Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 687: Chapter 654 [0.0017% players have obtained]

“Is this something a genius scientist, the richest man in Daxia, and the founder of a giant multinational company would say??”

Super Tomato was absolutely floored.

Lincoln’s appearance instantly drew countless players over to catch him in the act, causing the comment section to light up even more.

However, after the initial shock, Super Tomato breathed a sigh of relief.

No matter why Lincoln showed up, his presence meant that there were no longer any risks for Super Tomato – whether it had to do with the approval process or the accusation of hat wearing, there was no need to worry anymore.

Not long after, Lincoln popped up again and posted another comment:

“Am I seeing things? Why do I feel like there are two people here who look very familiar?”

His comment was met with uproarious laughter from the players, who rushed to tag Yelang and Yi –

“Hahaha, you have a sharp eye! Don’t doubt your eyesight, you’re not wrong. @Yi @Yelang, come out and greet your guests!”

“@Yelang, the big boss has his eye on you, it’s time for you to turn the tables and become the boss lady!”

“@Yelang, ‘Boss Meets Cinderella’.”

“@Yi, hurry to Siam, it’s not too late! Get married this year, divorce next year, split half of Cloud Dream, and create whatever game you want to play! Shaming the virtual world is not a dream! There’s no hope with Lincoln, everything is up to you now!”

…

Neither Yelang nor Yi responded.

So, the players turned back to tease Lincoln:

“Why are you so idle? Don’t you have to work overtime? Why are you here looking at saucy pictures?”

“Where’s Chang’an? Is it ready yet?”

“What about the mechs? Are they ready yet?”

“What about ‘Speedy Chase 2’? Is it ready yet?”

“What about ‘Assassin’s Alliance 2’? Is it ready yet?”

“What about the new season of ‘Light Encounter’?”

…

Lincoln struggled to answer this string of questions, so he quickly replied: “We’re working on it, going to work overtime now.”

Just when it looked like Lincoln was about to make a run for it, the players weren’t done with him: “Wait, don’t go. Explain yourself! You’re not just creating a new folder, are you?”

Under the eager questioning of the players, Lincoln decided to throw them a bone: “A huge content update is coming soon! Really!”

The players, with happy news in hand, continued to push further:

“What do you mean by soon?”

“New game? Or updates to old games? What’s going to be updated?”

“Don’t say soon, seize the day, why not today!”

…

Of course, it’s impossible for it to be today. After thinking about it, Lincoln decided to push back against this kind of pushy behavior—

“Aren’t you guys idle? Have you completed ‘Terraria’? Have all weapons in ‘Battlefield’ reached max level?”

These two questions certainly provoked strong reactions from gamers:

“Why don’t you think about what you’re saying??”

“Every weapon in ‘Battlefield’ at max level? Is it possible without three to five years??”

“Terraria… You’ve got the nerve to bring it up! Yesterday evening, a pro player defeated the Moon Worshiper in expert mode and got an achievement. Do you know how rare that achievement is? [0.0017% of players have achieved it]! That’s only 170 people out of every ten million! You design such a difficult game, are you even human?”

“With Terraria’s blade in hand, Terraria’s boots on my feet, and Terrace toilet under my butt, do you know who I am? I’m a Terraria newbie.”

…

“Hmm…” Upon seeing that number, Lincoln pondered for a moment.

Maybe, he had underestimated how fearsome the difficulty ramp-up could be when ‘Terraria’ was repurposed as a virtual reality game from a 2D game?

Back then, he was primarily concerned about whether the game was scary, and how to prevent this kind of “scariness” from having a negative impact.

As for the difficulty of the game…

When Little Chun told him that one quarter of the team could finish the game, Lincoln thought the difficulty was just about right.

After all, even after several rounds of expansion, the ratio of women in Little Chun’s team was still as high as seventy percent, and not many of them were good at gaming – Their skills in game development were unquestionable, but that’s a different story from being good at gaming.

Being completely aware of every skill a BOSS has does not necessarily mean it’s easy to dodge them – these are two different things.

If they could finish the game, he thought that ratio could also apply to the player base.

But now, seeing the players dying miserably and getting stuck, Lincoln realizes that his previous estimates may have been too optimistic.

Players must spend more time familiarizing themselves with the game, researching the collection and synthesis of various powerful items, and increasing character strength to effectively reduce battle difficulty.

And —— the difficulty of certain BOSS may indeed need to be reduced a bit.

Thinking about this, Lincoln suddenly thought of the “Journey Mode” prepared for true casual players in the original game. It’s indeed significant!

Despite being prepared to implement this mode, Lincoln still decides to pass the buck first –

“The game idea was mine, but I didn’t set the difficulty of the BOSS battles, you’ll have to ask the combat designer.”

A player immediately asked, “Who is the combat designer?”

But Lincoln was long gone before even giving a hint.

Players: “???”

*

Following past habits, Lincoln would not use his rest day for something not that urgent.

But he really slacked off a lot this week, having spent 5 days wandering around Chang’an with Little Princess, barely accomplishing anything serious. He then relaxed another day on Saturday upon getting back…

Even Lincoln feels a little guilty if he continues to take it easy.

So, on a rare occasion, he decided to be diligent and do some overtime work.

He spent the rest of the morning with Mavis collecting player feedback and analyzing background data to figure out what actually needs to be changed.

And finding this “too difficult to complain” information couldn’t be easier—

The “Terraria mod”, is a difficult game to start with.

With the unlocking of Hard Mode and higher difficulty modes, the difficulty climbs once again, and even the small mobs become quite threatening.

Some players burst out in frustration after being repeatedly smashed by small mobs, wailing that they really can’t continue playing.

Players with higher skills handle the situation better, not only do they accept this difficulty, but they are also extremely addicted.

A number of players who originally had the strength to participate in the Peak War also missed the opportunity due to their excessive indulgence in “Terraria”, spending all their spare time grinding in “Terraria”.

The same goes for “Battlefield,” and “My World”; players missed the registration deadline for the chance to complete their Redstone projects on time due to their obsession with “Terraria”.

Despite this, the first kill of the final BOSS Moon Lord in expert mode is still unaccomplished.

A plethora of players can only continue to grind frantically in the game, seek stronger equipment, design more convenient battle fields, train their skills in more skilled ways…

In this process, they have already produced a lot of useful information.

The “Terraria” section of Vortex Forum already has a wealth of guides.

—Several technical bosses, not satisfied with the functionality of the forum, have begun to set up a dedicated web page for “Terraria” to popularize various game information from basics to advanced.

But while producing these guide posts, they slowly gathered the key difficulties in the game, uncomfortable mechanisms, features they hoped to optimize and so on.

All these are readily available player opinions.

Of course, you must view these comments selectively.

Like the “The fisherman’s mouth smells so bad, can you change it?”, which is a feature of the game. Even though the players are highly vocal, Lincoln has no plans to change it.

…

After lunch, Lincoln opened his office software, found the “Terraria” office group, and explained the updates he intended to make to the game.

Just when the employees thought the boss was going to start aligning with the capitalists and ask them to work overtime, Lincoln’s reply —

“I just wanted to let you guys know so you won’t be clueless when the updates happen.”

“Alright then, have a nice weekend.”

Then Lincoln swiftly closed the office software, and began to work with Mavis.

The employees in the office group, looking at the boss’s list of “Add journey mode”, “Rename character creation mode”, “Micro-adjustment of BOSS damage and battle desire under different modes”, “Micro-adjustment of reforging function”, “Improve defense property value”, “Adjustment of certain item drop rates”, “Add drop rate bottom guarantee …” and a whole list of update tasks were both stupified and in awe.

In this pure admiration, twenty percent is admiration for the boss’s astonishing work efficiency.

The other eighty percent, is in awe that the boss really does things himself when there is something!

At this time, Lincoln, who really does things himself when there’s something, doesn’t know that a player is preparing a surprise for him.

This player found two fun things in “Terraria”:

One is the [Lance], a weapon that does more damage the faster the player moves.

The other is the [Floating Ring], an item that allows players to quickly float to the surface of the water.

He plans to test the limits of these two items.