God's Imitator

Wang Yongxin was silent for a moment, then sighed, ”This game was indeed very dangerous.

”The dangerous part wasn’t entirely in the numerous death rules, but in creating an extremely cruel zero-sum game environment among various player groups.

”On the surface, it seemed like conflicts among ’hidden players,’ ’field players,’ and ’audience,’ but actually, there were also conflicts ’within community players.’

”In the game, as long as you killed the other four players from your own community, you could exclusively enjoy all the profits.

”Moreover, this kind of murder could be carried out in a very concealed form.

”For example, as a core player in the game, if you guessed a certain behavior might trigger joint implication, at this time you only needed to arrange specific players to commit this behavior, and you could very likely use the game rules to eliminate them.

”Afterwards, you could completely say it was an oversight in your decision-making. Because there were many behaviors in this game that might trigger joint implication, and there was fundamentally no way to prove whether the core player didn’t think of it or did it deliberately.

”So that’s why in Community 12, Chen Guangming alone obtained all the community’s gold coins.

”The design of ’hidden players’ was also quite insidious.

”Because in previous games, there hadn’t been such a design. Actually, as early as bidding on plots in the first phase, many players realized the plot opening order might have human factor interference.”But most players would only think of ’audience voting.’ It was hard to immediately think of hidden players existing.

”And whether it was the plot opening order or the criminal announcement order, they actually made some field players transfer hatred to the audience and naturally drive up shelter prices to harvest gold coins from the audience in revenge.

”So it cleverly deflected the contradiction.

”And even if a few players realized this, they wouldn’t loudly proclaim it.

”On one hand, not proclaiming it could bring extra benefits to themselves. For example, Chen Guangming realized this very early, invested large amounts of gold coins to bid on plots and became the ’privileged community,’ gaining favoritism from ’hidden players.’

”On the other hand, proclaiming this would bring disaster to one’s own community. Because ’hidden players’ having their identities exposed would inevitably try every means to target the community that spoke the truth.

”Through adjusting the plot auction order and criminal announcement order, ’hidden players’ could directly target this community, making them suffer heavy losses before they even had time to adopt self-preservation strategies.

”So although Officer Cao also realized this relatively early, he could only remain silent.

”Because once he exposed it too early, the targeted community might very likely not be Community 7, but our community instead.”

Cai Zhiyuan added, ”The key is that even exposing it couldn’t change the game’s status quo.

”Instead, it might make other communities even more eagerly send money to hidden players.

”To break this situation required at least three relatively justice-minded communities forming an alliance and working together.

”But in the game, aside from our community being willing to do this, other communities weren’t willing.

”Community 12 and Community 15 only wanted maximum profits.

”Community 7 had neither sufficient wisdom nor sufficient morality.

”As for Community 9, they were slightly better than Community 7 morally, but could only be said to be at a normal person’s level. Limited capability, and their stance wasn’t particularly firm either. With just our two communities, we couldn’t change anything.

”So Officer Cao’s decision was correct. In this situation, we could only choose to preserve ourselves wisely.”

Zheng Jie nodded, ”Yes, if we substitute ourselves in, if most communities became ’hidden players,’ it would be hard to resist that temptation, right...”

The ’hidden player’ identity indeed had great advantages.

Because the game rules never mentioned it, ordinary players fundamentally couldn’t realize their existence.

Even if they realized ’hidden players’ existed, killing them required using hidden mechanisms in the game, which could very likely trigger large-scale field player deaths.

In this situation, ’hidden players’ might mistakenly think they were absolutely safe, or might also choose to gamble that even if a few field players realized their existence, they wouldn’t expose it.

From the game mechanism perspective, hidden players could try to improve field players’ survival rates and advise field players not to sell shelters at high prices by adjusting the nine-square grid opening order and crime announcement order. But in reality, hidden players would very likely not do this.

Calculating based on the situation in the game, if Cao Haichuan hadn’t ultimately used the hidden mechanism to kill these players, assuming there were 5 of them, each person could obtain over 70 gold coins.

The key was no cost at all. They fundamentally didn’t need to exchange their original visa time as gold coins.

This also meant each of them could achieve profits of over 150,000 minutes of visa time in the game. This was a huge temptation very difficult for ordinary players to resist.

Li Renshu looked at Wang Yongxin again, ”Brother Wang, if you were in the game, how might you break the situation?”

After a moment of consideration, Wang Yongxin said, ”I might choose to forcibly compete with Chen Guangming for ’privileged community.’

”Then try to form an alliance with Community 12 and Community 15 as much as possible, and in the final vote, cast the vote for the weakest Community 7.

”Simply put, ’colluding’ with them.

”I know doing this might not be great, but if ’preserving life’ is the first goal, this might be the best method.

”And the number of people who die should also be fewer.”

Li Renshu nodded. Wang Yongxin was relatively frank on this question, which indeed matched his consistent style but just then, Wei Yinzhang, who had been silent all along, said, ”But...

”If you did this, I’m afraid you’d fall into the God’s Imitator’s trap.”

Wang Yongxin was stunned, ”Why? From the game mechanism perspective, doing this, aside from losing a lot of gold coins, wouldn’t have any additional downsides.”

Wei Yinzhang shook her head and explained, ”Has everyone thought about why the God’s Imitator specifically selected one community to become ’hidden players,’ having these hidden players decide the nine-square grid opening order and criminal file announcement order?

”If it were merely to ’maximize conflict intensification,’ they could completely accomplish this purpose through specific rules.

”For example, plots default to opening in the most crowded community locations, criminal files are announced according to the number of people who committed crimes from most to least or least to most, etc.

”This way, the God’s Imitator could better ensure the game process proceeded according to their expectations.

”But leaving these matters to hidden players to do, what if the hidden players’ and God’s Imitator’s ideas weren’t consistent?”

Yang Yuting lowered her head in thought for a moment, ”Perhaps because using specific rules or mechanisms would be more troublesome? Unable to adapt according to the specific situation at the time.”

Wei Yinzhang shook her head, ”No, I believe the real reason is:

”If rules decided everything, then this game’s ultimate main contradiction would become the contradiction between ’players’ and ’God’s Imitator.’

”But if following the current approach, having hidden players decide everything, then this game’s main contradiction would be the contradiction between ’players’ and ’players.’

”This is the effect the God’s Imitator truly wanted to achieve.

”The ’Shelter Game’ isn’t just a killing game. It’s simultaneously a heart-attacking game.

”The impact of attacking the heart isn’t within the game, but outside the game.”