Chapter 184: Admit defeat and apologize! A great shame! (Happy Chinese New Year)

On October 1st.

Lightning Games welcomed a completely unexpected guest, Tim Sweeney, the founder of EPIC, whom even Lin Xiao and Zhang Chun had not invited.

At that time, Zhang Chun went to EPIC in the United States on behalf of Lightning Games, requesting the use of Unreal Engine 2 and asking EPIC to send technical personnel to provide relevant support.

Tim Sweeney was overjoyed at the time. He never expected that someone in China, thousands of miles away, would take a fancy to his Unreal Engine.

Tim is a pure idealist.

He was a technical expert at the same level as Carmack. At that time, in order to write something, he felt that the text software that came with the computer was too difficult to use, so he decided to write one himself. As he was writing, his idea changed again, and he directly turned the text software into a game.

Then, the game became a minor hit and brought him hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.

Then, he made some modifications to this basic game and created the Unreal Engine.

Then... the game was not developed properly.

He is focused on making game engines and wants other developers to use his engine.

The essence of developing Fortnite is to support the main business of Unreal Engine.

The game's login interface was slightly changed to become EPIC's game store, and more than 40% of its shares were sold to Tencent for several hundred million dollars.

There is really only Unreal Engine in this person's mind.

When Youke developed Black Monkey, it used the Unreal Engine 5, and EPIC also sent professionals to provide strong support.

After becoming a big boss, he didn't want to manage the company anymore and hired others to do so, while he focused on writing code.

So from Unreal 1 to Unreal 5, and even the future Unreal 6, the main code was written by him alone.

His ideal is simple: most games in the future, and even the entire virtual world, will be built using his Unreal Engine.

This time, EPIC sent three technicians to stay in the Lightning Game to jointly solve related problems.

The most core issue is the conflict caused by multiplayer connection.

This is actually an old problem of the Unreal Engine 2. Although Unreal Engine 2 has made huge improvements compared to Unreal Engine 1, it was still modified based on Unreal Engine 1.

But the good news is that this generation of the engine is not entirely for pure stand-alone games, but tends to be small online games. When it was first launched, there were conflicts with multiplayer online games. After more than a year of modification, this problem has been well solved, at least in the North American game market.

But when it comes to Lin Xiao's "Zhu Xian", this problem becomes very serious.

Because Lin Xiao’s game is not a small online game, but a super large online game.

So the staff of Lightning Games and EPIC solved one problem after another.

During this time...

Not only Target Studio was involved in the relevant work, but Huang Haiquan's Fantasy Studio also fully joined in.

More than a hundred people worked hard to solve various difficult problems.

It's like this almost every time.

"Damn, there's no way to solve a problem like this. In the past, I would have just given up and taken a detour..."

"If this problem is solved, it will take a long time. I don't know how long our game will be delayed."

However, Lin Xiao made the final decision.

If it has to be postponed, it must be postponed.

In this way, more than a hundred people solved one problem after another.

That feeling is...

Challenge one BOSS after another, work day and night, and sleep in the office.

Looking back, I can’t imagine how we did it.

But the last few key issues cannot be avoided.

We have just made breakthroughs in the refinement of the transition between distant and close shots, as well as minimizing edge jaggedness, etc.

Every problem seemed difficult, but every one of them passed.

The last issue is the conflict problem that is easily caused by too many people connecting online.

This is a fundamental problem of Unreal Engine 2 and there is really no way to solve it.

Because the main code of the entire engine was written by Tim alone.

So, the boss, Tim Sweeney, flew over directly to help solve the problem.

After arriving at the company, Tim did not start working immediately, but had a long talk with Lin Xiao.

The two of them were having a working lunch and drinking coffee.

"Lin, can you give me a specific goal?"

Lin Xiao thought for a while: "I want players to have a feeling, or an illusion, that our game graphics are better than World of Warcraft after watching it!"

"Wow..." Tim said excitedly, "This is a really big goal, but it's also exciting."

"On the surface, this seems impossible, because the human and financial resources invested by Blizzard are completely incomparable."

“But there are two core reasons.”

"First, they developed this project relatively early, so they have the advantages of being a latecomer."

"Secondly, they have their own considerations, which are the cost-effectiveness of technology and resources. So they don't have too extreme pursuit of graphics, but instead have extreme requirements for the number of potential players."

“So this goal is difficult to achieve, but not impossible.”

“As long as you are willing to give up some targets, such as certain groups of computer users with low configurations.”

"So, first pursue the ultimate stunning picture, and then find ways to optimize it, right?"

Lin Xiao said: "Yes!"

"I like it, I like it very much..." Tim excitedly stretched out his hand and shook it: "We are all idealists. We all just want to make the best things. As for whether we can make money or not, we will talk about it later!"

"What about the worldview, the integrity of the game?" Tim asked.

Lin Xiao: "I wrote the original work of this book, which has 1.5 million words. And in our country, the number of readers of this book may exceed 20 million."

“Of course, World of Warcraft also has a grand worldview, but...it doesn’t actually have a complete original work to support it.”

Lin Xiao had read the story of World of Warcraft countless times in his previous life, and had read the chronicles countless times.

It is true that there was no complete story at the beginning, and many of them were written on the spot.

Of course there are some very exciting parts, but... after Wrath of the Lich King, I am really speechless.

Tim Sweeney expressed his concerns, because he felt that everyone has their own expertise, and as a company operator, Lin Xiao might not be professional in writing and in constructing his worldview.

This kind of arrogance may ruin the game.

Because this is the first game of Unreal Engine 2 in China, and it may even be the only masterpiece.

In fact, the promotion of Unreal Engine 2 is not very smooth at present, and few large game manufacturers have adopted it.

Moreover, the Unreal Engine is free to try, but you will have to share the subsequent game revenue.

Of course, due to the special circumstances now, the distribution ratio is not high, and it is stepped.

However, Tim Sweeney is currently taking the game very seriously.

Otherwise, as the boss, he would not have flown to China in person to help solve the core problems.

Lin Xiao took out an English version of "The Graveyard Book" and placed it in front of the other party and said, "This is my work. It just won the Hugo Award last year."

Tim Sweeney looked at the book and Lin Xiao in disbelief.

"I know, I know, I read the book and I even thought about making a game, but then I realized it would be a better fit for a movie."

“Oh, my god!”

“it is so crazy!”

"I really didn't expect that you were the author of this book."

"Then I completely take back what I just said. You are a first-rate writer. The world view and stories you have constructed must be very, very exciting!"

"Lin, I like you very much. I admire you very much." Tim took a sip of coffee and drank a glass of red wine. The combination of wine and coffee actually works in you? "Do you know why? Because you don't have that kind of self-deprecating technology worship..."

"When you see Blizzard, you won't kneel down and say, 'I can't beat them, they must be very, very strong, let's kneel down first.' Instead, you say you want to defeat it, at least defeat it in some part, even if it costs a lot."

"When I was going to make a 3D game, there were a lot of people around me saying it was impossible because everything was on Carmack's side and I couldn't get around it, but I still did it."

"I respect everyone, but I also despise everyone..."

"In my world, there are no gods, only mortals..."

Next, the two chatted a lot.

We talked about ten, twenty, thirty years later...

"In the future, there will be two worlds, one virtual and one real..."

"My Unreal Engine will become the backbone of the virtual world..."

"In the future virtual world, AI is the soul and the engine is the skeleton..."

"Lin, how much do you plan to spend on making this game?"

Lin Xiao thought for a while and said, "I don't know, maybe 10 million US dollars, or 20 million US dollars?"

Tim Sweeney looked at Lin Xiao in disbelief.

He couldn't imagine that a little-known company would spend 10 or 20 million US dollars to develop a game.

So crazy!

So exciting.

"Lin, if there were more people like you in this world and fewer bastards on Wall Street, it would be perfect..."

Next, Tim Sweeney stayed in Lightning Game and worked with a group of people.

Efforts to fundamentally solve some important issues in Unreal Engine 2.

After each generation of Unreal Engine comes out, it has been modified and upgraded. If the upgrade is particularly large, then the name can be changed, from Unreal 2 to Unreal 3.

Tim is worthy of being the creator of Unreal Engine, and he solves the problem directly from the core code.

After he took action, many seemingly insurmountable problems were solved one by one.

Even Tim himself was pleasantly surprised.

Before we knew it, Unreal Engine 2 had undergone major modifications and upgrades?

Because only when encountering major problems will there be major modifications and upgrades.

I didn't have these problems with previous games.

However, Lin Xiao’s goal for “Zhu Xian” is too big, and even the Unreal Engine 2 cannot support it.

Then upgrade the engine.

The two support each other and make progress together.

………………

"Senior Liao Feng, you are so shameless!"

"Chinese people don't cheat Chinese people, but you cheated even your classmates for money."

"Liao Feng, you are far inferior to Master Ergou!"

At this time, Lingxi Island was also flooded with bad reviews.

And he went there not just for the movie, but for Liao Feng.

Because of the great cooperation between "Heroes of Heaven and Earth" and Lingxi Island this time, there will be a movie ticket lottery, awards for writing film reviews, etc.

Huayi invested several million yuan to carry out this activity.

In addition, with the endorsement of entrepreneurial leader Liao Feng, he praised the film on several public occasions.

What's better than a hero?

What are the best movies in recent years? After watching it, you can't calm down for a long time, etc.

Because Lingxi Island has a large number of activities and publicity efforts, many college students have indeed gone to see it.

result……

This is it? It made us fall asleep.

Damn, Liao Feng, you really let your brothers down.

As a result, Lingxi Island was filled with curses.

There was one sentence that made Liao Feng's defense break the most.

"No wonder you are not as good as Master Ergou. You are a profit-seeking businessman, while he is an idealist. The difference between you two is too great!"

Just this one sentence...

Liao Feng dropped the notebook directly.

Lies hurt no one, the truth is the sharpest knife.

Moreover, he has now gradually accepted that Facebook's data is not fake and is completely true.

But... he still couldn't figure it out, why? He spent a lot of money on expansion, and even falsified some data, to achieve the current level.

As for Lin Xiao, he hadn't spent any money in the past six months, so how come it suddenly exploded?

"Lingxi, why do you think it happened?" Liao Feng asked, "Why did Facebook suddenly explode?"

Wu Lingxi: “Pure.”

"The pure social gene, after completing user education, produces a huge chemical reaction. It provides a long-term and rigidly needed service."

At this time, Assistant Liao Feng came in and said, "Boss, something bad has happened."

"There is a group of people who are launching a campaign to retaliate against you."

"Don't we have a seven-day return policy for electronic products?"

"They plan to place an order, and then wait until the sixth day to return the goods en masse!"

Suddenly, Liao Feng and Wu Lingxi were completely horrified.

They are not yet a giant like JD.com in the future. If tens of thousands of people participate in this event, the losses will be huge.

Nowadays, the cheapest mobile phone costs more than a thousand yuan, and a laptop costs tens of thousands of yuan.

Once tens of thousands of people participate in such an event,

That's completely devastating.

"This was initiated by the fans of Ergou Jiaozhu, and the campaign is currently in progress!"

"It's revenge for our previous propaganda war, saying that Ergou had falsified Facebook data."

"The initiator said that unless we agree to three conditions."

Liao Feng said hoarsely: "What conditions?"

Assistant Liao Feng said: "The first condition is that you and Mr. Wu go to the Facebook headquarters at Aurora University in person and apologize to the Ergou leader in front of many people. And admit that the Facebook data is completely true, and express deep apologies for the irresponsible remarks before."

"The second condition is that Mr. Liao registers an account on Facebook and apologizes to the leader of Ergou online."

"The third condition is that Mr. Wu had registered on Facebook before, but he did not update his status or upload photos of his ships. They want to see Mr. Wu update his status and upload photos for a month in a row."

After hearing this, Liao Feng became furious.

This is too much! He almost smashed the laptop in front of him again.

Wu Lingxi glanced over indifferently.

The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!

Liao Feng calmed down.

Wu Lingxi: "There are two solutions. The first one is to call the police directly."

"The second option is to agree to it."

Who should I call the police to arrest?

Catch Ergou? Are you kidding? This activity was initiated by his fans, what does it have to do with him? The most important thing is that Lingxi Island is the pride of Aurora University, and Facebook is also the pride of Aurora University.

Which institute did you apply to?

Which institute did you ask to arrest people? Aurora University is a vice-ministerial unit, and you want to let it go and take away the entrepreneurial star? What a joke!

So how do you catch the Ergou fans who initiated the event? The key is that these fans are all over the country, and by the time you go to find them, the event has already started.

The most important thing is...

Public opinion is already in full swing right now.

How happy were you when you spread rumors that Ergou's data was fake? Now Ergou didn't retaliate against you, but his huge fan base came to you.

Moreover, because of the "Heroes of Heaven and Earth" incident, you, Liao Feng, were scolded by some people, who said that you were just taking advantage of others.

At this time, you asked the police to arrest people? Then public opinion would explode.

Wu Lingxi: "I am willing to agree to their conditions. I don't think it's a big deal."

"If we lose this battle, we lose."

“If you lose and don’t learn any lessons, how can you grow? How can you stand up again?”

Then, she opened the community of Lingxi Island.

I opened the Facebook group again.

Fans of Master Ergou are flocking to Lingxi Island crazily and are constantly joining the fight.

There are now more than 12,000 people.

The number of people is still skyrocketing!

They carried out retaliatory actions openly.

The users of Lingxi Island not only did not stop it, but came to watch the fun, and some even joined in the fun.

Moreover, fans of Ergou announced that they would not agree to their three conditions.

As long as the number of participants reaches 50,000, they will immediately take action.

Liao Feng said, "How about asking Principal Xu to come forward and help mediate? Last time when Lin Xiaoban was competing in the school beauties and school hunks competition, we wanted to stop him, and it was Principal Xu who came forward to mediate that stopped us."

“This time, we need to ask Principal Xu to come forward and have Lin Xiao persuade his fans to stop their revenge against Lingxi Island.”

Wu Lingxi looked at Liao Feng quietly: "Last time we negotiated, we had bargaining chips, what about this time?"

"You go out first!" Wu Lingxi said to the assistant.

There were only two people left in the entire office.

"I don't know about your family, but I know in my family, the competition is very fierce."

“Not only did I have to compete with my brothers and sisters, but I also had to compete with my cousins.”

"Although our family is very wealthy and my father holds great power in the group, he is a son-in-law, which leads to hostility and suppression from other branches towards my brothers and sisters."

"I originally wanted to develop in the United States, and I even interned at McKinsey a long time ago. But in the end I was forced to return to China."

"In our family, if you make a mistake, you must be punished and taught a lesson, otherwise you will never grow up."

"And the mistake we made was to underestimate Lin Xiao."

“When you encounter a problem, you want to go around it, but I want to face it!”

"So I plan to agree to their terms!"

"It's up to you whether you go or not, but I will go!"

After saying that, Wu Lingxi went out directly.

…………………………

This revenge action against Lingxi Island really has nothing to do with Lin Xiao.

It was really organized by Ergou’s fans.

But the organizer... was something Lin Xiao could never have expected.

It turned out to be... that idiot Wang Lei.

He first looked for Zhu Hongbin, and then for Li Zhongtian.

The three of them were connected everywhere.

He organized this vigorous revenge action.

Now it has exceeded 20,000.

Wang Lei was afraid, excited and proud at the same time.

Someone threatened him that this was illegal and the police would definitely come to arrest him.

He hid in a temporary rental house.

He has made up his mind and is very tough on the Internet, but as soon as the police catch him, he immediately admits his mistake, saying that he was just joking and immediately announces the cancellation of the revenge activity.

On the contrary, Zhu Hongbin was a single man. After deciding to do this, he immediately hired a lawyer.

Moreover, he called his father and asked him to help find someone in Shanghai.

If he is taken away for questioning, spend money to get him out quickly.

Only Li Zhongtian got hot-headed and rushed forward with his head down.

And after Lin Xiao knew about this!

They were all stunned.

Fuck...

You three are really awesome.

It's against the law, you know?

But at this time, he couldn't pretend to be a saint and directly ordered these fans to stop their revenge immediately.

Instead, he immediately looked for people everywhere and found Principal Xu, saying that although he did not organize the incident, he was willing to take responsibility for it.

Next, we found a professional team of lawyers.

To ensure that, when a fierce conflict finally breaks out between the two sides, he can cover for those three awesome yet stupid classmates.

And the result...

Just three hours later! Liao Feng and Wu Lingxi admitted defeat!

We will fully comply with the three conditions put forward by Ergou’s fans.

Liao Feng registered an account on Facebook and used his own photos.

The first post was: I would like to express my warm congratulations on Facebook's success and my sincere apologies for my previous inappropriate remarks! Wu Lingxi had previously registered an account and uploaded her own photo as her profile picture.

Not only that, she also uploaded more than a dozen photos at one time.

It turned out to be a sexy swimsuit photo taken in the United States.

Everyone immediately shouted that it was great fun.

She also posted a message: Facebook is a brand new business model that has never been seen even in the United States. This is the common pride of Aurora University, and we are willing to sincerely learn from Facebook.

…………………………

It was three o'clock in the afternoon! Everyone was waiting quietly and discussing with each other.

"Liao Feng and Wu Lingxi, are they really coming to apologize?"

"These two are very arrogant. They usually look like the chosen ones. How dare they come here and apologize?"

"That was a really big scene. I even borrowed a DV to record it in its entirety."

At three fifteen.

There was a slight commotion at the Aurora University Facebook headquarters.

Because Liao Feng and Wu Lingxi really came.

Suddenly, more people came outside to watch the fun.

In full view of the public.

Liao Fan, holding a fruit basket, and Wu Lingxi, holding a bouquet of flowers, slowly walked into the Facebook headquarters at Aurora University.

Liao Feng paused for a few seconds, then handed over the fruit basket, stretched out his hand towards Lin Xiao, and said slowly: "Congratulations on Facebook's new achievement!"

"Also, I sincerely apologize for my past inappropriate remarks!"

At this moment, the whole audience was silent.

I don’t know how many DVs there are that could have recorded this scene in its entirety.

Liao Feng only felt that his heart was being devoured by countless ants.

My whole body felt like it was being burned inch by inch by the scorching sun.

However, there was still no expression on his face.

This is the biggest setback he has ever suffered!

After growing up, he has always been very successful and a role model for countless people.

And now...this fall was really hard.

And he fell on a grassroots person whom he had never taken seriously before.

Lin Xiao looked at the two of them and exclaimed in his heart, "Awesome!"

Whose decision is this?

It really has the spirit of spitting in one's own face and being brave after knowing shame.

Wu Lingxi's expression was calm and composed.

She extended her hand towards Lin Xiao and said, "Congratulations, Mr. Lin, for officially becoming the leading website for campus social networking!"

"From now on, I will learn from Facebook."

Lin Xiao said: "Have you decided?"

Wu Lingxi was stunned: What do I want to do? Do you know? But she didn't ask, but nodded and said, "Yes!"

……………………

When Mr. Wang from Huayi saw the news on the web page about Liao Feng apologizing to the leader Ergou, as well as the photo of the two men shaking hands, he immediately sneered.

Faced with the overwhelming negative reviews of the film, director He Ping was very uneasy and frustrated.

But Mr. Wang doesn't care at all.

You can curse as much as you want! As long as the box office is good, you can curse as much as you want.

After all, how much money did he spend in the later stages to hype up this movie?

When "Hero" was released, didn't it still receive a lot of bad reviews?

Didn’t the movie box office still exceed 250 million?

This circle is very realistic, and success or failure determines a person's success.

The only criterion for success or failure is the box office!

On October 3, Huayi released the good news: the box office of "Heroes of Heaven and Earth" exceeded 23 million in the first three days! Then, various press releases were released on major portals and television.

"The box office of Heroes of Heaven and Earth in the first three days broke this year's record."

"At this rate, the box office of Heroes of Heaven and Earth is bound to exceed 150 million!"

"Master Ergou's box office prediction is officially bankrupt!"

What a pipe dream! Do you want to replicate the path of "Hero" which was criticized but still a box office hit?

How is that possible?

"Hero" is indeed a movie with gorgeous scenes and exciting actions.

The estimated 23 million in the first three days is indeed impressive and higher than the historical record.

But... because of the huge psychological gap among the audience and the even worse reputation, the subsequent decline curve is destined to be more severe than in history.

In three or four days at most, they won't be able to laugh anymore.

The box office curve will teach them a lesson.

Lin Xiao has something more important to do, If You Are the One! This is going to make a lot of money!

………………

Note: I spent the whole morning writing and had to attend social events in the afternoon, so this is the only update today. Thank you all! Happy New Year, my benefactors, and may you make a fortune in the new year!

(End of this chapter)