Age of Legends

Chapter 331 How far into the future?
"That's alright. The equipment investment is one-time, but the returns are continuous. Now we have the most advanced editing equipment in the country, on par with CCTV's top documentary team. With this setup, what will we do in the future? It'll be a game-changer!" Zhang Chen wasn't worried about the investment. The thing is, good stuff may seem like a high one-time investment, but in the long run, the returns are actually the highest.

Of course, this is on the premise that it is indeed a good product, a device that can produce high-quality works. It is a productivity tool, so naturally the more powerful the better.

"But no matter what, you can't escape this great achievement. Let's find a way to celebrate your success." Jiang Rong's tone on the phone was light and cheerful, as if she were saying it casually.

"What are you celebrating? Are you going to have hot pot in your dorm like last time?" Zhang Chen laughed.

"That's... not bad either."

"I'm reviewing and doing practice questions, big sister. I don't have time for that now. Even if your project encounters any problems, you should go to my godfather first to solve them. Of course, I see you can handle the project on your own now. We'll celebrate when it's finally over." Zhang Chen was genuinely doing practice questions. With only about thirty days left until the college entrance exam in June, what else could he do? Right now, Zhang Chen was making the most of all the subjects related to the exam by reviewing them.

However, this wasn't exactly a chore. Everything was progressing smoothly, and with his student status as a priority, Zhang Chen's way of focusing was doing practice problems. What else could he do? Play games? He wasn't in the mood for that right now. Watch movies and TV series? He'd seen most of the current and upcoming ones. Read books? Doing practice problems was far better!

This is the simple and unpretentious college entrance examination experience of a reborn individual.

"Then it's settled." Jiang Rong's voice came out abruptly.

"What did we agree on?" Zhang Chen was still a little confused.

"It's over, let's celebrate with hot pot at my house!"

"Okay, sure. Good luck then."

Hearing the reply from the other end of the phone, Jiang Rong's lips curled into a slight smile: "Yeah, you too... good luck."

……

Jiang Rong and I made a promise that I would treat her to hot pot at her dorm for the season finale. Meanwhile, Jing Qinming from Wanxiang Jianghu sent a progress report on the development of "Three Kingdoms Strategy".

Currently, the core engine is nearing completion, the battle report system is well-developed, and emails and in-game messages can be generated and transmitted in real time, already capable of simulating battles with thousands of players. Thousand-player battles are sufficient; in the future, if nation-wide wars occur, separate servers will be used for each thousand players. This way, only server resources need to be allocated, and the core operation will not generate redundancy, preventing issues like server crashes.

The map system uses Flash to stitch together large maps, allowing for seamless movement within the Central Plains, Jiangdong, and Hebei regions without any delay.

In terms of the character system, players can only choose from three factions: Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Jian, namely Wei, Shu, and Wu.

The combat logic and basic numerical database are 70% complete, but the presentation is rather "dry," relying solely on simple text and animation effects. However, since it's a strategy game, combat animations are merely an embellishment. Nevertheless, Zhang Chen suggested adding elements similar to those in Japanese mecha games, where commanders could shout commands during battles, such as "Surprise attack!", "Breakthrough!", or "Volley of arrows!"

Yang Jing was originally filming a TV show and sometimes worked overtime, so she was very dissatisfied with receiving such instructions. The character animations all needed to be completed by her art team, but fortunately, she had two staff members on hand; during the TV show appearances, only the employees from those two departments were doing the hand-drawn animations.

The social module doesn't have a friend list yet, and Zhang Chen asked them to expedite this process.

Jing Qinming used the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China's network to conduct an internal test, with about thirty students playing on the campus intranet.

After a group of students from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China played around with it, they also discovered some problems. Absurd battle reports such as "Zhang Fei single-handedly killed 100,000 soldiers" appeared.

Tests also revealed that the Flash interface has poor compatibility with IE5, frequently crashing. However, the general feedback was: "It's very easy to play, like playing chess, except the opponent is no longer the computer, but the person behind it."

"That senior student in room 304 of building 12 was often ambushed at 4 a.m. He cursed on the BBS, asking who it was. Actually, I didn't say it, it was me!"

Some people complained: "I don't like playing this kind of game. There's no real-time combat, you can't see people fighting, it's boring! Commanding troops is like dealing with numbers. Can you really make a game like this?"

Looking at the feedback and complaints on the "Unlimited Power" BBS of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Zhang Chen said to Jing Qinming, "The graphics are rudimentary, and there are bugs everywhere. It's not as exquisite as the Japanese Romance of the Three Kingdoms series..."

Every time Zhang Chen mentioned a piece of feedback from the BBS, Jing Qinming's face darkened.

But Zhang Chen still said, "Even with so many problems, at least the basic gameplay cycle of internal affairs – siege – generals – battle reports – dungeons – rewards can still be run. Even if it's a pile of crap, as long as it runs, it's a victory."

What kind of analogy is this? Jing Qinming was completely baffled, but upon closer inspection, he had to admit it was quite apt. Even if a program is a mountain of shit, as long as it can run, it's a good program.

"But we must admit that some people on the forum have praised it, saying that the gameplay is quite interesting. It's easy to play without much brainpower, but if you play it seriously, you'll find that there's a lot to learn. That's right. As long as it's interesting, we're still pretty confident that we can continue developing it and launching it. Now we need to optimize the content and find and fix the bugs. I don't want people to find bugs and become cheaters shortly after the game launches, thus ruining the balance of the entire game."

"Don't worry, we'll work overtime." Jing Qinming wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Just then, someone suddenly shouted out in the Wanxiang Jianghu development group. It turned out to be "Chai Chai" Xie Yu.

"Holy crap, the internet cafe here is having another bug. A player got Lu Bu, and at Hulao Pass, he killed Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and 999 soldiers with a single strike!"

Luo Chengyue: "..."

Jing Qinming: "..."

Zhang Chen: "We need to hurry up and find these kinds of bugs!"

……

Meanwhile, Zhang Zhonghua, who had just visited LG's headquarters in South Korea, was also busy. During his business trip, he conducted on-site inspections of small-sized LCD screens. When he returned to Rongcheng, he met with Zhang Chen to discuss the next strategic direction.

"I think your suggestion to pursue smaller screen sizes for mobile phones is feasible. During my recent trip to South Korea, I saw that Samsung and LG are both developing and promoting color screen phones. At their R&D centers, I saw them analyzing and benchmarking the color screen technologies of Toshiba and Sharp. You're right, color screens will be the focus of the future. So, what will mobile phones look like in the future?"

"I don't think it could be a single piece of glass," Zhang Chen said with a smile.

"A single piece of glass!?" Zhang Zhonghua was taken aback for a moment, then laughed and said, "Who knows? Isn't this just a scene from a science fiction movie?"

"I just don't know... how far away that future is."

(End of this chapter)