Chapter 11 Twenty-Second of November, Zero Hour

November 22nd, midnight.

After a sudden server shutdown lasting nearly seventy-two hours, an announcement appeared on the official website of Meng Company.

The contents were as follows:

[Dear players, as you have seen, the storyline of version v1.10, "Derivatives Invasion," concluded with the climax of the S2 Finals of the Peak Tournament on the morning of November 19th.

Due to the unexpected alteration of several world-class Bosses during the cross-version event, the storyline of the new version, "Ragnarok," has been severely affected.

In the past seventy-plus hours, our technical staff and script editors have been working overtime to deal with this emergency and have made corresponding adjustments.

Here, we are pleased to inform all players that the Thriller Paradise server will reopen on December 1st. At that time, Thriller Paradise will skip version v1.20—Ragnarok, and directly upgrade to the v1.50 final version—Infinite Worlds. Please look forward to it!]

This announcement was released around the time the patience of thousands of players and various studios was reaching its breaking point...

Just as rumors such as "Thriller Paradise server crashed, facing major repairs" and "Is Meng Company planning to pack up and leave?" began to appear on the internet and in various media outlets, this announcement came out of nowhere, once again collectively screwing over those who made a living by fabricating fake news and writing advertorials.

Many "media companies" specializing in this type of work had even prepared a series of follow-up articles smearing Meng Company. All they had to do was find a few interested online game companies, insert those companies' soft advertisements into the articles, and they would have earned their money. However, with the drop of Meng Company's bombshell, well~ everyone's efforts these past two days were wasted.

…………

On the other hand, the players' reaction to this news... was predictable.

The discussion trend on major forums shifted overnight from the topic of "S2 Finals of the Peak Tournament" to the new version, "Infinite Worlds."

Although there was still more than a week before the server reopened, players were already eager and impatient.

The number of registered users of Thriller Paradise experienced another significant increase, and sales of game pods also reached new heights.

During the period before the official announcement of the new patch, all kinds of "insiders" also came out in force, each displaying their abilities... They took advantage of this time to spread unfounded rumors, each speaking with certainty and plausibility.

Generally speaking, "insiders" can also be divided into two types... The first type are those who are just doing it for fun or to show off. Most of them are just casually making things up based on their own fantasies.

As for the second type... naturally, they are hired guns. These insiders are often more professional than the first type, and their skills in writing articles and telling lies are top-notch. The most common tactic is to list a series of non-existent details, or add a few fake pictures that ordinary people may not understand to the posts to increase the credibility of the news... It can be said that they put a lot of effort into it. Of course, the fundamental purpose is to mix some "information they want to convey" into the false revelations, in order to promote the sales of certain products.

For example... if you are selling game currency on a third-party platform, you should hire someone like this to create a wave on the forum, implying in the post that "game currency will appreciate significantly in the new version." Or... if you sell game peripherals, you can release a false message saying that "the new version of Thriller Paradise will support a certain model of peripheral, and purchasing it will also give you a mysterious prize" or something like that.

Such marketing tactics are now commonplace... Those who are fooled just take it as a lesson learned from spending money, and they will remember it next time.

…………

Another twenty-four hours passed.

Finally, Meng Company also listed the new version patch... on the front page of the official website:

v1.50—

[Version Overview]

The Fighting Devil appears, the Devil Chief hides.

The God of Eternal Life, the Mirror Realm conceals its form.

The Spiritual King ascends the throne, the Corpse God assists.

The Court changes hands, Truth remains.

After Ragnarok, the Four Pillar Gods fall one after another.

Four new forces are rapidly rising from the ruins of the old dynasty.

And origin, the Z Organization, the Illusory Demon Church, the Deduction Club, the Blackbeard Pirates, and other powerful forces are also active in the main universe.

Thriller Paradise has ushered in a free, infinitely possible new era.

[Character Adjustment]

In the new version, the player level cap will be adjusted to level 60, and the upgrade experience beyond level 50 will no longer increase exponentially.

The player skill slot limit will be adjusted to fifteen slots, and the three additional slots must be purchased with game currency.

[Mode Adjustment]

The single-player survival mode and team survival mode (including normal and nightmare) generated in the sleep server will have a higher probability of featuring long-term scripts.

The "passive game determination" mechanism in Slaughter Game will become more stringent, and the penalties for passive gamers will be increased again.

[Item, Commodity, and Service Changes]

The mall space has been completely upgraded and rebuilt.

After the Derivatives Invasion event, the shop owners and the system's guardian robots underwent special training together, and their strength has been improved.

All the shops have stocked a large number of new goods, including new equipment, weapons, hairstyles, clothing, and so on.

The Scare Box has added a "pre-order function". Players can submit an application to "automatically trade after reaching the purchase conditions" for a certain item by mortgaging skill points.

[Gameplay Adjustment]

Game quality has been greatly improved.

The title system will add a self-selection function. Each time the title changes, players can choose whether to accept the title after observing the new title ability, and get one "old title selection right."

Note: After this update, all players can get an old title selection right (the retention period of this right is twenty-four hours after the player first logs into the game), and make a choice among all the titles they have owned in the past.

…………

In the above content, many keywords have hyperlinks, and you can see the relevant information by clicking on them.

For example, words like "Fighting Devil", "God of Eternal Life", "Spiritual King", "origin", and "Z Organization" can all be expanded to view.

However, none of these NPCs, Derivatives, or organizations have image data, only written records; moreover, the content of the records is mostly some well-known basic settings. For players who can access deeper game content, these data are meaningless, but for novices, it is still a good popular science.

As for the "level cap increase", most players expected it. In fact, 99% of people thought that the upgrade experience after level 50 would increase to nine digits according to the previous trend... Therefore, when they saw the sentence "the upgrade experience will no longer increase exponentially," they were a little surprised.

In addition, there is another change that many people guessed in advance, that is, "skill slot expansion."

Indeed, according to the current development trend of the game, twelve skill slots can no longer meet the needs of high-end players, and expansion is also reasonable. As for the price... like expanding the knapsack, this kind of advantage that can be bought immediately with "money" is definitely not cheap... Meng Company can make a lot of money just by this change.

Next, let's take a look at a new service introduced in this patch—the Scare Box's "pre-order function."

This function, to put it simply, is developed for those "players who have taken a fancy to a certain item that is about to expire, but do not have enough skill points on hand for the time being."

For example, let’s say... a player has taken a fancy to a piece of equipment in the Scare Box that requires 1000 skill points to buy, but he only has 500 skill points on hand for the time being and cannot buy it. Moreover, the item is about to be deleted in less than a day, and it may be too late to accumulate 500 skill points in the remaining day.

At this time, he can use the "pre-order function" to first pay a deposit equivalent to 40% of the total price of the item... that is, 400 skill points... to allow the system to extend the item's existence period for him.

Of course, if the item is bought by someone else with the full amount before the deletion time limit, then there is no way, anyway, the deposit will still be fully refunded at that time.

And if the item has not been bought by anyone within the deletion time limit, then... as an item that has been "pre-ordered," it will not be deleted immediately. The system will place it in a specific "pre-order area," waiting for the "pre-ordering player" to collect the full amount. At this time, only players who have paid the pre-order deposit for the item can search for the item.

Then, within the next seventy-two hours, as long as one of all the pre-orderers has enough skill points to pay the full amount, the transaction will be completed automatically. At the moment the transaction is completed, the system will send an email to other players who have paid the deposit, stating "The item you pre-ordered, so-and-so, has been bought first," and return the mortgaged skill points along with the email.

But if within those seventy-two hours, all players who have pre-ordered the item fail to raise the full amount, then the item will be deleted, and each pre-orderer will be charged a late fee equivalent to 5% of the item's price.

The above is the general setting of the pre-order function.

In the past few months, when Meng Company was collecting player opinions, they received a lot of opinions on this issue... Many players said that sometimes they find a piece of equipment they want in the Scare Box, but they are just a little short of skill points and cannot afford it; by the time they finish the script and collect enough skill points to come back, the item has either been bought or deleted because the retention time limit has been reached... This experience is undoubtedly quite depressing.

Although Meng Company seems to be very domineering in many aspects, they are still happy to improve problems like this that can improve the game experience and have room for improvement.

So, taking advantage of this version upgrade, they developed this new function (small repairs and modifications of this type, which are not closely related to the script space and are service-oriented, are not handled by Woody, but by the game company's technical department).

In the future, when players encounter products that they really want but are a little short of skill points to buy, they can pre-order first, so they don't have to wait until the entire script is finished before coming back to pay... Anyway, as long as they have paid the deposit, they can enjoy the "automatic transaction as soon as there are enough skill points" service.

So, finally, we have to talk about... the adjustment of the "title system."

In fact, this system has not made any particularly large changes. What new titles players will generate is still determined by the system. However, players now have the autonomy to choose whether to accept new titles, and... each time the title changes, they can also arbitrarily choose one from all the titles they have obtained in the past and change to it. This gives players the opportunity to "transform" and has a considerable impact on the pvp of the game in the future.

Obviously, this change is also made based on user feedback...

Many players have suggested to customer service that they want to retrieve the old titles that have been replaced, because the new titles are not as easy to use as the old ones.

These players... mostly had a very good title ability that they were very good at using, and their skills and equipment were all matched with that ability as the core. As a result... one day the title suddenly changed, and the character's combat power dropped directly by a grade.

In such cases, they can only consider themselves unlucky, because titles cannot be changed back, nor are they changed according to their own wishes.

Now, this problem has been solved...

…………

November 23rd, 2 AM.

Meng Company always seems to have a way to pull people's focus back when it is about to shift away, even during these days when the server is down... It's no exception.

Only one day after the release of the new version patch, Meng Company released two more announcements on the official website.

The first one, however, has nothing to do with most players—[From 3 PM today, the Thriller Paradise server will be partially opened to begin the trial operation of the new version. At that time, all players who have the "forty-eight-hour new version experience qualification" will be able to log in to the game.]

The so-called "players with experience qualification" total only two hundred and fifty in the entire server, that is, the top fifty teams in the S2 preliminaries. So... this news has nothing to do with most people.

In addition, the details of this announcement also state: During the limited-time experience, the game only opens the queues for single-player survival mode and free exploration mode.

This is also expected. There are so few people online in the entire server. If you open team mode or slaughter game, when queuing alone... you will either meet acquaintances or not be able to match teammates or opponents for a long time.

Also, this event has a deadline. The server will be closed again at 9 PM on November 29th. People who have not used up their forty-eight hours by that point will have wasted them.

Let's look at the second announcement—[Crazy Thinking will officially begin operation on November 25th.]

Players' reactions to this news are okay... But the employees of the gaming circle were caught off guard.

No one expected that... this card game that had been delayed for n years, independently developed by Meng Company, would actually choose to launch suddenly at the time when the new version of Thriller Paradise is about to open.