game trailblazer

Chapter 225 Network Genesis

"Boss, this is the latest information on the game industry you want, these few game magazines just shipped from the United States." Wang Mengyao gently placed a stack of materials on Zhang Lexing's desk.

Zhang Lexing nodded, waved at Wang Mengyao, and said, "Okay, you can go to work first."

After finishing speaking, Zhang Lexing reached out to take the latest information of the game industry and flipped through it. After reading it for a while, he put the latest information back on the table and reached for the game magazine below.As soon as he picked up the first book and opened it, Zhang Lexing's eyes were attracted by the game advertisement on Feng Yi.The content of the advertisement is very simple. A knight with a big sword is standing in the middle of the picture. Behind him is a door with a crack open. Above the knight's head is a large line of words "The Beginning of a New Legend - Online Genesis (UltimaOnline)", while "September 9th, we travel to Britannia" is written in smaller letters on the right side of the screen.Although there are no game screens in the entire advertisement, the words "Ultima Online" alone have already made Zhang Lexing's heart surge.

"Ultima Online (UO)" comes from a game series "Ultima Online" with a long history of 17 years. This game is completely different from the previous text Mud, and is a real graphical online game.Of course, strictly speaking, "Online Genesis" is not the first graphical online game in history. Before that, there was already a Beta version called "Meridian 59" on December 1995, 12, and it was developed by Hawkins last fall. The official release of 15DO Corporation.Although "Meridian 3" really occupies many firsts, "Meridian 59" still cannot compete with "Network Genesis" in terms of influence. The number of loyal Genesis players cultivated in the past 59 years alone is "Meridian 17". " is completely incomparable.

Zhang Lexing remembered that he had never heard of the game "Meridian 59" back then. After the MUd game, the first graphical online game he came into contact with was "Online Genesis".Zhang Lexing still remembers how excited he was when he saw the news about "Online Genesis" in a magazine for the first time. Those real-color pictures with more than 16 colors, 800×600 resolution, and the British game with 3000 players at the same time The continent of Niah made him feel extremely longing, and it happened to be 1997 at that time.

Since then, Zhang Lexing has been paying attention to the news about "Online Genesis", looking forward to one day to experience it for himself, but more and more news, but more and more disappointed in his heart.

"UO? The game interface is all in English, and there is no agency in China."

Zhang Lexing thought at the time: "What are you afraid of if it's all in English? I can look it up in the dictionary. Anyway, the English in the game comes and goes. It shouldn't be too difficult. It doesn't matter if you don't have an agent. It just so happens that an old classmate is going abroad. I can Please help him..."

"UO? That thing was shipped abroad, as our internet speed is not enough, and the internet fee is so expensive, most people can't afford that money."

Zhang Lexing still remembers that the international export of CHINANET (China Telecom's Internet) was only 2M at that time, and he used a 14400bps kitten shared by several people in his work to surf the Internet at home?There is no such condition at all.

"UO? It costs money to play that, and you need to have a VISA, which is impossible for ordinary people..."

Yes, Zhang Lexing can endure the screen full of English. At worst, he can flip through the dictionary. He can endure the difficulty of buying CDs. My hope is shattered, and I can't even ask foreign students to help me with this.So Zhang Lexing had no choice but to give up, and drove a fraction of the 14400bps kitten to the Origin website, grabbed the game-related information, copied it to his computer with a floppy disk, and studied it while chewing on the dictionary. I imagined the scene of the game in my heart.

These days have lasted for a long time, and Zhang Lexing can see news about "Genesis Online" from magazines and the Internet from time to time. In 1997, during the beta testing of "Genesis Online", a shocking assassination occurred. The creator of the Genesis series of games, Richard Garrett's character in the game, the immortal "King of Britain", was burned to death by a wandering thief Rainz with a stolen wall of fire scroll, which is likely to be the history of online games The most famous PK event on the Internet.

In April 1998, five Ultima Online players and their attorney, George Schultz, who was also an Ultima Online player, were dissatisfied with certain aspects of Ultima Online (poor network speed, unreasonable payment methods, etc.) and sued Origin and its parent company EA. At the end of 4, the first expansion film "A New Era of Online Genesis" was launched. In February 5, the lawsuit between George Schultz and Origin ended in an out-of-court settlement. In April 1998, "Network Genesis" set up servers in Europe.

However, there has been no sign of China in the numerous news. Even though EA has entered China for several years, there has been no news related to "Online Genesis". ", but the original anticipation was gone, and even the habit of surfing the Internet after get off work turned into playing two games of poker or two games of chess on Lianzhong.

But life is always so wonderful. Many times when you don't have any hope for something, it will happen. When Zhang Lexing basically gave up on "Online Genesis", one day he suddenly saw a A colleague was installing the game with a disc he got from nowhere. He looked over it curiously, but his eyes could no longer move. He stared fixedly at the huge title "UltimaOnline" on the installer. (Network Genesis)".

On that day, in the summer of 1999, Zhang Lexing finally played the "Network Genesis" that he had been dreaming of for the first time. Although he used the account of a colleague, it was the first time he set foot on the continent of Britannia. day.In the days that followed, Zhang Lexing would log in to the free "Online Genesis" server every day. At that time, he didn't think about why the "Online Genesis" server didn't require VISA as he had heard before. He didn't know until a long time later. It turns out that this is the private server of the game.

It's a pity that in less than a month, the free "Network Genesis" server can't be logged in, and I don't even know the reason. Fortunately, Zhang Lexing heard about a new "Network Genesis" server from a colleague. It is said that the server is located at Shenzhen was set up by a player named Wolf. When he first logged in to Wolf's server, he happened to meet a black-armored knight riding a horse slowly coming out of the flames. That feeling shocked him on the spot. Live, even surpassing the feeling brought by many stand-alone games.

But after all, these are still private servers, and they are still game servers that can’t make money and are set up entirely based on the interests of the gods, so it’s not so strange when the Wolf site suddenly shuts down after two or three months. Fortunately, at this time There are also a little more people who can set up the "Network Genesis" servers by themselves, and several new "Network Genesis" sites popped up soon, among which Jarry, AC in Shenzhen and SunLand in Shanghai are the most famous, and have won He took the nickname of the UO Big Three.

By 2000, there were more and more people playing private servers of "Online Genesis", such as Sichuan Renaissance, BJ UnionPay, Guangzhou Foreign Land, Artten (Rose Century), Zhejiang Awakening, Dream Heaven, Hexiang, Jiangxi, Xi'an, Chongqing Noah, Moyu Taoyuan, China Unicom, Ice Continent, etc. Hundreds of free sites for "Online Genesis" have popped up. Because there are too many choices and the number of people each site can accommodate is limited, Zhang Lexing even wrote a A small front-end login device to reduce the trouble of manually selecting the server and entering the account number.

The rise of the free site "Online Genesis" has brought many changes to the country, such as bringing a large number of fans of UO fantasy literature, and the birth of the first batch of fantasy novel writers in China, such as the birth of the first batch of online game plug-ins For example, it has inspired many developers who are confused about how to visualize text Mud...

For Zhang Lexing, "Online Genesis" can be said to be the leader who entered the palace of online games. During the process, he experienced many surprises, joys, sorrows, and indignations, and since the rise of other online games, he rarely returned to the Britannia continent, but However, he has never forgotten this Genesis life. Unexpectedly, after such a long time, he saw the game advertisement of "Online Genesis" in a magazine again, and his heart was filled with wonderful emotions of life for a while.

Putting down the magazine in his hand, Zhang Lexing recalled the latest information about the game industry that he had read before. The part about China mentioned many latest trends in the domestic game industry. Zhang Lexing was a little disappointed that when he pressed "Blood Lion", it was still A batch of unreliable games have emerged, such as FPS games that claim to catch up with "Quake" but are actually full of mosaics on the screen, and create new sadness and new martial arts, but actually pass the level in less than three hours. RPG games with somewhat vague character relationships, but fortunately with Fengyun Interactive as the benchmark, the quality of most of the games that can be launched is not too bad, this batch of rubbish did not cause any disturbances, but let Players value the brands of game publishers and developers more.

Under Zhang Lexing's special explanation, this latest information also includes a survey on the development of online games in China, but so far the only ones that can be played and related to online games are some text Muds, and the ones that have been brilliant for a while in the future Lianzhong has not shown up yet, which can be said to be good news for Zhang Lexing, which means that he still has plenty of time to make arrangements.

At present, the development of the Internet in mainland China is not fast. Although it has been officially connected to the Internet since 1994, and many Internet projects such as ChinaNet were launched soon after, the number of users connected to the Internet by the end of 1996 was only 20. The vast majority of them are unit users, and users who are really willing to spend money to surf the Internet at home are still rare.At this time, most of the Internet users do not use China Telecom's 163, but connect to the Internet through ISPs such as Ying Haiwei. At this time, the Internet in mainland China, including the backbone network, has very low bandwidth, but the number of Internet users is scarce. complement each other.

Zhang Lexing remembers that in the next two to three years, the Internet bandwidth in the mainland will be greatly improved, and even more convenient access methods such as ISDN and ADSL with larger bandwidth will appear in some cities. Come to a period of great development of online games.According to Zhang Lexing's original plan, he would start thinking about the development of online games before the end of next year, so that he could just catch up with the period of rapid bandwidth development.However, seeing the game advertisement of "Online Genesis" today, Zhang Lexing's thinking has changed a little after thinking of many past events. Although the development plan of the online game will not be advanced, he feels that some things can be considered now .

The official server of "Online Genesis" has never entered the country. According to the official explanation of the publisher EA: "Because its European religious cultural connotation is too strong, it is difficult for domestic players to accept it."This statement may have some truth, but it cannot obliterate the love of many domestic players for "Online Genesis". "Online Genesis" used to be a regret for Zhang Lexing, but now he should have the opportunity to make up for it. With his status as the major shareholder of EA, although he may not be able to monopolize the operation of "Online Genesis" in China, at least he can intervene in it. Don't let the official Chinese version of "Online Genesis" become an eternal legend.

Of course, Zhang Lexing didn't intend to make any money from it when he wanted to operate "Online Genesis". Given the current living standards in mainland China and the high Internet fees, even if "Online Genesis" is not free, it will only charge a few dollars a month at most. Money means meaning.Zhang Lexing's main purpose is to cultivate a group of online game operation talents for himself through the operation of "Online Genesis", master the game server setup technology in advance, and develop a fee-paying channel by the way, laying a good foundation for officially entering online games in the future.

In addition, Zhang Lexing also plans to go to South Korea when the time is right to remove some necessary obstacles for his online game development.

(End of this chapter)