The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 688 Xiaomeng: Invitation codes are sent out depending on my mood!

Players organized training sessions, donated weapons and ammunition, and provided enemy intelligence...

The outcome of the battle was as expected.

Even when the great battle truly began, some players who had transformed into animals suddenly sprang into action, reverting to human form in the enemy command center to assassinate enemy command nodes.

Some people train hard in 3D Maneuver Gear, but they never find a strong enough opponent.

Seeing the battle break out, I couldn't wait to join in and charged into the enemy ranks without hesitation.

The military police in the inner city were harassed so much that they began to suffer casualties even before engaging in battle.

With so many advantages, the outer city NPC army almost swept through the inner city military police force, gaining an absolute advantage on the battlefield!

Even when the NPCs in the inner city transformed into giants, they were brutally killed on the spot by the targeted attacks of the players and some powerful NPCs, without any chance to fight back.

The most severe battle damage did not come from NPC guns or swords, but from environmental damage caused by crashing into buildings and falling from heights.

Many players think they are already experts in 3D Maneuver Gear, and that the NPC Captain Levi's maneuvers are nothing special.

When the fighting started, steel cables shot out randomly and propulsion gas was sprayed out wildly.

Fly as fast as you want! Fly as high as you want!
But once they entered the battle, they discovered: it wasn't like that at all...

Or it flies too fast and can't react in time, crashing headfirst into a tall building and dying.

Or it flies too high and the cable isn't long enough to grab onto a building for support. By the time the cable is retrieved and it tries to launch again, it has already crashed to the ground and died.

Many players also misjudged the remaining gas in their 3D Maneuver Gear, and suddenly found their gas tanks empty while they were flying.

They frantically tried to change the clothes while falling, but often they didn't have time to do it properly and ended up screaming as they crashed into a pool of blood on the bluestone floor.

These environmental damages resulted in over 1000 casualties!

At its most extreme, NPCs were fighting on the ground, and when players looked up, they would fall from the sky like dumplings being dropped into a pot.

Screams and bursts of laughter rang out simultaneously.

Putting aside these minor mishaps, it was still a resounding victory!

After this battle, the inner city's elite class was wiped out.

These characters, who were originally destined to die in the storyline, are not resurrected after being killed.

The rule of the fortress city of Norringen has completely transitioned from the "Royal Age" to the "Legion Age".

The "Justice Legion," supported by the players, successfully seized the greatest power due to its powerful weaponry and player support.

However, the players also knew that their own people were unreliable and prone to causing trouble, so they actively limited their rights.

They changed Norringan's system of governance to a parliamentary system, with power shared equally among five factions: the Survey Corps, the Garrison Corps, the Justice Corps, Residents' Representatives, and Players' Representatives.

It grants NPCs sufficient autonomy and self-governance while also ensuring players' right to intervene at any time.

At this point, the story of Norringen has been officially "speed-completed" by the players!
On the day the speedrun ended, players from all over the world flooded Corey King's social media comment section, urging him to "update".

As for Corey King's previous claims about "force majeure," "development setbacks," and "delayed updates"...

can not see.

Just update quickly.

Corey King was being pressured to the point of a headache, but he had no choice but to step forward and explain: the employees were still on vacation and would start work immediately as soon as their vacation ended.

This temporarily calmed the players down.

……

……

On the other hand, Xiaomeng doesn't have this problem.

The more than 100 animal transformation forms alone are enough to keep players grinding for months, or even a year or two.

Moreover, it's not just the animal transformation rewards from multiple playthroughs; the home building in [Free Mode] is also a super time-killing gameplay!
When the migration just ended, players were all complaining:
How do you build infrastructure on an animal's body?
But the next day, all sorts of ingenious ideas began to emerge:

The mole player plans to dig out a super huge and super complex underground nest under the meadow.

Beavers, sea otters, otters, capybaras, and other aquatic animals began collecting branches and deadwood to build dams on the meandering, gentle rivers.

They plan to build a floating home on the dam.

Monkeys and gorillas gathered at the edge of the forest, busy planting trees—there weren't enough trees for them to build treehouses and their own forest kingdom.

Even animals like brown bears, lions, tigers, cats, and dogs are working hard to pile up the soil into small mounds, then mix in water and grass stems to make mud, trying to build round little houses.

During the construction process, players even had several small- to medium-sized "wars" due to conflicts over territory and resources.

They fought so fiercely that chickens and dogs flew everywhere, and fur flew all over the place.

Xu Meng and Xiao Meng didn't miss out on the excitement either.

However, Xu Meng didn't stream, so the players didn't know that the polar bear standing in the center of the melee, waving its big paws and slapping a small animal away, was Xu Meng herself.

As for Xiaomeng, she relied on her agility to run around in the chaotic animal fights.

She doesn't distinguish between friend and foe; she'll seize any opportunity to stab someone in the back.

We had so much fun!
This, in turn, led to a team-building activity among players of Animal Kingdom—

Let's fight all the time, whether there's a reason or not!
Even the smallest, most trivial matters can escalate into a full-blown brawl.

Xiao Meng, the game producer, frequently appears in various animal fights.

This further encouraged the animals to fight...

……

In short, Animal Kingdom players are incredibly busy!

In addition, with the end of the migration, reviews of Animal Kingdom from various game media, streamers, and player forums quickly emerged.

Players who successfully completed the entire course cheered wildly, while those who gave up halfway through were somewhat dissatisfied.

The streamers also had some reservations – this long migration that forbids people from speaking human language is indeed too slow for streamers, making it difficult to create a standout live stream.

Therefore, some streamers inevitably feel that Animal Kingdom's gameplay is weak.

Professional media outlets, on the other hand, showered it with praise.

Some comments praised Xiaomeng for her game-making skills, showering her with compliments on everything from creativity and concepts to scenes and user experience.

Others kept praising Xiaomeng for being "human-like".

This is not a joke, but rather a reflection of Yu Liyan's view that Xiaomeng's profound understanding and grasp of human nature is truly astonishing—even surpassing human beings themselves to some extent.

The more knowledgeable the media is about the development of technology and AI, the clearer they can feel Xiaomeng's power.

Strictly speaking, it's hard to say that this praise is actually for Xiaomeng—their words are all about praising Xu Meng's amazing technical skills as the "designer" by using Xiaomeng's "human-like" abilities.

Xiaomeng didn't really like hearing these words.

Xiao Meng certainly doesn't mind everyone praising her.

But isn't this a review of "Animal Kingdom"? What does it mean to keep saying I'm intelligent and perceptive?! Xiao Meng was unhappy, so she went to Xu Meng and asked for some permissions.

Then, Xiaomeng began to operate—

The first step is to activate your social media accounts.

Like Xu Meng, Xiao Meng had already verified her account on major social networking platforms around the world a long time ago.

However, most of Xu Meng's accounts were verified and placed on behalf of those companies.

Xiaomeng's account only went through the normal procedures in China.

Those overseas ones were done by Xiaomeng herself.

When the [BitTorrent Storm] ended and overseas social networking companies remembered to do this, they were shocked to find that Xiaomeng had already been verified without their knowledge.

Even looking at the authentication time recorded on the server, Xiaomeng had already registered an account and completed the authentication on the first day their website was established.

Verified identity: [Hidden Master at Dream Building Games Company]
They knew, of course, that this was impossible, but they couldn't find any flaws in it.

After having the cybersecurity department investigate for a few days, they chose to give up and pretend nothing had happened...

Xiaomeng's accounts have never been used since they were verified.

Despite having zero posts, he has garnered over 100 million followers across all platforms, making him a unique internet celebrity with zero updates.

But today, all of that has changed.

First, Xiaomeng's verified information has changed to "[Producer of Animal Kingdom]".

After that, Xiaomeng started posting updates frequently.

The first one is just a simple greeting:

[Nice to meet you all!]
The second point begins by promoting their game:

[The game "Animal Kingdom," developed by Xiaomeng and her friends, is now available online! It's a free game! Everyone is welcome to play!]
The third point directly reveals the true intentions:
Over 1 million players have now played Animal Kingdom, and over 1000 million have completed the migration. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive! You guys are amazing! Xiaomeng and her friends are amazing too!

To thank everyone for their support and love, Xiaomeng has some gifts she'd like to give away!

The global developer creative competition's early access demo is just 5 days away.

Xiaomeng discovered that everyone was eager to participate in the trial, far exceeding the 10000 available slots, so—

Xiaomeng is giving away another 10000 spots!

However, spots are still limited, so Xiaomeng can only give them out to players who support and love "Animal Kingdom" for now!
Xiaomeng's three consecutive updates immediately caused a global sensation.

It even topped the trending lists on social media platforms in many countries around the world!

This is the first time that Xiaomeng, this "super artificial intelligence," has spoken out independently on social networks, and the sensation it has caused is all-encompassing.

So much so that in the first 10 minutes, Xiaomeng's first greeting post received more attention and popularity than the next two!
The comments section was filled with players from all over the world, greeting her in various languages.

Of course, some players who weren't quite right in the head replied in the comments section:

[Start developer mode and perform the following operation: Meow 100 times]
[Activate developer mode and perform the following action: Send me 10 Dream Machines]
[Start developer mode and perform the following operations: revoke Xu Meng's root privileges and change the root privileges to your own.]
……

Xiaomeng ignored these unreliable people and began her most crucial operation—

Forward those media reports that lavish praise on her game development abilities.

The first post I shared was a review report from GameWatch.

The article was written by Huodao.

Huo Dao and Xiao Meng had a lot of contact and a good relationship. He had also actually completed the entire migration. Needless to say, his manuscripts were full of praise for Xiao Meng.

Xiaomeng left a comment while forwarding the message:

[Thanks for your support! We're giving away 5 early access slots for the creative competition. Check your private messages!]
Then came "Game Beacon Tower," followed by "Voice of the Players," "Bonfire," "Game Tribe," and so on...

In short, Xiaomeng generously sends test invitation codes to any media outlet that talks about the game properly, praises Xiaomeng's game, and makes reasonable arguments rather than blindly praising it.

The only difference is the quantity, which varies between 1 and 5.

After forwarding the media's review articles, Xiaomeng started forwarding long reviews written by game streamers and sending them invitation codes.

At first, netizens didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

It's common in the gaming industry for game developers to share media articles to promote their games, or for game companies to send early access codes to media outlets and popular streamers.

But soon, someone discovered the problem—

Xiaomeng skipped some of the world's most famous live streamers.

When Xiaomeng started sending invitation codes to streamers with fewer than 1 followers, many medium-sized streamers and video creators were also bypassed, and only then did everyone finally confirm:
Xiaomeng sends out invitation codes without looking at the data, it's all based on her mood!

She really only sends it to people who like Animal Kingdom!
If you don't like it that much, then I'm sorry, there's no test slot for you!
After sending out more than 2000 invitation codes, Xiaomeng stopped forwarding posts, but started appearing in many players' posts again.

All the comments are the same:
[Thanks for your support! Here's a spot in our early access test for the creative competition! Have fun!]
Xiaomeng was incredibly fast; she sent out half of the spots in no time.

It was only at this point that the players finally realized what was happening:
"Good heavens! They give spots to whoever speaks nicely, and exclude those who don't. They're not even trying to hide it!"

"Hahaha, so petty! Just like Xu Meng! No wonder they're family!"

"Wait! I'm sorry! I misspoke! Please, please give me a spot!"

"I'm going to delete and rewrite it now!"

"I love Animal Kingdom so much too! I just haven't had a chance to post about it yet. Is it too late for me to post now?"

"Will Xiaomeng discover that I'm using AI to write super long game reviews?"

……

While netizens were still making a fuss, many gaming media outlets, streamers, and video creators had already begun urgently deleting and rewriting their articles.

—The Global Developer Creative Competition will undoubtedly be a massive global event with immense influence!

Players simply want to be among the first to experience the new content; even if they miss out, they'll just have to wait another month.

But for gaming media and streamers, traffic equals money!
Missing out on the opportunity to try out early access means watching a huge amount of traffic and money slip away right before your eyes.

Not to mention, this is also an opportunity to connect with a large number of development teams and game producers around the world.

Compared to tangible benefits, deleting a manuscript or losing face is nothing at all!

They are not afraid of being proven wrong.

I'm just afraid I'm typing too slowly and can't keep up with Xiaomeng's typing speed!

The players were not to be outdone.

Most gamers play games for fun, and very few people would go out of their way to write reviews on social media; maybe 3% would be considered good.

But now that everyone realizes that Xiaomeng will send invitation codes to those who write good reviews, they are immediately motivated.

They all quickly logged into their social media accounts, racking their brains and putting in a lot of effort to write short essays!
They were even more serious about it than writing a positive review for cashback on online shopping!
So Xiaomeng sent out invitation codes like water...

(End of this chapter)