On the first day of the long National Day holiday, 1:00 p.m.
The first batch of 300 (actually 299) closed beta slots available on the official website had all been claimed.
Yang Qiu, who had been busy writing quest text, took a moment to see the 290 helmets that had been ordered, then observed the only three players frolicking about the "game world"…
After some thought, he used the real-time transmissibility provided by the Mind Imprint Matrix to issue an announcement to the three "online" using the role of an online GM.
The three players, who were exploring Exile Town after picking up the dropped items, saw two rows of yellow text appearing simultaneously before their eyes.
[The closed beta will end in 10 minutes of game time. Players online are requested to return to the respawn point in the safe zone and log off promptly.]
[Player's data (equipment, tools, etc.) may be lost if the log-off isn't done at the safe zone.]
All three players cried out in unison.
"What the hell?!"
"We've only just started and the server is shutting down already…? No way!"
"We've been playing for almost six hours!" Hardcore gamer Qin Guan had just shouted out in frustration, but a quick glance at the game time left him startled. "Have we been online for that long? How's that possible? Why does it seem like it's only been a few hours?"
"Yeah, it feels like we've only played for three or four hours, and I haven't even gotten enough fun yet," said Give Me Medicine, also a hardcore player, discontentedly.
"Umm… we have indeed been playing for quite some time," casual player Blossoming Strokes spoke objectively. "After we died and logged back in, it took us over half an hour to avoid the rats and retrieve the clothes. Then, we went around the beginner town, completed four quests given by zombie NPCs, and we're now on the fifth."
"Ah, makes sense." Give Me Medicine nodded. "My Potential has increased a little, it's 43 now."
"Yeah, mine has increased to 49 too." Blossoming Strokes was especially pleased with this particular advantage of hers. "When we re-logged in after the death, there was new information showing that reaching a Potential of 50 would allow us to reach level 1. I'm nearly there!"
"Both of your Potentials have increased, but mine hasn't! I'm still at 37! I can't believe it! This is so unfair!" Qin Guan stomped his feet in frustration.
"Don't fret, your Potential will surely increase if you do more NPC quests." The other two swiftly reassured their unfortunate companion as they proceeded toward the revival point, still holding on to their quest tools from an NPC. "Once the server is back up and running, let's make a pact to log in and quest together. Even if we reach level 1, we'll accompany you till you catch up."
Qin Guan and Give Me Medicine, not to mention Blossoming Strokes, who was a more casual gamer, had all experienced numerous games on the market. When it came to regular games, most players would exhibit impatience with completing quests—controlling on-screen characters to repeatedly run around and engage in monotonous monster battles would get incredibly tedious. Regardless of how compelling a storyline a game was, players would get tired of it.
However, "OtherWorld" was an exception. This full-immersive black technology game captivated their senses, igniting a sense of novelty with every unexplored view and unfamiliar encounter.
Had it not been for that colossal rat scaring them, the trio might have already ventured beyond the confines of Exile Town, reveling in boundless exploration…
When they returned to the platform serving as their spawn, revival, and log-out point, the trio bid their farewells, having already exchanged real-world contact information, and logged out in succession.
Yang Qiu waited for the three players' skeleton avatars to descend into the subterranean tomb… uh, space, before promptly deactivating the Mind Imprint Matrix and sealing the spatial rift that bridged the servers on both ends.
After which, he hastily departed to distribute helmets to players that had made their payments.
The Mind Imprint Matrix can be activated anywhere, but establishing a physical connection is much more troublesome… But if they aren't connected, players won't be able to download game screenshots or videos from Earth.
Yang Qiu contemplated the challenges that would arise upon the game's official launch amid the flurry of helmet deliveries.
The servers he procured didn't require computing power for the game's operation; they solely served as relay hubs for uploading and downloading screenshots and videos. However, for this relay hub to facilitate instantaneous file transfers, the spatial rift had to remain open.
The spatial rift was something that couldn't be revealed or discovered by anyone else. Yang Qiu needed to remain in close proximity to the spatial rift during the periods when it was accessible.
And so, the same old issue arose once more. He had merely disguised the magic plane as a game and not truly turned it into one. In order to increase game content and expand the exploratory space for players, Yang Qiu had to personally lay the groundwork and ensure a good enough guise. How could he spend all his time squatting in the server room?
…Let's use the plan I considered before. Screenshots and recorded videos taken by players in the game will be categorized within the "Mental Imprint" disguised as the "Personal Log" panel. When players return to the respawn point and log off, the data in their "Personal Log" will be synchronized and uploaded to the server over there.
If they don't log off at the respawn point, then I won't care… Mmm, we can regard this as falling under the category of "data loss resulting from irregular log-out," which is ultimately the player's own responsibility.
Downloading on Earth… requires a day's delay before being allowed to do so… So, I'll open the spatial rift once daily and use the physical connection to transfer the data on that server to the one here. Less frequent opening of the spatial rift would also minimize the risk of being exposed.
Being unable to download their screenshots and videos at any time was bound to result in some disgruntled players, but that wasn't a major issue. After all, there didn't exist any game in the world that could achieve 100% user satisfaction.
Yang Qiu spent over half the first day of the National Day holiday dispatching the 290 helmets via courier. It was already dark by the time he returned to his server room in the suburbs.
Yang Qiu mulled over the sparse game content, imperfect quest system, and the absence of functional NPCs that had been revealed during the closed beta. Then, he decided to end this initial closed beta and schedule the next one to begin in two days.
After posting an announcement about the second delayed beta, Yang Qiu packed some daily essentials into the spatial ring before opening the spatial rift and heading forth into the magic plane.
Elsewhere, the first three beta testers, along with the additional six players that missed the initial session, finally received the announcement of the delayed launch at 8 in the evening and couldn't help expressing their disappointment in unison.
Deflated, Qin Guan couldn't muster up any strength to even edit the second video and went to bed early out of frustration.
Perhaps due to playing the game for over seven hours (in-game time), or because of the anticipation that had been building throughout the whole afternoon, Qin Guan enjoyed a remarkably restful night's sleep and didn't wake up till the next morning.
A groggy Qin Guan, still lying on his bed, reached for his phone, and upon unlocking it, he was surprised to find that all his social media apps were showing 99+ notifications…
Qin Guan bewilderedly clicked on each one to take a look…
A few minutes later, Qin Guan, who would usually spend half an hour playing mobile games before getting out of bed, suddenly sat straight up and cursed out loud, "What the hell!"
A day had passed, and the VR game recommendation video released by Qin Guan had spread through the enthusiastic efforts of netizens across various chat groups, game forums, and discussion boards, causing quite a stir among domestic players.
Previously, when Yang Qiu had used alternate accounts to create a buzz for the game, he had also shared the three promotional videos shot in real locations on the official website. However, the visuals in the videos were just a bit too "cinematic," making it difficult to believe that such game scenes could be produced with 21st-century technology. As a result, it was quickly labeled as a "deceptive game that only had impressive CG in marketing" by many domestic gamers and didn't receive a good reception.
Of course, it wasn't entirely the gamers' fault for being skeptical. Such situations were all too common. There were instances of mismatched content between what was advertised and the end product, CG animations that seemed disconnected from the gameplay, and the use of movie stills and CG in promotions.
Many deceived players into downloading games that turned out to be either bootleg imitations of renowned games or just web games. Unscrupulous game developers in China didn't hold back at all.
Some more conscientious game developers even became victims of these unscrupulous counterparts who shamelessly used their work as raw material. Not only copying CG, but also "borrowing" character models, scenes, and costume designs. Even if their own productions lacked integrity and their models were a thousand times less refined, being capable of deceiving players into paying was a testament to their marketing skill.
It wasn't until Qin Guan, a gaming content creator that never spent loads on games, started playing and released in-game recordings that people who previously criticized Yang Qiu's alternate accounts suddenly had a revelation.
They hurriedly visited the official website… only to find out that it was too late. All 300 slots for the closed beta had already been filled.
Some were willing to patiently wait for the development team to release new slots, but others were more impatient and began flooding the official website's message board with higher offers to buy closed beta accounts…
At first glance, this seemed like a positive turn of events. It seemed like "OtherWorld" was gaining traction compared to the fact that only three people had logged in during the initial closed beta.
Qin Guan, as the first content creator to release a gameplay video of "OtherWorld," was also experiencing a surge in popularity. He didn't just surpass 100,000 subscribers overnight but was even on track to reach 200,000.
However, anything that was on the internet… was never limited to a single perspective. While Qin Guan's video spread like wildfire among the gaming community and his ID, Vanilla Pudding, became increasingly recognized by players, dissenting opinions also emerged.
First, a well-known streamer in the gaming community called into question the authenticity of Qin Guan's twenty-minute video, suspecting it to be fabricated, gimmicky, and employing deceptive marketing tactics.
It called into question the content creator, Vanilla Pudding, had colluded with the game developers and stolen footage from a popular foreign film, using dubbing, editing, and post-production techniques to craft a misleading video.
The reasons for the streamers' skepticism were quite valid—anyone that had played VR games worldwide knew how far the development had come; creating even a small-scale scene that didn't look obviously fake required extensive efforts from established companies and their dedicated research and development teams.
Now, here was an obscure production team on the national and international stage, releasing a mediocre game without even a proper publishing license, yet dared to claim that their game possessed groundbreaking black technology that surpassed the top game publishers of the world. This wasn't just a scam of the century; it was the epitome of all scams!
With a prominent influencer stepping up to confront the situation, others naturally followed suit. As soon as Qin Guan opened the live streaming app, he saw several videos on the homepage that were ridiculing and mocking him…
"What the hell is this?" Qin Guan angrily shut the app and turned to Weibo.
Comments and private messages aside, there were thousands of mentions (@Vanilla Pudding).
Trembling, Qin Guan clicked on some of the mentions and found many were directing him to a lengthy Weibo post.
Qin Guan took a deep breath, then clicked on the post.
After reading for just two minutes, he slumped back onto his bed with a "thump."
The Weibo post was brilliantly written, analyzing the marketing technique of "OtherWorld" and drawing similarities to manipulative tactics employed by other scammers. It made for a very convincing read:
Firstly, massive pre-launch hype for a large-scale VR game was artificially generated by employing low-cost tricks and deception.
Secondly, they planned to take the game and the company representing the groundbreaking VR technology to an international financial hub, such as London, New York, or Singapore, for an initial public offering.
Then, while maintaining the game's popularity in the second largest economy, China, along with the allure of the revolutionary VR technology, they would lure global investors with grand promises and stories, exploiting the Western world for their own financial gain…
Toward the end of the lengthy post, the writer seemingly disagreed with the criticism directed at the content creator, Vanilla Pudding, believing him to be merely an insignificant pawn in this elaborate scheme and frowning upon Vanilla Pudding's opportunistic behavior in aiding the bigger bad.
The writer then encouraged others to boycott the deceitful development team behind "OtherWorld" and urged them to refuse to contribute further attention to this fraudulent game…
This lengthy Weibo post was published at 10 p.m. the previous night, and when Qin Guan saw it after 11 hours, it had already been re-shared over ten thousand times, with several thousand comments.
There were also numerous comments on the Weibo post as well as private messages insulting him.
Qin Guan had never experienced such humiliation in his life, and his entire body trembled from the anger. "What the f*ck is this? See for yourselves when the game is launched! Why the hell are you all rushing to criticize me without even waiting for a couple of days?!"
While still dazed at the flurry of online insults, Qin Guan received a call from a younger bro that had previously farmed gold with him in a certain game.
"Brother Qin, I saw your text in the group chat yesterday and used this month's living expenses to purchase helmets for the few of us brothers in the studio. You know how hard our life is. Nowadays, most studios make money through botting and using scripted cheats. We, who honestly grind for gold manually, can barely make ends meet… You wouldn't deceive me, right?"
Qin Guan suppressed his grievances and said, "Xiao Zhou, even if others don't, you should know me, right?
"All these outsiders are spouting bull and making things up. There's no connection between the development team of 'OtherWorld' and me. It's all completely fabricated… This game has truly high-quality content, and it will definitely become popular in the future. People like us have it hard when it comes to making money, and even if I had to deceive someone, it wouldn't be you, right?"
After comforting this skilled younger bro, Qin Guan still had lingering frustration when he received another call from a different studio.
"Vanilla Bro, you're really heartless! How could you not help rope in us brothers when you got involved with such a boss capable of making a fortune by exploiting foreigners?"
"You have the cake, and us brothers can still enjoy the crumbs. Just make an introduction, okay—"
"You really don't have to buy that helmet! Better hurry up and request a refund!" Qin Guan shouted angrily and hung up.
On the other end, the studio boss, who wanted to be part of something big, scoffed, then instructed his subordinates to contact players on the official site's forum who were looking to buy closed beta slots.
He wanted to quickly sell off the helmets while there were still fools willing to buy them…