The programmer jumped from his gaming platform to the game's official website. The opening animation startled him, making him think something had gone wrong with his monitor.
But as he watched the options appear before him one after another, he regained his composure.
Apart from its distinctive style, the game's website seemed no different from any ordinary official site.
The opening animation was a little scary, but it also seemed like something made to pad out the time. Perhaps the designer was showing off talents no one appreciated.
The programmer kept browsing and discovered that, without a registered account, the information he could see was very limited.
This discovery left even him clicking his tongue in bewilderment.
Seriously, it wasn't as if this game ran in a browser. Why all the secrecy?
Did guests not even deserve to browse the details?
Unfortunately, he wasn't the game's designer. He could only follow the links to register a game account and link it to his gaming platform account so he could receive any necessary notifications.
Once he logged in as a user, he could indeed see more content.
After reading some basic setting information, the programmer soon opened the map. On the yellowed parchment, he found the ruined castle from the game's cover and spotted a boat icon on the riverbank near it.
Several deer-shaped markers were marked on the wilderness north of the castle. Their background color was blood-red, which looked like some sort of warning.
The edges of the map's visible area were irregular, as though waiting to be drawn in. Three bright, blurry areas also lay hidden in the shadows to the west, their meaning unknown.
The programmer left the map page and opened the bestiary instead. He soon saw an entry that closely resembled the simple drawing of a "Plum Blossom" Deer on the map:
["Plum Blossom" Deer: a deer-shaped aberration that lives in symbiosis with Paralysis Flowers. It deceives enemies with the appearance of an herbivore but actually feeds on meat, killing its prey after the paralytic toxin takes effect. An absolute bastard among bastards. Danger level: high (current). Level: 3-4. Distribution: extremely widespread.]
After reading this entry, the programmer looked through [Vine Sheep], [Paralysis Flower], and other creatures of another world, discovering that the entries seemed to differ in style.
Entries like [Deadwood Vine] and [Vine Sheep] were particularly objective in their monster descriptions, whereas ["Plum Blossom" Deer] and [Paralysis Flower] carried a faint hint of resentment, as though the editor had been killed by these monsters.
At that thought, the programmer soon found the translucent text in the corner of each entry. He confirmed that the relatively objective entries came from [Muninn], while the two with a touch of personal feeling came from someone named [Zhongde].
Well... Looking at those two Chinese characters, which didn't fit the setting at all, the programmer roughly guessed that this was a player ID.
But this game was strange enough to let players edit entries on its official website?
Wasn't that something little player-run sites were supposed to do?
And... it looked as though people were already playing this game. But how was that possible? Less than a week between publicity and launch-this was practically rushing headlong toward a flop.
The programmer felt his reasoning grow a little muddled. After leaving the monster bestiary, he discovered an NPC directory, which seemed to be a newly created section.
He clicked into it and saw a black silhouette. The roughly human silhouette seemed somewhat asymmetrical, with a few leaflike patches of color visible beside the left side of its head.
This entry had been jointly edited by [Good Times Don't Last] and [Howling Pothos], and read as follows:
[NPC: Ed Adrian
Role: a young lord who summons souls, a gentle guide.
Introduction: the first NPC players encounter after entering the game (and the only one in the current closed beta). Visually estimated to be around 16-18 years old. Distinguishing features include white hair, a green right eye, and a sapling growing from his left eye socket, encircling half his head to form a crown. He has some ability to control plants and can remove status ailments, heal, and resurrect players. He can explain many things, but players must take the initiative to ask.
***Note: this NPC is highly intelligent. Repeat: this NPC is highly intelligent. As long as questions are phrased in a way that fits the setting, this NPC is very likely to provide effective, non-scripted answers.]
Well... The programmer frowned. How was this an introduction? This was clearly stealth advertising!
Although the programmer knew nothing about psychology, he could still sketch out the basic process:
Suppose a player found himself unable to get excited about games one day and listlessly opened their website. After browsing the trending list, he took an interest in "World of Disorder," only to discover that it hadn't launched yet.
Although this would leave a bad impression, bad publicity was still publicity. Getting people to remember you took skill.
Might that player later fill out the questionnaire and preregister?
Might he log into a user account to browse the official site?
Might he see this interesting entry and be drawn into the game?
Although some people would inevitably drop away at every step, there were many more little touches like this, like an endlessly branching map that could easily capture some people's hearts.
Having already seen such an interesting encyclopedia, with apparently highly intelligent NPCs in the game too, could anyone interested in it really resist giving it a try?
The programmer certainly couldn't.
Although this game had been pissing him off for days, both its style and the content he could currently see had unexpectedly struck right in his sweet spot.
He had no choice but to get hooked. Now he was in trouble. Unfortunately, he still didn't have closed beta access...
Whenever he thought of that other world beyond the screen, kept out of his reach while the beta players enjoyed themselves to their hearts' content inside, the programmer felt as miserable as if he'd been cucked.
Even so, he soon got ready to dive in.
First, he used an alt account to share the game's homepage in several gaming groups where he had lurked for years, then let the group members go wild attacking him.
Next, he planned to change his game ID. His current ID was a randomly generated system name: [Cute Deadwood Vine 66].
He had no idea how those two terms were supposed to go together...
Looking over the player IDs of those who had edited the entries, the programmer found quite a few memes.
The programmer, whose name was Cui Yuan, thought it over, then finally typed "Great Wei Boxing Champion" into the new username field.
After doing this, the new "World of Disorder" fan truly had no idea what else to do, yet he couldn't bring himself to simply leave.
Although it was still early, there really wasn't anything he wanted to do.
As he refreshed the webpage over and over out of boredom, something slightly out of place in the site's opening animation suddenly caught his attention.