: CITY BUILDING AND CITY LORD SYSTEM

【 CITY BUILDING AND CITY LORD SYSTEM 】

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The benefits of building new cities and implementing a ‘City Lord’ system were obvious.

If done correctly, Evé could not only relieve the growing congestion in Chosen City but also use this as a strategic springboard to expand her influence.

Each new city would act as a bastion of power, not only to strengthen her territorial hold but also serve as forward bases for exploring, defending, and eventually claiming the untamed regions beyond her dominion.

At the same time, tying cities to players and making them its rightful ‘Lords’ would justify assigning them the hard labor of keeping such cities running. It would also further strengthen the players sense of unity and cohesion.

In fact, even if she does not endorse this matter, the ever increasing player population would have eventually sparked similar ideas among them.

After all… who wouldn’t want a city to call their own?

Now, Evé merely intended to formalize the process and bring its implementation under her full control.

In her previous life, she was the kind of person who had always been someone who acted as soon as she made a decision.

Thus, after deciding to construct new cities, Evé quickly projected her consciousness into the game system and began planning.

The ‘City-Building’ and ‘City-Lord’ systems were concepts she had considered ever since players completed the construction of Chosen City. Therefore, she had already formed a rough framework in her mind.

All she needed to do now was refine her initial framework and officially reveal it to the players.

“Constructing new cities isn’t just about dispersing the population. They must also function as strongholds and bases. On top of that, they need to operate smoothly on their own. Therefore, the right to construct new cities should be given to guilds with strong cohesion.”

“Currently, the major guilds now have mature management systems in place, making them ideal candidates to integrate directly with the City-Building system.”

“Of course, maintaining a city requires considerable manpower. Even a small city must be fully equipped with necessities like temples, defensive walls, teleportation arrays, residential areas, task hubs, and the like. To prevent these new cities from becoming half-finished ghost towns, the City-Building system must have stricter activation requirements.”

“I need to set a firm population threshold. Considering players’ average online activity and the current total number of players, I should raise the minimum number of players needed to apply. That way, I can avoid cities turning into glorified villages or ghost towns.”

“Based on all the data I collected, a baseline of 30,000 players seems reasonable enough. Even with a low proportion of life-oriented players, this number should be enough to both build and sustain a functioning city. A city of such scale would also have solid population capacity, serving not only as guild territory but also as potential residences for solo players and even native elves.”

“Alright, I’ll set the requirement at Guilds with a minimum of 30,000 members. Only Guilds of that size will be allowed to exchange a massive amount of contribution points to unlock the city-building system and earn the right to establish a new city!”

“However, considering that there are currently very few guilds with 30,000 members, I’ll introduce a new model—Guild Alliances.”

“Guildmasters will be allowed to form alliances between other guilds, and the city-building functions will be tied to the leader of those alliances.”

“Forming guild alliance should require at least one active guild. But any large guilds that wish to go solo can establish a city by themselves. While smaller and mid-sized guilds with fewer members can form an alliance to meet the 30,000-member threshold and apply together.” ŖἈℕóΒЁꞨ

“Naturally, any city established by an alliance will be jointly owned by their respective Guildmasters.”

“Each guild may only build one city at a time. This also applies to smaller guilds who co-own a city through an alliance.”

“These new cities will be named by the players. Once established, they will automatically appear on the game’s official map, and relevant details will be available in the game system.”

“The locations where Guilds may establish a city must also meet certain criteria. I’ll use the system to provide subtle hints and guidance, marking suitable construction sites in green. Only those areas will be valid for city building, and no two cities can be too close to each other.”

“Aside from population and contribution points, I’ll also add a reputation requirement…”

“And as for the City Lord System, it needs to be refined as well. Unless otherwise designated, the default Lord will be the leader of the guild or the alliance. This leader will be elected by the players, though they may also appoint someone else if needed.”

“After a city is built, players must also develop a proper administrative framework centered around the City Lord, along with performance evaluation systems…”

As Evé continued brainstorming and refining the framework, a comprehensive city-building feature gradually took shape in her mind. Finally, once the overall system design was satisfactory enough, she decisively integrated it into the game system.

All that remained now was to activate it.

“Well, time to release the new patch announcement. But now that I’ve reached the rank of Intermediate-Divine, I have far greater control over both my network of faith and the game system. So from now on, players won’t need to log off anymore during its implementation.”

“Let’s see… I’m going to schedule the patch to go live one day from now on Earth, since the contents of this update aren’t that urgent and this gives the guilds time to hype it up and prepare.”

With that thought, Evé connected to the official website and published the update announcement. At the same time, she also released a brief version of the message as notifications within the game…

༺⟐༻

At the headquarters of Heart of Nature, located in Chosen City…

Inside, Li Mu was leisurely lounging on a wooden chair, humming a tune, completely at ease.

It had been nearly half a month since the Desert War Campaign had ended.

Although he hadn’t fought on the front lines, the sheer amount of experience gained from commanding the elven army had catapulted his level upward at an astonishing rate. Just a week ago, he had officially reached Level 50, which was the current max cap for players in Elven Kingdom.

Of course, he wasn’t the only one who had maxed out his level after the campaign. In fact, among the earliest batch of silver-rankers, nearly a hundred have also hit the same cap.

As more and more Silver advancement slots were granted, the number of Silver-rankers across the entire server had continued to grow exponentially, and it was estimated that there were now nearly a thousand on the leaderboard.

As such, the players’ collective strength had swelled to a formidable level.

But it wasn’t just them, the players whose power had risen.

Li Mu had also noticed that with the continued recovery of the World Tree, the world’s ambient mana had also surged once again.

As a result, the magical beasts in the Elven Forest had begun evolving to higher levels, and even the monsters living underground seemed to have grown stronger as well.

Even among the native elves in Florence, Silver-rank experts had started to appear one after another. As for those who had already reached Silver-rank, such as Alice and Aél, they too had grown stronger, ascending to upper Silver-rank.

“This situation kind of feels like those old cultivation webnovels where spiritual energy returns to the world,” Li Mu muttered to himself, a wry smile on his face.

He shifted his position and lounged lazily in his recliner, half-listening to music while staring off into the air.

Of course, he wasn’t actually spacing out as he was working on a class assignment.

That was one good thing about university since many of their assignments could be submitted online in digital format.

And with his mind being accelerated inside the game, it was practically the perfect place to get homework done.

After piecing together his course report with papers pulled from CNKI ¹, Li Mu closed the web browser and stretched contentedly.

It was currently evening here in Seigües, just in time for dinner.

By now, Chosen City had transformed into a vibrant, bustling hub, which was almost unrecognizable from its early days. With inns, taverns, and stalls lining its streets, sampling the wide array of dishes it offered had become a delightful pastime for many players.

After all, despite it being a game, the need to eat still remained.

While rubbing his slightly hungry stomach, Li Mu decided to call up a few friends and head to a tavern for a good meal and perhaps even a couple of drinks later on.

But just then, a new system notification floated across the top of his vision:

[ Update Notice: Please be advised, dear players, that Elven Kingdom will undergo a minor update tomorrow at 10:00 (Earth time) in preparation for the implementation of a new system feature. ]

A new system feature?

Li Mu raised an eyebrow.

Ever since the game launched into public beta, updates had become less frequent as things grew more refined.

Even the most recent update had only added the newer batch of public-beta players and nothing else.

Therefore, seeing an entirely new feature being rolled out now sparked a bit of curiosity within him.

Still, when he noticed it was only going to be a minor update, most of that curiosity faded. Everyone knew that minor updates were usually just bug fixes or little tweaks, and they didn’t even need to log out during the patch’s implementation anymore.

In other words, nothing major was probably gonna be introduced.

The developers had done this sort of thing in the past, too.

Even so, out of habit, Li Mu connected to the official website to check the full details as every update always came with an official changelog.

But the moment he entered the site, a headline immediately caught his eye:

“…What? A City-Building feature?”

Li Mu was stunned.

“Are the devs expanding Chosen City’s management functions?” he muttered curiously.

As an MMORPG, Elven Kingdom was already incredibly complex and offered players a remarkable degree of freedom.

Li Mu had been more than satisfied with the game as it was.

So at first, he didn’t think too much of it.

That is, until he clicked on the full changelog…

“Wait—new cities?! We players can actually build our own cities from now on?”

Li Mu stared at the details, momentarily frozen before his expression lit up in surprise.

How unexpected.

It was completely unexpected!

Initially, he had thought it would be just another minor patch, but this latest update had actually been hiding a bombshell all along!

Big news!

No…it was massive news!

Li Mu was instantly energized.

“Wait… does this mean we players can now develop our own territories? Do the devs now want to turn ElvKing from an MMORPG into a territory management game?!”

Li Mu’s expression lit up with excitement as he began reading through the update notes more carefully…

“What’s this? Guild Alliance? Let’s see… Guild Alliances can now be formed, and their chosen leader may select suitable locations on the map to establish new cities. These cities will become secondary major hubs, acting as important strategic points for the alliance.”

“Whoa… from the looks of it, the devs really are introducing a city-building system! And not just a simple one either as we players can actually establish our own cities!”

Li Mu’s eyes sparkled.

Owning a territory and building a city that truly belongs to you…

That’s probably a dream many players have always had.

Although some players had speculated that such a feature might be introduced later on during Chosen City’s construction, but now that it was actually happening officially, Li Mu couldn’t help but feel a surge of exhilaration.

Although managing Chosen City was nice, sure, but in the end, it was still a public city, open to all players and lacking the sense of ownership that came with having a city truly belonging to oneself!

Besides, with his guild’s number of members expanding rapidly, their current headquarters was already starting to feel cramped as it is.

But what truly fascinated Li Mu even more than the City-Building mechanics was the city management system.

That’s right: the City Lord System.

“A governance system centered around the City Lord will be introduced, including roles such as City Lord, Deputy City Lord, High Priest of the Temple, and Captain of the City Guard…”

“City Lords and their deputies will have limited authority to appoint custom city officials, such as a Treasurer or Affairs Officer.”

“Each position will have its own responsibilities and permissions, even allowing players to assign tasks to other players, just like NPCs do!”

“Additionally, NPCs can also be invited to serve as city administrators…”

“This is great! A fantasy-world version of civil administration!”

“Wait…there are salaries too?”

“All positions will be evaluated weekly based on the city’s development and operational status. Qualified players will receive contribution points as rewards and the more developed the city and the higher the position, the more rewards you’ll get…”

“Hmm, those rewards are actually quite generous.”

“Of course, if you fail the evaluations, then you shall receive no rewards…”

“Evaluation results depend on activity level and city performance.”

“Well, that makes sense.”

“Whoa—Guild Alliances and city administrators also get exclusive titles that appear under their in-game usernames! Alliance Leaders and City Lords get golden titles, while Deputies, High Priests, and City Guard Captains get purple ones. Custom officials receive blue titles…”

“Gold title! That’s rare as there are barely any of those across the entire server. Even guildmasters and legion commanders only have purple titles…”

The more Li Mu read, the more thrilled he became.

As the guildmaster of Heart of Nature, the largest guild in the game, he now had close to fifty thousand members under his banner. In fact, some of their life-oriented members had managed to flourish their businesses and expand into the underground region and human kingdoms.

Given their accomplishments, Li Mu felt confident that his guild could definitely build a major city for themselves.

He could already envision that golden City Lord title shining above his head.

And even if he didn’t become the City Lord himself, having the Alliance Leader title was all but guaranteed.

If there was one thing that gave him pause, though…

It was the requirements to apply for city construction.

“30,000 members, huh? Well, Heart of Nature already has nearly 50,000 which is more than enough. Our guild reputation rating is pretty high too.”

“Yikes… but the required contribution points are really steep. It takes 10 million contribution points to establish a Guild Alliance, and 50 million more to qualify for city-building…”

“Even though contribution points have been steadily decreasing in value, that amount is still quite astronomical. I doubt any guild has that many saved either… sigh, looks like I’ll have to organize a fundraiser.”

“And even after meeting the necessary requirements, the actual cost of building a city still demands a huge amount of resources…”

“Well, there’s a long and arduous road ahead of me, but dammit, I’m really hyped!”

¹ CNKI – (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) is a private-owned publishing company which operates databases of academic journals, conference proceedings, newspapers, reference works, and patent documents.

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