Chapter 43: The v0.2.0 Patch Notes

Beds, once purchased, were naturally bound for the dormitories. As for the dorm arrangement, Sharlock's original plan had been the standard dungeon setup: big communal barracks with rows upon rows of beds packed into the rooms, where the players would rest.

But according to Bru, this was yet another golden opportunity to reclaim currency — and how could that be passed up?

After detailed deliberation between Sharlock and Bru, a full gameplay design for dormitories and beds was settled, and with BOSS rewards, gear binding, and the like likewise pinned down, Sharlock got to drafting the newest patch notes:

"【Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom Patch Notes v0.2.0】

Added the new test feature · 【Soulbinding】: gear of legendary quality or above may be soulbound by paying a fee in currency to the Demon Lord Sharlock. The price of soulbinding is set according to the gear's reputation-level requirement. Soulbound gear may be used by its owner alone, and soulbound gear may be exchanged with Lord Sharlock for a large amount of Eternal Kingdom dungeon reputation. Gear bought back this way may then be put up for a second server-wide auction; proceeds from any second server-wide auction will no longer be distributed to players.

Added the new test feature · 【Gear Insurance】: still worried about losing your beloved gear when you die in some dumb accident? After a month of round-the-clock toil, the dev team proudly presents a test feature: Gear Insurance. Gear of legendary quality or above, and any gear that has been soulbound, may be covered by purchasing gear insurance from the Demon Lord Sharlock for a fee. Gear insurance may only be set within the bounds of the Eternal Kingdom dungeon; should a player die in an accident, the gear you've designated will be returned to the insurance point you set.

Added the new zone · 【Resource Warehouse】: for storing resources and goods such as diamonds and beds. This new zone is not open to the public; players who have not accepted the relevant quest will be unable to enter.

Added the new zone · 【Gear Warehouse】: dedicated to storing the Eternal Kingdom dungeon's standard-issue gear. This new zone is not open to the public; players who have not accepted the relevant quest will be unable to enter.

Added the new test feature · 【Housing System】: within the designated dormitory zone, players may spend ten silver coins to purchase two square meters of private territory. Private territory is entirely at its owner's disposal. Please build walls, a door, and locks on your private territory as soon as possible after acquiring it. Doors and locks may be custom-ordered from the blacksmith Goldmane for a fee; diamond bricks, the construction material for the dormitory zone, may be exchanged for at the core hall with reputation and currency.

Added the new furniture · 【Bed】: players who own private territory may spend one silver coin with the Demon Lord to purchase a bed occupying 1.5 square meters. Beds may only be placed on private territory, and each player is strictly limited to one. Sleeping in a bed grants a 100% energy recovery rate, slows the speed at which hunger drains, and lets you maintain the dignity every goblin deserves!

Added the new carpenter · 【Ironmane】: a carpenter out of Frostlake City; a dark iron dwarf with exquisite carpentry skills; holder of a 【Royal Chefs' Guild Certification】; and brother to the blacksmith Goldmane. Currently on probation.

Added the new building · 【Carpenter's Workshop】: please do not wander in and out of the carpenter's workshop, and please do not steal the workshop's property. Violators will be blacklisted by the NPC and will be unable to receive any help from NPCs.

This chapter's published version is on the NovelPhoenix site, but the words here were copied without approval; the author is supported there.

Added the new dungeon construction quest: players will be tasked with building the carpenter Ironmane's personal quarters. Please do not wander in and out of NPC quarters, and please do not steal NPC property. Violators will be blacklisted by NPCs and will be unable to receive any help from NPCs."

Sharlock combed through the whole thing top to bottom one more time, confirmed the new content in this patch of his shouldn't have any glaring problems, and hit publish.

The moment the 【Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom Patch Notes v0.2.0】 went live, it detonated across the forums like a nuke. In under a minute the view count blew past ten thousand, which honestly startled Sharlock — were there seriously ten-thousand-plus people out there mashing refresh?

And it wasn't just views — the reply count was climbing at an insane clip too.

...

Sharlock sat in his chair, mashing F5 and clicking away, cheerfully refreshing and reading replies — and taking in the otherworld players' suggestions while he was at it.

While he was busy refreshing the forums, the beta testers in-game had already started spreading word of the update, and the reaction came right on its heels: copper coin prices began to skyrocket.

After all, everything in that update — auctions, gear insurance, soulbinding, buying property, furniture — it ALL cost money! And it was all casually denominated in silver, at a thousand coppers to a single silver. What kind of exchange rate is that? You'd need ten coins worth a hundred coppers apiece to make one silver — and a hundred coppers alone takes half a day of grinding to scrape together.

The whales — 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】【Arthur】【BurningChestHair】 and their ilk — started hollering in the Training Grounds plaza: buying coppers, top dollar. The non-whale players, meanwhile, dove headfirst into frantic coin-grinding. In no time, the price of a single copper got hyped from its temporarily stable five-to-ten bucks a coin all the way up to a whopping fifty dollars a copper.

A tiny handful of players immediately started selling off every copper on them for the highest price they could get, while others were buying up as cheap as they could manage — or grinding quests like their lives depended on it to rack up copper rewards and stockpile coin.

The whales didn't keep hawking for long either before they too joined everyone else in the mad grind. The entire Eternal Kingdom dungeon plunged into a fever of coin-farming: players frantically excavating the spaces Sharlock had zoned out, or taking hauling jobs, carting ore, beds, and everything else over to the newly designated warehouses.

Sharlock had assumed players would come lining up to buy private territory and beds the moment the patch hit, but after ages of waiting, not a single one showed. Seemed the players were all nursing the same scheme: hoard your coppers, and only sell once the appraised gear went on display and the auction kicked off in earnest — because that would be when the whales were flinging money around hardest, and when the coppers in players' hands would fetch their peak price.

Sharlock could see the logic. Unless you were truly desperate for cash, any sane person would make that same call — and there were only a hundred beta players to begin with. How many of them could be THAT hard up?

Since nobody was coming to buy territory or beds, Sharlock figured he might as well enjoy the quiet.

Hands clasped behind his back, Sharlock strolled through players sprinting every which way to mine and grind, making for the smithy. The players gave him exactly one glance before burying themselves right back in their work.

Sharlock was feeling pretty damn good. His game design was clearly TOO successful. If the players worked like this every single day, his dream felt one whole step closer.

While the players hustled and bustled, the two dark iron dwarf brothers were hard at work in the smithy too, forging a weapon in flawless tandem — a weapon clearly forged from the mithril of Kramo's great hammer and armor, melted down and recast.

Why is a carpenter doing a blacksmith's job, you ask? In the Underworld, that's really nothing worth raising an eyebrow at.

I mean — how could a blacksmith who can't cook ever hope to be a good carpenter?