The Offices of War Never Changes
The War Never Changes office was a scene of absolute devastation. Every breath in the room was charged with shock and dread. The tragedy seemed to hang in the air like a pall, condemning them all to this fate they had unwittingly created. Nothing could be done but there was so much to do. Fear kept tongues stilled and feet rooted to the floor as if the very act of speaking or moving might make the nightmare real.
Steele watched in horror as the Rise of the Raccoon launch crumbled before her very eyes; a year's work reduced to rubble, millions lost within the bounds of a single minute. It was a slow motion train wreck and she was at the helm.
Steele gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, suppressing the urge to lash out in anger. She was determined not to succumb to her instinct, screaming obscenities and throwing whatever she had on hand at whoever happened to be closest. It took every fiber of her being to stay calm and composed, for no matter how badly she desired it, she refused to lose control by pointing fingers or calling for somebody's head.
The worst case scenario had just happened and she refused to be Nero simply watching on a Rome burned around, but also refused to be a captain going down with the ship. The first was negligence and the second cowardice.
The reverberations of the disaster were going to be felt in the years to come. Her life would be forever divided between before and after, a seemingly arbitrary line drawn by fate. Steel gave herself five seconds to acknowledge her own humanity, but that was all she allowed.
This wasn't the time for her to stand there silently, marveling at the destruction of her labors. No, now was the time for action - for someone to charge headlong into the flames, dig out any survivors, and attempt to stem the flow of blood.
The WNC employees were adrift in a sea of emotions, not sure if they should be embarrassed, scared, anxious or any of the other feelings streaming through their veins. Steele would fix that shortly. Every single one of them should only be feeling one thing: fearful of what might happen if they didn't do their job to her expectations.
Steele's voice boomed through the cubicle-riddled office, shattering the silence and bringing everyone back to reality. "War Never Changes is down for routine maintenance," she declared. Her gaze swept over everyone if in cubicle riddled office, daring anyone to even consider questioning her.
"This isn't just routine, the servers have-" a senior developer tried to stammer before he was met with Steele's glare.
"You're fir-"
"Firing off the alert now, War Never Changes is down for routine maintenance." The man tapped away furiously at his terminal without looking up. "How long should I set the maintenance counter for?" he asked.
The voice of the executive echoed through the office, announcing with finality: "Until further notice." A ripple of disbelief spread throughout the room. For years, maintenance had been a well-oiled machine that caused little disruption. The developers had always gone out of their way to make maintenance as painless as possible. They sent notifications for the impending change, provided other options during the downtime, and even gifted users with in-game bonuses afterwards. But these acts of kindness were met only with immense cruelty: Players showered the PR reps with insults so cutting, so virulent, that one felt stripped bare of all sense of self or humanity after reading them; they left hollow husks of people who wished they never knew how deep a person could sink in order to bring another down with them. The job expectancy for a PR rep at War Never Changes fielding downtime complaints was lower than the industry standard of 911 operators.
Many former PR employees had applied for PTSD compensation, and members of HR had actually felt bad when turning the requests down. The darkest moment of War Never Changes history had come from an ill-conceived two hour maintenance during it's first expansion. What veterans still remained of the era referred to the incident as 'Black Sunday' and had little more to say on the matter.
A maintenance labeled 'until further notice' was nothing short of handing out torches and pitchforks to the mob themselves.
Steele stared at her team, her face stoic as she gave no quarter. Every ounce of her energy was directed towards pushing the situation in the direction of success, but a dense miasma of dread still shrouded the room like an oppressive fog. She had to keep everyone focused on their fear of failing her instead of the disaster unfolding around them, or else the aftermath would be untenable. It was almost as if they were suspended thousands of feet in the air, teetering upon a tightrope, and only by keeping their eyes on Steele could they avoid being consumed by the void below.
"Does anyone else need my personal direction?" She questioned coolly. A few of the developers shook their head side to side numbly.
"Let me be less subtle," Steele finally let the rage show in her voice and the room took in a collective shudder, "I'm throwing the last person to start working on getting us up and running out of the window!"
The office erupted with a wall of voices and keyboards, like worker bees let loose in a hive. Every corner was alive with motion; the developers moved and talked quickly, their faces tense and eyes wide with concentration. The frenzied energy filled the room, an incessant barrage of typing and discussion radiating throughout. It was relentless yet purposeful.
Steele stood there, basking in the moment of turning from the brink. She knew the people that worked for her, knew their capabilities and certifications. With the right type of motivation she knew this had turned from a slow death to a over hundred million dollar intellectual property, into an opportunity to show come back stronger. The moment was spoiled as a weasel of a man arrived, who had been a anchor around her neck since the start.
"We've got an announcement to make," the lead developer muttered, wringing his hands nervously.
"Mr. Mike Allen, finally decided to turn up, I see." Steele fixed him with shark eyes, cold and unemotional. "It looks like you're free right now; why don't you join me? I think you could do with some fresh air."
She gestured to the little seating area near her office she often used to sit and drink her coffee while watching the world outside through the open window, warm breezes gently coming in.
"I wish I could, but I really must get on writing that announcement." Mike stumbled away, unable to look away from Steele or the open window, unsure if she would follow through on her earlier threat.
A sense of pride surged through the CEO as she watched her team with eager eyes. An office that had just been on the brink of disaster now positively hummed with frenzied energy as the developers dove into their tasks like ravenous wolves, devouring code and algorithms. Programmers were furiously pounding on keyboards, while others strategized over phone calls or scribbled ideas onto paper. Scripts were quickly created as the PR team began to craft a response and testers dutifully inspected each line of code. Ideas ricocheted back and forth between the workers, flying around the office like bullets in an intense firefight.
The CEO stood in the midst of the hubbub, an irrefutable power. Her feet were like stone pillars, her hands locked firmly behind her back. Everywhere she looked she saw faces reflecting back at her the same determination and authority – pupils widened, ears straining to tune in with absolute concentration. Every worker was invigorated by her presence, and their enthusiasm for success bellowed together like an untamed beast.
She'd made it this time without a lawsuit, but it had been a near thing. If Mike Allen had spent another second talking to her instead of doing his job, she wouldn't not have been able to stop herself from trying to throw him out the window.
**********
Taco Knights Guild Members
Karl devoured his meal with a satisfied smirk, and only when he had licked the last morsel off his fingertips did he realize that he remember the Rise of the Raccoon expansion was due to drop. Against all odds, he had somehow finished just in time to play the much awaited release.
Though Karl feverishly rubbed his hands on his trousers, leftover curry still found its way to his keyboard, mostly around the k l i and p keys. He leaned forward and scrubbed at the keys with his T-shirt, thinking he had done a good job in cleaning up the mess of food scraps but in actuality just mushing everything underneath his ; key which would work the same again.
Completely unaware of his inadvertent destruction of his own property, Karl powered up his computer. As it blinked to life in front of him, Karl kept wiping away at his keyboard - nearly losing his ' key in the process and Inadvertently typing the wrong password into his machine four times. One more wrong guess and his computer would go from a miracle of science that found a way to trick a rock into thinking, into just the rock part.
Luckily Karl did not know he was one fat fingered key away from locking himself out, and all of the gunk had been smeared off of his k l i and p key, to underneath the ; key. Which was lucky, given his password was LilKillPillill.
Despite the universe obviously trying it's best to stop Karl from playing the game, and somehow frustratingly being thwarted at every turn, Karl was able to log in and start the launch for Rise of the Raccoon, when a message appeared on his screen: “Temporarily Down for Routine Maintenance”
Karl was positively perplexed. He plopped back into his chair and after a few fumbles, got the right pattern down to unlock his phone. On the one hand, he was almost certain the expansion was supposed to have dropped by now. On the other hand he didn't recall when precisely the expansion had been set to drop. Or when he had first heard about it. Or how much time there was supposed to be between hearing about the expansion release and when the release was set to happen.
In spite of not remembering anything related to the timing, or even close enough to be cousin to, Karl still felt strongly that the game should have released by now. As it turned out, he was spot on with the time, it just felt peculiar how convinced he was despite having forgotten all the specifics.
A quick sweep across the internet revealed that something had gone very, very wrong. War Never Changes’ player base was in an uproar and public opinion turned quickly against the developers who had released it. Aggrieved gamers took to social media in their droves, foul-mouthed complaints filled timelines, demanding compensation for their wasted time, energy, and money. Hashtags flew around as they called out anyone involved in the game's release, boycotting them wholesale.
Karl, never one to miss out on any of the fun, joined in with a short but particularly damning message about how he was owed ten thousand dollars for his emotional trauma, keyboard damages and wasted time due to the bungled debut of War Never Changes. With this addition to the running total of what the video game franchise owed him from previous hardships throughout the years, Karl's claimed figure was edging closer and closer to thirty million dollars.
Karl relished in the carnage of public opinion, as each puff of vitriol he blew fanned the flames of toxicity. He felt a perverse satisfaction watching the fire consume whatever was in its path. He delighted in watching his harmful words sweep others into a frenzy. In fact, Karl found himself having more fun raging against War Never Changes than if the game had actually released.
**********
Jim's face contorted with rage as the page refreshed, yet again. He had been ready right at the Rise of the Raccoon launch--skipping the opening cutscene and loading his character into the new zone only for everything to cut out.
The game's Twitter had been silent for 10 whole minutes - not even acknowledging the supposed "routine" maintenance. This was anything but routine! Jim had waited months in anticipation for this game and he wasn't about to wait any longer for a simple bug fix.- the AAA gaming company was acting like it was some sort of small indie company.
Still fuming, he went to the forums to complain, but they were down too!
To find out what was causing this delay: he Googled "Rise of the Raccoon Maintenance". Most sources, including the official ones, said this was always planned as a routine maintenance. Digging a little deeper he found an article results appeared documenting all that was happening behind closed doors; articles from industry insiders and insiders from within developer community all reporting on a sudden emergency taking place at RoR headquarters. Who ever wrote the article really went off the deep end. Something about unethical game design,
Jim skimmed through the article and felt himself succumbing to what was obviously someone's mad delusions: here were reports of code being rewritten in minutes and added to the codebase- Beta testers dying of dehydration because they wouldn't stop playing.
Curiosity slowly drew him closer and soon enough Jim was sucked into the article's details, succumbing to its enticing lure. Wrathful thoughts of a failed launch slowly subsided, replaced by intrigued curiosity. One article even went so far as to state Chloe Steele, the War Never Changes CEO, had brought on the legendary game developer Inglebert Waschbär.
**********
Samantha's heart sank as the launch of her new fluffy raccoon character was delayed due to maintenance. She had already fallen in love with it— from its big, sparkly eyes to its cuddly tail— and all she needed now was a name. Bubblecup kept coming to mind, but Samantha wanted something more special that would capture the essence of her beloved character.
With a bit more breathing room, Samantha decided to take a break from the chaos and quickly scrolled through her feed of recent cuddly raccoon videos. It was an unexpected joy for her, as watching all the little critters always seemed to be a calming force when deciding on a name.
The current video was an inspiring story called "A Raccoon's Adventure". Watching it, Samantha felt inspired as she followed the cute critter exploring his world and learning lessons about friendship. Throughout the week she'd seen other videos too - heartwarming clips of raccoons playing in their natural habitat, stories about unique family dynamics between mother and baby raccoons, even some funny videos with captions of raccoons doing silly things. It all just made her appreciate the animals even more.
When Samantha returned to Discord after the video had finished, she felt a surge of optimism as she realized that everyone had moved on from their entrenched pessimism about Steven and the other guild officers, herself included. People were now passionately expounding their hatred for the War Never Changes development team.
She felt a sudden surge of optimism, so she quickly shifted her attention towards some work projects that needed her attention and started chipping away at them with renewed enthusiasm.
She checked back in on Rise of The Raccoon one last time; unfortunately, maintenance was still underway. Making use of the distraction, Samantha opened her feed back up and scrolled through the videos. The perfect raccoon name was out there, and she was going to find it.
**********
Steven's chest tightened as the servers crashed. Wave after wave of regret and shame coursed through him - he had allowed himself to be overwhelmed by the threats, and had selfishly wished it all away. How could he be so brash?
He was well aware of the immense responsibility that came with leading the highest population guild in the server - the expectations from contestants vying for rare titles, house-building enthusiasts, raiders ready to take on bosses. He had poured his heart and soul into keeping everyone engaged, giving them something enjoyable.But what was done was done.
Being the guild leader had been all Steven had going for him. He was important, he was the guy everyone came to when they had problems!
He had made a huge effort to keep everything running smoothly — organizing outfit contests, discovering obscure titles, finding plots of land to build on! He had officers placed to ensure something fun and enjoyable for every member of the guild. The raid roster was ready, too... yet he had recklessly let it go because recently it had gotten just a tiny bit hard and he was sent a few intimidating death threats that seemed to know his home address.
Now, Steven knew that in order to lead his guildmates through these turbulent times, he must prove himself worthy of their trust — both to them and himself. Only then will his momentary lapse in judgement be forgotten, and the guild prosperous again.
**********
Back at the Offices
A shadowy figure appeared from the depths of the room, an icy glint in his eyes. Most of the developers couldn't even bring themselves to meet Inglebert Waschbär's gaze. But Chloe Steele was unperturbed; she held her ground and met his stare with a challenging one of her own.
Inglebert had unveiled designs that were proving universally successful with their testing demographic, and their engagement ratings had never been higher on the beta realm. The man refused to break eye contact as he declared with authority: "Replace him..." he commanded, gesturing toward the lead developer who was cowering in the corner, talking incoherently to himself, "...with me."
The CEO surveyed the room with a feeling of power and helplessness. She could not keep this place together with sheer will alone. Her sharp eyes finally came to rest upon the inept lead developer she'd wanted rid for years - he trembled at her gaze. Even being related to three board members would not save him now. It was clear; a new right-hand man was needed - urgently.
Chloe studied the man before her with a calculating eye. His raccoon designs had not only been a success, but an unprecedented phenomenon. Having already taken a risk with him, she now pushed forward and ready to cede full control of this massive project.
"Everyone may I have your attention," Her cold words pierced through the room and stilled everyone's breath, "Please officially welcome Lead Developer Inglebert Herrmann."
A collective gasp filled the room as the CEO spoke those cursed words, sending a chill down everyone’s spine.