Vaudevillain

Work in the morning was slow. The firm had finished finalizing most of the contracts for the city, so Dylan found himself with nothing to do. Sure, there were still various small changes to be made here and there, but by and large, the day was moving at a crawl. To pass the time, Dylan spent his morning idly scrolling through the news about World of Supers.

At first, his idle scrolling led him to articles on Vert's partnership with the other game studios. It seemed each studio was working on a VR game using one of their signature titles. Nicrosoft went for Alo, to no one's surprise. That company had been beating that horse before Dylan had been born. Sometimes the studios under the software publisher would breakaway and create new titles loved by millions, but they never got sequels.

Zony had decided to go big and produce two exclusives with VR support. The first was a new Arachnaman game, something that immediately grabbed Dylan's attention. He'd buy that as soon as it came out. It probably wouldn't hit the level of fun he had with the ones as a kid, but as long as he could swing around New York, it didn't matter.

"Maybe I should make a web swinger for Dr. Zlo at some point," He muttered.

"What's up?" his coworker asked.

"Nothing, Samir," Dylan answered. "Looking at the news about Vert partnering with the other game companies."

"Oh yeah?" Samir said.

Dylan turned to face his coworker, "You heard about the VIS, right? The VR system?"

"Can't say I have," Samir answered. "But that reminds me, Dylan. I heard you and Mark got into an argument?"

"I wouldn't call it an argument," Dylan answered. "More like he kept trying to go behind other's backs, and I called him out on it."

"Ah. He's been telling everyone you refuse to work with him anymore."

Dylan snorted, "He needs to get off his high horse."

Samir laughed, his eyes squinting in delight, "Yes, the man acts like a king when he's only a simple farmer."

"Hey now, farmers have important jobs," Dylan joked back.

Samir gave another hearty chuckle, which jiggled the large beard on his face. Dylan couldn't help but think of a middle-eastern Santa Claus. "You're right. He acts more like the court jester."

"Stop making fun of your coworkers, you two," Claire said. "Or I'll have to actually do something about it."

"Yes, boss! Right away, boss!" Samir saluted, earning a smile from Claire.

"One of these days, someone's going to do something about that flippant attitude of yours, Samir."

"I'll tell them I learned it all from the greatest sasser in the world, my coworker Dylan."

"Hey, don't drag me into this," Dylan said. "I don't want to have anything to do with your inevitable downfall."

"Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" Samir said.

Claire shook her head, "Don't you guys have work to do?"

"Not at the moment. Since the bulk of the city planning is out of the way, we're only needed for some small changes. Things will be slow until we get something new," Dylan answered.

"Fine then. If you need me, I'll be in my office."

"Will do." Dylan turned back to his computer to look at more articles.

"So, Dylan, what is the VIS?"

"A new VR system by Vert. You put it on, and it links you to a virtual body. You can even play while you sleep."

Samir rolled his chair over, "No way. There has to be a catch."

"Well, it only has one game on it right now. A multiplayer superhero world. But the company announced they were partnering with the big three consoles and were in the works planning more games."

"Wait, Mintendo's making a new game? Which one?"

"From what I've heard, Xelda."

Samir leaned forward in his chair, "No way! I remember the last Xelda I played. Those were the shit!"

"Yeah, look here."

Dylan brought up the article on Vert's partnership and the alleged rumor of Mintendo's new release. As he clicked through the articles, the patch notes caught his eye. He opened the link in a new tab to read later. Samir rolled up next to Dylan as he opened the article.

"Oh wow, Nicrosoft's doing another Alo game? And Zony is making both an Arachaman and an Unmapped series? This new thing must be pretty special."

"Like I said, you can use it while sleeping."

"Dylan, why didn't you bring this up earlier? I just bought a new car. Now I don't have any money to hop on this bandwagon."

"Ain't my fault you don't keep up with the news," he answered.

Samir pushed away from Dylan's desk to roll back to his own, "See if I ever invite you to anything again."

"As if you ever invited me before," Dylan countered.

Samir spun in his chair, clutching his heart as if an arrow pierced it, "You wound me, sir! I've invited you countless times."

"Jokingly saying you'll make your own company party with blackjack and hookers and asking for me to come isn't exactly inviting me."

Samir put on a shocked expression, "Joking? Me? I would never. I was entirely serious about blackjack."

"Not the hookers?"

"Hey, I'm a married man. Got to keep the wife happy."

Dylan waved his coworker off. It was always a bit tiring when dealing with his expressiveness. Samir made one more parting shot before he went back to his desk.

"Hey, if you decide to hold any wild parties remember your old friend Samir, eh?"

Dylan rolled his eyes and ignored the man. He turned to look back at his computer, clicking on the patch notes he'd opened earlier. The article opened, revealing line after line of text under a gif of heroes and villains facing off. Dylan started reading, looking for any changes that would affect him. This time, he didn't bother to skim too much.

Greetings Supers! We hope you're all having a great time playing WOS! We know everyone at Vert's been loving the creativity you've all come up with. So let's dive into our changes!

Harold "Greasy Spoon" Lamar

Dylan snorted at the comment on creativity. To him, it sounded hollow. But that was mainly because the company limited his ingenuity. He kept on reading.

MECHANICS:

We've been noticing some complaints about the general lack of gameplay progression when it comes to players who've already hit the upper echelons of A rank. Specifically, players feel there isn't much of a reason to grind reputation other than to travel to cities. To remedy this, we've been hard at work changing some of the core aspects of our game.

First off, we have the change that will affect everyone from rank F to S. We're revamping base building.

Before, if players stayed near a building long enough, the game would ask if they wanted to use the area as a secret base. If they selected yes, players were then able to craft and create their bases using the tools provided. To expand on the idea, we added the base defense feature during the Quli invasion. Players could fight increasingly difficult hordes of aliens for better and better rewards.

However, we kept receiving complaints about the lack of expansion for secret bases. Once players selected a base, that was all they had until it was lost. There were no ways to expand past the initial size limitation and no way to build multiple bases around the world. We've heard your complaints and have changed the way base building works to address the issue.

Previously, players could purchase various buildings around cities in World of Supers. But this option was limited in scope to a select few areas and was very expensive. We've decided to expand this option all across the world. Any piece of property, other than hero and government buildings, is purchasable. Players now have the option to buy land inside and outside the city and resell it at prices they choose. The farther outside of a city someone gets, the cheaper the land will be.

Dylan's eyes widened. This was big. The option to buy land in the city filled Dylan's head with all sorts of crazy schemes. He could purchase factories and turn them into secret laboratories. Or better yet, he could buy the land under his secret identity and pretend to be the cheerful business owner with an evil agenda. The possibilities were endless.

Dylan then remembered the conversation with Jack earlier, about the players who made powers for money creation. He wondered how many of them were planning to buy every single piece of land up as soon as they could get their hands on it. Curious to see if Vert did anything about it, he kept reading.

Land in the wilderness is priced at $1000 per sq. kilometer, a cheap amount. However, each natural resource on the land increases the price by %15 each. For example, a piece of land with a forest and an old coal mine would be %30 more. This pricing ends once players reach the city limits. Inside the city, land is purchased in small lots that vary wildly in price depending on location.

Once players purchase land, they will be able to hire builders and workers to design and create the lairs of their dreams. Players will work with various foremen to plan out these homes but be warned prices will vary depending on what the player wants. Also, the builder system only applies to lots inside city limits. Builders won't travel outside of city limits.

You may be asking, "what's the point of buying land outside of the city then?" Well, we'll tell you. Land with resources outside the city can be processed and used for materials, making your bases cheaper. There are also unique areas outside of the cities with special materials that can increase the power of your lair. Players looking for their next challenge should head out and search for the next great weapon!

Dylan balked. So far, nothing he read said anything about fixing the infinite money exploit. He needed to reach out to Menagerie.

Opening Netchat, Dylan typed his message into the Menagerie group chat.

Superfan39526:

Just started reading the patch notes.

Anyone else concerned about the new base features?

It was a minute before someone got back to him.

JackOleen:

In what way?

Surfsup26:

Yeah, the base changes look sweet.

Superfan39526:

I agree, but they all require money.

And I remember Jack mentioning players with infinite money powers.

JackOleen:

OH

SHIT

SHIT SHIT

That's bad.

Candequeen:

What's up?

JackOleen:

Vert's base building changes work off money that players can create with powers. It won't matter how much they set the price. People will just use the money power to buy it. We gotta get online asap and squat some places or else we're losing out.

Surfsup26:

Why's this a problem dudes?

We use a flying city.

D.Black:

It says some things have unique weapons to upgrade bases

I assume that means Phlebotinium

Which we definitely need