174. A generation of heroes declined

2002 can be said to be a year when large-scale online games in China exploded.

Asia United Games began to operate the "Red Moon" developed by Bangzi in the country

NetEase also launched its first large-scale MMO, called "A Chinese Odyssey"

Xishanju's "Swordsman Love Online Version" is available

Shanghai Taren Network Technology Co., Ltd.'s agent to operate Bangzi's "Miracle MU"

Yiwantong agent operates "Magic Baby" developed by ENIX, the island country

...

While the game market is constantly expanding, competition has become increasingly fierce.

The game Red Moon, like Legend, is a process of heavy PK, with serious challenges and losses between players. Correspondingly, loyal fans are also very persistent.

What is different from other games is that it has its own unique world view setting and rich game career settings, which perfectly fits its own world view and gives players a different sense of immersion.

This game is adapted from the Korean cartoonist Huang Meina action SF comic "Red Moon", and the story takes place in a fictional world called Sigunis.

The worldview is a science fiction story with a certain magical color based on high technology.

Players can choose from 9 characters in the game, each character has its own strengths.

Overall, Hongyue has its own innovations and the story background is different from the games on the market, so after entering the domestic market, it quickly gained a foothold and gained a group of fans.

Like Red Moon, Miracle MU takes the science fiction route, but relatively speaking, the audience is wider. The most important thing is that the cool wings launched in the game have attracted countless players.

In 2002, people's aesthetics were quite unique.

The style of Three Kingdoms Online cannot meet everyone's needs, so games like Miracle MU were born that can emerge from the shadow of Three Kingdoms Online.

The feeling this game gives you is that all kinds of lights have exploded, but players like it very much. The more lights explode, the better, and the more exaggerated the wings, the better.

Everyone is like a human-shaped mecha, wearing [magnificent] equipment and the big wings shining behind them, which is simply the favorite of players.

For this reason, Liu Guangran also consulted Boss Cao and said, "Boss, look at the wings of the angel next door. It's so cool. When can we send a shot?"

Cao Yang glared at him fiercely.

Liu Guangran quickly touched his forehead and retreated.

For some reason, Boss Cao is only 22 years old and still feels like a young man, but he has a fearful temperament in nature.

Liu Guangran thought to himself, this is probably the difference between the boss and us.

Cao Yang can be questioned everything, but he can't stand it if he is questioned.

You should know that Boss Cao has served as a big shot in the industry in many major factories in his previous life.

Although he rarely draws his paintings now, this does not affect his professionalism and level at all.

Cao Yang also considered the issue of wings, but in the end he still felt that it was not suitable for the Three Kingdoms Online game. You would rather make the equipment cooler, and after adding wings, it would destroy the Three Kingdoms' sense of substitution.

Three Kingdoms Online focuses on national wars, and what it needs is the feeling of that era. If you add a pair of big wings, let alone performance issues, even if you can really hold on, when fighting the national war, there are all a bunch of shiny big wings. Who knows that this is a Three Kingdoms game?

Maybe others think you are a Western fantasy theme.

If a game is made in a way that deviates from the original design intention and becomes inappropriate, then it is not far from death.

Besides, Three Kingdoms Online is now a point-card game, and we do not sell props in the game, so there is no need to increase the gap between krypton gold players and ordinary players, so in Cao Yang's view, it is actually not that necessary to increase the wings.

In the early days of China, all the games liked to increase their wings, which was learned from Miracle MU. After a setting was widely circulated and accepted, it was equivalent to sowing a virus among the player group. If you don’t have a corresponding setting, you will be ruthlessly despised by the players.

However, later, with the development of the times, people discovered that in addition to making big wings, there are many different ways to enhance players' sense of show-off, such as high-end skins, or giving special effects, pets, and even Peace Elites who directly give sports cars, are much richer than big wings.

So Cao Yang is not worried about this problem at all. We are in line with the background of the Three Kingdoms and can give you cool mounts or pets. There is no need to use big wings to destroy the overall atmosphere of the game.

However, Cao Yang did not explain so much to Liu Guangran, and it only takes one sentence to criticize the program: "Don't forget, we are a national war game. As long as you ensure that the performance of the client can withstand it, I will add it."

The effects of large wings are outstanding, and the problems brought about are also obvious, which is that they will cause high performance consumption, especially when multiple particle effects are superimposed and multiple large wings exist in a screen at the same time, the entire game will also become abnormally stuttered.

So the problem with Miracle MU is also very obvious:

One word: card.

Two words: true card.

Three words: Real chicken

"Ah..." Liu Guangran thought for half a second before making a wise decision: "Forget it, Mr. Cao, I think our game is pretty good. After adding big wings, this game is not like the Three Kingdoms."

Cao Yang just smiled contemptuously and didn't speak.

...

The Magic Baby developed by the island country has a large IP. The Magic Baby game is more homogeneous with the Stone Age. Everyone fights through pets, but there are differences in the style and background stories.

So when the Magic Baby was launched, a group of players were quickly snatched from the Stone Age.

Later, in Internet cafes, there were often situations where players from the Stone Age and players from the Magic Baby sat together and disliked each other. The two factions were also full of various offensives in terms of the network and language.

The Stone Age players say you are copying our Stone Age.

The players of Magic Baby said, do you understand? Our game is much better than yours, and there are many players' professions and a variety of pets.

...

Then, similar to "The Stone Age", also produced by NetEase, is "A Chinese Odyssey". At this time, Ding Sanshi was at the end of his journey. Everything went wrong all the way. At the beginning, it encountered a bubble burst when it was listed on the Nasdaq in 2000, and NetEase's stock price once fell below $1.

Last year, he relied on BBK's boss Duan Yongping to buy NetEase's stock and pulled it back from the vertex of death.

However, just after I came back, the company's financial problems were investigated. The United States suspended its trading on the grounds of NetEase's financial fraud. After several months of tossing, it was able to relist.

Still hovering on the vertex of death.

In order to bring NetEase back to life, Ding Sanshi made a desperate bet and put Baoquan on the online game.

Squeezing online games is actually a process of careful consideration.

The stand-alone game market was squeezed last year, and several online games in China were popular, especially the Three Kingdoms Online and the Stone Age, which gave Ding Sanshi hope.

That's why NetEase Online Games Division was established. At the beginning of its establishment, several bigwigs in the Games Division had a heated discussion on what games to make.

The final tendency is to choose one of two in copying "The Stone Age" or copying "Three Kingdoms Online".

However, considering that the company had just entered this field and lacked R&D strength and experience, it finally chose to learn from "The Stone Age" first and then combine China's unique cultural background to make a game with a different worldview.

Moreover, in 2000, the movie "A Chinese Odyssey" suddenly became popular, which made NetEase's game developers finally choose to use "A Chinese Odyssey" as the background story for development.

Speaking of the American Journey, this movie can be said to be the legacy of Stephen Chow's career. In 1997, Stephen Chow invested a huge cost to produce "A Chinese Journey to the World·Moonlight Box" and "A Chinese Journey to the West·Morning Road", but these two movies encountered Waterloo as soon as they were launched.

In the Xiangjiang area, people have commented that although this movie follows Stephen Chow's usual nonsensical style, it is too neurotic and completely messy and doesn't know what it is saying.

Moreover, this movie has a very big brain, which is a thousand miles away from the audience's understanding and cognition of Journey to the West, and deviates from the audience's expectations, which leads to a mess of reputation and box office results of the movie.

Until three years later, with the rise of the Internet industry and the introduction of some film academy teachers as film structures, it actually led to a wave of craze for the Westward Journey.

Last year, CCTV also played "A Chinese Odyssey" several times.

Things that were not understood and accepted by people at the beginning, with the popularity of the Internet and TV, young people's ability to accept increased and suddenly became popular.

The audience felt sore in their stomachs when they saw that they laughed, but in the end they were not allowed to love because Zixia left forever, and shed tears of regret.

Countless people laughed so hard that they were sneering and heartbroken.

So the American Journey became a classic for the younger generation.

From then on, Stephen Chow was praised as the altar of postmodern masters.

NetEase directly uses this IP to make games, which is actually very profitable. At least it has a basic guarantee of attractiveness and can also gain a hot culture. Even people who don’t want to play games will also play this game for [Supreme Treasure] and [Zixia Fairy].

It's a pity...

NetEase's technical level was not enough at this time. Not long after it was launched, "American Journey" died suddenly.

There are problems with the game engine architecture and many bugs in it. After it is launched, there will be plug-ins.

So before you can make money from the Westward Journey, NetEase was forced to stop the operation of the Westward Journey, and then re-architected the architecture and design, preparing to go all out to do "World Journey 2"

...

When he saw the news of his tragic death in the Westward Journey, Cao Yang also frowned sympathetically.

Ding Sanshi's luck is really bad. When he went public, he encountered the Nasdaq bubble burst. After finally getting better, he encountered 911. The stock fell again and had already fallen to the bargain price. Then he bet on the game. As a result, the first game encountered a program crisis and now he had to rebuild it.

It's really terrible.

But if you think about it carefully, NetEase in the previous life seemed to have similar urinary nature, and it would not take until after Dashu 2 came out before you could gain a foothold.

The only one that can be fought here is Xishanju's "Swordsman Love Online Edition", which is Sword Network 1.

Xishanju is worthy of being an old-fashioned domestic game research and development manufacturer. Its underlying architecture and program code are definitely not to be said. The game runs smoothly and has no sense of lag at all, and players can play it smoothly.

More importantly, Jianwang 1 still maintains the characteristics of Xishanju, taking the martial arts route. From a world perspective, there is only one domestic online game.

"Swordsman Love Online" is a huge map of ancient China and a strong martial arts culture, which is very in line with the taste of the Chinese people, and because of the cultural heritage, players especially like it.

At the same time, Jianwang 1 has also launched various special systems.

For example, the Five Elements System:
To be continued...