Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'

When Nomi and Xeno were struggling with whether to go to space, the influence of Lord Entropy on the players had already begun to manifest.

[Event · "Red Arrow Catastrophe" has been completed]

[Reputation on Azure Star has increased]

[Tip: Fiery Summer Players Guild Headquarters has issued a new public commission: "Reinforce the Empire," accept or not...]

After finishing the flood relief mission, Coffee Cat scrolled through the task interface, carefully screening from a multitude of lists, trying to find the task most suitable for himself.

As a level 120 [Echoer], Coffee Cat chose to be a lone wolf player, not because he dislikes communicating with people, but because he hopes to switch to the [Bishop] profession in the future, a decision made after careful consideration.

Li Aozi was too dazzling in the Battle of the Eye of the Galaxy, single-handedly ending the generations-long fearsome meat grinder, also laying out this new [Sovereign] system pathway of [Bishop] to the Starry Abyss Civilization and the players.

To be honest, compared to the grand debut at the open beta, during the Battle of the Eye of the Galaxy, few players knew about this storyline.

But when Azure Star was successfully liberated and connected with the interstellar, the originally closed-off information was instantly flooded by Li Aozi's deeds and the gruesome rumors of the Eye of the Galaxy.

Azure Star's special location, situated just between the forces of the Empire and the Temple, yet far from the cosmic center, perfectly formed an echo chamber: here, news would bounce off the edges, be exaggerated, and return even more outrageous, repeatedly, forming a cocoon of reinforced understanding.

As a result, in this space, the previously downplayed name [Lunar String Archbishop] became almost universally known.

Even if you were a player on the Night Butterfly Federation side, constantly hearing these tales everywhere about the myth of one person breaking through the Eye of the Galaxy, it is hard not to change one's mind, even defecting from the faction to find out more.

Coffee Cat is just an ordinary casual player. According to the activities shared on his player profile, he is a loyal player who enjoys collecting Starry Abyss draws, expanding connections through reposts, funny compilations, and quality recreations.

He doesn't mix circles, saves sultry pictures, reposts rebellious statements, doesn't watch competitions, uses livestreams as background noise, has average abilities, dabbles in smelting gold, lacks high proficiency, and has limited gaming time.

In a word, purely for playing games.

Players like Coffee Cat are not in the minority, and actually occupy a very high proportion among players. In the past, game officials managed players' organizations using guilds, groups, and factions, with most official services focusing on community.

But now, possibly because of the planning of "Starry Abyss"—namely that Sima Dongxi of Lai Anding—after messing around for a long time, players were banned from submerging Starry Abyss with Li Aozi. As compensation, Qiqiao Network has been implementing many striking operations recently over the past two weeks.

What satisfied Coffee Cat the most was allowing players from each server to form a non-guild autonomous organization—Player Headquarters.

Officially, this organization is just a game internal communication platform for casual and moderate players, preventing forum-only cloud players from running their mouths, impacting gaming information.

However, in reality, after the emergence of this headquarters, players found that this is not just a platform, it's practically a nation within a nation.

The headquarters allows players across different servers to manage their internal markets themselves. The trade platform and logistics network, which originally required interaction with the natives to utilize, can now be used by players simply by joining the headquarters.

On the other hand, the headquarters also offers an exclusive feature: point tickets cashback.

The uniqueness of the "Starry Abyss" game lies in its complex eco-world; Starry Abyss itself has various currencies, although there is the powerful purchasing currency ammonium gold, its denomination is too large.

If I just want to buy a pack of 7.62*39 bullets with 1 ammonium gold, I'd end up living in the shooting range for life.

Over time, players inevitably encounter a problem: to expand their influence, players need currency to purchase equipment, but the [Mall] does not provide in-game equipment; planetary currencies differ, and forcibly promoting ammonium gold leads to insufficient foreign exchange with large denominations.

Without currency, there's no way to finance, and the players' armed groups can't expand on a large scale.

So, they either choose to develop in more advanced Narrative Civilization and higher civilizations for better resources or exchange their limited ammonium gold into unstable, cheap local currencies—doing so is equivalent to giving free money to the local planetary civilization.

By then, their missions may not be completed before they end up aiding the local residents, with the local government using ammonium gold to invest in a third-rate civilization, bringing in capital, or simply straight going to the Valkyrie Fortress and having them outsource orders to players.

As a result, many players unknowingly achieve an accomplishment during this process: paying themselves for a task.

Geez, I've become a Holy Mother.

As for devaluing ammonium gold? Forget it.

The pricing power of ammonium gold lies in the hands of Redd Gold; players cannot intervene.

To solve this problem, players from several major guilds discussed and decided to utilize their advantage: point tickets.

Point tickets are their real capital—in every sense of the word.

Only held by players themselves, the amount can basically be controlled, with values and exchange rates locked; this is players' own currency.

Before this, player exchanges generally relied on earning gold within the game, or even bartering. Point tickets had very narrow uses, mainly for precious supply items and a few limited materials or fashions that were of no use to most people.

According to Qiqiao Network's financial report, 78.9% of players' point ticket consumption went on fashions. Before this, almost no one would choose to exchange point tickets for transactions.

But now, following the establishment of the player headquarters, allowing official point ticket cashback, point tickets have suddenly become the most usable, practical, and convenient currency within the player community, like none other.

Due to the closure of the Underwater Abyss Port, many studios were forced to halt operations. Previously, they cursed Qiqiao Network, but now they are experiencing a revival.

Admittedly, this brings about quite a few problems, especially regarding game-based money laundering...

But, does Qiqiao Network care?

Players are shocked by the boldness of "Starry Abyss"; it's almost an open method of money laundering, but after implementation, the internal market is running very stably.

Although players are shocked by this, the real operator behind "Starry Abyss," or rather, Senator Plyer, doesn't care about this problem.

After all, in the real world, these Spiritual Warriors are still under the control of a reality filter, and there's no so-called 'money laundering' crisis.

What Coffee Cat is most satisfied with, however, is the main function of the General Administration: collecting resources, aggregating, and then redistributing them.

Many casual players are still players of traditional online games, unwilling to explore game details deeply. Their understanding of the game is simply: Accept a task—head to the destination—kill, kill, kill—return to turn in the task—receive a reward.

This approach, which is essentially like a simple three-step process, happens to be a play style most people can easily accept.

The ability of the General Administration is to allow players who join to share tasks they can't complete or aren't interested in, posting them on a platform accessible to all its personnel.

The General Administration takes a share of the rewards as operational maintenance fees and labor compensation for the management, while sharers can receive experience rewards and achievements, bypassing the actual need to search for, accept, and complete tasks themselves—receiving a Point Ticket reward instead.

In this way, idle and redundant resources are immediately utilized, novice players can freely choose their tasks, gradually familiarizing themselves with the game environment, and when they're stronger, they can explore further, or just look for the General Administration for stress relief by fighting when busy at work.

Here's the key point: Why do the commissioners receive all the task rewards while the task doer of the General Administration receives Point Tickets?

The reason is simple.

A large number of players obtain tasks through the General Administration, complete them to earn Point Tickets, and then spend these Point Tickets internally in player-run markets like the treasury or auction house.

Eventually, Point Tickets stay within the hands of players and won't be distributed to the NPC's market, but since Point Tickets circulate, the General Administration can use them to find and hire players for their own infrastructure.

They might even get involved in financial investments.

After all, "Starry Abyss" is essentially not a mere game. The implementation of a cashback mechanism has led to a substantial influx of real-world economy, resulting in a rapid formation of an internal financial market among players.

With capital operation in place, players with a sharp nose realized this instantly.

"Working? Hell no! I'm into finance!"

"Going all-in is a wisdom!"

"There's no crying kid every day, no stock investors losing daily! Wotema domain opens up, slaughtering gamblers while seated!"

However, the General Administration is newly formed and cannot grow so quickly despite how promising it seems.

Until Lord Entropy gave it a slight nudge.

Suddenly, several well-known popular streamers and player guilds, for some unknown reason, casually forwarded the announcements of the General Administration, and these messages quickly got interpreted and unearthed for potential, attracting countless insiders and outsiders into "Starry Abyss."

This fact even exceeded Senator Plyer's expectations.

The emergence of the General Administration for the concentration of scattered resources is as terrifying as a black hole.

In the interface of the General Administration, Coffee Cat only needs to enter their Level and Occupation, along with their current location in Azure Star-Red Arrow Autonomous Territory to filter and get accurately recommended tasks.

What exactly is the player's power?

Is it the immortality that allows for endless resurrection?

—Most Narrative Civilizations have a similar ability to resurrect.

Is it the frightening growth speed?

—Narrative Civilizations aren't much slower, possibly even having more geniuses.

Is it the vast population number?

—Narrative Civilizations have a true edge in this area.

In reality, even Senator Plyer himself hasn't realized that he habitually crafted this game system with an Earthling mindset.

But as a native of Starry Abyss, Lord Entropy spotted the most terrifying force of these reskinned deities.