Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 338: 334: Impatient Players!

In the following few days, this emotion spread rapidly among the gaming community.

Everyone knew that the closed beta invitation list would only be finalized by Thursday, and the closed beta would officially start on Friday.

Even when the invitation list comes out, only 3,000 players will be able to play the game in advance, and the vast majority of players won’t be able to participate.

For everyone to be able to play, it will have to wait until next Friday.

The time in between, for the players, is a bit too long!

But this impatient feeling still spread quickly.

Once “Assassins’ Alliance” internal test ended and the players were waiting for the server to open, they all felt like a year had passed, wailing every day, “I’ll die without playing Assassins’ Alliance!”

This time, the feeling came even faster and stronger, even before the internal test began.

Super looking forward to it, but knowing clearly: the event they’re looking forward to doesn’t come for a long time, so they become listless and don’t get interested in the things in front of them.

Wishing someone would give them a black out blow so they could sleep straight until next Friday and wake up to play the new game!

Super Tomato posted a countdown on his social media every day:

“4 years until the internal test of ‘Speed Chase’!”

“3 years until the internal test of ‘Speed Chase’!”

Under each post, there are nearly one hundred thousand bored players counting down together.

Yi goes to bed early and gets up early every day.

Start the live broadcast at 8 AM, go offline for lunch at 12 noon.

Take a one-hour nap, continue the live broadcast at 2 PM, go offline at 6:30 PM, and go to bed before 10 PM on time.

His life was just like that of a regular office worker.

Every night before going to bed, he would even check-in online so that his fans could monitor together.

All of this is for the sake of saving energy!

When the internal test starts, as long as he gets a spot, he will go straight into the Da Vinci Sleep Method!

Swore to make full use of the three-day internal test duration.

Once the internal test ends, he would continue to maintain a regular schedule while waiting for the server to open and go for another round!

Whether it’s Camille Victoria’s anxiousness, Super Tomato’s dragging days or Yi’s preparation for a big fight, they all represent the emotions of a certain type of player.

Behind every emotion, there are countless player groups.

Players’ emotions are naturally reflected in game-related matters.

As “Light Encounter” mainly targets player social interaction, the game is more inclined toward casual activities.

The stable and constant players who log in actually have a certain degree of closure, and the impact they receive is minimal.

“Paradise”, as a casual game, also performs quite well.

A little-known fact is: the average age of players in “Paradise” is frighteningly low.

The most intuitive proof is that a full one-third of players in this game have not reached the age rating requirement for “Speed Chase”…

So only the [Candy Track] section has a slightly reduced combat intensity.

But everyone’s novelty still remains, and the average appearance unlock rate hasn’t even reached one-third, so the slight decrease in online time doesn’t have much impact.

But “Assassins’ Alliance” is different.

Obviously, there is a considerable similarity between “Speed Chase” and “Assassins’ Alliance.”

The impact of the new game’s internal test is very direct.

There is a noticeable decline in the number of online players, and the average playtime has also been significantly reduced.

The daily assassination tasks in the Continental Hotel are nearly halved in completion rate.

Even the ongoing offline group matches are affected.

Randall clearly feels that the “Assassins’ Alliance” group matches are becoming more exciting, intense, and richer in spectacles, but the players’ discussions and comments are much less than before during the sea selection battle.

Even at the moment when the match is decided, the players’ emotions are not as intense as before.

Fortunately, the number of spectators did not decrease significantly, and everyone was just bored and gathered in the live broadcast room, watching the game and occasionally chatting casually.

If it were not so, Randall would have to think of ways to host events to maintain the heat of the competition.

The first four days of this week, the group matches were in this “the audience did not decrease, even increased, but the atmosphere remained lukewarm” strange state.

Fortunately, Cloud Dream employees are very professional and are not affected by the players’ state, completing their tasks on the daily schedule with quality and quantity.

[Tuesday]

Staff from the Rating Review Department came to Cloud Dream.

Quentina personally greeted them and took them to the virtual office to find Lincoln.

Lincoln then led them to a pre-made technical demonstration map.

This map is actually a copy of Night City, but Lincoln had loaded it with the dynamic grading mechanism.

And to better display the effect of [dynamic grading], he even raised the “violent effect display,” which was originally restricted to [17+], to [Adult Level].

The Rating Review Team was also well-prepared: their team not only had adult staff, but also 17-year-old and 16-year-old “specially appointed commissioners” who came along.

The task of these two was to try to break through Lincoln’s restrictions.

Of course, the entire review team will help devise strategies and provide as much assistance as possible to them.

However, if those two overstep the limit and see more than what they are supposed to, there’s no way Cloud Dream can proceed with the “dynamic grading” plan.

Next time they want to apply for grading-related matters, they will have to wait until next year.

Lincoln totally understands this; otherwise, if all game companies could submit applications as they wish, the staff would be swamped with overtime.

After that, the team stayed in the virtual world for a whole day.

They tried sneaking into a virtual nightclub but were stopped by security when they blended into the crowd with the two underage players.

They tried to force their way through, controlling security and letting the two special commissioners in.

But security suddenly became “possessed” with divine power; one could fight ten, making it impossible to control.

Moreover, security had a clear goal to stop the underage kids.

For the adults who were in the way, whether to knock them out or kill them depended on what was more convenient.

One of the reviewers who was shot dead showed no anger after being revived, but calmly asked his colleagues, “Did you just see me get killed? How was the scene? Was it bloody?”

A few adult reviewers nodded their heads.

They saw their colleague get shot in the head, with bright red blood splashing out, staining the ground a large red spot as he fell.

Unprepared, they were shocked.

But the 17-year-old commissioner didn’t say a word, and just opened the panel to show his own perspective of the video scene:

The reviewer was shot in the head, with a small shower of blood gushing out, and then fell in response to the sound. Blood was splashed on the road.

Then the person vanished and was revived nearby.

“What about yours?” The reviewer asked the 16-year-old commissioner.

This child also followed the previous one’s example, opened the panel and displayed the scene:

The reviewer’s head got shot, and a sparse red light emerged. Then the body loses control instantly, falling to the ground without any bloodstains appearing on the road.

Then it was the same vanishing act and resurrection.

The reviewer opened his mouth, comparing the three video clips, and was genuinely amazed.

But they didn’t come to a conclusion immediately, and continued to try different scenes and conditions.

In the end, they even left the review-specific map and went to the completed Night City, which was about to enter internal testing, to conduct tests.

However, no matter how they tested, Lincoln’s “Dynamic Grading System” worked perfectly without any flaws.

So they left with a lot of investigation records.

Before leaving, the leader, with a smile, told Lincoln that there should be no problem, and next, it was only going through the process.

[Wednesday]

Recruitment of Quentina and Jerome temporarily came to an end

[Cloud Dream International Affairs Department]’s framework was successfully established and started emergency training for the employees.

Three days later, everyone except those staying at Xiajing headquarters was divided into two groups, flying directly to Izumo and Baekje to continue learning in practice, preparing to take over overseas work.

Their practice was to set up the overseas servers and factory assembly lines with their partners, ensuring that the second-generation console would start production as soon as possible.

[Thursday]

Cloud Dream’s Magic City Supercomputing Center is officially completed.

As the first upgraded supercomputer “Dongting,” it also maintained all the equipment, lines, and office supplies of the supercomputing center as a whole.

Although, for Mavis, adjusting the architecture inside the server was the real “interior decoration,” and everything else was insignificant details.

But Lincoln still gave a comprehensive upgrade.

On the same day, Lincoln conveniently announced the second round of the [Rehabilitation Plan], once again admitting 10 million player volunteers.

At this point, players have been anxiously waiting for the new game’s internal testing quota.

Upon seeing the announcement, they thought it was about the internal testing, only to find out it’s about the [Rehabilitation Plan]…

Expressions of disappointment were evident.

Even so, players used less than half an hour to fill in these full 10 million places.

As for the subsequent firmware updates and data transmission pipeline construction, Mavis took over, and everything was organized.

Lincoln praised her non-stop, and Mavis was happy.

Moving, increased computing power, and master’s praise brought three joys to Mavis, making her spin in circles happily in the virtual world.

Of course, work could not be neglected amidst the happiness.

The next thing to do was, naturally, to issue internal test invitations to the more than 3,000 selected players!

Players had long been eagerly waiting for this, so the issuance of the invitations certainly caused a considerable stir.

Those who were picked were jubilant, shouting, “I—am the Europe Emperor!”

Players who failed to grab the quota sighed and wailed, “We have to wait another seven years! How many sevens are there in a lifetime!”

With some families rejoicing and others grieving, that’s how the players were on Thursday.

And then, in the players’ eager anticipation and impatient emotions, four days passed in a blink of an eye.

Finally, Friday is here!

The “Speed Chase” internal testing server is officially open!

Players who have been waiting to go, seeing the appearance of the new “Speed Chase · Internal Testing” login option on the login interface, immediately selected it without hesitation.

Even many players excitedly exclaimed—

“Night City, here I come!”