Orcs and Humans

California, University of California, Los Angeles.

"ZZZz--"

Mike lay sprawled on the bed, fast asleep, oblivious to the world around him.

Alan, taking advantage of Frank's rare absence, played Civilization on his NX.

Strictly speaking, they were testing the module that the three of them had developed.

After a period of learning, the three of them had grasped the basics.

The more familiar the three became with the development system GAMENOVA had left them, the more alarmed they became.

It's too good to be true.

For example, if you want to add a new unit, you only need to create a new file according to the format taught in the template, fill in the corresponding content, and it will be automatically recognized after compilation.

This unleashed the hidden creative urges within the three of them, which they could no longer suppress.

The module in front of us, named "Orcs and Humans," is a test version they created.

Alan dragged the orc "Civilization distinctive unit, the orc brute," two steps toward the area shrouded in the fog of war.

He then ordered the capital to begin producing forced labor.

"It actually works! Unbeatable!"

Seeing that everything was running very well, Alan was overjoyed and quickly sat back down at his PC, typing away furiously, occasionally picking up a pen and paper to doodle in his notebook.

He glanced at Mike, the big C who was developing the module. Mike had just finished a sleepless night of hard work and was now completely out of his mind.

Unlike himself and Frank, who both majored in pure computer science, Mike was the only one of the three with an electrical engineering background, so he naturally had to shoulder many tasks that the other two couldn't do.

While Alan himself wasn't as proficient in programming as Frank, he still took on the main responsibility for content planning.

The idea of Orcs and Humans was proposed by him.

The original title, "Blizzard," was adopted as the name of the trio and listed as the author.

"Hmm----Next is the modification of the resource type."

Alan opened his notebook, found the resource design section, and wrote, "Gold coins are definitely needed, but we can add wood as another resource."

He plans to simplify the game's originally complex resource system to only two items: wood and gold.

While Civilization's resource design is interesting, it is also extremely complex.

Alan envisioned a simplified operational logic that could appropriately speed up the pace, allowing players to focus their energy on other aspects.

Take combat, for example.

This was also an idea proposed by Mike.

Unlike Frank, who enjoys farming and developing his character, Mike is a typical war fanatic.

Often, while the drones are still building farms at home, Mike's units have already surged towards the enemy Haiti.

Whether in Civilization or Fire Emblem, overwhelming opponents tactically through strategic troop deployment has always been his favorite gameplay style.

This greatly inspired Alan, leading him to think that perhaps a module could be designed around this idea.

"The unit and building specifications can also be simplified—"

Bang!"

Alan was still making corrections on the paper when suddenly the school building door was pushed open.

Frank burst into the house, clutching a copy of the latest Electronic Games magazine.

Hearing the deafening roar, which sounded like a cannon blast, Mike jumped up from the bed with a start.

"What? What's going on? The Russians have invaded?"

After recognizing Frank, Mike rolled his eyes, turned over, and prepared to go back to sleep.

"Don't fall asleep! Get up, something terrible has happened!"

Frank grabbed the magazine and slapped Mike's buttocks a few times.

Mike reluctantly got out of bed.

"Alan, come and see too!"

Frank beckoned them both to his side before opening the magazine.

[The First Civilization Mod Development Awards]

[The subject matter is open; participants must upload their content to the GAMENOVA Information Center in the manner described below.]

[Creative Requirements]:----

[First Prize]: $100,000 [Second Prize]: ----

[Upload Channel]: [Dial to the Information Center, and select Upload if ROM is inserted]

A prize of tens of thousands of dollars----

"Holy Nova!"

Upon seeing the bolded $100,000, Mike perked up completely.

With so much money, even if you pay off all three of their student loans, you'll still have a large sum left over.

Who wouldn't be tempted?

No wonder Frank was so excited; even Mike and Alan felt their breathing quicken.

"F**K! I'm not sleeping! Alan, where's the development progress? I'm taking over, you continue designing the content!"

Mike was now completely unable to sleep.

That $100,000 was like a carrot dangling in front of them; they'd been dreaming of it.

"No, I'll do the development. Mike, you figure out a way to get a bigger ROM. If we're going to do it, we'll do it the best!"

Frank flexed his fingers; if it came down to programming skills, he believed he wouldn't lose to either of them.

Mike's knowledge of electrical engineering was a valuable resource for them.

Micron.

The engineers stared blankly at their new boss, who had recently appeared like a burly man from nowhere, their expressions bewildered.

Just a few months ago, Micron was on the verge of bankruptcy, lagging far behind other manufacturers in terms of technology, production capacity, and costs.

After such a short period of adjustment, Micron has been revitalized.

The DRAM production lines have been fully restarted, and a technology exchange agreement has been reached with Samsung Electronics. They have even acquired several production lines from Texas Instruments.

Not to mention that terrifying SDRAM.

Clock-synchronized memory makes it far more efficient than traditional DRAM.

Although the total capacity hasn't seen a major breakthrough, the speed improvement has allowed developers to come up with quite a few creative ideas.

It's fair to say that without high-speed memory, the NovaXeno wouldn't have achieved such outrageous performance.

But it's not perfect either.

At least in the business world, this is a production line that's completely losing money.

Apart from the NovaXeno substrate with its custom-designed northbridge chip, no other device on the market is compatible with Mitsuo's SDRAM.

In the past, this kind of thing would have been ordered to be abolished by the board of directors and swept into the dustbin of history long ago.

But now Micron Lin Lixin's own company.

"Let me introduce you all, this will be the CEO of Micron from now on."

Lin Lixin reached out and pushed Vivian in front of the crowd, whispering to her, "So, the video memory problem should be solved now, right?"

Memory chips can be used to make more than just memory modules.

Vivian's lips twitched.

She had already suspected this when Lin Lixin announced that he had completely taken over Micron.

No wonder he seemed indifferent every time she reported the video memory issue to Lin Lixin before.

To solve this problem, they simply bought the entire memory wafer fab.

Well, that's definitely Lin's style.