My Players Are So Fierce

As Murphy rested during the approaching dawn, he opened up the game forum and found that the discussions about the “Morland Village Ambush” were still hot.

Apart from the two middle-aged unlucky guys “Dump Truck Iaido” and “Bulldozer Man Charging” who were taken out because they were too high and had terrible luck, the other 10 players survived the intense battle, which was seen as a great victory by the little players in the game.

Adding to the special nature of《Reality Realm》, the completely immersive and realistic feel made players feel accomplished even after logging off.

However, there were always people who weren’t satisfied.

For example, the two unlucky guys who died right before victory. Although the real situation was that Dump Truck and Bulldozer Man were indeed quite unskilled and unluckily encountered Natalie the female Witch Hunter wielding the “Steam Gatling”, no one wants to admit being unskilled in the online world.

So it must be an issue with the game difficulty!

A bug!

A serious malicious bug!

It really impacted the gaming experience too much, they had to give feedback!

Give harsh criticism!

They even teamed up with the student players Invincible Tyrannosaurus Cheche, Does the Cyborg Snail Dream of Electronic Trees and Kono Maomao Shark who were taken out last test, frantically posting in the feedback area from various angles to argue that their deaths were due to game bugs, strongly recommending the dev team give them another chance.

The middle-aged men grasping at straws for their dignity in their gaming careers.

The constantly refreshing posts in the feedback area made Murphy feel annoyed, so he simply closed the new post notifications and snuck into the built-in forum group to secretly screen-peek, wanting to see the small players’ feedback on this battle. Others were refreshing messages at a rate of two or three per second.

Of course, this excluded special groups.

LuminaYanghen: 【You guys can keep chatting, I can’t stay up any longer and need to log off to sleep for a bit.】

LeadingPigeon: 【It’s only noon, sister, is your schedule that irregular?】

LuminaYanghen: 【But it’s already dawn over here, o(╥﹏╥)o, if I stay up much longer I’ll probably see the sun rise. It’s a rare rest day, just let me go, will you? But hey, this game is really fun, if there’s another test remember to call me in the group.】

MeowKing: 【I just looked at the map and calculated the time difference, you must be in North America right? No wonder you play so well with guns, an international student?】

LuminaYanghen: 【That’s right, I’m in grad school. If I can come back during summer vacation maybe I can play with you guys. I’m logging off now, good night everyone, bye~】

The international student girl logging off didn’t affect the lively discussion of the others in the group.

Meow King and the shameless employee friends he pulled into the game started reviewing the details of the Morland Village sniping battle, with a bit of an armchair general vibe.

InvincibleTyrannosaurusCheche: 【Damn it! The admin isn’t paying any attention to us at all, the feedback posts we sent up were all deleted, and we even got a “no spamming” warning. Ah, without《Reality Realm》I’m gonna die, can someone tell me when the next test is?】

AhYuen: 【We probably have to wait for the noobs to respawn first? The plot has reached the point where our NPCs and other vampires regroup, so this operation is probably coming to an end too. If I had to guess, I’d guess the next test might be a new scene?

Like that Kadman City the NPCs keep mentioning?】

InvincibleTyrannosaurusCheche: 【Damn it! Ah Yuen, why don’t you just say it clearly, who are you calling noobs?】

LeadingPigeon: 【The dog barks again? We didn’t die, you died, if you’re not the noob then who is? And you three only have one more day until you respawn right? Don’t cause trouble, pissing off the admin and getting your account deleted, I’ll see how you deal with that.】

InvincibleTyrannosaurusCheche: 【You ungrateful brat! Cheche will definitely spank you after respawning!】

PrecipitationNiuniuIsNotAfraidofDifficulties: 【Good brother, I just promoted this awesome game hard to my dorm mates, and we’re all waiting to get into the game and wreak havoc. Who can give me a reliable estimate of when invite codes will be sent out?】

ElectronicSuccubusOldTune: 【Just wait patiently, they only send out five each time, who knows when it will be your turn, but Niuniu, you did fight that female Witch Hunter head-on before right? Come tell bro, just how realistic is the modeling in this game?】

PrecipitationNiuniuIsNotAfraidofDifficulties: 【??What do you mean? I think the modeling in this game is pretty realistic.】

MeowKing: 【Evil grin.jpg, Hey, this innocent student seems to still not understand the essence of this game. Since it’s said to be fully realistic with real physics collisions, then you must have come into contact with her when you slammed that female BOSS before logging off. I even watched it specifically, that female BOSS is actually quite pretty.】

SpicyGuguChicken: 【A slim-waisted, long-legged big booty gray-haired huntress! Drool drool, damn this developer is too skilled!】

LuminaYanghen: 【Hey hey hey! Bring me back you bastards, weren’t we just discussing the game plot? How did it end up on the female NPCs again? Argh, so this is what male players focus on?】

MeowKing: 【Cough cough, Lumina is also very pretty actually. Sigh, didn’t you log off already?】

LuminaYanghen: 【I can’t sleep, every time I close my eyes I just see Morland Village, it’s like I really went to another world for a battle, so exciting. This is way more exciting than any roleplaying or full-contact fighting. 】

MeowKing: 【I strongly agree! But speaking of, why can’t we create female characters in this game? The modeling is so realistic, not playing a trap would be such a waste.】

BulldozerManCharging: 【What are you trying to do MeowKing!? Shocked.jpg】

AhYuen: 【@MeowKing Let us brother know if you make a trap character, let the brother have some fun first, evil grin~】

Alpha: 【Yo, the little players’ spirits are pretty high eh! Looks like you’re all very satisfied with the last test. The dev team is also very satisfied, they finally passed us through this round of testing. But there’s still a big task ahead.

@All Members

Figure out a time when everyone is free, I’ll adjust the schedule, then we’ll all log on together to find the Newbie Guide NPC for a quest. The dev team needs to test a complex battle scenario and NPC AI, so everyone needs to participate.

Oh, and here’s some good news, this is the second-to-last round of testing for the first closed beta.

Thanks to everyone’s efforts, many small bugs have been fixed, so we’re one step closer to the next round of testing.】

Alpha’s sudden message livened up the already sparsely active group, and those who had just finished lunch started popping in.

PrecipitationNiuniuIsNotAfraidofDifficulties: 【Sure, I’m free anytime, admin, can you let me stay in the game 24/7?】

LeadingPigeon: 【We all have plenty of free time, and the admin said last time that the active connection feature for the game helmets won’t be enabled until we reach the next stage of testing. You clueless guy.】

MeowKing: 【The main thing is just to coordinate our online times to make it easier for the admin to schedule. Their test team’s work is more complicated than you imagine, even when I do outsourced software testing I have to book time in advance, not to mention a huge project like《Reality Realm》.】

BlackStockingsUnderTheKeyboard: 【The other players probably won’t have any issues, the main problem is Lumina’s side since she has a time difference from us, that’s pretty inconvenient.】

DumpTruckIaido: 【The inconvenience is only now. Once the free login feature is unlocked, Lumina’s side will actually have the advantage of being able to take over testing the game’s night environments. By then, this will be her unique edge.

Don’t forget, our main storyline NPC is a vampire, a true creature of the night.】

Oh, he didn’t even think of that himself!

At this moment, lying prone in the swaying carriage, Murphy blinked his eyes.

The little players’ perspectives really were open-minded.

He was wondering before why there was an international student like Lumina among the testers, but now it seems she didn’t just get the invite code by luck.

Testing the night environments is indeed a very important part as well.

InvincibleTyrannosaurusCheche: 【Damn it, using the natural environment as an exploit like this is too sneaky! No, Cheche can’t lose to the international student sister, I’ll start training my ability to stay up late right now! I’ll try to reverse my biological clock!】

MeowKing: 【How about tonight then? It will be early morning on Lumina’s side, everyone can get online, and tomorrow is still a rest day so it won’t affect our normal schedules.】

BulldozerManCharging: 【But we five haven’t respawned yet, how can we go get quests? Sigh, worrying.】

Alpha: 【Don’t worry, this test sequence will take at least 2-3 days of in-game time to finish, you five will definitely make it in time. I heard tonight’s task is for you all to discuss tactics with the main storyline NPCs. That’s what the dev team said.】

AhYuen: 【Discuss tactics with the NPCs? Are they really that intelligent?】

Alpha: 【The main NPCs in《Reality Realm》are portrayed by the most advanced AIs. They have deep learning programs and are smarter than a lot of real people. And the more you interact with them, the smarter they get. This is also a major selling point of our game. Take the Morland Village ambush for example, trying the same tactics again probably won’t work as well.】

LeadingPigeon: 【Damn, that sounds so awesome! @Alpha, are you really just making a game? This kind of technology being used, I feel like you’re up to something big eh? Sideways grin.jpg】

Alpha: 【Well let me tell you a secret, we’re actually trying to take over the world in secret. Sigh, but even if that’s true, what does the company’s grand plan have to do with me, just an employee?

The online time is set for 9pm tonight, no issues with that right?

@MeowKing

Meow King, can you take charge of organizing everyone?】

MeowKing: 【No problem.】

PrecipitationNiuniuIsNotAfraidofDifficulties: 【Admin, I want to ask, does our game have a ‘Favorability’ setting?】

Alpha: 【?? What made you think that?】

PrecipitationNiuniuIsNotAfraidofDifficulties: 【Because after I helped the NPC subdue the female Witch Hunter today, her attitude towards me was clearly different. Not only was her tone much friendlier, but she even gave me a weapon. So I’m wondering if there’s a hidden Favorability design?

If there is, can we grind it through quests?】

Alpha: 【You guess?】

MeowKing: 【Of course there must be then! What a game-changer! So not only will there definitely be a systematic factional reputation system in the future, but we also have to maintain personal reputations with NPCs?】

SpicyGuguChicken: 【Drool drool, I only care if maxing out reputation will make the lady NPCs treat me better than others? Being able to date a paper person would be awesome.】

LeadingPigeon: 【Your wife with a thousand close female friends is impressive! Sideways grin】

PrecipitationNiuniuIsNotAfraidofDifficulties: 【Your wife is impressive! Bullhead yeah.jpg】

SpicyGuguChicken: 【F**k! You damned thief, taste my blade!】

The small players started their routine nonsense chatter, while Murphy exited the forum. He sat up from the swaying carriage headed to the Foul Marsh, stroking his chin and looking at the annoying sunlight outside, unable to hold back an odd laugh.

“A favorability system, exactly. What better setting could there be to make the little players obediently listen and not cause trouble than a hidden favorability system? True genius!

My idiot gang of friends are all little geniuses, this excellent self-management ability is amazing.

Excellent, it’s decided!

I, Revnor Murphy Lessenbra, will officially launch my personal Favorability system today!

And Maxim’s favorability will need to be set up too.

Hmm, I’ll need to create a persona for him first, a taciturn but aspiring warrior and strength-seeker white-haired loyal servant? Ummm, this classic persona setup shouldn’t cause any issues right?”

Thinking this, Murphy was about to close the forum when he suddenly noticed a new post had been posted in the feedback area that had just been cleared of spam posts. The poster was “Meow King”.

This was one of the key little players Murphy was focused on, so he opened up this feedback post and saw it was actually quite a formal game feedback submission:

【Summary of issues I discovered during my playtest of《Reality Realm》:

I’ve confirmed the game has a robust day/night cycle, which is cool, but there seems to be a 12 hour time difference between the two realms, which is extremely anti-human.

I recommend the dev team synchronize the game time to real time, so players can enjoy the game during the day as well.

P.S: I checked the built-in features of the game helmet recently and found there is a “Sleep Connection” mode, but it’s currently locked. So the time difference may not be a bug but rather a way to make it easier for players to schedule time, or perhaps it’s related to the dev team’s testing plan.

If that’s indeed the case, please disregard this first point.

I strongly recommend adding a player interface!

At least include a quest log interface.

I understand the dev team may want to create a completely realistic game environment, but having no UI is too hard. I can’t be expected to carry a notebook in-game to track my quests right?

Please speed up the testing process! Best to launch open beta immediately.

Players not being able to actively log in and only being able to wait for fixed testing times is too painful. Your game is addictive, the other games are unplayable now!】

Seeing that last point, Murphy immediately burst out laughing.

It seems the “game” he was in charge of testing really was quite appealing, though Murphy couldn’t resolve any of the three issues Meow King raised.

“But how did they end up with the game helmets used for ‘mind transference’ in their world?”

Murphy stared at MeowKing’s feedback post, pondering:

“Could there really be a《Reality Realm》game operations team in the world they’re in? Or is this actually just another function bundled with my ridiculous admin system?”

A few minutes later, Murphy’s vampire eyes spun as an idea came to him, and he edited a reply post.

As the forum admin and test lead, although it wasn’t a role he volunteered for, he still had to give a positive response to the little players’ enthusiastic feedback.

Hey, that’s professionalism.

That’s called loving your work!

On the other side, Meow King, who had just gotten off work, was sitting in his apartment. Having just experienced the Morland Village ambush, he was still in an excited state, scratching his head awkwardly with his game helmet on, praying to every god he knew for the new testing round to start soon. But the gods completely ignored him.

So the bored and cunning working adult could only refresh the newly opened forum in the virtual interface projected in front of him by his game helmet, which looked extremely similar to a VR device, to kill time shitposting.

As he was happily chatting away in that spam thread, he suddenly heard the forum’s private message notification. Opening it up, it was actually a feedback reply from “Alpha”.

The content was quite concise:

【Report sent by tester “Meow King” has been received, content detailed, issues precise, submitted to dev team for consideration to fix.

Additionally, the game helmets used to play《Reality Realm》also need usage evaluations from testers. We hereby invite tester “Meow King” to fully explore and evaluate the functions of the game helmet in your possession.

P.S:

Testers have the right to refuse this invitation, but completing the helmet evaluation and submitting a complete test report can earn you a rare physical reward in-game.

Finally, thank you for your valuable feedback. Our company wishes you an enjoyable gaming experience.

Alpha,《Reality Realm》Test Team Member】

“What? Is this a mistake? I was just venting my complaints, but you’re giving me a task? Working for the NPCs in-game, and now working for your company in reality too?

And who wants those lousy rewards! I just want to play the game right now!”

Meow King cursed vehemently:

“Besides, you have time to personally reply to feedback but can’t you hurry up the development progress instead?

He clicked his tongue, but the mention of a rare in-game reward did pique his interest a bit. He took off the game helmet and looked over at the computer off to the side.

That fancy-looking rig with the cool RGB lighting had cost him tens of thousands, and he used to love it, but now it had become an abandoned cow, scorned along with all the games installed on it.

What era is this? Still fussing over ray tracing and graphics quality with traditional keyboard and mouse!

Don’t give our competitors ammunition to mock us, come on!

The single man clicked his tongue again and started fiddling with the game helmet more vigorously. A few minutes later, a strange yell rang out in the bachelor apartment:

“F**k! This thing even has airflow cooling and massage functions? What’s this bioelectric energy? Sounds high-tech. And it even supports plugging into 220V outlets or even using AA batteries?

Is it so down-to-earth?”