Data Dragon Danika

Danika was puzzled. The list of available jobs had nothing on it related to the expansion. Or at least, that's how it appeared at first. After working through a few of them, she realized that it was more like the expansion had affected the entire Empire a lot more than she'd imagined it would.

Pirates were complaining that there weren't enough legitimate ocean going shipping concerns in the west to support them in adventuring away from the northern ocean and the river industries. Gryphons were complaining about being fed lizards and bugs when they carried their riders into the desert. Pixies and etains were complaining that the gnomes and nadias had more territory, and small wars were breaking out along the borders.

When she went to consult with Ariana, Ariana said, "It's happening all over. There are even glassworks in the eastern mountains that are complaining that there are no available portal enchanters to make new portals so that they can access desert sand, and also that a great deal of the sand that people are trying to sell them is of inferior quality. How can sand be inferior quality!?"

"Maybe it's too mixed? I mean, we basically had the gods melt the contents of several mountains and then grind them up right?" Danika suggested after a moment. "But are there really that many players who are pirates, gryphons, and glass makers?"

"I'm not sure about the others, but there are tons of pirate players. It's seen as being 'cool', and I can understand why they're anxious to move into the new ocean. They've mostly been crowded up along the northern coast and they are always complaining that it's easier to find another pirate ship than even a fishing boat." Ariana explained.

"Did you have to add artificial shipping routes? It seems like it would be easier to carry things by portals, especially if there's a lot of piracy?" Danika questioned.

Ariana looked at her curiously and asked, "Haven't you noticed? That's where most of the player courier quests come in. Most NPCs can't use portals. Even pets don't really go through them, they just teleport to the new location of their player."

"Oh," Danika said a bit blankly. It was obvious when it was pointed out.

"But we did have to add some er, magically system generated shipments to the shipping industry to keep them going despite the heavy piracy. We used to have the same kinds of problems with assassins, in the beta. We kept winding up with monarchies made up of children, until we expanded the available NPC quests to include petty domestic arguments, civic bounties, and pest exterminations, instead of just the major political assassinations that had originally been imagined," Ariana complained.