Players Face-to-Face with the "Designer"

The three-day closed beta passed in the blink of an eye.

The moment the countdown hit zero, Ruan Wenbo and all the Players felt an irresistible force pull their consciousness out of the Astra Militarum soldiers' bodies. Yet the sensation of returning to their physical bodies on Earth never came.

Their consciousness seemed to pass through a thin membrane and enter a bizarre, kaleidoscopic space. Colors and light continuously churned, merged, and separated around them, like an overturned paint palette or the birth of a cosmic nebula, filled with indescribable chaos and beauty.

The Players were briefly stunned, but they soon noticed the strange creature floating before them. It seemed to be made of countless flickering streams of data and rays of light, its form constantly shifting, impossible to describe accurately in human language.

As everyone stood uncertainly, the creature spoke in a gentle voice. Though it had no mouth, its voice rang directly in everyone's mind.

"Hello, my name is Bit. I'm the designer of this [game]. This is the post-closed-beta feedback session. Is there anything you'd like to say or ask? I'll tell you everything I know."

"Designer?"

"Game designers look like this?"

The Players exchanged looks, but quickly accepted the premise.

Ruan Wenbo looked around and asked curiously, "Is this... the Warp designed by your development team? It looks kind of like a paint palette..."

"That's right. This is the Warp," Bit admitted. "But a thousand people see a thousand different Warps; different senses perceive different things. I've given you a Cognitive Filter, which is why this place looks relatively 'normal.' In the future, don't ever charge into the Warp without the protection of a Gellar Field. Even if the creatures inside don't devour you, the flood of information rushing in would be enough to instantly overload your biological processors."

After saying that, Bit added, "Incidentally, you were also constantly protected by a Cognitive Filter while in the game. Its only function was to block discussions about things like 'games' and 'Warhammer.' What do you think of this filter? Is it necessary to remove it in later closed betas?"

Ruan Wenbo thought for a moment before speaking first. "I don't think there's any need. This filter is pretty good. Otherwise, if we accidentally start chatting and an NPC overhears us, they might think we've gone insane or are disloyal to the Imperium. It wouldn't be fun to get dragged off by a Commissar and shot..."

"Alright, then we'll keep it as it is from now on." Bit readily accepted the suggestion.

At that moment, [Ruthless Assassin] eagerly raised his hand. "Friend System! I strongly demand that you add a Friend System!"

Bit seemed to wave a hand, though to the Players, its movement was only a ripple of light and shadow. "Consider it done. Take a look now!"

As soon as it spoke, a simple friend list interface appeared in the Players' field of vision. [Ruthless Assassin] joyfully sent Ruan Wenbo a friend request at once.

With that urgent need resolved, Ruan Wenbo continued, "I have a question about the Death Penalty System. How exactly does it work? Since your development team wants to make such a realistic game, there should be a self-consistent logic behind this death penalty, right?"

"Correct," Bit replied. "When a Player dies and revives, the Cognitive Filter on their body is replaced with a new one. To all non-Player creatures, the revived you are now a completely new and unfamiliar individual. Naturally, they would not allow this 'stranger' to inherit the position, merits, and personal relationships of someone entirely unrelated to him."

Ruan Wenbo's eyes lit up, and he immediately seized on the key point. "But Players aren't affected by this, right? From our perspective, he's still himself."

"Of course."

"Then does that mean," Ruan Wenbo's speech instantly sped up, "that as long as we can form a unit made entirely of Players, and that unit's establishment receives formal recognition from the Imperial Munitorum, then even if a Player in that unit dies in battle, as long as the Player commander is willing, he can still resume his original post after reviving?"

"Of course," Bit answered affirmatively. "In theory, the appointment and dismissal of officers requires approval from the Department of Munitorum. But in practice, given the Astra Militarum's consistently staggering casualty rate, the Department of Munitorum has neither the time nor the ability to manage the promotion and appointment of junior officers. In most cases, such matters are decided solely by the unit's commanding officer."

Hearing that answer, the other Players once again admired Ruan Wenbo's sharp thinking. At the same time, Bit's answer let them feel this game's astonishing degree of freedom—an official designer was actually allowing, even encouraging, Players to exploit the rules and use every possible method to circumvent the death penalty!

"I got a question," Big Eagle Cop, who was playing an Ogryn, said as he raised his hand. "If I die, will I still be an Ogryn after I revive?"

"Changes to race and attributes are not included in the death penalty," Bit answered seriously. "Unless you intend to delete that character and create a new one."

"As for respawn points," Bit continued without waiting for anyone else to ask, "whether a respawn point can be fixed in a certain area or whether you can revive on the spot depends on how thin the veil of reality is there. Respawn points cannot be established in areas where the veil of reality is thick and stable."

One Player immediately caught on. "So if we wipe out all the Cultists and weaken the Warp corruption in this area, making the veil of reality thicker, then we won't be able to revive on the spot anymore? If we die, we'll have to run back to our corpses and pick up our equipment ourselves?"

"Yes." Bit gave an affirmative answer.

The Players were once again plunged into shock. This meant their actions would directly affect the rules of the game world. They had never experienced such a deep sense of interaction in any game before.

At that moment, the Player who had previously been brave enough to try Warhammer cuisine, whose ID was [Flying Eagle], spoke up.

"I have a few questions too," Flying Eagle said. "First, this game's status panel is way too bare-bones. Every time we're summoned over, all we can see are our IDs and some basic physical data. There isn't even a Skill Tree. Was it designed that way from the start, or have we simply not reached the point where we can access skills yet?"

He paused, then asked his second question. "Also, I want to know whether the server keeps running after we log off. If it runs continuously, do our characters disappear directly from where they are, or do they collapse and go to sleep like NPCs?"

Bit considered it briefly, though from the Players' perspective, it gave its answer almost immediately.

"The skill issue was indeed my oversight," Bit said with a hint of apology. "I'll design a Skill Tree interface for you to help you organize and plan your abilities more intuitively. You should be able to see it by the Second Closed Beta."

This answer invigorated the Players. A Skill Tree meant growth paths and more varied gameplay.

"As for your characters after you log off," Bit continued, "this world is real and runs continuously. Your bodies are containers that carry your consciousness. Once they no longer have someone controlling them, naturally, they simply collapse and go to sleep."

That answer stunned everyone. It meant that even after they logged off, their "characters" would not enter some safe storage box. They would remain where they were like ordinary sleeping soldiers. If their position was overrun while they were offline, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The realism and hardcore nature of this game had once again surpassed their imagination.