Chapter 1 A Sea Change

The servers had shut down more than an hour before Feng Bujue even turned on his computer, and much had already transpired since then. The forum he was browsing now had a restricted posting function, allowing each person only one post every five minutes, but even so, the webpage was refreshing at a rate of roughly ten seconds per page.

As early as eight in the morning, the system had closed the queuing function, stopped generating any new scripts, and prompted players to log off; those players already in scripts were still completely unaware. At 10:20 AM, players in scripts gradually completed or left their scenarios. For those two-plus hours, a log-off notification had been displayed on the screens of all logged-in spaces. Finally, at 10:30 AM, players stubbornly clinging to their login spaces were forced offline, and the game servers were shut down.

Then, the players flooded the forums.

After seeing the eye-catching announcement at the top of the page, players had expressed all sorts of opinions, with no consensus in sight.

The majority of users expressed varying degrees of dissatisfaction. These players weren't necessarily low-level; in fact, quite a few were close to or had already reached Level 20. But they felt that ending the closed beta so quickly was unfair to those players who had specifically purchased gaming pods or had gone to great lengths to obtain accounts through other channels. Players without closed beta accounts could wait three to five days and play Thriller Paradise anyway.

The most fundamental grievance in these players' hearts was... the mere fifty-odd hours of closed beta had not allowed them to gain the huge "advantage" they had imagined.

At this time, the official Dream Inc. pinned post began to trot out the "terms," implying that everyone had agreed to these conditions at the outset. They had made it clear when selling the gaming pods that the closed beta's level cap was 20, and the beta would end when 10% of players reached that level. The fact was that this condition had been met, and it would be a broken promise not to open the public beta.

Thus, the players were speechless. Who would read those terms, anyway? In a situation where there was no reasonable argument, some people began to act unreasonably, posting comments like, "The high-level players are all from studios; Dream Inc. ignores the gaming experience of ordinary players." Some made even more radical statements, such as, "The black-hearted game company colludes with studios to raise the price of gaming pods for profit," and there were quite a few people like that. In reality, they didn't understand the relationship between game companies and studios, nor did they understand the basic knowledge of related industries, and they had no concept of the cost of gaming pods. But they still dared to base their opinions on their own fantasies, boldly publishing some views that exposed their ignorance and irresponsible accusations, in order to vent their dissatisfaction. The ridiculous thing was that these types of posts often attracted a large group of even more ignorant and unthinking people to support them, echoing their sentiments. When a few more rational players replied with some rebutting opinions and posted some truly meaningful information, they were instead besieged and scolded, labeled as shills or sock puppets of Dream Inc. This phenomenon was simply because the commenters' own views were completely untenable and were immediately exposed, so they became angry out of humiliation.

In this world, there are always a group of people who like to be deliberately difficult, like shrews. Arguing with them is meaningless, because their own knowledge and ability will quickly lead them into a state of being at a loss for words, at which point they will pull out a dictionary that belongs to them, which is basically full of the words they usually use—swear words. Occasionally, there will also be things like "Hehe," "Why so excited," "Mind your manners," and so on. These words, accompanied by their own swear words and selective ignorance, pop out and drag other people's IQs down to the same level as theirs for a war of words. A verbal battle with such people is like confidently holding a handful of "reason," "stories," and "timing," all of which are "big" cards. But then you discover that the person on the other side has a handful of "sophistry," "ignorance," and "shouting," and you immediately have a feeling of wanting to cry but not being able to.

Of course, there were also many silent accounts on the forum, watching and waiting, and some of them even risked being drowned in saliva to publicly express their support for Dream Inc.'s opening of the public beta. But they were not members of Dream Inc.; they were the people from various high-end studios. This group of people sincerely supported the opening of the public beta. From their point of view, having a group of Level 20 professional players under their command unable to level up was a complete waste of resources.

There were also some peacemakers, acting like mediators, posting things like, "I suggest that Dream Inc. pay attention to the interests of ordinary players and change the '10% of players' condition to '10% of non-professional players' and re-open the closed beta to show fairness." In fact, without exception, these people were all "ordinary players." They didn't want "fairness"; they just wanted benefits, but they didn't want to collude with those unreasonable people, so they righteously used such seemingly reasonable rhetoric.

The chaos on the forum caused those previously useful strategy posts, help posts, and so on to be swept to dozens of pages back, as if sinking into the sea. The already quite lively forum was now more than just "popular"; it was practically like being attacked by malware, testing the server's ability to withstand pressure.

But Dream Inc., faced with this situation, adopted an attitude of "besieged by the enemy on all sides, yet I stand firm." Anyway, the announcement had already been posted, the game servers had already been shut down, and they would continue their upgrades and updates. If you had the ability, then don't play when the public beta opens.

Faced with the comments from some users, such as, "Let's all return our gaming pods and see what they say," or "I'm not playing anymore; it's a garbage game, a black-hearted company," the Dream Inc. staff also had a "watching a joke" mentality. They all understood that probably not a single person would actually do what they said. There was no need to delete these posts; after a week, they would become evidence of these people humiliating themselves.

It could be said... Dream Inc., as an emerging enterprise, its reaction and style were completely the same as those of a monopoly or industry leader: it didn't admit mistakes, and it didn't change its decisions. The user's choice was either to accept the status quo or not to play. It was like rising oil prices, with no room for negotiation.

These days, many operators let games "beta test" until they go out of business, testing for as long as possible, just making money from indirectly charging for items anyway, and claiming that they are "testing" can also be used as an excuse for game bugs.

Dream Inc. can be said to have defied the world. This closed beta, lasting only two days, not only did not cause the game to lose popularity, but instead gradually heated it up, and various publicity campaigns continued unabated.

On this Sunday morning, Dream Inc. announced the basic equipment required for the public beta phase. In addition to players who purchased Thriller Paradise's various dedicated gaming pods, players using gaming pods or gaming helmets from other companies would need to purchase Dream Inc.'s exclusively released dedicated external devices to log in to the game.

This news slightly calmed the anger of the closed beta players. At least the public beta was not completely without a threshold. It was as if the closed beta players had bought a PS2 and about fifty hours of real-time priority gaming rights, while the public beta players also had to buy a PS2 controller to join in.

After the announcement was released, at eleven o'clock sharp, Dream Inc. immediately opened the public beta account registration function and listed several compatible models of peripherals on its website, which could be purchased directly online and delivered to your door the next day.

In just one hour, orders exceeded 200,000 and were still rising. A large number of public beta players flooded into the game forum after obtaining accounts, using spam posts to drown out the original posts, and then another round of factional infighting and scolding was staged, which was quite lively. Two groups of people who didn't know each other were saying all sorts of nasty things on the virtual internet, burning tens of thousands of family registers in half an hour. What a grudge...

In short, Feng Bujue's sleep this morning seemed to last a whole month. After cooking a bowl of noodles and sitting in front of the computer, he actually saw such earth-shattering changes.

That's the interesting thing about the internet. Those involved may feel that they have experienced and participated in some great event that will be recorded in history, but in the eyes of outsiders, it's just an ordinary morning.

To Feng Bujue, it didn't matter whether the public beta opened sooner or later. He didn't want to compete for the number one spot, and he didn't think that extending the closed beta would bring any great benefits. Strong players are ultimately strong. Even if you practice for a month longer than him, then the difference between you is only a month. His level will catch up sooner or later, and when you are at the same level, he is still stronger than you.

But since the public beta was really about to start, it was undoubtedly good news for Feng Bujue. During the closed beta, he felt that there were too many things that the game had not yet opened: currency transactions, public areas, a marketplace, a card set system, and many other things that he couldn't even imagine for the time being...

And now, in at most forty-eight hours, the full picture of Thriller Paradise was about to be revealed before his eyes.