Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 709: Chapter 672: Almost Succeeded, Just a Billion Points Away!

“?”

This time, Cheryl was puzzled.

But Cheryl was quick to recover, putting on a “I understand” expression, and her smile became unrestrained—

“So, boss, you like this kind of style? No problem, leave it to me!”

“?”

Of course, Lincoln couldn’t accept this slander: “What are you talking about?”

“This is for me? This is all for the players!”

“Think about it, after so much effort to pet all the cats and dogs, and then only get an absurd achievement called [Master of Furry Friends], unless they’re hardcore cat and dog lovers, who would do it?”

“But if they complete the whole collection and get a kitty who turns into a cat-eared girl! Tell me, wouldn’t the players go to great lengths to do this achievement?”

“Of course, they would!” Hearing Lincoln’s description, Cheryl suddenly realized and became excited, “The boss, as expected, understands so well!”

After being enlightened by Lincoln, Cheryl suddenly felt that the door to the new world had opened wide before her—

“Why not separate the cats and dogs? Make a dog-boy character too! That way, both male players and female players will have something to look forward to, and it’s fairer!”

“No.” Lincoln shook his head, “You’re thinking too small.”

“?” Cheryl was taken aback.

Lincoln immediately pointed out: “Male players would also like dog-girl characters, and female players would also like cat-boy characters… right?”

He wasn’t very sure about the latter because he himself had no interest in “cat-boy” characters and even felt goosebumps when he thought of the picture.

But Cheryl’s eyes lit up, nodding vigorously, using body language to fully express her agreement with Lincoln’s statement.

So, Lincoln confidently continued: “So why not make cat-eared boys, girls, dog-eared boys, and girls all available?”

“But wouldn’t that be too much? If we put them all in achievements, how difficult would the achievements have to be to match this ‘reward’?” Cheryl hesitated.

“No need to put them all; you can use them as other rewards, design a fun quest line or something, just consider it as practice!” Lincoln suggested.

“Makes sense!” Cheryl was instantly convinced and excitedly nodded.

Lincoln also smiled and nodded, not bad, not bad, this child can be taught.

“Keep it up.”

After leaving a word of encouragement, Lincoln was ready to leave.

But Cheryl enthusiastically began planning her afternoon work: “Today I’ll start designing Milkshake’s dog-demon girl form! Yes, starting with the color scheme and personality…”

“?” Lincoln, who was about to leave, stopped abruptly and turned back—

“Wait, wait, wait! Why Milkshake?”

“Because Little Milkshake is the most famous! Everyone already has feelings for it in “Speed Chase,” so it’s perfect to make it a character, right?” Cheryl said confidently.

But Lincoln didn’t think so!

He just felt it was a bizarre idea!

And there was an inexplicable feeling as if the hard-raised little cabbage was about to be plucked by someone?

This is not acceptable…

Let Milkshake remain an ordinary, innocent little dog!

“Change it, change it. Everyone has raised it for so long, and suddenly it becomes a person. They’ll feel like the object they’d invested feelings in was fake, and this is not a good thing.”

“Besides, how would they look at their pet dog in Night City if we did that?”

“Hmm…” Cheryl pondered, “It seems… that’s true?”

Her brain seemed a little overloaded.

“Of course, it is! Don’t think about it, just leave it like that.”

Lincoln interrupted Cheryl’s thoughts and quickly finalized the matter.

After that, he left without saying a word and went to find Fred for some serious work.

*

As for the players, after finishing watching the drama and a brief choice phobia, they also entered the newly released two mods to try out the new gameplay.

But they soon found that the gameplay of these two mods was completely different.

And, they were both outrageous!

“Terraria” at least started with gameplay similar to “My World.”

Both involved chopping trees, building, mining, and forging ores into corresponding weapons and armor. As the game progressed, they became more and more outrageous, turning into two entirely different games.

This was completely different from the mods made by other players and studios.

The act of [making a new game as a mod] was further amplified in “Witch” and “Fortnite.”

As for the “Witch” game, players were still somewhat puzzled.

At least “Terraria” had a guide who would give a bunch of suggestions, telling you about the game’s progress and goals.

But in “Witch,” there was nothing like that.

At the beginning of the game, you get two wands, and a stone statue tells you that you can kick items vigorously. Then, there is a downhill slope leading directly to the first underground level [Cave].

And the game begins.

That’s the only guidance, no more.

What’s this?

“Real men go down to the 100th floor?”

The players complained in unison.

The problem is, we’re “witches”!

As they spoke, the players also vented their frustrations: never seen such a casual game, just give out two magic wands and now we’re witches?

The usage of magic wands was so ridiculous, with a long string of complex attributes: [Randomness], [Spell count], [Cast delay], [Charge time], [Max mana], [Capacity], [Scattering]…The list gave people a headache.

— Even if you didn’t understand it, you could still rush into the underground caverns and unleash a barrage of biubiubiu attacks on the monsters.

The surface was composed half of cliffs that were unreachable, and the other half was the even more absurdly majestic World Tree. These two types of terrain blocked the players’ ability to explore further, appearing to be the map’s boundaries.

As a result, players could only stumble into the underground, trying to figure out how to play this game.

In contrast, “Fortnite” was much more user-friendly.

Entering the game, collecting materials, picking up guns, and starting a fight.

Simple and crude.

There were no barriers.

As long as you had played “My World” and any of Cloud Dream’s gunfight games, you could master this game in an instant.

But aside from the building aspect, this game seemed to have nothing to do with “My World.”

Instead, it was much more related to “Paradise!”

“Dinosaur Island” was no stranger to players.

Looking at the island’s map, everyone immediately recognized it.

— Even now, there are still a significant number of players squatting on Dinosaur Island every day, waiting for giant dinosaurs to spawn.

After all, Cloud Dream has hundreds of millions of users, and every week Mirage is expanding overseas, constantly bringing new players in.

So players who wanted to complete the [Ancestors’ Glory] achievement and get the little dinosaur pet never stop coming.

Running around a lot, they became extremely familiar with the terrain and didn’t even need to adapt to the environment.

Moreover, many players had previously visited “Jurassic Park” with friends and family, playing and touring as tourists.

Now they could actually wield hot weapons in the familiar park and shoot wildly, which was an extremely exhilarating feeling!

The difference in the learning curve between the two games was so obvious that the number of players quickly opened up a huge gap.

When Lincoln remembered the matter after his busy work in the “Chang’an” project team and went to the operations team to check the real-time data before leaving work, the number of players online in “Fortnite” was more than twenty times that of “Witch!”

When they saw Lincoln, every employee had a complicated look in their eyes.

Admiration was there, of course, but there was more doubt about life—

‘The boss and his three people made a game in a week that is more popular than the one that took our dozens of people a month to make, and the gap is overwhelmingly large, more than 20 times…’

‘Can we still live on with these days?’

Lincoln noticed this and quickly comforted everyone: “It’s okay, it’s all about the game type, one focuses on depth, exploration, and creation, which is slow to heat up, while the other focuses on quick and easy gameplay that doesn’t require much thought, so naturally starting faster with a gap is normal.”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s all minor issues.”

…

However, when it came to reassuring them, Lincoln could only give an awkward smile and change the subject when faced with the employees’ questions about when “Witch” would heat up and catch up with “Fortnite.”

How would he know?

*

At this time, the “Cannon Cult” artillery team in “Terraria,” who had been busy for two days, finally completed their tasks.

Now, a magnificent sight had emerged in their world-

100,000 cannon muzzles pointed at the sky, neatly and densely arrayed on the ground, forming an awe-inspiring artillery position.

And these 100,000 cannons were all connected by thin red wires; just by pressing a small button, a barrage of 100,000 cannons would be unleashed!

Like a torrent, submerging all targets.

Underneath such power, individual people seemed like ants, inconspicuously insignificant.

However, there were ten players standing fearlessly across from this terrifying array of cannons, arms outstretched in a sun-welcoming gesture, welcoming the arrival of 100,000 artillery shells!

Under the watchful eyes of a million live audience members, the “Quarter-Second Trigger” was activated.

In an instant, a thunderous roar echoed in their ears!

In one second, 400,000 artillery shells were launched!

They formed a wall of iron in the air, crushing the ten players below them with a world-ending force.

Even audiences behind the screen felt the illusion of the “end of the world” during this moment.

But in the next moment, the live broadcast room went black, and the signal was lost.

All the momentum vanished along with the smoke.

Facing this accident, the million live audience members were not surprised but were rather excited-

“Amazing!”

“Success!”

“The game crashed! Congratulations! You did it!!”

…

This meant that their efforts were not in vain!

They had really crashed the server again following Stanley’s example!

Moreover, this time they not only witnessed the whole process, but many people also contributed their efforts, so they were naturally filled with a sense of participation and excitement!

However, this joy only lasted for a very short time, not even half a minute.

Because everyone quickly realized a problem-

Only the live broadcast room of the “Cannon Cult” went black.

Other live broadcasts playing “Terraria” were still going strong, as if nothing had happened.

This was a bit embarrassing…