My character slowly generates into the game, starting with my head and finally my feet.
The system sends a notification.
"Welcome to Courtenia, the starting zone of Paragon Unlimited."
“That was slow, I’ll need to remember to write that down.”
I hear a close scribbling to my back.
“Already on it,” says Juno.
I jump and fall out of surprise. I feel the pain on my butt from the rough, city cement.
“WHAT? Why are you here?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to finish your creation. We’re all set to test the game features. Did you think that you’d be allowed to do this alone?” says Juno.
Above his character shows the name, Note King.
I guess it does help that my secretary is here.
“Great name, Juno, or I guess Note King. You are a player, after all. ” I said with a bit of laughter.
“Thank you, Sajangnim.” says Juno.
“Okay, anyways, what should we do?”
“Well it’s up to you to decide what you want to do first, but after we’re done, we must start the main quest outside of Courtenia," says Juno.
“Well that’s inconvenient. Write that down.”
“Understood,” Juno replies, as he quickly jots it down on his journal.
I slowly get up off the ground, the pain seems all too real here.
These pain levels seem too realistic. Is there no way to toggle it?
I scroll through the settings screen looking for a pain option, but nothing.
“There is a limit to maximum pain allowed due to safety regulations.” Juno mentions.
“Where did you get that stuff anyways...?”
“I transferred some materials over from my other account to assist with my duties ma’am.” he mentions.
“I see... Well make sure to get...”
Before finishing my sentence, Juno begins jotting more information down, detailing the pain issues I mentioned.
“……”
“It seems that my secretary is very quick to adapt, even in a game. Hohoho...” I laugh, covering my hand over my mouth to hold it in some.
I guess it comes to no surprise that Juno would be prepared. How hilariously normal of him.
Juno has always been the strict and precise type, ever since we met in college.
A flashbacks begins, showing Juno in a shiny room holding a feather duster and a notepad clipped to his shirt. I gawk in sheer amazement at his attention to detail and ask him to come work on my project with me.
“It’s what you hired me for.” Juno says, with a smile on his face.
Moments later, we make our way towards the exit of the town and are stopped by what seems to be players dressed as guards.
“You new here? You need to pay your dues before leaving the city!” says the guardsman.
Juno steps forward and says,
“This is a free zone. You can’t stop people from entering and leaving the city!”
“Of course, we can!” says the other guard.
“No money? If you want to leave, you’ll need to pay up two golds. Unless you're looking for trouble?" The guard questions.
I’m appalled.
Charging players to leave? Just to start the main story? How can they even make the money here with no quests?
It seems that Juno was right, these players were forcefully stopping people from leaving the city, forcing new players to stay in the city limits until they paid this nonsensical fee.
“Whatever, here! We don’t have time for this.” Says Juno, after hurriedly giving them two gold from his inventory.
"Pleasure doing business with you two. Welcome to Parun... Heh.' says the guard, as he smirks towards us on our way passed him.
We make our way out, and before leaving I notice their in a guild...
Why does that name read so familiar?
Paragon Unlimited.
Is that a guild with MY company name? What is going on?
“I’ll see if our investigation's department can check on that later today. Let’s get started with the main quest before it gets late” says Juno.
We reach the farm.
At the farm, we notice a group of adventurers huddled in a circle, yelling back and forth.
“That’s mine!”
“You know how hard these are to get, I picked it up, so I get to keep it!”
“That’s not fair! You don’t deserve that!”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Juno sighs.
“They are fighting over an item ma’am. This happens frequently with main quests. There’re so many players here that it must be hard to get all the items to drop.”
Doesn’t seem like a big problem, I thought.
I went and spoke with the farmer and grab his quest.
[ Collect 10 “Pig Tails” from the Vineyard Pigs ]
* Vineyard Pigs. They weren’t like your average pig in the real world. These pigs were grass-like creatures who did not have tails. The signature trait of these pigs were their pig tail-like vines growing from their ears, as if to mimic the popular hairstyle. *
“Let’s get to it!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, Sajangnim!” said Juno.
- 2 Hours Have Passed -
[Collected 2/10 Pig Tails] – Sajangnim
[Collected 3/10 Pig Tails] – Note King
[ You've killed Vine Pig: 74 times ]
“WHY IS THIS TAKING SO LONG?” I screamed.
“The spawn rates are very low, Sajangnim.”
“Low is an understatement! Why do these pigs have two pig tails on their heads if they aren’t gonna drop any? No wonder people don’t want to play my game!” I screamed out.
After 3 and a half hours, we finally finish collecting 10 pig tails for each of us.
- 1 Hour Later -
[Collected 10/10 Pig Tails] – Sajangnim
[Collected 10/10 Pig Tails] – Note King
[ You've killed Vine Pig: 192 times ]
[ You've collected all the material(s) needed, please hand it in for rewards. ]
“Unbelievable.”
“What’s the point in having the monsters visually show the item and not drop a single one? Three hours to finish one quest? How absurd.”
I continue my rant, and Juno just keeps writing on his notepad. Getting all of my rants down, word for word.
“Haha, newbies. You think they care?” said a passerby.
A man in what looked like a baseball outfit walks towards us and laughs at my frustration.
His username shows "Baseball Fan."
“Why wouldn’t they care?” I asked.
Baseball Fan frowns.
“Wow you really are new. This quest has been the same for about 10 years, you really think they’ll fix something that doesn’t matter to them?”
He continues, “A lot of quests are like this these days. We call it grinding. Try not to whine too much, they won't do anything anyways.”
Grinding? This isn’t grinding, this is torture! No wonder people complain about drop rates, even quests seem to take hours to complete!
“Young man, what’s your name?” I asked.
He laughs, “Young man? I look older than you miss… Well, whatever! My name is Cole.”
That made me smile. Seeing that Paragon Unlimited had many players, ranging from more than just Korea. Seeing it myself was amazing.
I asked, “Is it normal for you to grind while playing?”
“Well, aren’t all games like this? Especially in Korea?” says Cole.
I guess he was right. When I created the game, I implemented grinding as a feature to entice people to work hard for what they want, but this is never what I intended!
Hours to complete one quest? That’s insane!
“Well Cole, I really appreciate your input. I’ll try to get this to the right people.”
Juno begins jotting down more information.
Cole laughs it off, “Okay, ‘Sajangnim’, what are you, roleplaying?”
With my chest slightly puffed, I proudly announce, “I’m the CEO of Parun!”
Cole freezes for a couple of seconds, in shock of what he hears.
“…..”
“Right… I guess people in Asia really like to cosplay these days.”
Juno and I look back and forth at each other, like he can sense what I’m thinking.
He doesn’t believe me.
Oh well.
“Have you played for a long time Cole?”
He answers, “Yes! I really enjoy this game, even with all the issues, there’s a lot of players. But I like to spend my time in the new areas to help players get out of the zone, because this place sucks!”
I agreed.
This place did suck.
The starting point being in the city and not near the main quest, being forced to pay to get out by a guild named after my company, and worse of all, these drop rates!
I had a lot of work to do.
“I couldn’t agree more Cole, thank you for your input. Can I add you?” I asked.
Cole smiled, “Of course! I love meeting new people. Let me know if you need help in the future.”
As Cole walks away, Juno and I turn in our quest at the farm..
[ Congratulations on finishing the First Quest! Your hard work was worth it! ]
[ Received: Gold x 5 ]
[ Received: Experience + 300 ]
[ Congratulations. You've leveled up! You are now Level: 2. ]
[ Quest Duration: 3 hours and 45 minutes ]
Strange. Why does it mention the duration?
"Odd. We should have gotten at least an extra half level from this quest. We barely reached Level 2. I need to write this down for sure." says Juno.
I walk to Juno with a dizzy look in my eyes.
"Let's just get out of here, the smell of grass is nauseating. I think I've just reached my breaking point..."
We quickly make our way out of the farming area and head back towards the city.
As we were on our way to the entrance of Courtenia, we both receive a notification from my COO, Ken.
Message received by Ken Jung: Yuna, we need you ASAP. Please come out of game. QUICKLY!
Me and Juno end our first day of Parun there.
Immediately, I'm met by Ken, right at the entrance of my cube.
“Ken, what’s going on?”
“The Board of Directors wants to have an emergency meeting regarding the state of the game.”
Juno runs into my office.
“Sajangnim, it looks like the meeting begins in 30 minutes. They were quick to throw this together.” Says Juno.
Ken, Juno, and I walk together toward the Board Meeting room.
Before even entering the room, screams from both sides could be heard from across the hall.
“Alright, well let’s not keep them waiting.”
I push the doors open and the screams from both sides are put to a stop immediately.
“Are you adults ready to have our meeting? Or are you still busy having a shouting match?”