When I write a bug it becomes the core gameplay

Tuesday, January 13th.

The fifth day on which Lecturer Ding’s team discovered a major hidden bug in “Shadow World”!

If there is an uproar in the player forums and calm in Nitiantian, then there are undercurrents in several other game companies.

The same is true for Shengjing Group.

At this time, in the office of the vice president of Shengjing Group's gaming business group, Kang Yong was talking to a very refined-looking man.

This person's name is Ji Heng, who is also a high-status game producer in the Shengjing Group's game business group. The project he is responsible for is called "World of Protoss", which is an mmorpg game launched four years ago and also has a Western fantasy theme.

Among the many mmorpg games of that year, although "World of Protoss" did not reach the top, it was able to survive and always maintain a decent number of online users. At the same time, it accumulated and updated versions one by one, accumulating a large amount of money. The content of the game can be considered a success in itself.

As of last month, "World of Protoss" was still able to contribute over 10 million in net income to Shengjing Group in a single month.

Although this number is not an exaggeration in the gaming industry, this level of income is enough to become a key project within Shengjing Group. Ji Heng relied on this game to secure his position as a first-line producer in the Shengjing Group's game business group.

But unlike Wei Chengjie, Ji Heng's resume looks more glamorous.

Before Wei Chengjie joined Shengjing Group, he worked hard in many small companies, while Ji Heng graduated from a top 3 prestigious school in China. As soon as he graduated, he joined Shengjing Group's key projects as a core planner, and then he went straight to the top. Become the main planner of "World of Star Spirits".

It can be said that in the entire game industry, there are very few game producers like Ji Heng who have a smooth sailing and have experienced almost no setbacks.

At this time, Ji Heng was not particularly sure why Vice President Kang Yong called him here, but he had a vague guess.

"Have you paid attention to Nitiantian's new game, "Shadow World"?" Kang Yong asked.

Ji Heng nodded: "Of course."

As the producer of "World of Protoss", Ji Heng must pay attention to all mmorpg games around the world. This is the most basic quality of a game producer.

Even if you can't play all types of games, you still need to have an in-depth understanding of competing games of the same type as yours. This is part of the job.

What's more, since "Shadow World" was launched, regardless of the loss of players or not, at least the discussion on the Internet has been very high. A few days ago, such a big job was completed for all professions, which pushed the popularity of this game to the peak of discussion on the Internet.

It would be difficult for Ji Heng not to pay attention to him.

"Old Wei just switched jobs to this company. Do you think... is there a shadow of Lao Wei behind this game?" Kang Yong seemed to still be a little worried about Wei Chengjie's job change.

Ji Heng thought for a while, then shook his head: "I don't think so.

“I’m familiar with Lao Wei’s style of making games. Although he’s a little more radical than me, overall he doesn’t break out of the existing framework.

“A drastic magical change like World of Shadows is not a decision he can make.

"Moreover, for a small company like Nitiantian Games, "Shadow World" is a major project that will drag down the capital chain. If it fails, it may even cause the company to go bankrupt. Doing such a high-risk project on such a major game project To try, it must be the power of the company’s boss or the original core producer. It’s not long since Wei Gang left and it’s impossible for him to make a decision on this kind of thing.”

Hearing what Ji Heng said, Kang Yong felt a little better.

If "Shadow World" was created by Lao Wei, then Kang Yong would be really depressed.

After all, Shengjing Group has money and people here. If Wei doesn't leave, wouldn't "Shadow World" be a product of Shengjing Group?

Now that he knew that Lao Wei was not responsible for this game, but was just a mastermind, Kang Yong felt a little more comfortable.

"Then what do you think of the all-professional gameplay of the game "Shadow World"?" Kang Yong asked again.

Ji Heng hesitated for a moment, and then said: "Mr. Kang, can I say that I am not optimistic about this model?

"I think the popularity of this game is only temporary and cannot be sustained at all."

Kang Yong nodded noncommittally: "Well, tell me in detail?"

Ji Heng explained: “The reason is very simple, MMORPG games focus on ‘balance’.

“There must be a balance between professions and professions, a balance between camps and camps, and the experience of players at different levels must also be balanced.

"Balance runs through mmorpg games from beginning to end.

"Because mmorpg games are, after all, games that emphasize social interaction. If there is an imbalance, it means that some players have gained excessive happiness, which in turn means that the happiness of other people has been reduced.

"Weak players affected by the imbalance will quit the game, and although those strong players who have gained excessive happiness will stay, as time goes by and as new imbalances appear, new ones will differentiate among them. of weak players.

“This differentiation continues one after another. Once the number of players lost exceeds a certain threshold, the MMORPG game will inevitably collapse.

"The successful experience of "World of Protoss" is to constantly adjust the balance of each profession and each gameplay, and weaken the overly strong professions as quickly as possible, so as to better maintain the entire game IDE ecosystem.

"The game "Shadow World", or the game company Nitiantian, absolutely cannot do this.

“They have always been unwilling to make too many modifications and adjustments to the game, which is a taboo for mmorpg games.

"This also means that "Shadow World" must be an unbalanced game, and there is a high probability that it will remain unbalanced in the future."

Kang Yong did not answer immediately. Obviously, he did not completely agree with Ji Heng's words.

After thinking about it for a while, Kang Yong changed the question: "Then do you think that the all-professional gameplay of "Shadow World" is a bug, or is it intentional by Nitian? Is it deliberately designed this way?"

Ji Heng shook his head slightly: "I don't know. Mainly because every game before Nitian was like this. It seemed to be a BUG, ​​but after careful study, it seemed like a mechanism. But when I looked back, it seemed to be a BUG.

“However, whether this is a bug or a mechanism, I don’t think it will affect my judgment.

""Shadow World" will not be a very successful MMORPG game. Its player churn rate must be very high. And as time goes by, it will inevitably get higher and higher."

Kang Yong was silent for a moment and took out a document from the side: "But... our data analysis department came to the exact opposite conclusion."

Ji Heng was a little surprised. He reached out to take the document and found that it was a report from the Shengjing Group's internal data analysis department.

It can be seen that this report was produced in a hurry in the past two days.

Data such as the number of people online at the same time and player retention in "Shadow World" are all commercial secrets and can only be accessed by the internal staff of Nitiantian Games.

However, large companies like Shengjing Group have specialized data analysis departments and can also roughly estimate the data of competing games through other channels and means.

For example, many third-party websites or game plug-ins have the function of querying the real-time number of people on the server, and Shengjing Group will also develop some corresponding software on its own. After installing the plug-in and logging into the game, you can directly query relevant data such as the current number of people on the server.

At present, almost all MMORPG games do not disable plug-ins. Unless it is a direct cheating behavior that affects the balance of the game, the official will turn a blind eye or even acquiesce.

This is because the content of mmorpg games is too complex. Without plug-ins, many players will be unable to make progress.

The same goes for the game Against Heaven.

Therefore, the data analysis department of Shengjing Group can obtain some relevant data as long as it finds several popular regional servers in "Shadow World" and counts the number of players in a specific time period.

Combined with the hot search keywords on the Internet, the popularity of player discussions and other data for comprehensive analysis, we can also draw roughly correct conclusions.

Even in terms of the professionalism of Shengjing Group's data analysis department, Shengjing Group's understanding of the game data of some small companies even surpasses those of the companies themselves.

After seeing the detailed data, Ji Heng couldn't help but widen his eyes.

Because what he saw was incredible data!

Judging from external data, Nitiantian has not conducted any large-scale promotional activities since, except for a wave of concentrated publicity and traffic diversion when the game was first launched.

However, in terms of player forums and player discussions, "Shadow World" has never been low, and it has also shown a continued growth trend.

On the night when Professor Ding discovered the hidden mechanism of the game, the discussion of "Shadow World" increased dramatically, and it became extremely popular in an instant!