I Saw Right Through the Developers

Pu Shenqi took off his helmet.

He turned to glance at the starlight outside, froze for two or three seconds, then let out a long howl.

"Ah!!! That felt so damn good!!!"

"This is the kind of game I wanted to play!"

"What crappy Diablo III? It's weak as hell!"

Although he had played for less than two hours since entering the game and had not even figured out its mechanics, that unprecedented experience utterly eclipsed every game he had ever played.

"So this is 100% virtual reality? Damn, it really is awesome."

After marveling for a moment, Pu Shenqi immediately opened the small group chat shared by the three of them.

Ghost Face Demon Fox and Lin Tang, who had died before him, had already started chatting.

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "Lin Tang hasn't said anything. Looks like I was the first one to die."

"This game is interesting—so interesting that I have to add another adjective: extremely interesting. I haven't seen such an interesting game in a long time."

"Though the minor enemies' stats were a little absurd."

"@African Thin Dog @Lin Tang, someone come out and chat after dying?"

"Forget it, you should finish the mission. I have a feeling this mission isn't a bug, but a test from Sentinel to see whether we qualify for internal testing slots. If we can't complete it, we might not be able to play again later."

"Good luck, you two. I'm going to make a post on the forum!"

Right afterward, Ghost Face Demon Fox made a post in the Diablo III forum: "First impressions of a 100% virtual reality game: the results far exceeded expectations. What's interesting is that the designer is actually the forum's famous resource-maximization expert—Sentinel."

A few minutes later, Lin Tang also died and came online.

Lin Tang: "Holy shit! This damn game has blown my mind for the whole year!"

"Would you believe it? I got dismembered by four Green Skins! The scene was insanely bloody. Luckily, this game's Pain Sensation isn't too terrifying!"

"How did this even pass review?"

"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey! What a jinx! Such a great game absolutely has to pass review!"

(Lin Tang withdrew a message.)

"From today onward, I, Lin Tang, will devote all my energy to Apocalypse OL! To hell with Diablo—who the hell wants to make mods for you?"

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "Huh? How did four Raiders take you out? You looked pretty at ease when you were kiting them. Did they have other skills?"

Lin Tang: "Don't even mention it. This game isn't like ordinary keyboard-and-mouse games. People make mistakes. Moving based on my own instincts felt smoother, but there were too many factors involved. Do you know how terrifyingly precise this game is?"

"The vegetation under your feet changes, and the friction and footing feel different! It's just like running outdoors for real!"

"And like a survival game, it has a Physical Strength system. Toward the end, my Physical Strength dropped, then I tripped by accident and the Green Skins caught up to me. Hiss~"

"By the way, how did you die, Fox?"

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "You really had it rough. Thin Dog and I found the cell holding the NPCs beneath the camp. There was a Green Skin guarding the door, and the only way through was to defeat it. Thin Dog and I went all out, and then I died and came back."

"I felt what you meant about it being different from keyboard-and-mouse games too. It's kind of like a high-precision motion-sensing game. Your own awareness and instincts affect your character's abilities. My combat instincts were still stuck in keyboard-and-mouse controls, so I died before I could pull off many moves. What a shame."

Lin Tang: "How much health did the gatekeeper have left when you died?"

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "80%."

Lin Tang: "."

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "."

At that point, both of them fell silent.

Lin Tang: "I'll see if I can log back in."

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "I just tried. It says the character was killed and can't log in for now. We'll probably have to wait for the developers to grant permission. Let's wait for Thin Dog; he should be soon."

While waiting, the two of them separately contacted Sentinel on the forum again, but neither received a reply.

More than forty minutes later, Thin Dog came online.

After reading through all the chat logs, Thin Dog had roughly gathered everyone's information.

African Thin Dog: "@Ghost Face Demon Fox @Lin Tang, I'm back!"

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "Did you clear the mission?"

African Thin Dog: "Smart!"

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "If you didn't die under those circumstances... then there must have been a twist in the battle underground. Tell us what happened after I died."

Lin Tang: "Spit it out fast, I won't be able to sleep tonight!"

Thin Dog gave them a detailed account of everything that happened afterward, as well as his conversations with the NPCs.

"In the end... I died from Radiation Damage. Damn, what rotten luck! Otherwise, I should have completed the mission perfectly!"

Lin Tang seized on the key point: "Merit rewards? Did the NPC promise them to all of us, or just you?"

"Probably everyone. He said Calamity Base's soldiers."

"Then it's fine. Otherwise, I got dismembered for nothing."

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "Now... everything makes sense. This was a very classic introductory storyline, not fundamentally different from other online games."

Thin Dog: "Oh? What do you mean, Fox?"

Ghost Face Demon Fox: "This introductory storyline was actually designed to teach us how to get started with the game through a single event."

"First, the half-hour route was actually meant to let each of us adapt to the controls of a fully immersive virtual reality game. Think about it—weren't your body movements a little uncoordinated at first? After running along that route for half an hour, it got better, right?"

"Second, the mission target was excessively powerful to establish the game's tone. This isn't some ordinary game purely about fighting and killing, but an open world where all kinds of storylines can occur. If we encounter enemies we can't beat for now, we can think of ways to outsmart them. It also showed off the game's monster AI settings."

"Third, through simple combat, it taught us to use the watch to check the map and our health, and it even displayed combat information. That gave the game its basic framework."

"Fourth, the part that amazed me most was that the developers were telling us this: any object we encounter in this Game World, including the terrain, can be interacted with! Sticks and stones on the ground, even a brick broken off a wall, can all be used. I can hardly imagine how much funding a map like this must burn through."

"Fifth, the final gatekeeper battle... Thin Dog and I both misunderstood it. It wasn't that the developers had made a mistake with the stats. Since this was an introductory storyline, the monster was never meant to be something we could confront head-on at our current stage. Like Lin Tang, we should have tried to stall! As long as we found a way to defend ourselves, the force designed by the developers would naturally intervene later and help us complete this introductory storyline. That's right—the Skeleton Thin Dog mentioned. I shouldn't have died. I made a mistake."

"Sixth, after rescuing the NPCs... Thin Dog, you did very well. You found an item hidden within the introductory storyline—that black box. Although you died from radiation, I'm almost certain that what you got is absolutely useful. It might affect the NPCs' evaluation of you and earn you hidden rewards!"

"Finally... when we log in next time, we should begin the game's actual content."

Thin Dog stared at his computer in stunned silence. "Fox, you saw through every bit of the developers' scheming!"

Ghost Face Demon Fox took a sip of tea and replied with a chuckle, "Basic stuff. As long as it's a game, it can't escape these formulas. This game just packages them a little more deeply."

"The purpose is to increase the players' immersion and make everyone mistakenly believe they're in a real world."

"Too bad... it can't fool veteran players like us. We saw this game's true nature at a glance."

Lin Tang: "True enough. Hahaha!"

The three of them laughed in the group chat, feeling as though they had seen right through the developers.

As they chatted, Thin Dog said, "Let's talk in the main group and tell everyone about the game experience!"

"This game is so fun, it'll definitely become massively popular! Since we're among the first to hear about it, let's hurry up and recruit a group of capable veteran players to form a team and pioneer the game together!"