The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 692 The Sea of ​​Human Creativity! Bonus Easter Egg!

How many bubbles of the world float in the endless sea?

Xu Meng has the most detailed data—just look at the number of participating teams in the creative competition:

There are more than 300 large development teams with more than 500 people.

There are more than 2000 medium-sized teams with 50 to 500 people.

There are tens of thousands of small teams with fewer than 50 people.

Individual developers are countless.

However, the [Individual Developers] category is somewhat special. While there are certainly some talented independent developers among them, most are just players who are there for the fun of it.

Moreover, the number of players just joining in the fun far exceeds that of professional developers.

As evidence: among the vast number of individual developers, less than 1% submitted their work to this advanced test.

Of course, not all large, medium, and small development teams participated in advanced testing.

However, their participation rates were as high as 80%, 60%, and 40%, respectively.

Finally, all these game world bubbles that participated in the advanced testing floated up from the deepest waters, becoming the optional bubbles that players can see right now.

Looking at the bubbles that stretched from nearby to the horizon, Qi Huahua felt they were endless!

Having too many choices left her feeling overwhelmed and unsure which bubble to choose.

After hesitating for a few seconds, the ring mark on the back of her hand lit up again, projecting a holographic screen the size of a tablet.

Lines of text slowly appeared:

Welcome to the Global Developer Creative Competition Early Access!
You are now immersed in an ocean of creativity, a place where the boldest, wildest, most interesting, most complex, and most beautiful ideas from developers around the world are gathered.

So there's no need to panic or rush to surface.

Calm down and enjoy this feast of human creativity!

Make sure you have a great time!
—Xu Meng.

Xu Meng's greeting, Qi Huahua—and the tens of thousands of players currently in this sea of ​​creativity—all subconsciously looked up, re-examining this ocean and those world bubbles gently swaying in the currents.

Only after Xu Meng reminded them did they realize how astonishing the true nature of this ocean was!
To some extent, this is the first time in human history that such a large-scale collection of creativity and imagination has been brought together in one place.

This ocean itself is a milestone in the realm of human intellect!

As their expressions of shock faded, Xu Meng's message slowly disappeared, and new text appeared line by line—

[Rules for Early Access Trial]

I. [Find the Game]
Players can choose any ocean current and be carried by it to a random world bubble, enjoying the fun of exploration.

You can also activate the World Compass—the ring mark on the back of your hand—and use methods such as [Precise Search], [Tag Search], [Friend Recommendation], and [Play History] to select the bubbles that interest you.

II. [Experience the Game]
Every world bubble is the result of the developers' hard work.

Developers' initial intentions are not inherently superior or inferior, but their creative abilities vary, and different players have different game preferences and aesthetic tastes.

Therefore, before you begin the experience, we would like to remind everyone to manage your expectations.

Of course, if you're lucky enough to play a game you really like, you can consider adding it to your wishlist and participating in the project's crowdfunding or pre-order activities.

III. [Evaluating the Game]
We hope everyone can have fun in this creative competition.

But since it's a competition, competition is always unavoidable.

Therefore, we hope that after experiencing the game, everyone will provide feedback based on their gameplay experience.

Please note: Players must play for more than 1 hour before they can rate the game.

Only reviews exceeding 3 hours will be included in the overall score.

Furthermore, the longer the experience, the more detailed the evaluation, and the more likes received, the higher the weight of the evaluation will be.

Ultimately, player feedback will be reflected in the shape of the world bubble.

(Initially, the size of the world bubble is determined by the size of the development team; the larger the development team, the larger the world bubble—this is to make everyone realize that small development teams have manpower limitations and should not be evaluated using the same standards as large teams.)
(This also shows respect for large development teams, after all, they invest far more money and manpower in the project than small teams.)
Starting 3 hours later, player ratings will directly affect the size of the world bubble.

The more players the game attracts, the larger the world bubble will become.

The higher the players' ratings, the higher the world bubble will be positioned—conversely, a barrage of negative reviews will cause the world bubble to sink.

(Initially, the world bubble positions are randomly arranged and do not involve scoring factors.)
IV. [Regression Method]
The Sea of ​​Creativity is far from the Digital Planet, and the teleportation key is not working properly.

Players can use "force quit" to log out of the current world and log back in to appear in their currently set "home".

We can return to the sea of ​​creativity through black holes.

V. [Duration]
The advance trial will last for two weeks, ending in November.

The creative competition will then begin its main event, and this ocean will be open to all players.
-
After reading the long set of rules, the valiant sniper couldn't help but say in the live stream, "Boss Xu is such a good person."

"What do you mean?" Huan Yue was still pondering the impact of the evaluation system on World Bubble when she heard what the valiant sniper said, and subconsciously asked in the team voice chat.

—We were all in the same big group before, fighting the world boss that Xu Meng transformed into, and we haven't left the group yet.

"Think back to when Mr. Xu did his publicity and advertising campaigns. When did he ever say anything about asking people to add items to their wish lists, pre-order, or crowdfund?"

"I have absolutely no recollection of that."

"This time, in order to help the developers who participated in the competition make money, they directly used their own reputation to help advertise."

Upon hearing what he said, Huan Yue realized, "It seems that Boss Xu has already distributed a lot of subsidies."

"Free game development engine, generous industry subsidies, and now they're even providing servers and advertising..."

"He's practically a saint descended from the heavens in the gaming industry..."

They were all still live streaming, and the advanced experience was not prohibited from being streamed. The scenes and rules they saw were also seen by the viewers in the live stream.

Especially now that the world boss battle has completely ended, there are countless players without trial access.

If you want to know about the demo, you can only flock to their live stream.

This resulted in a surge in traffic to the live streams of all the qualified streamers!

The viewers weren't interested in the topic of "a saint suddenly appearing in the gaming world"—isn't that common sense? What's there to discuss?
The question everyone is more concerned about now is: Will the creative competition data be wiped?
Whether or not the data will be deleted has always been a topic of great concern.

This concerns whether everyone will still be on the same starting line after the game is officially launched, and whether the competition will be fair.

Now that these rules have been announced, everyone has suddenly realized:

Whether or not the data will be wiped is no longer just a matter for the players—the development team has also been dragged into it!
"Good news, it's now almost certain that the game will be wiped!"

"Not only will the data be deleted, but these reviews will also be reset, right?"

"It will definitely be reset! I thought before that tens of thousands of reviews wouldn't matter, it wouldn't have a big impact, but if this rule is used, the impact of tens of thousands of ratings will be too great!"

……

Under the current rules, within a week at most, those popular games will become eye-catching mega-world bubbles, floating to the top and occupying the most prominent and sought-after positions.

Games that receive negative reviews will sink even lower.

But there's a problem here:
Experienced gamers know that a poor launch doesn't necessarily mean the game is bad.

New games that are of high quality and have unlimited potential often fail to deliver on their initial release, receive overwhelmingly negative reviews, and then recover through rapid updates, adjustments, and apologies. This is not uncommon in the gaming industry; in fact, it's quite common.

However, it is equally undeniable that some very good games have truly failed due to release issues and never had a chance to recover.

If the impact of the early access reviews is carried over to December, then good games that have failed will be forever sunk to the bottom of the sea of ​​creativity, mixed in with truly rubbish games, with no chance of ever recovering.

Given Xu Meng's personality, it's impossible for her to do something so cruel.

Therefore, a complete wipe of all data after the advanced testing ends is almost a certainty!
Amid cheers from the viewers, players with testing qualifications began to enter the game.

Without hesitation, Qi Huahua pointed to the mark on the back of her hand and said, "Search for 'The Legend of Flying Clouds'!"

Lu Jinjin, the creator of "Flying Cloud Chronicles", is somewhat well-known in the indie game circle and is a very popular and beautiful woman.

Qi Huahua was also very interested in the changes that "Flying Cloud Chronicles" underwent after being transferred from the PC platform to the virtual world, so she quickly made a decision.

A faint red glow emerged from the mark on the back of my hand, and that glow drifted away into the distance with the ocean current.

Seven Flowers then gently stirred the soft water, following the guidance of the light, and swam towards the distant world of bubbles.

The valiant sniper already had a target in mind, and directly chose "Tiangong City Affairs".

In the past few months, Yu Liyan has not only been working tirelessly to lead the team in development, but has also put a lot of effort into publicity and promotion.

Although you don't have much money, as long as you're willing to create something interesting, there are plenty of opportunities for exposure in the virtual world.

—This guy would even stand in the central square, holding up a sign that reads "[Please support 'Tiangong City Affairs']" to advertise.

Huan Yue went straight for "Hell Ballet".

This game has been in development for a long time, and the development team even released a gameplay PV, which caused quite a stir.

The sensation stemmed from both the gorgeous and fluid combat animations and the boss's stunning transformation demonstration.

To sum it up in one sentence: Huan Yue has never seen such a lecherous demon!

The sultry female demon, coupled with the cool and fluid combat, perfectly suited Huan Yue's tastes, so she decisively joined the game.

……

Other well-known IPs such as "XCOM Squad", "Seeking Feathers", and "Shadow of the Empire" have also relied on their past reputation to quickly attract a large number of players, gaining a significant advantage from the start.

Of course, many players also enjoy exploring the unknown.

They shut down the search engine, closed their eyes, and let the ocean currents carry them randomly to the surrounding world bubbles.

EDM Edison was one of these players.

However, his luck didn't seem to be very good; he floated for a long time before finally hitting a soft membrane.

The radiance it exudes can be felt even through the eyelids.

Once the light subsided, he opened his eyes and curiously surveyed his surroundings.

He found himself on a pure white sandy beach.

The things on the beach were all colorful—

Blue crabs, red stones, purple coconuts, yellow beach chairs, pink piers...

Turning around, a more colorful seaside park came into view.

Even the NPCs inside are all colorful.

—Clothing, hairstyle, and skin color are all the same color, but each person's color is slightly different.

"What is this...?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Electro-Edison was utterly confused.

Looking down, I found a wooden sign at my feet that read—

Rule 1: Three objects of the same color connected together will disappear.

Rule 2: Connecting two objects of different colors will randomly create another object of a different color.

Please eliminate this beach!

“…Huh?” Electro Edison was shocked.

"What the heck? A matching game with real objects??"

"Is the barrier to entry for making games really that low now???"

He strongly suspected that he had entered a game developed by a six-year-old.

This is so educational!
and……

After a moment's thought, he decided to create some entertainment: "Let's give this novice developer a little bug shock!"

"Do you think we can use this game mechanic to burst the entire world?"

Amid a barrage of questions from viewers in the live stream, he walked into the park, gathered together NPCs of different colors, and began his "human creation" project!
Soon, the number of NPCs in the seaside park began to explode!
……

……

While players who arrived at the Sea of ​​Creativity began to try out the game, those who remained in the Sprawling City were not lonely either.

They also discovered something fun.

When the black hole first appeared, everyone saw that those who were qualified were jumping into it, so even those who weren't qualified followed suit and jumped into the black hole. They were incredibly brave.

Xu Meng has always admired these brave people, so she prepared a surprise for them—

They will also experience a tense and exciting spatial jump, and then be ejected by the teleportation channel.

The entire process is exactly the same as for qualified players.

The only difference lies in the outcome:
They were not ejected from the ocean of creativity, but from the deep space of the universe.

The moment Nanshan was spat out, he found himself thrown into a vacuum.

Before him was a massive black sphere enveloped by a thick, radiant halo and curved bands of light. Beyond those dazzling bands of light, several planets appeared as insignificant as glass beads.

Nanshan doesn't know what an accretion disk, an Einstein ring, or a photon sphere is...

But he didn't need any explanation; he instantly understood what the giant celestial body in front of him was—

This is a supermassive black hole that surpasses the limits of imagination!

Then, he began to fall.

Unfortunately, he didn't have time to fall into the giant black hole before he was quickly killed by the low temperature in the vacuum.

He could only watch his stiff, frozen corpse fly further and further away, as a soul.

Soon, everyone understood the teleportation mechanism of black holes—

Only those with the mark on their hands will be transported to the Sea of ​​Creativity; those without will be transported to the Black Hole.

So even more people lined up to jump in, hoping to see the giant black hole.

After watching, many players still felt unsatisfied and began searching for spacesuits and space armor.

They wanted to go inside this enormous black hole and see the scenery within the event horizon!
(End of this chapter)