Greedy Blue Moon Legend came in three versions.
Mildly Overpowered Version: free with no time-card fees, double experience, double drop rates, halved boss respawn times. New maps, new equipment—everything had to be obtained through combat! Synchronized with the official version!
Moderately Overpowered Version: free with no time-card fees, tenfold experience, tenfold drop rates, instant boss respawns in member maps, optimized skills, new maps, and new equipment.
Super Overpowered Version: free with no time-card fees, hundredfold experience, hundredfold drop rates, level 20 upon entering; completely new skills, new maps, and new equipment.
Chen Hao had specially created these three versions for different groups of people.
Some people liked things as overpowered as possible. If so, the super version was waiting for them.
Others preferred a slow and steady experience, making the mildly altered server with the best value for money the most suitable choice.
Whether they liked Dongpo pork knuckles or Pi Dan congee, they would find satisfaction here!
Everything was ready. Only one step remained.
Promotion!
After all, even the finest wine feared being hidden in a deep alley.
Promotion came down to two methods: online and offline!
At this point, Chen Hao remembered Baidu's excellent ranking-bid service.
In September 2001, Baidu launched its ranking-bid service. In other words, you paid money to have your search results displayed first; the more money you spent, the higher your ranking.
When it was first launched, the concept was still too new, and people were waiting to see what happened. Thus, by the end of 2001, it had only brought in 120,000 yuan in total. But starting in 2002, the effects of ranking bids gradually became apparent, and people began to take notice. Revenue reached 5.8 million yuan the following year, and later grew into the hundreds of millions.
It subsequently became one of Baidu's main sources of cash flow. Unfortunately, after the Putian system scandal broke out, Baidu immediately became a hated target, its reputation ruined. As the saying went, "Xiao He made it succeed, and Xiao He made it fail."
Regardless, Baidu had made more than enough money from paid rankings over the years.
Chen Hao contacted Baidu directly and purchased its ranking-bid service. After filling in the relevant website information, he first paid a 2,000-yuan deposit.
The ranking-bid service charged by auctioning keywords. The higher the price per click, the higher the priority, and each click deducted the corresponding amount from the advertiser's deposit.
Chen Hao wanted to purchase the keyword "Legend." After making an inquiry, he learned that only Shanda had purchased ranking services so far, and the current price was merely a few tenths of a yuan per click.
It really was cheap at this point. He directly bid ten cents per click, which meant Chen Hao's current deposit could support 20,000 clicks.
With the ranking bids settled, Chen Hao did not launch the ads immediately.
He needed to build momentum!
Recalling the game-promoting tactics of later generations, he drew a flowchart in his notebook: promotion → build momentum → reservations → server launch!
After sorting everything out, Chen Hao added login and registration functions to the website, allowing users who registered through the site to log directly into Greedy Blue Moon Legend.
Below the several large, gilded characters reading Beyond Legend Alliance at the very top of the webpage, he added some information.
10:00 a.m., March 15
Shanda's passionate Open Beta launch, reserve now for great gifts—eagerly anticipated by all! After it came a real-time countdown: 77:32:41
The third line listed the reservation rewards: Purgatory, Silver Snake, and Magic Staff to help warriors get one step ahead. After that came the current number of reservations.
Finally, he casually optimized the website's SEO (search engine optimization). The purpose of SEO was to ensure that, even without paid rankings, the website would rank higher than sites that had not undergone SEO optimization.
With all that done,
only offline promotion remained. There were many kinds of it, such as handing out flyers, holding events, printing a logo on T-shirts, and sponsorships.
Limited by his finances, Chen Hao could only choose the simplest and most laborious method: going door to door to Internet cafes and handing out flyers.
Chen Hao pieced together the image materials from the website and made a promotional flyer. The private server's website address was printed right in the middle.
He sent the image directly to Xu Pengkun's email, then called him. "You can start now!"
After hanging up, he copied the image onto a USB drive, tidied himself up, and went out.
The sunlight hid behind the clouds, and the weather was somewhat cold and gloomy.
Pulling his clothes tighter, Chen Hao headed straight for a slightly larger print shop nearby.
"Boss, print two thousand copies!"
When he heard that a big order had arrived, the print-shop owner burst into unprecedented enthusiasm and efficiency.
A few dozen minutes later, all three printers in the shop were nearly smoking, and the two thousand flyers were finally ready.
Chen Hao had one of the shop's employees help carry the cartons to the roadside.
As luck would have it, a taxi nearby was waiting for passengers.
Chen Hao walked over.
"Where are you headed, young man?" The driver was a middle-aged man who rolled down the window.
"How much would it cost to hire your car for the whole day?"
The driver calculated his daily earnings. "Six hundred during the day, two hundred at night."
"Four hundred. If you're willing, come give me a hand!" Chen Hao did not fall for it. Seeing two more taxis behind him, he named a price directly.
"Sure thing!" The driver immediately got out and helped put the cartons into the trunk.
"Where are we going?" the driver asked as he started the car.
Looking at the phone in his hand, which was thick enough to serve as a brick, Chen Hao thought of the era of the mobile Internet ten years later. There were no apps, and no Baidu or Gaode Maps. He sighed. There was nothing he could do. "Just drive around. Today we're only looking for Internet cafes. Let's try to visit every Internet cafe in Ice City."
For a while, the driver neither responded nor drove.
"Driver? Aren't you going to drive?"
"Weren't you looking for Internet cafes, young man? As it happens, my son has no skills whatsoever and spends every day hanging around Internet cafes. He knows most of the Internet cafes in Ice City like the back of his hand. I'll ask him. That'll save us from wandering around like headless flies."
"Oh, that's perfect!"
The driver made a phone call.
Before long, text messages began arriving on the driver's phone, packed densely with Internet cafe addresses!
"Buckle up, young man. Let's go!"
The taxi sped off like a bolt of lightning, then stopped after charging two hundred meters.
"First stop. We've arrived at Supersonic Internet Cafe!"
Chen Hao: *...*
He got out, took a hundred flyers, and walked inside.
Ground promotion meant going from one Internet cafe to the next and negotiating individually. He would find the Internet cafe manager and ask them to place the Legend private server flyers at the front desk. After explaining everything, customers who saw them while logging in or out could take one if they were interested.
Of course, this was not free. Chen Hao paid the Internet cafe 100 yuan. Most of the things displayed at Internet cafe front desks were food-delivery numbers or business cards for hotels and inns, so the 100 yuan served as a placement fee.
If there was a bulletin board nearby and he wanted to post something on it, that cost extra.
That was still the good case. If he encountered an Internet cafe backed by local toughs, he also had to pay a "protection fee."
Sure enough, when Chen Hao came out of the fourth Internet cafe, he was running. Three or four young men followed behind him, their hair dyed and their bodies tattooed. Their identities were obvious.
Relying on his two long legs and his perfectly timed sudden escape, he gained the initiative and maintained a distance of more than ten meters from the men behind him as he sprinted toward the taxi.
Damn! No wonder he told me to stop dozens of meters farther ahead.
The driver had already seen that something was wrong in the rearview mirror. He started the car immediately. Without needing any prompting, he floored the accelerator the instant Chen Hao got in.
The taxi shot forward. When they reached an intersection and saw a red light ahead, the driver sharply turned the steering wheel right, executed a beautiful drift, and sped away.
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