Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

On Thursday, he stayed in the Xiajing Capital Museum all day.

In the morning, he and Camille Victoria attended relevant training together, and in the afternoon, with the “assistance” of many staff members, he touched and enjoyed various antiques that he could get his hands on.

For those that he couldn’t touch directly, without any barrier, he got as close as possible to them and had a good look.

Many people think that antiques are so fragile that they can break with a touch and even be irreversibly damaged by exposure to the air in a matter of minutes.

But this idea is not entirely accurate.

Indeed, there are such antiques: ancient corroded metals, decayed bamboo slips, and paintings whose special pigments gradually fade over time.

But there are also many antiques that are much more durable than ordinary people imagine.

Especially porcelain, seals, textiles, calligraphy, well-preserved treasure swords, and even bronzes, which are not really damaged by oxidation by exposure to air for a few seconds.

At many antique auction previews, most of the collections are open to the public to visit at will.

Even if you have no money and don’t participate in the auction, you can buy a ticket for dozens or hundreds of yuan – some don’t even require admission tickets – and study the porcelain in your hands.

Of course, you need to be very careful not to accidentally break it, or you’re finished…

And not only porcelain, but sometimes even priceless paintings are hung openly on the wall for buyers to see without glass protection.

In this regard, Lincoln’s spending of 500 million for a close-up experience of these ancient artifacts is almost like doing charity.

But after a busy day, despite some back and waist pain, Lincoln feels it was well worth the effort.

Not only did he get the sensory data he wanted, but the [Virtual Xiajing] team he brought with him also recorded a wealth of valuable data.

– The data part will also be paid extra by the [Virtual Xiajing] project team.

This, too, is a considerable figure.

However, Lincoln won’t count this money as part of the development cost of [Virtual Xiajing] but will include it in the cost of building the [Virtual World Material Library], along with [Ancient Architecture Records] and [Wildlife Ecological Protection Zone].

He’s always been willing to spend money on this.

When leaving the museum with Camille Victoria, it was already their closing time.

Little Princess’s excited expression hadn’t dissipated, and her whole being was still in an excited state – considering that her primary major is art, and today she got the chance to see many precious and stunning paintings up close, Lincoln could completely understand her state.

Little Princess also insisted on having dinner with Lincoln.

By the time Lincoln got back home, it was almost 8 o’clock in the evening.

Looking at the time, he thought it was not appropriate to bother Lorin at this time, so he decided to continue to postpone the virtual world’s couple authentication.

Yesterday, considering that Lorin was still busy with NetDragon, he didn’t disturb him either.

“Tomorrow won’t work either; I’ll be busy with the launch of Battlefield. I might as well wait until next week,” Lincoln thought as he comfortably postponed his work and then began to practice martial arts at home to make up for the missing lessons today.

Fortunately, the training plan was already in its final stage. In virtual world’s cold weapon combat, both Xu Chun and he have cleared all the buffs during their practice sessions.

The next step would be to add a pain sensation.

The step after that would be real-world combat, transitioning from training tools to real unarmed weapons – of course, those that are not sharp.

This stage of confrontation will determine whether Lincoln can achieve his desired [Blade Combat] stage.

In fact, if it’s just unarmed combat, there’s no need for so much training – after all, Lincoln isn’t trying to win; he just wants to gain experience.

But playing with real weapons is a different story.

Even with so much training, it’s still an extremely dangerous activity, so much so that Lincoln hasn’t even mentioned it to Yue Pengju.

Yue Pengju still thinks that in the end, it will be a fully protected confrontation.

But in reality, during unarmed combat, Lincoln will gradually reduce the coverage of his armor and start playing dangerously.

Until finally, he will only wear armor in vulnerable spots.

As the final stage gets closer and closer, Xu Chun shows obvious anxiety and has recently started to persuade Lincoln to give up the final blade combat stage.

Or at the very least: put on full armor.

Xu Chun’s exact words were: “Even if you wear Tang Dynasty armor! After all, there will be armor in the game, right?”

But that’s too heavy, not elegant enough, and lacks the deadly sense of crisis that cold weapon combat provides.

And what Lincoln wants is precisely that.

That icy killing intent will be the key to creating the realism and immersion of the entire combat experience.

For this, the effort Lincoln has made is so great that it surprises even himself.

– This is not because he’s disciplined, but because he’s afraid of death.

*

At noon the next day, there were still two hours left until the official release of Battlefield.

On the internet, a strong sense of anticipation has begun to brew.

Under the Spiritual Rhinoceros Battlefield topic, one post after another is refreshing, the Battlefield section that has been set up in the Vortex Forum, and the Cloud Dream Gaming Platform’s special area forum, are also generating one post after another.

From morning till now, the speed of new posts and updates has been accelerating, and the heat of discussion is also rising.

Under a post titled “Aren’t you guys going to work?”, the netizens’ comments were dense:

“Work? Hell no!”

“Work isn’t as important as games!”

“I directly took a leave application and a resignation letter to my supervisor and let him choose one!”

“Well done! Hesitating for a second is a betrayal to the game!”

…

The players’ fanaticism was obvious.

Yesterday’s public opinion trend was still somewhat hesitant, with the new mode’s merits up for debate.

But by this morning, such discussions were quickly drowned out by more and more comments expressing anticipation.

Everyone was speculating on how different the gameplay would be from “Assassins’ Alliance” and “Speed Chase”.

They were especially looking forward to large-scale vehicle combat.

This was nothing like Night City’s “Death Racing”!

While that racing event also featured outrageous cold and hot weapon modified vehicles and chaotic, intense collisions and gunfire, at its core it was a racing game. It was fundamentally different from pure vehicle combat focused on eliminating opponents.

Moreover, in high-speed motion, the intensity of combat couldn’t easily build up—fighting would often end within seconds due to speed differences.

Recently, in two competitions, the best-performing cars had already begun leaning heavily towards “defense + speed” modifications.

The number of vehicles with a variety of exaggerated weapons was steadily decreasing, and their overall performance was significantly behind the former—otherwise, Hank wouldn’t have achieved his current results.

Lincoln was considering upgrading the race track to balance the advantages and disadvantages of these modified cars, in order to cater to the “combat faction” and prevent the races from becoming dull and boring.

But no matter how much they changed, the race track was still a race track, and it could never give the feeling of a battlefield.

This demand had to be fulfilled by “Battlefield”!

…

After noon, no other games had any presence in the entire gaming circle.

The Ender Dragon pet, which had attracted some attention in the past two days, and the special gameplay in creative mode, had their voices temporarily drowned out by the massive heat.

This was because: only Ender Dragon pets hatched in survival mode could leave their personal server and even “My World”. Those hatched in creative mode could only be seen in that mode.

The difficulty in obtaining them greatly limited their popularity.

Mods were similar. After discovering they couldn’t use the MOD to make a “Self-service Brothel Machine”, people’s enthusiasm dropped significantly.

Although not a complete failure if they didn’t insist on removing clothes to engage in spiritual and physical unions, the “Coin-operated Self-service Brothel Machine” focused on sexy clothing and dancing had already been realized…

Apart from that, more in-depth creative development required more time, and there were no results yet.

Without results, there was no heat.

[13:00]

There was one hour left before the game’s official launch.

A new topic emerged, and many players began to use similar phrases to post updates—

[Jizhong Plain Rookie Assault Team Ready!]

[Yingcai High School Level 28 Artillery Corps Prepared!]

[Northwest Heavy Industries Bioengineering Majors Assembled!]

[White Pagoda Mountain Primary School Grade 5 Dare to Die Team Ready to Depart!]

[Nanshan Kindergarten Nursery Class Boys Ready!]

…

Inside Cloud Dream, the employees discussed how the Grade 5 Dare to Die Team didn’t meet the “dynamic grading (age 14 – adult) requirements.

But after seeing the outrageous “Nanshan Kindergarten Nursery Class” post, they simply gave up worrying.

Let them be!

Just consider them all “players ready”!

As players around the world expressed their readiness, all employees of Cloud Dream’s “Battlefield” development team were also ready.

This time was different from before: the game needed to be adjusted immediately after release, based on players’ feedback. This meant they had to be prepared for high-intensity work from the moment it was launched.

This also meant they couldn’t just watch the sales figures grow and applaud at the right moments like before.

…

[13:50]

Lincoln was ready.

He brought Xiaomeng to the “Battlefield” development team’s virtual office, stretching their shoulders and wrists, preparing for a big fight.

Xiaomeng whispered in his ear, “Master, do you really not need Xiaomeng’s help?”

Lincoln shook his head: “Not for now. I’ve always been slacking before, watching you work. Today it’s your turn to rest, and I’ll work!”

If I really can’t cope, Xiaomeng can come and help.”

“Okay, then Master, do your best!” Xiaomeng obediently sat next to Lincoln, her little legs leisurely swinging, activating look-on mode.

And so, time entered the final countdown—

“3!”

In the virtual office, the development team members started counting down at the same time.

“2!”

Countless players around the world began to count down in unison.

“1!”

Lincoln and Xiaomeng joined in, not forgetting to send their blessings to the players:

“Get ready to face death!”