The Fourth Calamity: Starting with Dungeon Slimes

Chapter 180 Real Hair Wig?

Once the plan was finalized, Jiang Chen didn't hesitate and immediately launched the new plan.

The players didn't pay much attention at first, until they saw a new announcement suddenly appear on the bulletin board. They just assumed it was an update or some other announcement.

They never expected the surprise to come so suddenly. After carefully reading the announcement, almost all the players were completely dumbfounded.

"Holy crap, guys, am I seeing things? If I'm not mistaken, does this mean the official channels are going to give them money directly?"

"Impossible. What game company doesn't want to make money? This is a completely loss-making business. You know, the benefits that other games give to players are nothing more than in-game items. No matter what value these items have, for game companies, they are just a bunch of data. They won't spend real money, because spending real money would be a real loss."

"This is outrageous! Look at what this currency is called! Isn't it called 'Renmeibi' (RMB)?"

"Oh my god, is it real hair or a wig? I wonder if there are any restrictions or requirements on withdrawals? If so, then it's just like other hack-and-slash games, where they use money to attract players."

"I estimate the situation is similar. You'll probably have to meet all sorts of demanding requirements before you'll be eligible to withdraw your winnings. I usually don't know how to complain about this situation, but generally speaking, you can only watch. In fact, I've played a lot of similar games that allow withdrawals before, but none of them allowed me to withdraw."

Immediately, all the players were discussing this matter. To be honest, they didn't believe it at all. It's a very real issue; they had experienced too many games like this before, and they had been fooled before.

They went in thinking they could make some money from the game, but what was the result? They made absolutely nothing, not a single penny.

Later, they figured out the tricks these game companies used. Simply put, they tricked you into thinking you could withdraw money, when in reality you couldn't. The end result was that not only did they lure you in, but you also ended up losing a lot of money, thinking you could withdraw and maybe even recoup your losses by depositing a small amount. And most importantly, these games weren't even that good to play.

To put it bluntly, the reason they can keep playing is because the game allows them to cash out real money; otherwise, given how the game works, they probably would have quit long ago.

Seeing that this game was following the same pattern again, their first reaction was disbelief. However, considering the game's quality, they felt it might actually be true. Although they were all skeptical, putting everything else aside, the quality of this game was completely different from other games.

Moreover, given the quality of this game, there's absolutely no need to resort to such underhanded tactics to lure people in. So, here's the question.

In this situation, it's impossible for the planners to be foolish enough to come up with a scheme that prevents withdrawals and invites criticism, right? Wouldn't the planners be furious then? So, considering this reason, they felt that this matter might actually be a little bit possible.

Of course, everyone was skeptical at first, but after the next announcement came out, everyone's credibility increased a lot, because the next announcement said that all players who participated in the previous battle would receive rewards.

Of course, the reward is in RMB.

If that's the case, then that's not the worst part. The most crucial point is that the official statement has made it very clear.

The amount distributed this time is definitely not enough for withdrawal, because the minimum withdrawal amount for this game is 200 RMB.

The official reason is clear: they were concerned that withdrawing even 10 cents at a time would put immense pressure on the system. Therefore, they set a withdrawal threshold to alleviate this pressure. However, this isn't the most crucial point. The most crucial point is that once the withdrawal threshold is set, withdrawals are immediate once the requirement is met, requiring no further action. And most importantly, players can immediately return to the game and earn cash rewards for defeating enemies.

And what's even more outrageous is that you can get cash rewards simply by killing ordinary monsters. They'd only recently experienced the strength of those ordinary monsters, and they weren't that impressive. Under these circumstances, the reward per monster is incredibly high. Keep in mind that in other games, a single monster might only give you a dime. These are considered boss-level monsters. If a monster were worth more than 10 yuan, there would be a huge competition to kill it, and even then, there's no guarantee of cashing out. But this game is different; these seemingly insignificant monsters can yield double-digit rewards—that's terrifying.

"Brothers, although I don't know if it's true or not, I believe the chances of it being true are very high. To put it bluntly, we can try it right away, because we're about to start another national war, and those who got the prize money before, plus those who got the kills this time, will be able to participate."

"It's not difficult at all to reach the withdrawal threshold, so if the official is trying to mislead us, we'll see results within an hour."

At this moment, the players didn't care about anything else. Many players immediately went to Jiang Chen to buy mechs, and some who didn't have enough gold coins directly spent money to buy them.

Since deciding to fight, Jiang Chen's mech orders have been nonstop. Some players are sending materials to build the mechs themselves, which is cheaper. Others are using all their own stockpiled materials. In the latter case, the price is definitely much higher than if you provide the materials yourself. However, if you calculate carefully, the two are actually about the same. Jiang Chen sells the mechs and only makes about 100 gold coins per mech.

Simply put, if you provide the materials yourself, you need to pay a production cost of 100 gold coins; if you buy them directly from Jiang Chen, he earns those 100 gold coins, which is essentially the production cost.

Jiang Chen also attached great importance to this matter, because this battle was of such great importance that he basically poured all his resources into it, with the goal of winning the battle. Of course, he couldn't be thinking about making money at this point, because if he was still thinking about making money, then there would be no need to fight the battle.

So when these players want to buy mechs, Jiang Chen can still provide quite a few. The biggest problem is that the amateur welders' parts supply is a bit behind production. However, most players don't care too much. Some who used to have mid-range mechs are now going for low-range ones because the amateur welders have more low-range parts.

So they made do with what they had for now, and would gradually upgrade to better equipment later. In this way, soon another six or seven hundred mechs returned to the battlefield.

Including the mechs that returned from the previous battle, there are now more than 800 mechs here. Without the slightest hesitation, the players launched another attack.

At this point, players don't care about tactics or anything else. The most important thing now is to quickly determine if this experience is real. If it is, I'll be thrilled. If not, I'll probably be going to the official website to hurl insults.

Compared to the previous time when all the players were using mechs, this time it was different. This time, players without mechs also participated, and they charged in with mortars and various older versions of weapons.

And so, the players set off in a grand procession. Compared to last time, although there were several hundred fewer mechs this time, the number of players was much larger. In particular, some players who didn't have the money to buy new mechs and couldn't earn in-game currency in the short term simply bought some old weapons and joined the fray.

"Brothers, let's go! The opportunity to make money is right in front of us!"

"Damn it, game developers, don't rip me off! I've put all my savings into this game. If I can't withdraw my winnings, I'll smash your website to pieces."

"Brother, you can rest assured about this matter. Based on my understanding of this game, I can say this: given the quality of this game, the official team would absolutely not do something like this. After all, doing something like this would completely ruin their own reputation. This game doesn't need to go through that much trouble. So, if they were to go through all that trouble to ruin their own reputation, it would only mean the planners are idiots. But that's clearly unrealistic, so the advance news is most likely true."

"Alright, alright, what's the point of discussing this now? Why are you speculating so much? We'll know soon enough, why bother guessing? Besides, you should know that the players who participated in the battle earlier already had a very high base level, and it won't be long before we gather enough players. Then we'll see what the situation is like."

Clearly, Jiang Chen underestimated the allure of the prize money for these players, especially the cash awarded by the game's official team. The sheer attractiveness of this offer was undeniable; the entire player base went wild after the announcement. It's worth noting that the game's current online player count wasn't actually as high as expected—only around 1700 people in total—but this announcement alone had already filled the server.

Almost all the players who received the news logged on immediately and joined the crusade.

Even people from other positions participated, since the cash was limited and it was first-come, first-served, and no one wanted to fall behind.

Before the previous battle had even ended, the players were already engaged in another one. Meanwhile, on the side of the Dark Elves and Nightmares...

They've barely cleaned up the battlefield, and now they're figuring out how to build a new defense system in a new location.

They were also discussing how to deal with that group of people. After all, as the saying goes, it is impolite not to reciprocate. Since the other party had ambushed them, they naturally couldn't let it go. Of course, they had to go and demand an explanation from them.

With this mindset in mind, they immediately began communicating about the plan. However, while the commander was still communicating with others, his subordinates suddenly rushed over. After listening to the report from his subordinates, everyone's expressions turned extremely grim.

No, this is ridiculous. We just finished fighting them, and now those swarms of slimes are back.

Of course, that's not the main point. The main point is that there are more slimes this time than last time. Although there are fewer strange mechs, there are more ordinary slimes. In fact, the difference in strength between the two is not that big. The opponent still launched a sudden attack as before, and they didn't have time to react before the slimes rushed over.

To be honest, the commander was feeling a bit dazed. He had experienced and commanded many battles before, and he knew that every war had one prerequisite: a thorough understanding of the situation before engaging in combat. Only after understanding the enemy's capabilities and formulating appropriate strategies could any action be taken. Otherwise, rashly starting a war could very well result in total annihilation.

Because you never know what the other side's situation is, because you never know how the battlefield situation will change.

But what is the reality? The most absurd thing is that this bunch of slimes actually came rushing over again, just like that.

Without any battle plan or strategy, they just charged straight in. Weren't they afraid of being ambushed? Weren't they afraid of being wiped out? Under such circumstances, how could they have thought of charging straight in?

However, it's clear that these slimes' tactics are somewhat like a novice defeating a master. That's exactly the situation now. He was still preparing when the other side rushed over. This was something he hadn't expected at all. He had thought that after this battle, in a day or two, those slimes might launch another large-scale attack.

Then he devised a series of plans to counter their attack, such as arranging people in advance. Then, after their attack was over, he would reverse the situation. In short, he had all sorts of strategies. He thought of many things and was still discussing the plan with others. Who would have thought that the other side would just attack like this?

At this moment, he felt like his brain wasn't working properly, but that wasn't the main point. The main point was that he had to find a way to solve the problem at hand, otherwise something terrible would definitely happen.

So he immediately began to organize his men. Fortunately, a battle had taken place not long ago, and almost everyone was still working. After realizing the situation was not right, they quickly regrouped, unlike before when they were caught off guard by the slimes and suffered heavy losses before they could even react.