Chapter 199 Creative Community

April 20th, Wednesday.

Tengda Games Department.

Hu Xianbin was at his workstation, chugging coffee and wrestling with the plot of *Struggle*.

The development of *Struggle* was proceeding simultaneously. Ruan Guangjian's Light and Shadow Studio was still producing character artwork, which would be handed over to outsourced art teams for detailed modeling after Hu Xianbin confirmed there were no problems. Then, actors would go to motion capture studios for motion capture…

Meanwhile, Hu Xianbin needed to finalize the entire game script as quickly as possible.

This didn't seem like a particularly complicated task, especially since President Pei had already provided a clear story outline. But when Hu Xianbin actually started working on it, he found it much more difficult than he had imagined.

Although the main content was about school, exams, job applications, marriage, and having children – topics common in real life – it was precisely because they were so common that everyone had different experiences.

Billions of people around the world lived completely different lives. The poor had their own unique miseries, and the rich had their own unique ways of being extravagant. So, which cases should be chosen to best represent the "poor" and "rich" classes?

Because society was complex. Among the poor, some lived in remote mountain villages, while others lived in urban slums. Some were ill-clothed and starving, while others had enough to eat but lived frugally.

There were huge differences between the poor and the poor, and between the rich and the rich. Even among the poor, it was difficult to understand each other.

Therefore, in this game, using individuals to represent the whole would severely test the designer's ability.

If it went astray, someone would definitely say, "The poor aren't like this at all!" and the game would collapse at its very foundation.

How to ensure authenticity while making the examples universal, capable of resonating with all classes…

Hu Xianbin felt that he had taken on an unprecedentedly difficult challenge.

Now, Li Yada wasn't paving the way for him anymore. He had to rely on himself for everything, which put a lot of pressure on him.

Just as he was racking his brains, Min Jingchao came over and gently knocked on his desk.

"The GoG activity plan is out. Do you want to take a look?"

Hu Xianbin shook his head. "I can't handle that. You can take care of it. Anyway…"

He subconsciously glanced at Li Yada's workstation. "As long as Sister Li and Brother Bao don't object, there shouldn't be any major problems."

Min Jingchao nodded. "Yeah, I've already sent the plan to the group. They haven't said anything."

Hu Xianbin said, "Then it's fine."

Min Jingchao also felt much more at ease and returned to his workstation.

On his computer screen was a proposal: GoG Creative Community.

GoG's official website originally had an official forum, mainly for players to provide feedback and report problems. It was also part of the TPDB website.

This time, Min Jingchao planned to open a new section on the forum called "Creative Community," specifically for collecting players' ideas for new heroes.

Of course, when designing this section, Min Jingchao always kept President Pei's teachings in mind.

"The ideas of the majority may be a treasure, but they may also be a cage."

While fully respecting players' ideas, he also had to be wary of the potential "cage" effect, to prevent the game from becoming a Frankenstein's monster or an incoherent mess.

As a numerical designer, Min Jingchao was responsible for ensuring the numerical balance of the game, while Zhang Nan was responsible for ensuring the game's art style.

Even so, the sheer number of ideas, just the task of filtering and reviewing them, was a headache.

Therefore, the designer's job was to anticipate these problems in advance and solve them through mechanisms.

Min Jingchao divided the Creative Community into several simple sections and designed a player-based initial screening mechanism similar to "likes," to minimize the workload for designers on some basic tasks.

In Min Jingchao's vision, GoG's heroes could be roughly divided into three categories:

The first were heroes whose IPs had been purchased. They could be reshaped directly according to their original images, and their skills would be designed based on the original characters' backgrounds.

The second were heroes designed based on internal employees or related personnel who had made special contributions, such as Modest.

The third were heroes designed independently by players.

And player-designed heroes were further divided into two categories: those that emphasized mechanisms and gameplay, and those that emphasized appearance.

Specialization existed in every field. Most players found it difficult to balance the hero's background, appearance, specific skill mechanisms, not to mention numerical balance.

Therefore, these things had to be separated.

The Creative Community was divided into four sections: IP Hero Solicitation Area, Special Contribution Solicitation Area, Original Mechanism Solicitation Area, and Original Appearance Solicitation Area.

In the IP Hero Solicitation Area, the official would regularly post pinned threads, publicizing the latest IP characters that had been purchased. Players could then design skills based on the existing images and story backgrounds.

The Special Contribution Solicitation Area would write about the deeds of outstanding employees, partners, or outstanding players, and then players would design based on the characteristics of these people.

In the Original Mechanism Solicitation Area, players were only responsible for thinking about hero design schemes that would benefit the game mechanism. For example, if the current heroes lacked a global support hero, then players only needed to propose a good hero mechanism, and others or the official would complete the hero's artwork and story background.

The Original Appearance Solicitation Area was the opposite. Players only needed to post their hero artwork or written story backgrounds, and others or the official would design the skills.

All of these sections had rich filtering and sorting functions.

For example, players could sort and browse the current suggestion posts by different data such as popularity, posting time, and number of likes, and could perform operations such as like, strongly recommend, very funny, and dislike for the designs they were satisfied with.

In this way, players could perform initial screening, and the designs that players were calling for could be prioritized for production.

Since it was already crowdfunding, and the players were responsible for the design work, why not squeeze them a little more and let them also be responsible for the work of filtering ideas?

Of course, a company as ethical as Tengda would definitely not freeload on the players' ideas.

In order to better motivate the players, Min Jingchao designed a very generous reward mechanism.

For all players:

After a new hero designed by players is launched, the first skin will be 10% off, the second skin will be 50% off, and the third skin will be 80% off. All players can enjoy this discount for a limited time of one month (from the date of skin sales).

For active forum players (determined by comprehensive data such as login, likes, and comments):

After a new hero designed by players is launched, active forum players can ignore the time limit and enjoy the above discounts.

Even if they are not currently active players, they can log in to the forum to participate in interactions and restore their status as active players, and can enjoy these benefits again.

For excellent content producers (who provide a large number of popular ideas, whether or not they are adopted):

Regardless of whether the idea is adopted, they can enjoy the right to purchase all skins at a 30% discount (the two discounts do not stack, take the lowest discount);

If the idea is adopted, they can get 5% of the hero's skin profit as a reward, and the name or game ID of the initial source of the idea will be permanently marked on the hero's details page. Players can choose a title after entering the game, similar to [Designer of Modest].

Of course, players need to agree to some agreements before uploading their ideas to prevent possible copyright disputes.

Otherwise, it would be embarrassing if Tengda adopted a design and was blackmailed.

Overall, this level of feedback can be said to be very generous.

Especially once an idea is adopted, you can get 5% of the profits of all skins. The more popular the hero and the more skins sold, the more money you get.

In an ideal situation, as long as the player can design a hero that is fun enough and liked by most players, they can live off this 5% split for the rest of their lives.

Of course, this is just an ideal situation.

Even after there are more than 100 heroes in a few years, there will only be dozens of these lucky players.

However, this generous reward will attract talented players to rack their brains to participate in hero design.

Using 5% of the split to exchange for a hero character that is generally loved by players, and at the same time exchange for the enthusiastic participation of players, this is not a loss.

Now Min Jingchao just wants to say one sentence to Finger Company: "Come on, you have an iron liver, but the wisdom of players is endless!"

After reconfirming the plan, Min Jingchao sent the plan to Ma Yiqun.

At present, Qidian Chinese Website, TPDB website, and the official website and forum of the game are all being managed by the same group of people. Anyway, they are all websites, and they will eventually be integrated into the TPDB website. It is best to produce them uniformly.

Once the forum is ready and revised, this news will definitely cause a huge wave among players!

President Pei should also be gratified that we have thought of such a good way, right?

…

At the same time.

Pei Qian was frowning in his office.

He still had no clue about the special task called "Learning is Endless" in this cycle.

At most, spend 8% of 20 million, which is 1.6 million, to invest in himself to learn some knowledge. If the system determines that he has "learned something" at the time of settlement, it will allow him to reduce or increase the system funds by 12.8 million.

But the premise is that he has to spend 1.6 million.

If he spends less, the reduction will be less.

The reason why Pei Qian had been struggling for three weeks without making a decision was mainly because he was struggling with two points.

What kind of course tuition can spend 1.6 million within a few months?

If such a course exists, can he gain enough improvement to be judged by the system as "learned something"?

If the system judges that he has "learned nothing," then it is just equivalent to spending 1.6 million in a blitz, which does not have the effect of reducing the system funds at all, and is of little significance.

Pei Qian had thought about many things, such as learning management, learning economics, learning foreign languages, learning painting…

But after thinking about it, he still felt it was not safe.

First of all, he was so busy now that he had time to attend classes, but he might not have time to thoroughly learn this knowledge.

Secondly, even if he had time, his brain might not be able to keep up.

Finally, it is difficult to spend 1.6 million on a course that he has time and can learn; and methods that can spend 1.6 million may not be able to learn enough useful knowledge.

The system was also very cunning. Pei Qian wanted to do some tricks such as "spending 1.6 million to buy a lesson" and play word games, but he would only be met with the system's disdain.

This was really too difficult.

Seeing that the time was passing day by day, Pei Qian felt that he could no longer delay. The longer he delayed, the less time he had to study.

If he couldn't think of a way, he could only ask others for help.

Who should he ask for help?

Pei Qian thought for a while and felt that he could ask Xiao Tang.

Among all the employees who were deified, Xiao Tang's degree of deification should be the shallowest. At the same time, she was also very tight-lipped, and she would not say a word that should not be said. She was a good candidate.

Thinking of this, Pei Qian sent a message to Tang Yishu, asking her to come to the office.

Soon, there was a knock on the door outside.

After entering the office, Tang Yishu spoke first: "Senior, the management trainees are still, not, not fully recruited…"

Pei Qian waved his hand: "We agreed before Saturday, don't worry. This time I mainly have something else I want to ask you. Give me some advice."

"What do you think I need to learn the most if I want to learn something?"

Tang Yishu was stunned, blinked her eyes confusedly, and then said, "I, I don't know."

Pei Qian felt very sad.

He was a little disappointed with this answer.

Could it be that in everyone's eyes, he was a perfect person? So perfect that he didn't even have room to learn and improve?

Alas, the misunderstandings between people are so terrible!

Tang Yishu thought for a while and then said, "Senior, I don't know what you need to learn the most, I, I only know what you don't need to learn the most…"

Pei Qian: "Oh? What do I not need to learn the most?"

Tang Yishu: "Games, game design."