“Sneaky.”
“Yet effective.”
They grinned at each other. Jon took a nacho from the plate to nibble on it while he prepared everything for them to go live. The sketches of the first avatars were ready to be uploaded and the music they had selected for it was queued.
“Ready to face the crowd?”
Barion nodded. “So ready.”
“We’re going live in three, two, one. Hello, friends and fellow gamers. Here are PLM and Big B and today, we’re going to share the first avatars for Demon Wars with you. Are you ready?”
Sooo ready.
Can’t wait.
Show them.
Gimmmmeeee.
On and on it went, the live stream going nuts within seconds. Jon was taken aback by how many people had tuned in and how hyped they were. He and Barion had built anticipation for the avatars and the game by mentioning their progress and even asking their followers for help with tricky decisions like how many additional quests were too many—the answer to that apparently was there couldn’t be too many side quests, especially when the way to enter them was well hidden and they led to interesting findings. For Demon Wars, Jon and Barion had finally decided that they would have forty-two side quests, because, well, forty-two.
What he hadn’t expected was the commitment their followers showed and how involved they got. Word had also apparently gotten around, because the number of people who had subscribed to his channel had more than doubled, which was good for the income he generated through ads.
Barion chuckled into his microphone. “I see you can’t wait. Let’s get the music playing.”
Jon started the drumrolls—cheesy but obviously much appreciated—before he put the sketch of the first avatar on the screen. It was of Augnielle, with some alterations to protect her identity. Skirting the line between reality and fiction had been so much fun, especially since the reality they had to be aware of was what most people would have considered fantasy. Just thinking about it made Jon’s head spin in crazy pleasure.
The picture now showed a fierce-looking demoness with light green skin, huge black wings, the pinions doubling as lethal daggers. She wore a leather tunic with runes on it, which made the material stronger than any metal armor. They had given her horns—Barion had chuckled about that for hours and Jon had a feeling if Augnielle ever found out about it, they would be in trouble—and an array of scales in a darker green than the rest of her body on her face, forming a mask around her eyes.
Wow.
Beautiful.
Perfect.
What weapons does she carry?
Do you have an animated version already? I wanna play her!!!
Jon looked at Barion, who grinned. They had a first winner.
“We haven’t made a decision about the weapons yet. One idea was to give each avatar their own armory they can access during the game and where they can store weapons. This would make finding new weapons and pimping others a player already has another option in the game. Question is, will we allow the characters to access all their weapons from the beginning or will there be some unlocking process?”
Unlocking process.
All available.
I think available but with the chance to upgrade.
No, I think it’s more fun to unlock them with each level, perhaps hide the keys to some weapons in the side quests?
I’d want the weapons from the beginning.
The debate was growing heated, as these things so often did. Jon let it roll for another few seconds, then he pulled up their second avatar, this one modelled after Barion. They had exchanged the deep blue of his scales for a lighter shade, highlighted by silver-white accentuating scales around his shoulders, abs and on his cheekbones.
Oh wow!
He’s gorgeous!
