Restart life

Chapter 194 0191 [Forced to Make Legend Free] (Bonus chapter for the Alliance Leader, My Little Alias ​​Arrives)
Day three of closed beta testing.

Noon, in the dormitory.

Li Jun, completely engrossed in the story, shouted to his roommate, "The idiom 'a word worth a thousand pieces of gold' is related to which ancient Chinese work? A. Huainanzi, B. Strategies of the Warring States, C. Zhuangzi, D. Lüshi Chunqiu. Hurry! Hurry! You only have 40 seconds."

"Shut up! I'm investigating!"

My roommate Zhang Peng quickly typed "Baidu" into Baidu and then said, "The Lüshi Chunqiu."

Li Jun shouted again, "The idiom 'the whip is too long to reach' refers to which part of the horse that the whip cannot reach? A. the horse's back, B. the horse's rump, C. the horse's belly... Damn it, it must be the horse's rump, no need to search... Damn it, I chose the wrong one!"

Zhang Peng said speechlessly, "Brother, what's the panic? I've already searched it on Baidu."

Li Jun slammed his fist on the table in anger: "What the hell?! I've never been this serious in high school. Playing games and then having to answer questions?!"

"You don't have to answer," Xiang Weijie said gloatingly.

The leveling speed in "The Emperor's Reign" wasn't as insane as the later "Conquer Online". It took about 12 hours to reach level 20.

Sixty percent of the experience points needed to level up come from defeating monsters, and forty percent come from completing quests.

It can't go any faster, otherwise it will give the impression of playing on a private server.

This was designed based on the current gaming environment.

Once you reach level 20, you can go to the examiner in the royal city to take an intelligence quiz once a day.

You'll receive experience points for answering half of the 10 questions correctly. The more questions you answer correctly, the greater the reward. Answering all the questions correctly will also reward you with "Cultural Values," which can be accumulated and exchanged for rare skill books.

"What are you doing?" Li Jun, who had only answered 7 questions correctly, turned to look at Xiang Weijie.

Xiang Weijie said, "Recharge."

Zhang Peng asked in surprise, "Why would you spend money on a free game?"

"The higher the level, the slower the leveling up, which makes me very unhappy," Xiang Weijie said. "Recharging 5 yuan gives you a first recharge gift pack, not to mention other gifts, there is also a seven-day Moonlight Treasure Box effect, which increases the experience gained from tasks by 10%. The basic VIP monthly subscription increases the experience gained from killing monsters by 10%, and there are also VIP-exclusive daily tasks."

Zhang Peng, who even had to use his tuition money to buy and sell computers, couldn't understand this mentality at all: "You'd spend 30 yuan for a VIP monthly subscription just to gain that little bit of experience?"

“Not only that, but I’ll also give you other things. You’ll see a really cool VIP badge above my head in a minute,” Xiang Weijie said smugly. “This little bit of money is nothing. When I used to play the private server of ‘Legend’, I could easily buy several hundred yuan worth of equipment.”

After a while, Li Jun looked at Xiang Weijie's VIP status and the little pony that came with the recharge bonus, and couldn't help but ask, "How do I recharge?"

Xiang Weijie said, "Now you can't find physical cards for sale. You either have to buy a digital card from Yunwang, use Youke's Youpay, or use UnionPay ePay. UnionPay is particularly difficult to use; sometimes it can make people so frustrated that they smash their computers."

Li Jun pulled out 100 yuan: "You help me top up 100 yuan, I want to become a high-level VIP! Your basic VIP is nothing."

“Sure, Brother Jun. You can get a high-VIP monthly subscription for 60 yuan, no need for 100 yuan,” Xiang Weijie said with a smile.

Li Jun immediately felt proud: "I may not have anything else, but I have money! I'll put it all in and keep it for myself."

The other guys in the dorm were already looking at each other in bewilderment.

They all belong to the "freeloader" group.

Zhang Peng said sourly, "You can get the little pony by completing tasks later, I don't think it's necessary to spend money to recharge."

Xiang Weijie laughed and said, "By the time you guys are doing quests to get the little foals, I'll be able to go into dungeons and farm those legendary steeds."

"Exactly, you'll definitely be awesome if you spend money!" Li Jun had already experienced the joy of being a paying player, just as exhilarating as dunking in front of a pretty girl.

"Let's go, let's go to the dungeon."

"I still have planting tasks to complete."

"I want to do a fishing quest."

"..."

Li Jun urged, "What dungeon? Quickly recharge me 100 yuan!"

A few minutes later, the 100 yuan was successfully recharged.

Looking at the 40 gold coins left from his VIP monthly subscription, Li Jun first went to the shop to buy a key.

In the past three days, he has collected a lot of treasure chests by fighting monsters.

Wooden, iron, and copper chests can all be opened using in-game currency by purchasing the corresponding keys. No real-money purchase is required.

There are now three silver chests and one gold chest remaining.

"Come and see me unpack this box!" Li Jun blew on his hands and rubbed them together.

Xiang Weijie thought to himself: Idiot, no matter how good your low-level treasure chests are, they'll only give you low-level equipment. They're useless once your character level increases.

The roommates quickly gathered around.

"Haha, I got a blue item from the first box... wait, it's a level 10 item? The stats aren't even as good as what I have on me." Li Jun was extremely frustrated.

"Hahahaha!"

Everyone burst into laughter instantly.

Li Jun said unhappily, "Open the gold chest first... Purple Power Gem, can be used to socket into equipment below level 30. I think it's sold in the shop, let me check... Hahaha, I've struck gold. This gem is much more expensive than a gold key!"

Xiang Weijie muttered, "I'm fucking lucky."

Li Jun felt incredibly lucky, so he went to pay for another lottery draw.

He got one free draw every day, but it still wasn't enough. Now he can finally spend money for ten free draws!
"Stop, stop, stop!"

"Look what it is!" "It's purple! It's purple!"

"..."

The group was very excited.

Xiang Weijie laughed heartily: "There really is purple. 10 purple baits, go fishing with them, maybe you can catch a big golden fish. Hmm, go learn cooking and make a top-notch healing feast."

Li Jun said unhappily, "What are you laughing at? I also got silver coins, materials, and a level 28 blue equipment."

He did two more 10-pulls, and the things he got made his roommates laugh so hard they almost died.

"Do not laugh!"

Li Jun was furious. Pointing to his inventory, he said, "There's a level 20 purple belt and a level 15 purple weapon. Both are usable. I'm incredibly lucky!"

Xiang Weijie said, "Those are guaranteed purple items from a 10-pull; even with the worst luck, you'll still get them. We're guaranteed to get these two items if we run the level 25 dungeon a few more times."

"Grass!"

Looking at his last two gold ingots, Li Jun said with extreme displeasure, "If you're so great, then you try drawing them."

"I'll go for it." Xiang Weijie recharged 100 yuan specifically for the lottery.

My first 10-pull yielded a guaranteed piece of junk purple gear.

The second ten-pull guaranteed a low-quality purple item.

……

On the sixth ten-pull, a golden light flashed.

"Golden, golden!"

"Oh my god, quick, let's see what it is!"

"..."

The friends were shouting and yelling.

Xiang Weijie quickly moved the mouse over: Crimson Sky Crafting Diagram (Level 40). To forge one of the ten most famous swords that will be remembered throughout history, one must use rare and precious materials and have it crafted by a master swordsmith. The required materials are as follows…

This time it was Li Jun's turn to burst into laughter: "Wow, the blueprints for the Ten Famous Swords... Let me see, these materials are not easy to find. You need five kinds of gold materials and a bunch of purple materials."

Xiang Weijie gritted his teeth: "Boss Tao is a real bastard, he's trying every trick in the book to swindle my money!"

Despite this, Xiang Weijie was actually quite happy.

During the closed beta, the highest level was only 40. If someone could gather all the materials and forge a level 40 orange weapon, they would definitely become famous throughout the server.

"Damn it, level up quickly. The official announcement says that once you reach level 30, a lot of new gameplay features will be unlocked!" Xiang Weijie said confidently.

……

Shanghai, grand and magnificent.

Chen Tianqiao convened a meeting with several game managers.

They are: Li Yu, who is in charge of "Legend", Qu Haibing, who is in charge of "Legend of Mir", and Zhang Xiangdong, who is in charge of "MapleStory" and "Bubble Fighter".

In addition, there is Tang Jun, the "King of Migrant Workers".

Chen Tianqiao said, "Back in August, Shi Yuzhu promoted his game 'Zhengtu' as a free-to-play game. He promoted it for over two months, but unexpectedly, another free-to-play game launched first. And then there's 'Yulgang,' which just announced a few days ago that its online player count had surpassed 300,000!"

Qu Haibing said, "We don't need to pay attention to 'Yulgang.' Although the number of online players continues to rise, the game's reputation is getting worse and worse. The game itself has too many technical vulnerabilities. The communication protocol is not encrypted, and data packets can be directly tampered with. The client's anti-cheat system only relies on process detection, and cheaters can bypass it by changing their names. Of those 30 concurrent online players, probably half of them are AFK users."

“That’s right,” Li Yu said. “Even if the number of online players in ‘Yulgang’ reaches 100 million, it will eventually die out.”

This is a problem with the South Korean developers; it's all technical vulnerabilities, and there's no way to prevent cheating.

The Chinese distributor wanted to remedy the situation, but the South Korean side was uncooperative.

Because *Yulgang* was originally a paid game, it was modified into a free-to-play game by the Chinese distributor. The Korean side insists that the technical bugs were caused by the Chinese distributor's haphazard modifications to the game.

"Of course I'm not afraid of 'Yulgang'," Chen Tianqiao said, "but this 'Reign of Power' has already opened four servers, and they're packed even on non-holiday nights. They'll definitely open new servers on weekends. It'll be easy for the peak concurrent users to exceed 5."

"The rampant sale of items in 'Yulgang' is making the game balance worse. I had someone recharge and play 'The Emperor's Reign,' where the sale of items is much more cautious. Even the lottery only gives out finished purple gear below the current level, which players can obtain by running dungeons a few times. Orange gear can only be obtained by drawing crafting blueprints, which actually encourages players to collect materials."

"The daily check-in and lottery system in that game is truly eye-catching. I reckon many games will try to imitate it. That guy Tao Chenggang is a genius; no wonder he dared to sell his assets to make games."

"Furthermore, Shi Yuzhu has been promoting a half-finished game for months, which clearly shows his confidence in it. Next month, three free-to-play games—'Hot-Blooded Jianghu,' 'The Emperor's Reign,' and 'Conquer Online'—will be released. This will significantly impact our player base!"

Zhang Xiangdong suggested, "Let's make a free-to-play game too. I'm in charge of 'Bubble Fighter' and 'MapleStory,' so I know a thing or two about selling in-game items."

Tang Jun shook his head and said, "We can't make any rash changes, as it might lead to a sharp decline in profits in the short term. We are a listed company, and we must be cautious in everything we do."

"Has the number of online players for 'Legend of Mir' dropped significantly recently?" Chen Tianqiao asked.

Li Yu forced a smile and said, "The versions we update are just old maps stitched together with old monsters. Players are very dissatisfied with this, and many people are retaliating by playing on private servers."

Chen Tianqiao said, "Let's open two new free servers for 'Legend' and see how it goes. Let the technical department follow up."

The Legend of Mir will also be free, but only in new servers.

-

(Bonus chapter, please vote with monthly tickets.)
(End of this chapter)