For a moment Danika wondered if all of their new members really did know Logical Heart, and then she realized that 'knows of' was not quite the same, and they probably did know of him.
"Um, we are expanding as a guild though, we probably aren't going to stay small enough that we all know each other well. I barely know Icieth Occino, Melody, and…" she paused and swiped through her menus, then winced and corrected herself, "I mean Melodious, and Tundo."
Logical Heart mouthed the names silently and then gave her a puzzled look. "They joined together? Are they a band? Or maybe University students who are studying music?"
"Um, Melodious is a bard?" Danika offered. "Why?"
"Acies Occino would be something like edge or battle line of song or sound maybe? In Latin. Tundo I think is a beat or a thumping? It's been awhile," Logical Heart explained.
"It's Icieth, not Acies," Danika corrected. "She's a cute little ottermin, and her path is an unspecialized combative one so far?"
--
When Aishin logged in and discovered that Logical Heart had joined them, he didn't look entirely pleased by the news.
Danika asked bluntly, "What's wrong? I mean, I know that supporting a genius enchanter in our guild might become a material strain, but what else?"
Aishin glanced at Logical Heart and then shrugged and replied, "Nothing, it's cool."
Logical Heart glanced up at him from where he was measuring something and said, "Okay, now even I can tell something's up?" He pointed at ZipZing and added, "And I told you, you don't need to worry about providing me resources unless it's a guild project."
"It's really not a big deal," Aishin protested. When they both looked at him disbelievingly he held his hands out to ZipZing and waited until she landed on them before he explained, "I was just considering enchanter as my new path when I reincarnate, because we haven't had anyone like that and they are really useful to have around as guilds expand."
"Oh, really? That would be really cool if you do decide on it," Logical Heart said with enthusiasm.
This time Danika and Aishin both directed their stares at the gnome. "Why?" they asked in unison after a brief silence. Danika turned and made a face at Aishin, who flashed a grin at her.
"Ah, well, I guess it's pretty selfish, but then I wouldn't have to do all the basic enchantments people in the guild want made all the time?" Logical Heart said nervously.
"Just because you're a member of Endless Song it doesn't mean you're expected to provide services just because of your chosen path," Aishin scolded. "Even with the guild missions we set the requirement to be that at least two members are capable of fulfilling the mission before Song will accept it."
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Danika nodded and Logical Heart gazed at them in surprise, and then objected, "Weren't you just using service to the guild as a reason to choose the path?"
"Well, kind of," Aishin agreed. "But I was imagining something more along the lines of defensive enchantments that no one outside of the guild could be bribed to reveal. Not things like making basic enchanted ammo for everyone, free of charge, which is what it sounds like you're implying."
"Ooh, defensive enchantments for a living building sound really tricky. That should be really interesting," Logical Heart said happily.
Aishin raised an eyebrow, and Logical Heart began to explain. It didn't take Danika long to decide that she didn't want to become an enchanter, but Aishin actually seemed fairly interested in the layered puzzles Logical Heart was describing.
--
The miniature game update their team was creating that would allow messenger animals to choose which messages to deliver, based on either environmental suitability, or more subtly by the emotional content, was quickly becoming a full fledged update.
When they'd turned in the first version, someone from the first division had been added to the team to help turn the options into layers of purchasable content. Apparently 'Living Jade Empire' was going to try to move into 'sustainably profitable' instead of 'cool demonstration' as far as Starcraft Technologies was concerned.
Once it was put into those terms, the team came up with quite a few small additions that could be paid for. Danika relayed the request she'd been getting since she started using the LJECD app on her phone that let her assistant play as ZipZing while she worked. Josh and Paul quickly pointed out that even if it was impossible to give everyone an AI of that caliber, what people actually wanted to gain from it would be easy to set up.
Danika wasn't sure how she felt about adding a 'pay to level skills' function. It still took time, and she had to admit that the effect was pretty much the same as her assistant leveling skills for her, but it definitely felt like it was adding a purely pay to win element to the game. It felt like it was nearly as bad as selling Karma.
The person from the first division really wanted to add Karma to the list of purchasable goods too.
--
When she complained about it to Aishin, he asked, "What would be so bad about that? You can already buy Karma in roundabout ways within the game, and if you look at it another way, people have believed that they could buy favor with the gods for thousands of years."
She wrinkled her nose at him and he grinned and kissed it. "Have you felt like me having my assistant play has really been cheating that badly?" she questioned in a subdued voice.
"ZipZing," he replied scoldingly, "I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that letting people trade time and resources in reality, for time and resources in the game really isn't a cheat at all?"
"But…" she hesitated. What he was saying was true. She wanted to complain that you shouldn't just be able to buy something that you would normally only get through effort, but if she applied that theory to her groceries, she'd probably starve to death.
--
In the end, to her relief, the decision was made that you still could not buy Karma directly. But now you could buy coin directly, instead of buying the few things that were tradeable or giftable and selling them to other players.
Danika couldn't explain why being able to buy coin didn't bother her as much as being able to buy Karma. Maybe it just felt logical to be able to trade one form of monetary currency for another.