Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 315: 313: Never Underestimate the Players

Warehouse Bird solemnly stated, “I’m not someone who can be easily swayed by money.”

The teammates nodded in agreement, “Understood, understood, unless there’s really too much.”

Eventually, everyone joyfully succumbed to the allure of money.

After adding Chasing Wind to the group, the last teammate became much easier to find….

Next, they needed to get their team in sync and practice their teamwork.

Chasing Wind also needed to practice; otherwise, he would just be embarrassing himself in the competition venue.

He certainly didn’t come just to be a laughing stock.

Core players and Pay-To-Win Lords, represented by Warehouse Bird and Chasing Wind, were just one aspect of the competition.

Countless players were inviting friends, looking for teammates.

The official match doesn’t just randomly assign you teammates; having a five-man team is a mandatory condition for registration.

On this point, various clubs were the most relaxed – this was their usual game mode.

After the Freedom Day event, Roger joined the club and made his desired return to the competition venue.

Although his team couldn’t withstand the chaotic “Legion Battle” at the time, his performance was still very eye-catching.

The sharp combat instincts and tenacious fighting will from the VR era were brought into the virtual world by him without any loss, even stronger than back then!

Compared to his other teammates, he clearly stood apart.

In a chaotic “Legion Battle”, he persisted until his ammunition ran out, eliminated thirty-one opponents before attempting a cold weapon assault, and finally helplessly fell on the battlefield.

Such a performance immediately brought him many team invitations.

Faced with numerous opportunities, Roger didn’t choose to return to the [Thunder] club he was previously in, but joined Lance’s [Burned Boat].

At this moment, he was working with four new teammates, including Lance, to prepare for the competition.

The winning rate in their practice matches was steadily improving.

After being disappointed many times, he didn’t dare to think too much, he only focused on the training games every day.

He hoped to get stronger, and then even stronger…

“Block World (Tentative)”.

When Lincoln entered this virtual world under construction and saw the name they came up with, he was left speechless.

“Are they that disgusted with blocks?”

Looking at the busy employees, Lincoln didn’t rush to interrupt but observed the development progress.

As he took two steps, Mavis suddenly spoke in his ear, “Master, there’s an important email in your mailbox!”

“Really?” Lincoln casually opened the panel, and Mavis had already prepared the email for him.

It was a reply from the review department, the wording was strict and measured, with no bureaucracy or delays.

After reading it, Lincoln felt that the letter could be summarized in one sentence: “In principle, it’s possible, but a rigorous investigation and demonstration are still needed.”

For Lincoln, this basically meant the matter was settled.

Technically, there’s no problem with Cloud Dream, and Lincoln also had no intention of cutting corners.

So the process of investigation and demonstration was nothing more than a few more procedures, with the investigation team visiting Cloud Dream for some questions and experiments.

Nothing unexpected would happen.

Upon seeing this good news, Lincoln was in a good mood, he quickly walked over to the employees and observed their progress.

Little Chun and several female staff members were currently working on the texture design for the [Plant Block].

Under Little Chun’s guidance, the [Plant Block] was not uniform, but had multiple appearances such as [Grass Block], [Moss Block], [Shrub Block], [Tree Block], [Leaf Block], etc.

This “one type of block, multiple appearances” concept was also implemented in a large number of other blocks.

Even with the same appearance, there were different texture variations.

—Of course, such variations didn’t require individual designs, most could be generated and adjusted through algorithms, saving a lot of work.

At this moment, Little Chun and some staff members were designing green plants on the [Plant Block].

They’re not drawing plants on the surface of the block, but actually allowing it to grow from the surface of the block, growing up to a palm’s height away from the surface of the block.

Lincoln looked at this block, then looked at the [Obsidian Block] that’s being designed next to it: glowing trails of magma flowed sporadically beneath the black surface rock.

Then he looked back at the row of [Wood Blocks] behind him. The texture of the bark was completely different depending on the type of tree.

But regardless of the type, the rough surface of the block and its ridges were all meticulously detailed; touching them almost felt like feeling the corrosion of time and weather.

There was also the [Snow Block] under production. When Lincoln moved closer, he could even see some snowflakes that hadn’t completely melted yet, with clear and delicate six-sided faces.

Lincoln looked at these blocks in the making, worrying about the performance of Mirage for the first time…

“Sister Tung, what is the lowest quality of these blocks under dynamic texture adjustment?”

“The lowest?” Little Chun was a bit surprised by this question.

She looked at Lincoln puzzledly: “Mirage can run smoothly even in the Metropolis. Now we’re just stacking blocks, we probably don’t need to lower the texture, do we?”

Lincoln shook his head.

“The range of the Metropolis running smoothly is actually only within a one-kilometer radius centered on the player. Beyond this range, not only will the modeling be blurry, but all features and mechanisms will be paused to reduce equipment pressure. ”

It is worth mentioning: The way the Metropolis runs in single-player and multi-player mode is not the same.

Based on the foundation of constructing the virtual world, as long as the server’s algorithmic interaction can withstand, the Metropolis can accommodate an unlimited number of people.

The more people, the more idle synapses come into play, contributing to the fuzzy computing power, and the less pressure on the console.

Moreover, from the perspective of brain development, having idle brain neurons move within a reasonable range in a limited way can promote child brain development and prevent diseases like adult dementia.

But single-player games can’t do that.

In a single-player state, the use of brain fuzzy computing power is very restrained—although it still seems astonishing, that’s purely because the brain has too much advantage in this aspect.

And there’s an easily overlooked point: the buildings in the Metropolis are not really built brick by brick.

Many buildings are “one-piece molded”, which doesn’t really use up much computational power.

Only when they are damaged, the feedback effect is given through real-time calculation.

However, when players play “Block World (temporary)”, every building is built with blocks as “bricks”.

So if the scale of what the player builds is too large, the player may be fine, but the console could really break!

“If what the player builds does not exceed a one-kilometer radius, then there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Lincoln paused then said to Little Chun: “The fear is that players will directly build an entire Metropolis, or even something larger and more astonishing than the Metropolis.”

“That seems unlikely?” Little Chun subconsciously refuted: “The Metropolis is now this big, and we’ve had so many people joining in. We also have dedicated development tools and it has still taken so long. It would take at least half a year for a player to create, right?”

Lincoln smiled helplessly: “Half a year, is not a long time.”

In the games of his previous life, projects that took one or two years were definitely not everywhere, that would be an exaggeration.

But to say they were rare, that would definitely be a lie…

“Never underestimate players.”

After thinking about it, Little Chun nodded, and operated a few times on the [Plant Block] in front of her.

Lincoln saw the plants on the surface of the block blur for a moment, but quickly returned to their original state.

Then Little Chun said, “Okay.”

“Huh?” Lincoln was puzzled.

Only when he leaned in for a closer look did he discover: all the tiny fibers on the leaves of the plants had disappeared, only the main veins of the leaves were left. They also didn’t have the texture of green plants anymore and felt smooth as paper.

It did seem to save a lot of things, but—

“This isn’t enough…”

“Still not enough?” This time, Little Chun really felt it was a bit exaggerated.

“I don’t understand hardware very well, but with this kind of texture, can reach the host’s performance limit with blocks reaching tens of millions, right?”

Lincoln helplessly said, “Tens of millions, it’s actually not that much… ”

Projects that use tens of millions of blocks are indeed big endeavors and not something an ordinary player can accomplish.

But this doesn’t mean that tens of millions is the limit.

“Projects with hundreds of millions of blocks are also possible.” Lincoln explained to Little Chun.

“We need to leave enough room for the players to play, and optimize all types of blocks as much as possible to create a ‘simplest version’.”

Although the staff present all felt that Lincoln’s words were a bit far-fetched.

But being the boss, his strive for perfection in the game seems reasonable. And so, they all added new content to their development plans, and then plunged back into their work.

Little Chun glanced around, looked at her busy colleagues, then raised her wrist to check the time.

Finally, she turned to Lincoln and asked, “The Diving Season trailer for ‘Light Encounter’ is about to be released. Do you want to watch it together?”

“You go ahead, I’ll pass.” Lincoln shook his head in refusal.

He looked at this virtual world, pondering another matter: stacking blocks, building their own world, he was about to give this privilege to the players.

But could it go even further?

Allow players not only to build worlds on their own but even create their own gameplay modules.

In other words— open MOD permissions.

Also, if he decides to give this permission, how should he do it to make it more ceremonial?