LIGHTNOVELONLINE Mechanics
This is a relic of when this was originally posted on CHYOA, which has branching contributions and I thought someone else might want to riff on it. 6 months and 180 chapters later, no one did. Oh well.
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https://waifu-catalog.neocities.org for the catalog itself
(While I love a good power fantasy as much as the next guy, I thought an alternate structure deliberately playing it down slightly while keeping all the wonderful toys active would be a bit of fun. A 35 credit budget individual stranded in Warhammer 40k is more “hope and a prayer” than total power fantasy, but a fun story could be told there. Essentially I wanted to take the concept of choice out of the hands of the main character while keeping it in the hands of the writer. I now eagerly await being shamed for my hubris, it might help me become a better writer.)
(This was intended to be an invitation for others to riff on this homebrew, no one took me up on it. Oh well)
Each soul will be placed into a lottery, and placed into different tiers. The tiers will determine their starting budget. They will then be randomly assigned certain modifiers to encourage them to test certain aspects of the experience. The Company wants a good spread.
Tier 1: Free Trial- You will start with no budget. Nothing at all from the catalog. You may be given opportunities to earn credits, but that is at the discretion of the oversight committee.
Tier 2: Freemium- We occasionally offer promotional packages to promising prospective clients. You will receive one of our basic binding tools, either the stamp or the hypnotic phone app (available in magical variants as well), and a budget of 5 credits.
Tier 3: Basic Package- you will be given a budget of 35 credits. This is enough to dip your toes into things and enjoy yourself in many worlds if you stay in reasonably safe areas.
Tier 4: Premium Package- you will be given a budget of 150 credits, as well as free access to the “sexual calibration” perk. In most worlds you should be able to get by with a bit of care, but you will preserve the challenge.
Tier 5: Gold Package- you will be given a budget of 400 credits, with a free upgrade in the form of a pocket apartment, the sexual calibration perk, and a ticket for a single T4 or lower companion native to your world.
Tier 6: Diamond package- you will receive a budget of 500, as well as sexual calibration, a pocket apartment, a locally sourced T4 or lower companion, and a single TX ticket. Note that you are still restricted to our beta test multiverse.
The Agent Experience: Some of our clients have expressed interest in living the glamorous life of one of our field agents. Obviously our agents are highly trained professionals with stressful lives, that’s why they get paid the big bucks, but for some reason many of our clients are convinced they live a life of endless hedonism and power fantasy. You will go through a simulation of our onboarding process and treated exactly as we would one of our agents, though of course our need for feedback may override standard operating procedures. By default, Capture Structure, Mission Structure, and PVP Structure will all be in play, and your starting budget will scale to your starting world.
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Modifiers
Multiplayer: you will be placed in the same world as other beta testers. Depending on the size of the world, you may not even notice at first. We will not necessarily incentivize PVP, but we have brought in a think tank by the name of VaultTech to help us think of various engineered situations to assist us in collecting data on as many dynamics as possible.
Closed Loop: to maintain verisimilitude within our world, we will require that all purchased and captured waifus and powers take a form corresponding to the world you start in. Furthermore, all interdimensional travel will be restricted to variations of that setting.
Build Tester: the overseer wants you to try out an unusual build. You have no choice in how your starting credits are spent, but they will usually not be what you would have chosen. Making you a master of seduction with no combat skills in a fighting anime, turning you into a wizard in an otherwise hard sci fi setting, giving you a harem of thirty-five devoted but normal women with no survival skills in a zombie apocalypse, and making you functionally immortal while sending you to the French Revolution are all on the table. Your overseer will determine which bindings you have; if any.
This build is subject to change at any time, but as a courtesy you will be informed 1-24 hours in advance and any captured or purchased waifus will retain at least a basic stamp binding. There is a company pool going on whether a certain Diamond Tier tester assigned this modifier will consider himself lucky or find reasons to complain, and his Game Master put a lot of money on the latter.
Alpha testing: you will be placed in one of our less developed builds. Many features may not be fully implemented yet, and rapid unannounced changes are to be expected. If paired with mission structure you will be expected to engage with new features as they come out.
Variants: Many of our clients have particular tastes, especially when they are asking for custom work. We may match you with a variation on your world set in a different genre or with different tropes in play. Cowboy, High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Hentai, superhero, Sci fi, Post Apocalyptic, Crossover and Parody variants are being made for most settings. We are also making linked-multiverse variants, which can maintain continuity while switching between variants. If you are placed in a linked multiverse variant, you may or may not be given influence or notice when and how shifts happen.
Payment structures
Though in the final version of the product we intend to have our catalog primarily be a cash shop, we are experimenting with ways of providing premium currency and bonuses within the context of the CustomWorld.
Mission structure: our moderators will give you specific tasks to complete, which will allow you to earn assets from The Company or credits allowing you to make in-game purchases.
Plotline: Some of our clients expect a more curated experience. This variant of the mission structure will focus on incentivizing a certain chain of activities calculated to create a compelling and enriching narrative. Personally I think our writing staff is a bunch of hacks, and keep in mind that you may be going through what amounts to a first draft.
Subscription structure: we will ask you to test one of our subscription models, at least from the client’s perspective. You will receive an infusion of credits at the end of each month equal to 10% of your assigned starting budget, with a minimum of 1 for our tier 1-2 clients.
Capture Structure: we have agents exploring the actual multiverse tasked with the collection of in-demand waifus and husbandos. They are paid primarily on commission for the capture and sale of these waifus back to the company. We have been informed this is a satisfying way to gamify the job, and are experimenting with having it as a mechanic in our CustomWorld systems. You will be testing it for us, using the same pricing structure as is standard for our agents.
PvP Structure: We at The Company encourage our agents to do battle with one another in Peer vs Peer conflicts in order to maintain a productive outlook. As cosmically wealthy gamers are as competitive as middle class neckbeards, we are developing various brackets of PvP conflict. You will be set to test these. Note that while we typically match our agents in balanced conflicts where possible, as a tester we make no promises that your opponents will be in the same realms of power, influence, or development as you. We need data on all possible matchups. PvP victories will be rewarded appropriately, primarily with credit payouts but sometimes with various bonuses.