Rebirth of the big era of online games

Chapter 413 I'm going to throw it into the sea!

"Project Ark" is a very large plan, and naturally it cannot be accomplished overnight. By the end of 2005, Fang Jie had only been doing the preliminary preparations, and the whole plan was still on paper.

After all, the "Ark" game is only the virtual platform framework of this plan, and the game map is only the foundation of this framework.

And Fangzhou International, as the main management framework of the Ark Project, is also just the tip of the iceberg of the entire plan.

If the Ark Project is described as building a super city, then the production of game maps is equivalent to leveling the road, and Fangzhou International is equivalent to the municipal center. The management system of the entire city, underground pipe network, functional buildings, commercial markets and The population of the citizens has not been written off yet.

Not to mention the citizens, even the municipal center, except for Fang Jie, a polished commander, the branch management agencies and personnel are not in place yet.

To make a project, you generally need to get together three elements: concept or business goals, funds, and personnel.

Now that we have the target concept and funds, we need personnel.

After Fangzhou International announced its establishment, it started a worldwide recruitment campaign to attract relevant management talents.

The recruitment conditions are very loose: no nationality, no gender, no age limit, and even no limit to the place of work, as long as they are talents in relevant fields, all comers are welcome.

The only limitation is the core point: I deeply identify with the "Ark Project", have a strong sense of belief in it, take it as my duty to promote the progress of human scientific and technological civilization, and are willing to work hard for it all my life!
Emmmmmmm…

It sounds more like a slogan.

In fact, it is indeed a slogan. Everyone shouts a few words, but if they disagree in their hearts, no one knows.

But this matter, it is actually a psychological method. Shouting too many slogans is a kind of self-psychological suggestion, and everyone will gradually agree, especially when everything that happened in reality is really convincing. when.

To put it bluntly, this is actually similar to PUA, or MLM?

Of course, PUA or pyramid schemes have impure motives and seek illegal benefits, while what Fang Jie did is to realize his own dream, but in fact he is really seeking the well-being of mankind. The nature of the two is completely different.

Since it is the main body of management of the virtual reality platform, Fangzhou International's recruitment and office forms are naturally in the virtual world of the Internet, not offline.

Fang Jie directly asked Boiling Software to make a powerful office software, and then threw it into a single-family server as Fangzhou International's network office headquarters.

The office software is divided into many sections, all named after the real company departments, such as the shareholder meeting room, the chairman's office, the personnel department, the marketing department, the finance department, the legal department...etc. The office process in is the same.

All affairs of the company will be submitted to the relevant boards for processing. Different department boards have corresponding personnel access rights, and business posts in the same department also have corresponding viewing rights.

All in all, as the main management company of the Ark Project, Fangzhou International leads by example. It is a real Internet company and a practical example for the "Ark Project".

Of course, if you work online, there will be some security risks involved, such as account hacking and so on.

However, this is not a big problem. Boiling Software and Boiling Technology, under Fang Jie's instructions, made a password U disk product similar to NetEase's General Order, which is specially used to prevent account theft. To all the online games under Boiling Games.

Under this login mechanism, the login password of the office software is not set by the employees themselves, but automatically and randomly generated by the server.

If employees want to log in to the office software, they must carry the USB flash drive issued to them by Fangzhou International, find a computer that can be connected to the Internet, and access the USB flash drive to obtain the password sent by the server.

Every time you log in, the password will be different. Different accounts have different corresponding U disk password IDs, which ensures account security to the greatest extent.

Maybe ten years later, everyone will be used to this login method, or everyone will generally log in with a mobile phone verification code, and the account security will be greatly guaranteed, so it is no big deal.

But now it is 2005, smart phones have not yet become popular, and Fangzhou International can’t reach cooperation with telecom service providers in various countries. It can send Fang’s mobile phone text messages to mobile phone users all over the world at will, so it can only use the Internet to create this set of Internet A unique password authentication system combined with software and hardware.

What's interesting is that when you come up with such a login technology, not only do you not think it is very common, but in their eyes, it is a bit like the operation of logging into the dark web in the hacker world.

Working on the Internet in Fangzhou International is like an underground party joint. This has a sense of mystery and a sense of mission, which makes the employees of Fangzhou International more confident that they are doing a mysterious and great thing. , is working for a black technology company.

The password USB flash drive in their hands is not an ordinary USB flash drive in their eyes, but the key to the door to the future of mankind.

Some ordinary people in the outside world were amazed and envious when they heard about this incident, and felt that Fangzhou International was indeed as unusual as the rumors said. superior.

Some metaphysical believers with big brain holes even think that the password U disk is the ticket to the "Ark". Those who have these tickets are the so-called "chosen ones" and have the priority to enter the "Ark".

Whether it is the "chosen one" is still hard to draw a conclusion. Anyway, most of the employees of Fangzhou International have been personally screened by Fang Jie and interviewed online. Almost all of them are high-end talents, and many of them are even international employees. Top talent, if not a talent, is at least a well-connected social elite or a wealthy tycoon.

Working in Fangzhou International also has a decent salary and benefits. The salary is based on the average standard of the whole industry, and the benefits are based on the salary, and an additional 20% of the company's shares are rewarded.

For example, with a monthly salary of US$3000, in addition to receiving a salary transfer of US$3000 each month, you can also get 600 "work points" from the Ark Project.

Yes, work points, a term with Chinese characteristics...

Work contribution points, referred to as work points.

The monthly salary of 3000 US dollars is just a labor remuneration paid to the employees for daily living expenses, while the 600 work points are quantified remuneration for contributions to the Ark plan, which are actually shares in the company.

Although this share may not be much, not even a fraction of Fang Jie's share, but at least it shows that everyone is also one of Fangzhou International's shareholders.

In other words, anyone who participates in the implementation of the Ark Project in any form will automatically become a contract partner of Fangzhou International.

Although everyone is not stupid and knows that this is a new routine created by "Founding Partner" Fang Jie in order to improve everyone's sense of participation and execution, but it does have a strong sense of participation and a stronger enthusiasm for work. Once the plan is successful in the future, the company will start to pay dividends. This is huge wealth!

Moreover, as long as the proportion of shares reaches a certain level, it can be upgraded from a "contract partner" to a "core partner", enjoying greater rights and voice, and even those who have made outstanding contributions cannot be ruled out to be upgraded to a "founding partner". It is also very attractive to those careerists with a strong desire for power.

In short, after a complete set of ingenious and unique models, Fangzhou International has grown from scratch, from concept to implementation, from the overall framework to the establishment of various departments below, from the polished commander to hundreds of managers and thousands of employees, and formed It took only half a year for the global network office model to be in full swing.

What's more, after the past six months, although the employees in the company have been working online together all day, sometimes joking and amusing, and sometimes fighting over a certain work task, they are already very familiar with each other, but Most people have never met each other in real life.

What's even more strange is that everyone still doesn't think there is anything wrong with this. If someone proposes to meet, they will be ridiculed instead, and even go online to think that the other party is not a loyal believer of the "Ark Project" and ask to start the "political review" mechanism.

Since we want to engage in virtual reality or virtual reality, no matter what it is, everything should be carried out in the virtual environment of the Internet. This is called leading by example, and it is also a matter of principle. Some extremists even believe that marriage should also be carried out online in the future , After marriage, you should live online instead of meeting each other.

This is not a joke. Some people really think so. Almost everyone among foreigners has their own religious beliefs. They have a fine tradition of being religious since ancient times. They are prone to extremes when looking at issues, so there are all kinds of funny comparisons.

Citigroup’s Silicon Valley’s leading technology experts have even created an independent video call plug-in and added it to the office software system. If you really want to meet, you can directly video online. This is in line with the “doctrine” of.

Well, it seems that these people are really loyal believers, and they are all dazzled.

Fortunately, Fang Jie is still sensible. As a founding partner, he corrected these people’s misconceptions about the Ark Project in time: the reality is virtual, the reality comes first, and the virtual follows. In the end, the purpose is to influence reality through virtuality. The status of the two is at least equal. Equally, if one abandons the reality and only lives in the virtual, that is putting the cart before the horse, suicidal, and completely contrary to the "teaching".

This is also the biggest difference from the concept of the Metaverse, which is fundamentally different. Fang Jie does not want his Fangzhou International to become an anti-human cult...

It's just a small episode to set things right and unify thinking. Fang Jie's serious work is more than that.

First of all, the core of the entire plan, that is, the "Ark Project" series of games or platforms, has become the company's current key task, and all current work will be carried out around this project. This is the foundation construction, and it must be so.

For this reason, the game business department of Fangzhou International has established a game production subsidiary under it, and has called a large number of game producers from all over the world to join in, and is responsible for the development of related game projects, and Fang Jie is in this subsidiary. Serve as chief policy officer.

To put it bluntly, this is equivalent to the urban construction department of the municipal center, which separated a state-owned civil engineering company to be responsible for municipal civil engineering, and then the mayor also served as an employee of this company to preside over the planning and design of the entire city.

Now the ground leveling work, that is, map drawing, has been outsourced to others, and the next work is the construction planning and engineering construction of underground pipe networks, roads, water and electricity, networks, postal services, and regional division.

That is to simulate and data process the ecological environment of a certain area in the game, such as climate, hydrology, and species types.

After all, a map is a map, and an ecology is an ecology. Different ecological environments have different impacts on human beings.

To simulate such an ecology in the game, the form of expression can be text, 2D, or 3D, but the core is not these, but a probabilistic algorithm that simulates these natural laws.

For example, one of the most basic laws of nature: the length of day and night.

The length of day and night in different regions and seasons is naturally different, which will have the most direct impact on human survival.

However, this does not need to be designed, and the data can be simulated by directly looking for relevant information or consulting with professionals. It is just that these specific things require a whole team to complete. This is one of the tasks of the game business department.

As the main strategy, what Fang Jie has to do is to propose the direction of this large simulation algorithm and give some overall framework settings.

For example, in this simulated world, it is impossible for the time progress to be synchronized with the real world. Otherwise, would it be possible for the players to really sleep for 8 hours in the game, during which everyone can only stare at the computer in a daze, doing nothing?

Another example is logging. In reality, if humans use stones to cut down trees, they may not be able to cut down a tree even if they are exhausted. Is this also set in the game?
For example, drilling wood to make fire, in reality, where many people have mastered this skill, even if they know the method and process, they may not be successful if they really ask him to drill wood to make fire.

Although the basic principle of the game world is to simulate the real earth, some settings cannot be completely copied.

So this requires his main strategy to design and weigh.

First of all, regarding the speed of game time, Fang Jie set the time in the game as 60 times the speed in reality.

That is, 1 second in the game is equal to 1 minute in reality, and 1 minute in the game is equal to 1 hour in reality.

In this case, 24 minutes in reality, almost half an hour, is one day in the game.

The setting significance of this time flow rate is not only one of the basic law variables in the game world, but also closely related to human production and life.

Because on the other hand, the work that can be done in 1 minute in reality can be done in 1 second in the game.

For example, if it takes 10 minutes to chop a tree with an ax in reality, it only takes 10 seconds in the game.

The process is still simulated reality, but the production efficiency has actually increased by 60 times.

But in this way, a new problem will arise: a young human being's normal walking speed is 1.5 meters per second. If it is increased by 60 times in the game, wouldn't it be able to walk like flying, walking 90 meters per second?
On the game map of 1 square kilometer, wouldn't the player be able to teleport, and it only takes 10 seconds to walk from southeast to north?
In fact it is.

Therefore, although the map in the game is made in units of per square kilometer, it is actually compressed by 100 times.

That is, the movement speed set by Fang Jie for the player is 1 grid map/second, each grid represents 100 meters in reality, and the movement efficiency is almost 60 times more. The game map of one square kilometer is shortened to 10*10 grids map.

This is why the production price of each game map is so cheap, because it does not need to be too detailed, and a grid represents a thumbnail of 1 square meters.

As for the resources in this grid, if it is an icon of a tree, it actually represents a grove of 100 square meters. The amount of wood produced is by no means as small as a few pieces of wood.

And don't think that a grid on the map is really just as simple as a forest.

It may be a complex environment, such as trees, wild fruits, weeds, stones, animals, and water sources may all be concentrated in this grid, and relevant data will be displayed. Players may live very well in this grid. Moisturizes without running around.

Once you run around, the 60-fold increase in efficiency and the 100-fold miniaturization of the map also represent increased consumption and the probability of dangerous events. If you walk a square, 100 meters, you may not be tired, hungry or thirsty, and you will not If you encounter any dangerous creatures, if you walk out of 10 squares and 1 kilometer at a time, there may be a greater probability of encountering a crisis or even death halfway.

Obviously, judging from the setting of the game map, the first version of "Project Ark: Survival Evolved" is a 2D formatted map game with survival and sandbox elements.

The reason why it was made into 2D was not because 3D games could not be made, nor did it not have the funds, but because it was too time-consuming and delayed the advancement efficiency of the Ark Project.

In the production of 2D texture games, modeling and rendering are completely unnecessary, and ordinary computers can also be used to drive them. The advantages are very obvious.

The game screen is only the external skin, playability, interactivity, and simulation are the core. First make a 2D game and put it on the market early, and then slowly upgrade it later.

Since it is a 2D game, it is much simpler. The main work is not the artist's work, but the game system program and database.

The system program is actually simple. Many programs and systems of survival sandbox games can be used for reference. For example, many systems of "Minecraft" can even be directly used after a little modification.

The real problem is the problem of database and simulation algorithm.

If each map grid contains a large amount of data and probability algorithms, even if the map is reduced by 100 times, it is still a huge project.

After all, the ecology of Africa is definitely different from that of South America. In the same region, at different latitudes, the landforms, environments, and species may also be different. At the same latitude, species also vary widely in different seasons. , will have their own different ecological and natural laws.

But it's not impossible.

As long as you get the ecological environment data of a certain area, and then write a game engine subsystem, and substitute these data into function variables, the system can automatically and randomly generate rough ecological environment data that conforms to the relevant natural laws.

It is not difficult for Fangzhou International, which has gathered many technical masters and even geeks and ghosts from all over the world, to come up with such an automatic data simulation system.

Anyway, simulating the primitive earth, it is impossible to be realistic and detailed in every detail, as long as the Siberian tiger does not appear on Antarctica, such a bull-headed environment setting, as long as it is within a reasonable approximate range, and the details are slightly different. Some inaccuracies are actually not a big problem.

Of course, since this is an ever-evolving and inherited game world, once the first version of the game map is finalized, it will not be modified in the future, because the various changes made by the players to the game world, It will be inherited forever, and it will no longer be possible to make corrections or modifications like other games.

Therefore, this global original map and related data still need to be perfect. The details can be done well, and we still have to do our best. This also makes even if there is an ecological simulation system, the workload in this area is quite large. Compare and verify, and even rework and redo.

Fang Jie also made a public promise to the company and the media that once the game's initial data is finalized, it will not be modified in any form.

Of course, some people do not believe this promise.

A reporter asked: Even if you can not make any changes to the data, you can use effective means to prevent people from cheating in the company, ensure its openness and fairness, and allow the world to evolve and develop independently, but your server, after all, is Established in various countries in reality, how can you ensure that the power departments of various countries will not forcibly interfere with the server data in this world out of some political considerations?
"That's what I'm more worried about."

"Indeed, an arm cannot twist a thigh. Once some countries intervene, it may be difficult for me not to break my promise."

"So, the Ark Project's server in each country is just a data transfer server, which only provides network connection and data exchange services, and the main server, which is the data processing core server unit, and related supporting facilities, will be put on the seabed of the high seas!"

"Yes, I'm going to throw it into the sea!"

"By the way, when the core server is designed, I will set it up. The only way to modify its data is to physically modify it, and it cannot be modified through the network."

"In this case, unless you go to the server room in a submarine, wear diving equipment, and be able to withstand the water pressure that would directly explode a human being, it is possible to modify the server."

"Otherwise, no one can modify the data in the service, including me, even if you find me in private, I can't help it, can I?"

"Of course, countries can indeed salvage the servers again, but if you do such a big thing in broad daylight, you can't do it secretly. Everyone knows that you are salvaging the servers, which will inevitably arouse strong international attention and public outcry. Exclusion would lead to war."

"Since things have come to this point, what's the point of doing this? Unless you want to destroy the server and the virtual world, but if you want to destroy the virtual world, just cut off the network, why bother?"

"So, the question you raised is a paradox. The Ark server and the Ark world must either survive or perish, and there will be no fairness issue in which data is artificially altered."

As soon as this remark came out, it once again aroused the attention of global public opinion.

It's okay to throw the server into the sea, thanks to this guy who figured it out!
But this is really a desperate plan, cutting off his own way out, which greatly guarantees the fairness and meaning of existence of this virtual world.

Many international netizens who were still on the sidelines and had only three-point confidence, couldn't help but believe in it again: This thing seems to be really reliable!
As a result, many people on the Internet couldn't bear it anymore, shouting: Don't keep bragging, the game is coming out soon, everyone can't wait!

(End of this chapter)