Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

He had to complete his work as soon as possible so that he wouldn't be held up by it when the players started their activities, preventing him from enjoying the fun at the first moment.

That would be a huge loss.

Moreover, the thought that there would be fun to watch immediately filled Lincoln with motivation.

The "National War" related design of "Battlefield" that had been dragging on since Monday suddenly had a clear direction.

Upon arriving at the company, he called for a meeting with Randall and Fred.

Both of them brought along several capable assistants. Lincoln had already revealed to them earlier that they would all lead elite teams to join the development of "Battlefield" and form a large enough team to quickly complete the game's development.

Meanwhile, the ongoing operation of "Assassins' Alliance" and "Speed Chase" required them to select some people from the team to form specialized groups for operation and maintenance.

Afterwards, the updates for the two games wouldn't stop, but the pace would slow down. Daily updates would involve small quest lines or events to provide players with a continuous sense of novelty.

Large updates would be made slowly, and the time required for each update might be longer than the development time of the main game itself.

However, in hindsight, the game development speed of Cloud Dream was already insanely fast, with games being developed in just a few months.

Even if it took a few more months to make a major update, comparing it horizontally with the industry, it was still very fast.

Haven't they seen NetDragon working their butts off for a DLC in just three months?

Not to mention, Lincoln was already planning to form a new department, which would likely be officially created after he acquired another building.

The sole responsibility of this future department would be to expand the virtual city.

Enrich and expand Metropolis and Night City with more buildings, more city events, and even - more new cities!

—Of course, not mindlessly repeating the same content.

If Lincoln agreed to build a completely new city instead of continuing to enrich Metropolis and Night City, there could only be one reason: the new city had its own unique features that set it apart from Metropolis and Night City.

The existence of this department would also greatly reduce the workload of the operation teams for "Assassins' Alliance" and "Speed Chase" in terms of development. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

The assistants brought by Randall and Fred would all be core members of "Battlefield" development soon.

Lincoln had impressions of everyone, but to say he knew them very well would be a lie.

Both Randall and Fred briefly reintroduced them to Lincoln, who carefully noted down their names.

Cloud Dream always needed more talent who could stand on their own, and he had always been supportive of nurturing talent.

11:34

"Alright, let's discuss the real matter at hand: the planning of the 'National War' system in 'Battlefield'."

Everyone got serious and focused their eyes on Lincoln.

"At first, my idea was to find a historically large-scale and complex battlefield, group players by country, throw them into it, and let them fight it out. The victorious countries would then confront each other until the strongest one emerges."

"But I soon realized that this wasn't reasonable."

Lincoln sorted out his thoughts as he spoke.

"Cloud Dream's players will eventually spread across the globe. It's not that it will happen sooner or later, but it will happen very soon, within a few months at most.

The global trend now is to call for peace. Although some individual countries are moving against the current, the mainstream is ultimately the pursuit of peace.

Therefore, using a real battlefield—even if it's from history—to have players from different countries fighting for a single "position" day in and day out seems somewhat inappropriate."

"Even if we put that aside, it also raises problems in terms of gameplay.

What I hope for the 'National War' system is to maximize player participation, rather than limiting it to only a few hundred players per country to ensure the strongest combat power.

—Of course, picking out the strongest few hundred players to represent the nation in battle is not out of the question.

But if the entire National War mechanism is only accessible to several hundred or thousand players, that is absolutely unacceptable!

So in the end, I suddenly thought that perhaps a more ordinary approach might not be a bad thing.

We can divide the players' matching mode into two categories.

One is the "Random Match" mode, where players might be matched with opponents and teammates from all countries and war zones, without distinguishing the players' national and regional affiliations.

The other is the "National War Match" mode, though you may consider more suitable names for it.

In this mode, all of a player's teammates come from their own country or war zone, while all opponents also belong to the same country or war zone.

The victorious side wins more points for their countries and war zones.

The losing side should not deduct points, as it would only discourage players from participating. We can award them a small number of points to give them a sense of achievement.

Additionally, we shouldn't rely solely on wins and losses to calculate points. Information related to player activity levels during matches, such as the total number of kills and the kill-to-death ratio, can also be factored into the calculation of points.

You'll need to carefully consider how exactly to calculate the points and come up with an overall plan."

Lincoln was talking about his ideas while casually tossing out those seemingly small tasks that actually require a lot of time and effort to study.

"Oh, right. The war zone settings may not be needed right now, but they will be in the future. For some small or poor countries, the number of players may be very low, but they still want to participate in national warfare or simply obtain the rewards from it. We can place them in suitable war zones as a solution."

"Finally, there's the reward issue.

My current idea is to divide the rewards into Grade A, B, and C based on the ranking of points in different war zones. Of course, you can reconsider the names as well."

High-ranking war zones will only face other high-ranking war zones, with Grade A rewards being the highest, but the difficulty and intensity of battle will also be higher.

For Grade B and C, rewards and intensity will decrease accordingly.

Adjustments to the three grades will be made every week based on the war zone's points for that week.

Of course, the rewards shouldn't be too exaggerated, or players will become unbalanced. They should mainly consist of experience and gold bonuses, and some decorative items, which you can think about."

"And lastly, one more issue."

At this point, Lincoln's love for excitement and grand scenes was rekindled: "Should we create an entirely virtual battlefield map, throw all players from all war zones into it once a month, and initiate a massive battle?"

"If a battle of this magnitude takes place, we can definitely give out something nice to the winners!"

Having finished explaining his thoughts, Lincoln picked up a cup of water and drank it down before continuing, "What do you think? Any ideas?"

Randall and Fred wore faces saying "we have many, but don't know where to start."

Meanwhile, Jiang Feng, who was brought by Fred, said somewhat restlessly, "Boss, if this game is made, will it become a place to train reserve soldiers? Many ordinary people who have never been on a real battlefield become very familiar with guns and battlefields here, and their tactical literacy rises. Is this appropriate...?"

Lincoln looked at him and sighed a little.

It's true that Jiang Feng had only recently joined Cloud Dream and was able to be brought in by Fred, which meant his skills must be outstanding.

However, the question he asked left Lincoln somewhat disappointed.

"First of all, many things in the game are fake, and you know that, right?"

Lincoln didn't show his disappointment explicitly and explained patiently, "In Metropolis, players can easily speed up to 140, but in reality, if you dare to do that on the highway, you'll meet Yama in a minute. So those things like gunskills, agility, and high-level techniques will vanish like bubbles once the neural modem is detached."

—Of course, after Lincoln developed the portable neural modem, he didn't know if any secret organization had combined "skills" and "portability" to enable people to become sharpshooters, driving gods, or do even more outrageous things in real life.

Sorry, we don't know.

Cloud Dream is a player-oriented, completely civilian-focused, 100% entertainment-based company.

They want to go global and serve players worldwide, completely unassociated with any military dealings!

"Secondly, it's true that players become more familiar with guns. But in many countries worldwide, people can easily access guns and even learn to use them in their daily lives."

"However, the younger generation in Daxia is very unfamiliar with guns; very few people know about guns, let alone be familiar with weapons and quickly handle them."

"Don't you think this shortcoming should be addressed?"

Listening to this, everyone felt it was unexpected but after a little thought, it seemed to make sense?

"Lastly, familiarity with the battlefield and tactical literacy?"

Upon mentioning this, Lincoln was full of question marks: "Are you referring to the kind where hundreds of people die in a desperate struggle for a spot on the map?"

"Or the kind where one dies 30 times in 20 minutes on a street that's not even that big, averaging 1.5 deaths per minute?"

"What kind of battlefield sense is this!"

"Besides, dying like a dog in the game only makes people more resistant to war in reality, not more eager for it! In real life, one doesn't have hundreds of lives to waste!"

"Any more questions?" Lincoln asked finally.

"No more." Jiang Feng shook his head repeatedly, already regretting his previous question.

"Alright, that's it for now." Lincoln ended the meeting decisively, "You can continue to work on your current tasks, and we'll discuss this in detail next week."

Randall and Fred nodded, leaving with their employees.

Lincoln let out a long sigh of relief and finally felt relaxed.

He had planned to talk only this much in the preliminary meeting for the Battlefield project. With both Randall and Fred leading their teams, he felt assured he didn't need to worry too much.

Also, with this war-themed game, he wouldn't have to worry about Fred getting carried away. How relieving!

"Next time, I won't talk about things I haven't thought through, so I don't create added pressure for myself like this time."

Lincoln absorbed the lesson while logging into the virtual world.

"Mavis, Mavis, have those people planning to attack the Continental Hotel made a move yet? How about the casino? What's the situation?"

He rushed to finish his work just so he could watch the excitement at the earliest!