinging swords or any kind of weapons fun...”
Shaking my head to deny her idea, I gave up trying to explain and pulled her into my room.
“Come with me, it's easier if I show you.”
Surprised, my mother tried to stop but couldn't.
“Natt, my tea's on the counter!”
I just ignored it and kept pulling her into my room. “You can drink that tea later, Mom.”
The Runestone page was still open, so I didn't have much work to do.
“Look, Mom, this game is different from other games I've played. It's not just about getting stronger, it's about having fun while getting stronger.” I said as I showed the images. “In this game you can choose between two characters, Mage or Warrior, each with a set of cards and a unique style of play, you have several...”
When I started explaining, my mother was still skeptical, but the more I explained about the game and how fun the gameplay was, I noticed that she gradually let her guard down and became interested.
I knew that piquing her interest was the first step to getting her to try the game, and to make sure she would want to try the game, I used my trump card.
“You know, Mom, this game uses a technology called Neurological False Feedback, which means that every card you use tricks your brain into thinking you're practicing it, which means that playing a warrior class and playing creatures on the board can help you lose weight...”
Before I could finish using my trump card, my mother grabbed my wrist while looking at me with shining eyes.
Seeing how she reacted, I had to stop myself from laughing. 'I think I've found my way to get the Level 10 card skin...'