Chapter 45: Immortal Quota

The development cycle of a game is not something that the producer can decide.

Because plans often cannot keep up with changes! A new game that was supposed to be released next week may have a major bug tested today, so it has to be postponed and then face the bombardment of countless uninformed players.

A new game that was supposed to be released next year may have to release a semi-finished product ahead of schedule due to funding issues or pressure from investors, and then be scolded by players...

These are common things.

In addition, there are many factors that affect the development cycle, such as the most classic "chief planner's illness", "company team-building trip", "producer slacking off", etc.

What are you looking at?

I'm talking about you, Hideo Kojima! Because there are many different challenges and problems in the game development process, and the time required to solve these problems cannot be estimated, mature game producers will use "probably" or "possibly" to describe the pre-release time.

The same goes for Chen Ba.

Ever since the first promotional CG video of "Star Emperor" was released, he has been constantly harassed by players.

Acquaintances and friends around him would also come to ask him: "How is the new game going?"

This is not particularly outrageous.

What was really outrageous was that when Chen Ba was squatting in the toilet, he received a harassing phone call promoting a mobile game that required pay-to-win and skin-changing services.

On the phone, the game customer service claimed that he was the chosen "lucky player" and that he could receive VIP999 privileges and an exclusive Guangwu gift pack as soon as he logged in...

"Do you know who I am?"

Chen Ba became interested and immediately introduced himself to the game customer service representative.

Then, a surprising turn of events occurred!

I thought that after knowing his identity, the customer service representative would definitely back down, but I didn't expect that this guy was also a player of "Study Simulator" and a member of the Cowherd Cult.

"Ah? You are Brother Ba?"

"Really? So when will the new game be released?"

God knows how speechless Chen Ba was at that time. He received a harassing phone call and was even asked by the other party about the development progress of the new game.

Please!

Can you take your work more seriously? Also, how many believers do you have in your Cowherding Sect?

Chen Ba was also convinced.

"Study Simulator" has sold more than 700,000 copies so far, and the total number of players cannot exceed 1 million.

But why did he feel that there were more than one million followers of the Cowherd Sect alone?

"The Cowherd Sect has a lot of cloud players."

Yang Dong, who was fiddling with the air conditioner remote control, couldn't help laughing when he heard this: "It's not just the Cowherd Sect. In fact, many people have seen our two games but have never played them."

“See it but never played it?!”

"right!"

Yang Dong explained: "Take the game "Study Hard" as an example. Some people just watched the relevant videos and knew the game process after watching them, but did not buy it."

So Chen Ba’s theory is valid.

Even though the game has only sold over 700,000 copies, the number of followers of the Cowherd Cult may be higher than the sales of the game.

For example.

Previously, "The Invisible Guardian" was a big hit, and the line "My wife is pure as ice and jade" became popular and attracted countless people to watch curiously.

At that time, the number of people who knew the game, knew the plot of the game, and knew the source of the line was far greater than the actual sales of the game.

The Cowherding Cult is just like this! The reason why Chen Ba feels that the Cowherding Cult has such an amazing influence, and even has more players than real players, is mainly because there are many "cloud players" who play memes among them.

They probably haven't even bought the game, let alone played it.

I simply saw some related videos and thought the "Cowherding Bug" was very interesting. I also happened to learn about the existence of the Cowherding Cult, so I joined in to join in the fun.

"I see……"

Chen Ba nodded, reluctantly accepting the fact.

He actually thought of this, which is why he did not continue to focus on story-based games after "Living with Other People".

A game with a strong plot may be very enjoyable to watch, but it is too easy to be spoiled.

However, once you’ve been spoiled for the game, or watched someone else play it once during a live video broadcast, it’s hard to muster up interest in purchasing and playing the game.

"I agree with you."

Yang Dong said with a serious expression: "This is also the reason why many excellent games with strong plots have good reputations and good game quality, but their sales never pick up."

Tianba Studio has actually suffered a loss once.

So when discussing the "Star Emperor" project, he and Chen Bacai thought of the same thing and were determined not to make the plot too complicated and profound.

There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!

It’s meaningless! Fighting games only need to focus on the fighting part. Who are you writing so many plot lines for? Cloud gamers? But cloud gamers don’t buy games…

“There are pros and cons.”

Chen Ba did not deny the importance of a good plot. If a game has an excellent plot, it can still greatly enhance the sense of immersion and involvement.

Only relatively speaking.

As a fighting and competitive game, "Star Emperor" does not really need a too complicated plot line.

certainly!

Plot and setting are two different things.

Although the new game does not have a complicated plot, the setting is not simple, especially the background setting, ability setting, etc.

"In the game, the stand-alone mode is the protagonist Star Emperor's path to enlightenment, what about the online mode?" Yang Dong asked.

"Fight to become an immortal!"

Chen Ba smiled and said, "Whether it's the Great Emperor of the Human Race or the Supreme Being of an Alien Race, even if their fighting power is amazing, they are not immortals after all."

"According to the setting, the place where players fight in the online mode is the Immortal Path, it's just divided into different areas..."

Two or three people become immortals in one lifetime!

At that time, it will be set up as a season system, with a certain number of "immortalization" places given out in each season. After becoming an immortal, one can obtain a special title.

That’s not all. We can also combine it with the ranking rank mechanism to create a tiered matching system exclusively for the online mode.

"The Great Emperor/Supreme is the entry level, the next level is called the Heavenly Emperor, and then the Nine-Life Mortal Immortal. Each level you advance adds one life..."

Chen Ba, who often reads online novels, is familiar with these fairy-tale settings and said casually: "After living through nine lives, the next level is the fairy king, fairy emperor, and so on."

It is difficult to become an immortal, which means that the Immortal King and Immortal Emperor are like the Master and King ranks in LOL. Only a small number of people can reach this rank in each season.

Most players cannot become immortals.

Yang Dong was a little surprised by the setting of this season ranking system, because he thought that the online mode was a simple matching battle, and he didn't expect that there were different ranks.

"This is to retain players. Otherwise, the online mode will have no motivation and people will get bored of it very quickly." Chen Ba shook his head.

Without this kind of ranking rank mechanism, players would probably get bored of the online mode after playing it for a couple of rounds, and they would have no sense of accomplishment or motivation to continue playing.

This definitely won’t work! (End of this chapter)