Who would still start a business seriously after being reborn?

Chapter 560 MSN
However, anomaly detection is not 100% accurate; an accuracy rate of 70% is already quite good.

This has left a large number of players who were mistakenly affected feeling helpless and frustrated.

The next day, the official forums were completely flooded with angry players.

[T3, give me back my account! I just used a local unlocker to check out some clothes, I didn't bother anyone else! Why did you ban me?]

[The official team's technical skills are so bad that they can't catch cheaters, so they're indiscriminately banning innocent players? I didn't do anything and I was banned.]

[Incompetent, all they do is ban accounts. The Golden Triangle is still being sold; how long will it take to ban them all?]

[We demand the lifting of the lockdown! Compensation for our losses! Otherwise, we will sue you!]

Audition Online's exploitative practices are disgusting; I've uninstalled it. Time to switch to Primordial Era...

Audition Online account banning scandal.

Dance Treasure Box Unlocker.

Limited edition for Women's Day turns into a joke.

These terms instantly became trending topics on major websites.

T3's image has plummeted because of these incidents, and the huge sums of money invested in Women's Day have almost gone down the drain.

Seeing this, many domestic game developers gloated.

This scene looks so familiar.

They seem familiar.

Sure enough, as long as they themselves are not involved, this gossip is quite juicy.

At the T3 headquarters, silence replaced the usual clatter of keyboards.

The bright red curve representing the number of online users on the computer screen plummeted from a high of 700,000 to finally stop at 510,000.

Seeing the online figure of 51, everyone in the office felt a jolt.

Hans Müller stood in front of the screen, his face ashen, as if he had aged ten years overnight.

A total of 190,000 active players have disappeared.

Ironically, backend data shows that over 70% of these disappeared IDs were deleted in pairs—couple accounts, family accounts, best friend accounts, etc.

The breakdown of social connections in the virtual world has led to a significant loss of players.

The scariest thing is that they don't know how long they'll be offline.

“Mr. Muller, the public opinion is still escalating.” Gobert’s voice was dry as he said, “The player forums are completely out of control. Posts demanding unbanning and compensation keep being updated. Consumer protection associations in several major countries have also received complaint letters. It’s easier to talk to people in China because we are a foreign-invested enterprise. They just asked us to provide the reason for the ban. But it’s not the same in countries like Singapore. Their government departments have issued us a notice to rectify the situation within a specified period. If we don’t rectify it within the specified period, we will have to pay a large fine.”

After Gobert finished speaking, he handed over several government letters from Asian countries.

There are people from Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, India...

They are all notoriously troublesome countries in Asia.

Müller glanced at the fine and nearly jumped up in anger.

These fines, when added together, amount to nearly ten million US dollars.

"In addition, some Japanese players have hired a legal team and intend to sue us." Gobert stabbed Muller in the heart again.

Müller glanced at Gobert, feeling like cursing.

Damn it, wasn't this your idea? Why don't you come up with another one?

Young people these days are so unreliable.

Muller said, "What do you think about us lifting the ban on some of them? For example, how about lifting the ban on players from these countries first?"

Gobert said, "We need to find a reasonable excuse, otherwise if it gets to countries like China, players will protest even more, which would be tantamount to discrimination."

"How about we change it to a complete lockdown for a month?" Muller asked again.

Gobert pondered for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Most of our players are girls. Girls have little tempers, and you can't force them to forgive you just by trying your best to please them. I don't recommend changing the ban time."

Muller closed his eyes, feeling a throbbing pain in his temples.

Yes, if it's changed to one month, then the previous iron-fisted crackdown will become a joke, and cheating will become even more rampant.

But if we don't solve this problem, won't the player loss gap widen even further? And those rectification orders from those troublesome countries like Japan aren't just empty words.

Muller looked at Gobert and said, "What's your plan?"

Gobert looked at Muller, genuinely wondering how his superior had managed to get into that position.

He thought for a while and said, "We can't afford the ten million US dollars, so we need to deal with the rectification letters from Japan and other countries first. We can issue an announcement with two parts. One part is about the recent fashion item farming incident. After careful consideration by our T3 company's senior management, we have decided to give a small number of players a chance. For players with better qualifications, the ban period will be changed to 20 days."

"Players with better aptitude? How do you distinguish between them?" Muller asked in surprise.

Gobert sighed and said, "Actually, it's just changing everything to 20 days, but if we say it this way, it will make the players feel proud and have a sense of belonging, and it will also save face for us."

Muller suddenly realized.

Gobert continued, "The second announcement is to celebrate the milestone achievements of the game's open beta and to thank the players for their enthusiasm. All outfits in the Audition Online store will be available for free trial for 15 days."

"A 15-day free trial?" The operations director exclaimed, "No way! This will completely collapse the value system of paid items. We should offer a limited number of outfits for free and gradually open them up for trial. We absolutely cannot open them all at once."

"We can't even worry about collapsing?" Gobert's voice was hoarse, with an almost frantic tone. "Is there any value left now? That damn Audition Box can give you everything for five dollars. We can only trade time for free! If we can solve the loophole in the Audition Box for equipment within 15 days, we still have a chance to turn things around. If we can't find the loophole, then Audition is doomed."

Gobert's words weighed heavily on many people's minds.

As the second-in-command at T3 Corporation, Gobert's orders were quickly carried out.

The announcement from Audition Online acted as a shot in the arm, temporarily stabilizing many players who were wavering between the two sides.

Those who were wrongly banned and those who were still observing calmed down somewhat when they saw the dazzling array of free fashion items in the store.

As soon as the announcement was made, the peak number of online users, which had fallen to 49 during prime time, finally rebounded slightly, slowly rising from 49 to 50.

Seeing the online activity rebound, T3's top management finally breathed a sigh of relief.

However, the online discussion is still escalating. These discussions are relatively simple to quell; paying the website administrators some public relations fees can usually extinguish the controversy. The only difficult issue is with QQ.

QQ has such a huge user base that this incident spread so quickly, all because of QQ.

“President,” Gobert said to Mueller, “you must go to Tencent headquarters in person to talk to Ma Huateng about calming the public opinion. Also, ask him to help ban topics related to Audition Box on the QQ platform. Right now, the QQ platform is full of negative discussions about ‘account banning,’ ‘Golden Triangle Digital,’ and ‘Audition Box.’”

"Hmm." Muller nodded slowly.

This time, the existence of QQ has indeed caused them a lot of headaches.

The next few days became a celebration for Tencent's public relations department.

After an astronomical sum of money was secretly deposited into their account for special public relations services, the effect was immediate. Negative information about Audition Online on the QQ platform was quickly erased, Audition Treasure Box promotion groups were forcibly banned, discussion threads were deleted on a large scale, and related terms on the hot search list disappeared without a trace.

After QQ, the behemoth that occupies the absolute share of China's instant messaging market, quieted down, the mainstream public opinion cooled down noticeably.

Meanwhile, the technical support team sent by Microsoft Research Asia stayed at a hotel near the T3 headquarters in Seoul for seven days and nights.

Ashtrays were piled high with cigarette butts, coffee cups were stacked like a tower, and a dozen engineers with puffy eyes and bloodshot eyes stared intently at the scrolling code on their screens.

For the past seven days, they have been meticulously scanning and analyzing every trace left by the Audition Box.

This thing is so hard to find.

Spread a rumor and break a leg.

For mods like these that rely on game and system vulnerabilities, the creator first needs to select a specific point and then create the mod based on that point.

But before they can take down this mod, they need to find the location of this point.

It's like someone hiding something and then having someone else search for it.

Those who are hiding him know where he is, but those who are looking for him will have to rack their brains.

Where is the vulnerability?

Nobody knows where it is.

On the tenth day, just when the group thought they might be worn out by this cheat, an engineer with disheveled hair slammed his fist on the table and shouted in a hoarse voice, "I found it! It's a time window vulnerability in the synchronization of item status between the client and server, and a logical flaw in local memory verification. They exploited this millisecond-level gap and the trust mechanism of local verification to simulate the server's success receipt packet. God, did the technicians in Myanmar really make this? This idea is incredibly ingenious!"

"Let me see."

"Sure enough it is."

"Are there any other experts like this in Myanmar?"

"It's hard to say. I've heard that many places in Myanmar like to kidnap senior technicians from overseas."

……

Once the breakthrough is made, subsequent repairs become a natural progression.

A new encryption and verification protocol has been deployed, and the memory protection mechanism for local critical data has been greatly strengthened. They have even added stricter real-time item source tracing to the server side.

On the morning of the twelfth day, Microsoft's technical lead stood on the podium in the conference room and shouted in a hoarse voice: "After twelve days, we have finally plugged this damn vulnerability. Unless they can find a newer, lower-level protocol vulnerability, theoretically, such large-scale prop duplication spoofing will no longer be possible."

Sparse applause rang out in the conference room.

Müller let out a long sigh of relief, as if a huge burden had been lifted, but the tension deep in his eyes remained undiminished.

That evening, T3 booked the banquet hall of Seoul's most luxurious hotel and held a belated celebration banquet to mark the resolution of the crisis and the breakthrough in technical challenges.

The champagne tower reflected a mesmerizing glow under the lights, while soothing jazz music echoed throughout the banquet hall.

Microsoft's technical backbone finally shed their fatigue, put on smart suits, and were each accompanied by a very pretty South Korean minor celebrity.

The T3 executives' faces also broke into smiles again, complimenting each other as they weathered the storm together.

It's really not easy.

If this loophole cannot be fixed, they will have to find new jobs as laid-off workers.

After three rounds of wine, five flavors of food.

Muller, holding a wine glass, walked to the small podium in the center of the banquet hall and gently tapped the microphone.

The buzzing conversation gradually subsided, and everyone's eyes focused on him.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Muller's voice, amplified by the microphone, carried a triumphant air as he shouted, "The past ten days have been a nightmare for all of us, but now we've made it through safely."

He looked around the room and shouted, "This incident has also tempered us. It has made us see our own weaknesses, but it has also shown us a broader future."

He paused, then his voice suddenly rose as he said, "However, merely patching vulnerabilities and passively defending is far from enough. We must be offensive; we must build an ecosystem that makes it impossible for cheaters to find a way in and leaves competitors far behind!"

The audience fell silent; everyone held their breath.

Muller suddenly waved his hand, and the huge projection screen behind him lit up instantly, revealing a simple yet modern blue MSN butterfly logo.

Many people present were stunned when they saw this logo.

This is Microsoft's MSN instant messaging software.

Muller shouted, "This is the cornerstone of our future!"

Muller's voice was full of seductive charm as he laughed, "Microsoft has already granted us the Asian agency rights for MSN. Our task going forward is to deeply and seamlessly integrate Microsoft MSN instant messaging service into the 'Audition' game."

With a wave of his hand, Muller began to play a dazzling concept animation on the screen.

Players can directly open an MSN chat window within the Audition Online game to chat with their game friends.

The player is online, and their MSN status shows they are currently dancing.

Players can even send game invitations directly via MSN, and view their friends' avatars and the latest fashion shows...

"Just imagine!" Muller exclaimed excitedly, spreading his arms wide. "When we have millions of Audition Online players, their social relationships, their game activities, and their emotional exchanges will all be firmly bound to our MSN platform. What a huge and stable ecosystem that will be! The game is just the entrance and carrier of this ecosystem; social interaction is the real direction for our future development."

"Based on the explosive user base of Audition Online in Asia, we will drive MSN to surpass all local chat software in the shortest possible time and become the undisputed king of instant messaging in Asia."

"Come on, let's raise our glasses and toast to the future number one social media app in Asia!" Muller raised his glass high.

(End of this chapter)