It would be easy to get testers if they were to spend money.
However, Boss Pei would definitely find out about it if money was involved.
Huang Sibo felt that he did not have to trouble Boss Pei over something like this but yet he couldn’t pay out of his own pocket as well and that was why he could only offer in-game benefits.
Even though it wasn’t exactly the greatest selling point to those testers, it was still better than nothing.
Before long, everyone started replying.
Like Huang Sibo, most of them had no connections nor did they know anyone related.
Xiao Lu suggested that he could try and join some Counter Strike enthusiast groups to liaise with them.
However, that method did not seem as though it was really feasible.
If they were to join those groups just to advertise for another FPS game without even giving any generous benefits, they might end up getting themselves kicked by the group leaders.
Right then, Lin Wan spoke.
“Erm… I’ve got some liaison for some big FPS enthusiast group leaders. They probably have one or two groups under them with a couple thousands of gamers in those groups.”
Huang Sibo asked hurriedly, “Can you suck up to them? I mean, erm, get them to do us a favor.”
He corrected himself hurriedly as he realized his improper words towards a young girl.
However, Lin Wan did not mind. “It’s fine. I’m quite close to them and it’s not a difficult favor.”
Huang Sibo was curious. “How do you know of those group leaders?”
It didn’t seem to make sense.
Lin Wan wasn’t an avid fan of FPS and even if she was, there was no reason why she would know so many of those group leaders.
She explained, “Oh, when I was interning at Sun Strike Studios, our project group for Bullet Hole looked for a bunch of hardcore FPS gamers as testers. I was in charge of liaison with them.”
Chapter 60
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Huang Sibo could not help but feel both elated and amused.
So, that was why!
He had nearly forgotten that Lin Wan was working on Bullet Hole, a FPS game, when she was at Sun Strike Studios!
Back then, Lin Wan was just an intern with not much working experience. That was why Zhou Muyan arranged for here to merely be a liaison with the FPS game testers.
Those testers did not have to work physically at Sun Strike Studios. All they had to do was receive the test kit from home and experience the game.
Next, they would detail out their experience of the game and send it to Lin Wan as a suggestion where she would arrange them and redirect it to the project team.
Through those opinions, the project team would work on improving Bullet Hole.
Naturally, since Sun Strike Studios was so rich, they would pay a testing fee unlike at Tengda where Huang Sibo was trying to get it for free.
As she reined in the suggestions, Lin Wan would chat with them from time to time and before long, they were acquainted.
In other words, the people that Tengda required right now were practically the fruits of labor planted by Sun Strike Studios…
The only thing Huang Sibo could say for such an effortless reward was…
Great!
“Please help to contact them! If possible, try to get more of the gamers who like FPS games to come and test. Every tester will receive a limited edition Desert Eagle as an in-game reward.”
“Also, we’ll consider giving better rewards for those gamers that manage to introduce the game to others. If they can pull 100 gamers in, we can give them a permanent epic weapon!”
“Or maybe you can pick out some of the exceptional testers to give them the epic weapons as a reward.”
Huang Sibo was already being conservative about it.
Even though he did not give cash as a reward, he had management authority of the backend as the chief planner to give gamers guns and rewards.
Even though the epic weapons were expensive at 888 each, they were nothing but in-game data for the gaming company.
If those gamers could get 100 other gamers each or manage to test out some game-breaking bug, it was only right to give those people a permanent epic weapon.”
“Alright, leave it to me!” Lin Wan agreed to it right away.
This was the first task she received at Tengda and it wasn’t difficult. Therefore, she had to try her best!
Lin Wan contacted those group leaders right away.
The first group leader’s online nickname was Buried Halberd
His original name was Chen Sha and he was a veteran of FPS games. Within the circle for Counter Strike, he was quite a famous figure and was the leader of a gamer group(Or rather, that was a group of his fans).
His group had over 2,000 people and many of them were extremely active.
Sun Strike Studios valued Chen Sha’s opinions highly and he had personally recommended many of the changes.
However, Lin Wan only knew of his name and a gut feeling that he was someone who did not lack money in real life. Other than that, she did not know the details of his life such as what job he held and whatnot.
“Old Chen, stop lurking around and help me test a game!” Lin Wan was closer to Chen Sha and thus she got right into the topic without any polite exchanges.
Before long, the other party replied.
“Isn’t Bullet Hole already done with its testing and is about to be published? They’re asking for more stuff to be tested?” Chen Sha asked casually.
Lin Wan explained herself, “It’s not Bullet Hole, it’s another game. Right, I forgot to tell you but I resigned from Sun Strike Studios.”
“… What kind of a show are you putting on by quitting right as the game’s about to be published? I heard that employees of the development team get a lot of reward money after a game gets published. Aren’t you pitting yourself against money?”
“The reward money’s not important. Let me tell you… the company I’m at is much better than Sun Strike Studios! Alright, enough with the nonsense. Help me test this game I have!” Lin Wan pushed.
“Alright. Is the price still the same as Sun Strike Studios at 500 yuan per round of testing?”
“Oh, not really. After the testing, we’ll give you a limited edition in-game Desert Eagle as a reward,” Lin Wan replied matter of factly.
The other party did not reply for a long time.
Chen Sha was stumped.
‘What’s the meaning of this? Isn’t the difference way too great?’
‘Aren’t you just trying to make use of me for free?!’
When Chen Sha helped Sun Strike Studios to test their game, it did not matter how many issues he listed out per testing. As long as there was even a single issue, he would get 500 yuan of reward money.
He was a god tier player after all and could sense the differences in hand sensitivity that normal gamers could not; his opinion was invaluable.
Bullet Hole was a game that was made for veteran players and Chen Sha was almost the representative of that group of players. As such, it was only normal for him to be slightly more.
Of course, 500 yuan WAS slightly expensive. It was understandable if this new company was not willing to pay that amount.
But there should at least be a token sum of 400 or even 300?
Yet, the only reward was an in-game limited edition Desert Eagle?!
Was this a joke? Who would care for that lousy Desert Eagle?!
That was nothing but made up in-game data!
Even though Chen Sha was slightly annoyed, he did not blow up in anger due to his ties with Lin Wan.
“Say, isn’t this new company way too stingy? They’re not even giving me a single cent for the testing? Aren’t they just trying to get free labor?” Chen Sha was speechless.
“Stingy? No, no! I guarantee with my character at stake that this company’s definitely not stingy. Not only are they not stingy
, they are incredibly generous!”
“Ugh… I know that it may not be really convincing right now, but I’m definitely not trying to scam you!”
“How about this? As long as you’re willing to test it seriously, I’ll apply on my side to give you a permanent epic weapon on top of the limited edition Desert Eagle as a reward. How about that?” Lin Wan was trying her best to persuade Chen Sha.
He was still totally unmoved. “Are you crazy? Who cares about a weapon for this game? Besides, how much can a permanent epic weapon cost? 200 at max? That’s still way too far from my expected rate! I’ll tell you right now that you can forget about anything below 300.”
“From what I know, the permanent epic weapons are selling at 888 in game…” Lin Wan thought for a moment before replying.
Chen Sha: “?”
“??”
“How much did you say it was?”
“888? Is it in-game currency or yuan?”
Lin Wan replied, “Yuan, of course!”
Chen Sha inched closer to his computer screen and checked through things properly.
Indeed, there was no decimal point between the 888!
Nuts! These guys are nuts!
Selling an epic weapon at 888 yuan?
This was just daylight robbery!
Which idiot would buy them at such a high price?!
Why did it seem as though the company that created this game was getting less and less trustworthy…
Chen Sha did not reply for a long time.
Two minutes later, he replied, “Send the game to me. I’ll take a look at it. Let me tell you first, don’t blame me for not being a friend if the game is truly too trashy and I refuse to help.”
In truth, Chen Sha was not convinced by Lin Wan’s words.
He was just purely curious as to what an epic weapon that cost 888 would look like…
“The game’s name is called Ocean Stronghold and you can already download it from the official games platform,” Lin Wan was filled with confidence. “Don’t worry. Even though I haven’t tried it myself, I’m sure that it’ll be an extremely successful game because the person who created it is the most ambitious and talented designer domestically!”
Chen Sha: “…”
He was skeptical about the description ‘most ambitious and talented designer’.
Most of all, he was speechless at the name of that game – Ocean Stronghold.
The moment he saw that name, there was an ominous feeling that the game would be extremely lousy…
Chapter 61
Brimming with curiosity and uncertainty, Chen Sha searched for Ocean Stronghold in the official games store, downloaded it, and registered for an account.
What surprised him was the internal storage the game occupied. The storage space that it used was even larger than Bullet Hole and was many times larger than Counter Strike.
However, Chen Sha didn’t probe into it. After all, there were low-quality games in the market that occupied huge storage capacity.
There was a domestically produced game that had undergone such bad game optimization that even the best graphics card in the market cannot resolve its horrible game graphics. That created the legend of ‘Titanfall’.
Therefore, the game’s large storage capacity and demanding hardware configurations did not mean anything. What’s more important was the content of the game.
Shortly after, Chen Sha entered the game.
His initial reaction was that the game seemed… pretty pleasant?
The game graphics were much better than what he had expected!
Chen Sha had originally thought this was a flaky and horrible game. He did not have any expectations for it. The only reason he downloaded the game was to see for himself what the 888-yuan epic weapon looked like.
However, the game left a pretty good first impression on him!
Although there was no opening computer graphics, the login interface and in-game user interface both looked amazing. It was not inferior to Bullet Hole.
Chen Sha found the game’s shop first.
The first thing that popped before his eyes was the legendary epic weapon—a Rainbow Red Kilin!
At a glance, it looked similar to AK rifles. However, there were enormous changes made to its exterior details. The entire rifle was sparkling. The gun barrel was coated in dazzling paint which spread towards the rifle body like colorful ripples of the rainbow. It was extremely eye-catching. Below the gun barrel was a unique-looking gold dagger. According to the description in the in-game shop, that was called the ‘Kilin Dagger’.
In the intersection between the gun barrel and rifle body, there was a gigantic kilin head. The kilin’s mouth was wide open and appeared as though it was engulfing the gun barrel and the dagger. The eyes of the kilin were blood-red, and the kilin’s fur had the color and texture of fire and would ripple in the air. As the rifle body moved, red sparks would appear within the kilin’s eyes. That made the kilin appear as if it was about to come to life.
Furthermore, there were alterations to components such as the rifle clip, the pistol grip, and the buttstock. While the gun followed the design of AK rifles, the exaggerated sizes of some components and unique alterations to its exterior design left a deeper impression on people.
Chen Sha was dumbfounded.
That was just way too cool, wasn’t it?
He was an elite gamer in Counter Strike and had explored the game Bullet Hole when he was testing it out.
Both Counter Strike and Bullet Hole tried their best to replicate firearms in the real world.
For instance, their biggest alteration to the AK guns was to paint them. There would not be a lot of drastic changes to the basic appearance of the guns.
They were afraid of being scolded by military games fanatics.
In comparison, the dramatic changes done in Ocean Stronghold was extremely daring!
Of course, strictly speaking, this Red Kilin could be considered to be overly fancy.
The exaggerated design, the bold alterations, and the elaborate special effects… all of that made Chen Sha a little instinctively uncomfortable when he saw it for the first time.
Chen Sha had been playing FPS games for so many years and was already used to how AK rifles looked. It was normal that he would be unaccustomed when the rifle’s appearance suddenly changed from realistic to fantasy-like.
However, it was undeniable that this weapon looked really cool!
The longer one looked at it, the cooler it became!
Chen Sha stared at the special effects on the Red Kilin for a long time. The red fur on the Red Kilin’s head seemed to blaze in the air like burning flames and move with every breath. Together with the dazzling paint on the rifle body…
Once accustomed to the fantasy-like designs, it seemed to be surprisingly enchanting, didn’t it?
Look at the price.
It was truly 888 yuan each!
Chen Sha could not help but exclaim, “Impressive!”
It was really impressive that the game designer dared to price a weapon at such a high price. He really had the guts!
Normally, prices within games would slowly increase to test the bottom-line price of the players.
For instance, the paywall for the game Qute Three Kingdoms was quite low. That resulted in most players reaching the maximum paywall of the game. Only afterward did Qute Three Kingdoms add new things that players could recharge with money to purchase. Gradually, the maximum amount for the premium system and the number of purchasable items increased with time.
It was extremely rare for a game to price an item at 888 yuan from the get-go, just like what Ocean Stronghold did!
Chen Sha looked through the in-game shop and noticed a problem.
There were no page indicators or columns for purchasable items!
That was because the entire shop only sold this one item!
This was the only purchasable item in the Ocean Stronghold game.
In other words—other
than the 888 yuan Red Kilin, Ocean Stronghold did not sell anything else!
Of course, there were other firearms in the game. They could be found in the ‘Armory’ feature.
The armory would indicate detailed stats of the weapons and ways to obtain them.
There were numerous ways to obtain those weapons. Some could be unlocked after completing the story mode in the game, some after completing certain achievements, and some could be purchased using in-game currency.
The in-game currency could be obtained by completing daily tasks and battles. Although there was a limit to the amount that could be obtained, it was not difficult to obtain it.
To Chen Sha’s surprise—other than the Red Kilin, there was not a single weapon in the armory that could be obtained by topping up with money.
Chen Sha scratched the back of his head. He was thoroughly confused by the game’s payment options.
Was the Red Kilin really that marketable such that they decided to price it at 888 yuan?
He scrutinized the description of the Red Kilin.
Firearms in the game were classified into four tiers: normal, elite, hero, and epic.
As compared to hero-tier weapons which were a tier below epic-tier weapons, their only difference was that the stats of the epic-tier weapons were slightly higher than that of hero-tier weapons.
Without an in-depth comparison, Chen Sha would not even be able to notice the differences between the stats of the epic-tier Red Kilin and other hero-tier AK rifles.
This applied to weapons of other tiers. For the same weapon, each tier only had slight enhancements in the stats. However, those enhancements were barely noticeable.
Besides that, epic-tier weapons had some special properties.
The XP obtained by the player increased by 200%. (XP, short for experience points, affected player’s level. However, increasing one’s level did not have much use. When leveling up, you would merely obtain some in-game currency. Other than that, a player’s level may also limit certain functions within the game.)
The XP obtained by the players in the same room increased by 50%.
In-game currency obtained by the players in the same room increased by 30%.
When the player died, the weapon dropped would turn into a normal AK rifle. If the player threw away the weapon voluntarily, the weapon dropped would remain as a Red Kilin.
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