Alpha 0.3 Goes Live! New Gameplay Unlocked!

Alpha 0.3 Goes Live! New Gameplay Unlocked!

Early the next morning.

Outside the sanatorium walls, the place was buzzing with voices and cries.

"Hauling rocks from the abandoned construction site, group of four needs one more! Rent for two wheelbarrows already paid, DM me if you want in."

"Any Strength-type buddies? Waiting for a teammate to chop trees, make money, and grind levels!"

"Agility-type looking for a group! Perception-types preferred, Intelligence-types step aside. Grinding scavenging quests at the northern row houses! GKD!"

"Damn it, do Intelligence-types have no human rights or what???"

"The outpost is hiring part-time warehouse managers! Fixed daily pay of 9 silver coins and 100 Contribution Points. Work hours are from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with three hours of rotating breaks in between. Duties include checking ledgers, inventory counts, purchasing and selling supplies. Intelligence-types preferred, only hiring two people. Note: The Administrator is always watching you. Any favoritism or fraud will be severely punished... Holy shit! I'm signing up!"

"The Carpenter's Hut is hiring too! Guaranteed daily pay of 10 silver coins and 200 Contribution Points, plus commission for tool-making orders. Uh, requires carpentry experience, processing logs, and making furniture, bows, spears, and more of Good quality or above... I'm out, I'm out."

After the version update, every player received a newbie gift pack of 5 copper coins from the generous Administrator.

What could 5 copper coins do?

Actually, quite a lot.

For example, they could rent an axe from the logging hut for five hours, or rent a cart, wheelbarrow, or other tools from the warehouse for five hours.

Besides renting, they could also buy a pound of horn potatoes, green wheat, or 100 grams of jerky from the warehouse. Their purchasing power was pretty damn good.

It had to be said that players were always the creatures most capable of adapting.

If they had been scavengers from Bette Street, the moment they heard someone wanted to replace the tokens they had used for nearly a century with metal scraps, they would probably have fought that person to the death on the spot.

But players were different.

They were particles undergoing Brownian motion inside a bottle, with chaos and order existing within them as a duality. As long as they still had to repeatedly put on and take off their helmets, they would never be able to escape that bottle.

Games had rules. Updates and adjustments were the norm.

To players, that was simply common sense.

In less than an hour, these self-taught little geniuses had already familiarized themselves with the new version's rules and begun figuring out how to adapt within them.

In the open space before the walls.

Fang Chang did not set off immediately. Instead, he called over Old White, Ye Shi, and Gale, and they sat in a circle to hold a strategy meeting.

Fang Chang said, "The biggest changes in Alpha 0.3 are the economic system and the identity system."

Fang Chang said, "I just asked the Administrator's assistant. Aside from making major contributions, the only way to earn Contribution Points is through employment. Take the warehouse manager job with the lowest entry requirement, for example. Working one day earns 100 Contribution Points. Starting from zero, it would normally take twenty days to become a Citizen."

Gale rubbed the bridge of his nose and raised a hand.

"I'll add something. It's not only through the employment system. Daily activity tasks have guaranteed rewards. For example, chopping down twenty trees and dragging them to the Carpenter's Hut earns 80 Contribution Points on top of the payment for chopping the trees... But the daily cap for Contribution Points from daily activity tasks is only 160. You can max it out with about two tasks."

Fang Chang said, "Mm... If you use the breaks from job quests to do daily activities, the theoretical maximum Contribution Points per day is 260. It would take eight days to accumulate 2,000 points. But for most people, that would probably be difficult."

Ye Shi said quietly.

"Damn, so... doesn't that make my 3,000 Contribution Points kind of awesome?!"

Old White scratched the back of his head and chuckled.

"I have 5,000."

Ye Shi said, "Fuck!"

When they first entered the game, Contribution Points from chopping trees had been calculated according to the logs' length and thickness. A tree as thick as an arm earned 1 Contribution Point per meter. A tree as thick as a thigh earned 2 Contribution Points per meter.

Maybe the game's balance designers had not planned the numbers properly, because Old White, as a Strength-type, had somehow reached 800 points just by chopping trees. Even Fang Chang, who had the worst stamina, could earn 300 points in a single day.

That was clearly unreasonable.

Sure enough, starting with Alpha 0.2, the income from chopping trees was heavily nerfed. By Alpha 0.3, chopping down a tree only paid 2 or 4 copper coins depending on its thickness and length. And if you did not have your own axe, you had to pay 1 copper coin per hour in rent, though credit was accepted.

Even if you chopped down twenty thigh-thick pine trees in a day, you would only earn 80 copper coins, which came to just 8 silver coins.

Adding the 80 Contribution Points awarded for reaching twenty trees, the lumberjack profession had suffered an epic nerf compared to when the server first opened!

Still, the outpost really was not short on wood anymore. The tree chopping was probably for clearing land to farm when spring came next year.

"Thanks to the Contribution Point overflow during the early stages of the game, the four of us currently have the most Contribution Points in the game. I've already exchanged mine for Citizen status. You guys should upgrade your identities too. That way, we'll have twenty square meters in total and can claim a plot near the sanatorium."

"What do we need a plot for?"

"Idiot! To build a house! There's nothing wrong with building a three-story house on a twenty-square-meter plot, right? As long as it isn't taller than the sanatorium in the middle. We can make the first floor into a storefront, partition the second and third floors into rooms, and everyone gets their own room with a bed and a box. Wouldn't that be great?"

Fang Chang rolled his eyes at Ye Shi. How could this guy ask such a stupid question?

"That makes sense..." Old White's eyes lit up. "We could do business!"

The storefront would face the sanatorium's main entrance, right by the players' respawn point. It was prime real estate among prime real estate. They could get rich just selling random things!

"Exactly! That's what I was thinking!"

Fang Chang snapped his fingers, a confident smile appearing on his face.

"The new version is obviously encouraging players to use their creativity and organize production and trade on their own! Do you remember what those dog—cough, the devs emphasized from the beginning? Wasteland OL's goal is to create an economic system that truly reflects supply and demand. That means a large part of players' future equipment and supplies will probably have to be acquired through trade between players!"

If they did not claim land now, then when would they?

Unfortunately, the identity system limited the amount of land each player could purchase. Otherwise, Fang Chang truly wanted to save up enough money to buy all the land around the sanatorium and develop wasteland real estate directly.

Wasn't that more cost-effective than buying a house in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou?

Was there any chance this game wouldn't blow up after its open beta?

"Awesome!" Even Gale couldn't help giving a thumbs-up this time.

That analysis was spot-on!

Ye Shi and Old White exchanged looks, their faces brimming with excitement.

"How much does land cost?"

Fang Chang smiled.

"I looked into it. One square meter only costs 10 silver coins. What we need to do now is scrape together 200 silver coins before any other players do! Buy the 20 square meters closest to the sanatorium!"

Old White hesitated. "What if someone gets there before us?"

Fang Chang made a helpless face.

"If someone really does, we'll just bring them in."

Not many people had reached Citizen rank yet anyway. Even if someone was faster than them, how many could there be? A couple more wouldn't hurt.

The three nodded. None of them had any objection to bringing others into the group.

"I have another question." Ye Shi raised his hand. "What are we going to do to save up money? I checked. Cement-making is the best-paying job among those without experience requirements, but it only earns 10 silver coins a day. With the 20% production bonus, that's only 12 at most... and they only need two people."

Gale pointed in that direction and reminded them.

"And there aren't any openings left now. Look at the cement kiln... smoke's already coming out. It's probably been full for a while."

Although the cement kiln had been built by Old White and the others, after the Alpha 0.3 update introduced the land system, all facilities within the walls had been designated public facilities.

As the builders of the facility, both Old White and Fang Chang had a 30-day priority purchase right.

But the cement kiln was in an awful location, practically right against the wall. If enemies invaded one day, a burst of bullets could turn it into scrap.

Neither of them intended to waste their precious "land purchase quota" on it. The thing wasn't particularly technical to begin with. They might as well wait for the assets to be disposed of after 30 days, when the fixed assets on the land would officially be confiscated, and the Administrator would compensate them with money and Contribution.

They practically wished it would be confiscated right now, so they could use the demolition compensation to buy land.

Fang Chang stroked his chin.

"Even if they hadn't filled the positions, I wouldn't recommend applying for those fixed jobs. If we want to outpace the other players, we have to find another way."

Ye Shi looked at him.

"Like what?"

"Like hunting!"

"H-Hunting?"

Fang Chang nodded.

"Yeah. I saw it at the warehouse entrance just now. A mutated hyena corpse can be exchanged for 5 silver coins. For prey weighing over thirty kilograms, you get an extra 2 copper coins for every kilogram over that."

Ye Shi's eyes widened.

"5 silver coins? That much?!"

And that was calculated at the minimum rate!

Although mutated hyenas generally weighed around thirty kilograms, it was autumn now. Most prey animals were storing fat, so they were generally a little heavier than usual.

The level of detail in this game was incredible.

"...Yeah. Besides mutated hyenas, mutated reindeer are also on the purchase list, and each one is worth at least 12 silver coins! Basically, if the four of us team up and hunt eight mutated hyenas a day, we'll reliably earn more than four people making cement together! Every extra one is pure profit!"

This was the fastest way Fang Chang could think of to earn 200 silver coins.

"But... where are we supposed to find that much prey?" Old White said hesitantly. "Wetland Park seems to only have birds and small animals. We'd have to leave Wetland Park and head into the city to find larger prey, wouldn't we?"

Before Fang Chang could answer, Ye Shi, sitting beside him, raised his hand.

"No need to worry about that! I've been following the Administrator on hunts these past few days. I remember which places around here are dangerous and which places have lots of prey. And yesterday, the Administrator and I even found a migrating deer herd. As long as we follow their tracks, finding prey will be easy!"

Gale nodded.

"Yeah. Our Ye Shi is a Perception-type. With 9 points of Perception, his is currently the highest among all players, so locating prey shouldn't be too difficult. The question now is, how do we hunt? The weapons merchant hasn't even opened yet."

Fang Chang smiled confidently.

"There's no need for guns. Throwing spears, slingshots, bows, crossbows... used properly, these weapons are no worse than guns at close to medium range."

Gale frowned.

"Have you ever used a bow? Those things aren't easy to hit people with."

When his university had organized a group event at an archery club, he had tried archery once. He had even used the kind of bow with professional sights.

Never mind hitting a target twenty meters away—if he fired all ten arrows in a quiver and managed to hit his own target at all, that counted as having some talent.

Plenty of people aimed at their own targets but shot someone else's target instead, or lodged arrows in the protective padding on the floor and ceiling.

And that was with a bow that had sights...

Gale couldn't imagine how abysmal the accuracy would be without them.

Yet Fang Chang didn't seem worried about that at all. His confident smile remained.

"Don't worry about that. Leave the archery to me—I have a little experience. You'll be in charge of making traps and finishing off wounded prey. Old White will take the front line, and Ye Shi will handle scouting and keeping watch."

"Trust me, this lineup is rock-solid!"