Chapter 1 Upheaval

The servers had been shut down more than an hour before Feng Bujue turned on his computer, and a lot had already happened since then. The forum he was browsing now had its posting function limited, allowing each person to post only once every five minutes, but even so, the pages were refreshing at a rate of roughly one page every ten seconds.

As early as eight in the morning, the system had shut down the queuing function, no longer generating any scenarios, and prompting players to log off. Those who were already in scenarios at this time were completely unaware. At 10:20 a.m., players in scenarios gradually completed or left them. For the next two-plus hours, the log-off prompt remained displayed on the screens of all login spaces. Finally, at 10:30 a.m., the players stubbornly remaining in the login spaces were forced offline, and the game servers were shut down.

Then, players flooded the forum.

After seeing the prominent announcement at the top of the page, players expressed a wide variety of opinions, with no consensus in sight.

Most users expressed varying degrees of dissatisfaction. Some of these players may not have been low level; in fact, many 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 game pods or gone through other channels to painstakingly obtain accounts. Players without closed beta accounts could play Thriller Paradise in three to five days anyway.

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

At this time, the official pinned post from Dream Inc. began to lay out the "terms," the implied meaning being that everyone had agreed to these conditions when they clicked "Agree," and they had also made it clear when selling the game pods that the level cap for the closed beta was 20, and that the closed beta would end when 10% of the players reached that level. Now that condition had been met. If they didn't open the public beta, they would be breaking their word.

As a result, the players were speechless. After all, who would read those terms? Unable to argue logically, some people started to make trouble unreasonably, posting comments like, "All the high-level players are studio players; Dream Inc. ignores the gaming experience of ordinary players," and more extreme remarks, such as "The black-hearted game company colludes with studios to raise the price of game pods for profit," and so on. There were quite a few people like this. In fact, 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 game pods. But they still dared to freely express some views that exposed their ignorance and irresponsible accusations based on their own fantasies, in order to vent their dissatisfaction. What was laughable was that this type of post often attracted a large group of even more ignorant and mindless people to support them, echoing whatever they heard. Players who were slightly more rational would reply with a few rebutting viewpoints, posting some truly meaningful information, but they would be besieged and scolded, accused of being Dream Inc.'s shills or sock puppets. This phenomenon was simply because the accusers' own viewpoints were completely untenable and easily refuted, so they became enraged out of shame.

There were always some people in this world who liked to be unreasonable, like shrews. It was pointless to argue with them, because their own knowledge and ability would quickly lead them to a dead end. At that time, they would pull out a dictionary that belonged only to them, which basically contained the words they usually used—curse words. Occasionally, there would also be things like "Hehe," "Why so agitated?" and "Mind your manners," these words popping out along with their own swear words and selective ignoring behavior, dragging other people's IQs down to the same level as theirs for a war of words. A war of words with such people was like holding a handful of "reason," "stories," and "timing" in your hand, all "high cards," full of confidence. But then you realized that the other person was holding all "sophistry," "ignorance," and "shouting," and you immediately had a feeling of wanting to cry but having no tears.

Of course, there were also many silent accounts on the forum, watching the situation unfold. 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., but rather the personnel of various high-end studios. This group of people wholeheartedly supported the opening of the public beta. From their point of view, having this group of level 20 professional players unable to train was a complete waste of resources.

There were also some peace-making characters, acting like mediators to mediate, posting things like, "It is recommended 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 reopen the closed beta to show fairness." In fact, without exception, these people were all "ordinary players." They didn't want any "fairness," they just wanted benefits, but they didn't want to collude with those unreasonable people, so they righteously used this seemingly reasonable wording.

This chaotic situation on the forum caused those previously useful strategy posts, help posts, and so on to be swept back dozens of pages, as if sinking into the sea. The already lively forum was now beyond description with the word "popular." It was almost like being attacked by malware, testing the server's ability to withstand pressure.

But Dream Inc., facing this situation, put on a posture of "Besieged by the enemy on all sides, I remain unmoved." Anyway, the announcement had been posted, the game servers had been shut down, we'll continue to upgrade and update. If you have the ability, don't play when the public beta opens.

Faced with some users' comments such as "Let's all return the game pods and see what they say" or "I'm not playing anymore, garbage game, black-hearted company," the staff of Dream Inc. also had a mentality of watching a joke. 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 embarrassing themselves.

It could be said that... as a rising company, Dream Inc.'s reaction and style were completely the same as those of a monopoly or industry leader: never admit mistakes, never change decisions. The user's choice was either to accept the status quo or not to play. It was like rising oil prices, there was no discussion.

These days, many operators let games "beta test" until they go out of business, testing for as long as they can. They make money by charging for items in a disguised way, and claiming to be "testing" also provides an excuse for game bugs.

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

On this Sunday morning, Dream Inc. announced the basic game equipment required for the public beta stage. In addition to players who purchased various Thriller Paradise dedicated game pods, players using game pods or gaming headsets from other companies needed to purchase a dedicated external device exclusively released by Dream Inc. to log into the game.

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

After the news was announced, at 11:00 a.m. sharp, Dream Inc. immediately opened the registration function for public beta accounts 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 had exceeded 200,000 and were still rising. A large number of public beta players flooded the game forum after obtaining their accounts, flooding the original posts with useless posts, and then another round of factional infighting and scolding began, which was very lively. Two groups of people who didn't know each other said all kinds of nasty things on the virtual network, burning tens of thousands of household registration booklets in half an hour. What a big feud...

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

That's the interesting thing about the Internet. Maybe those involved feel that they have experienced and participated in a historic event, but to outsiders, it's just an ordinary morning.

For Feng Bujue, it didn't matter whether the public beta opened early or late. He didn't want to compete for the top spot in level, and he didn't feel that extending the closed beta would bring him any great benefits. Strong players are always strong. Even if you practice for a month more than him, the gap between you is only a month. He will catch up in level sooner or later, and when you are at the same level, he will still be 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, shopping malls, card set systems, and many 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 would be presented before his eyes.