Constructing the Servers world

Posted in Tumblr on May 30, 2017. Edited some parts in June 24, 2019.

For 13 years, Servers’ world has been built up from a simplistic story about three people in a training camp, to a multi-virtual world of gamers. 

That world became larger with Team Fortress 2 Originals and We ‘R’ Mercs joining the ranks in Part 6- Of Monsters and Men.

What helped perpetuate the Servers world was during mid-development of the old Season 1, I needed to put the Bravos in more areas than just de_dust. Thus, from being inspired from Kingdom Hearts’ multiple worlds based on existing Disney properties, I made the VR MMO software, the Game Helmet.

A modern/future virtual reality device that allows players to explore different areas of a video game. This was years before virtual reality headsets became popularized from the Oculus Rift. I suppose some of the idea came from Nintendo’s Virtual Boy, but I always suspected virtual reality would make a comeback.

Two years after I conceived the idea, Ready Player One, a story with a much similar setting, hit bookshelves. Both stories are vastly different, but suffice to say, “isekai-esque” stories aren’t nothing new. The main connection both stories have are the inclusion of real world pop-culture references.

and I never even heard of RPO until the author’s book signing for his latest book, Armada, was announced in my area.

Anyway, the original conceived idea was for Frank and Bravo 1/Katie to find Bravo 2 as he suddenly glitches into a different game. 

They end up going to different games as the hunt continues while they are also pursued by the Hackers Elite Union, a group look for Frank, who in reality is the GH’s CEO. They want to interrogate him for information on the aptly titled, “Servers,” a code (or something) that tracks down players’ information and data. 

This was an idea well before the infamous Sony hack, which was done by those who disliked the company filing a lawsuit against a PS3 hacker who looked to encode Linux onto the device.

After reading up on stories that convey similar events and exploring its themes, I decide to incorporate and further establish the hackers’ motives. I don’t want to fully convey them as the bad guys because everyone has their reasons that make sense to some, but they will definitely do what the likes of Lulzsec may post on their Twitter.

Basically, constant taunting, which may attract the teens to young adults.

As the Bravos continue through the world, they encounter player factions and a lot of action. There hasn’t really been a good explanation as to why these things happen, but I continued with a core focus on the Bravos’ story rather than the world. The world was a small backdrop to the action the players are in.

Since I’ve been told that people had trouble keeping up with the convoluted story, I decided to go back with these ideas on where to take the world and instill it all in a semi-reboot.

Servers Redone was born.

I looked to various key aspects as to “why this thing happens,” and aim to explain it further in the semi-reboot.

These explanations include:

• Why everyone has guns.
• State of the world before and after the hacker attack.
• Player vs Player and Player vs Environment
• How players are moving through different locations and how it gets locked out in the Season 3 events.
• How the hackers managed to gain a massive following.
• How NATO1337 (will change name) gain players.
• Bravo team’s backstories and how it will related to their actions throughout the Game Helmet.
• How the Game Helmet works.

But with the continuing story, I found myself in the same predicament that I ended up with since I first began the series: Adding more to the world.

I want to keep it simple and makes enough sense for an average gamer to understand. There are a lot of activities that the Bravos go through that are simple enough to be understood, such as:

which all don’t require any sort of expository dialogue. I took a lot of inspiration from a “show, don’t tell” rule. Sometimes there are areas which may not make a lot of sense, but the “it’s a video game” explanation typically comes into play.

The Game Helmet is a conglomeration of different video games. I haven’t really came up with a reason why the conglomeration came to be, but I think it’s better to not explain in the comic as the focus is on the Bravo team and their adventures against the hackers. I’m used to that idea why there are CS:S characters interacting alongside Nintendo mascots.

Servers has really become its own melting pot of gamers; people who have come to enjoy a pastime in an entertainment medium. There is a ton of diversity with the type of people who enjoys a particular genre and theme. 

Servers brings that altogether while also having a enthralling narrative about friendship and moving on from the past to save your future.