Restart life

Chapter 500, Page 0490: [Computer Hardware Killers and Puzzle Games]

Yang Jiawei has already filled out his college application and was very fortunate to receive a game invitation code.

He eagerly awaited the day of the closed beta test, and excitedly opened the game, spending 20 minutes just creating his character.

When the game loading bar appears, a bright red message appears in the center of the screen: Before entering the city, please be sure to lower the game's graphics settings.

Upon seeing that prompt, Yang Jiawei immediately smiled.

His computer configuration is quite high-end, so he can play demanding single-player games.

The progress bar finally finished loading, but it turned into an opening CG animation:

At night, the tour guide, holding a small flag, led a group of tourists through the streets and alleys of Qixia Town.

The tourists pointed and talked amongst themselves.

The tour guide asked everyone to be quiet: "Shh, everyone, this is the legendary Seven Heroes Town, which dates back more than 740 years to our time. Our seven-day martial arts tour will come to a perfect end here..."

During the days he waited for the closed beta test, Yang Jiawei rewatched the TV series "My Own Swordsman". The moment he saw the opening animation, he guessed what the game's premise was.

The plot of episode 21 of the TV series revolves around a group of tourists from the future who join a time travel group and arrive in Qixia Town. One of the tourists, who is contemplating suicide, seeks out the Crimson Flame Demon Mo Xiaobei, which alters history and causes Mo Xiaobei to abandon martial arts and pursue a life of scholarship.

The time travel group left at eight o'clock the next day.

But the player's character wants to stay in the past. He runs out of town under the cover of night, hides behind a large rock, and waits for the tour group to return to the future before emerging.

At the end of the game's opening animation, there is a subtitle: This game is purely fictional, and all historical figures involved are artistic creations.

I can finally do it myself.

Yang Jiawei controlled the little character to run around, with the game graphics set to medium by default. Taking advantage of his high-spec computer, he turned the resolution to the highest and all graphics options to the highest as well.

When running again, it was fine in open areas, but it stuttered in areas with more detail.

But the game's visual quality is truly amazing. The shimmering effect of sunlight on the river is incredibly realistic, and the various light and shadow effects on the flowers, plants, and trees are also remarkably lifelike.

Out of curiosity, Yang Jiawei turned the resolution and image quality down to the lowest setting.

Well, the branches and leaves are completely obscured; they've merged together into a pile of poop.

Outside Qixia Town, Yang Jiawei encountered a beggar with a yellow question mark on his head and immediately recognized him as Xiao Mi, a disciple of the Beggar Clan.

Xiaomi is eating beggar's chicken, which she doesn't know where she stole it from.

Instead of going to find Xiaomi to accept the mission, Yang Jiawei rushed into the town and quickly found Tongfu Inn. All the main characters from the TV series inside had yellow question marks above their heads, clearly indicating that they were all available to accept missions.

Various trivial tasks offer little experience reward.

Moreover, the main characters in the inn are all incredibly stingy, rarely giving monetary rewards, and you can only occasionally get one or two copper coins.

However, it can increase faction favorability!
For example, you can run errands for Bai Zhantang without getting a single penny, but you can increase the favorability of the Sunflower Faction.

Yang Jiawei went to Officer Xing to accept a mission, which indeed increased his favorability with the Six Doors.

This game is too realistic. There are only a few wild monsters outside Qixia Town, and they are all wild boars. You can't even see a single wolf. If you kill a wild boar, you can only collect pigskin, pork, tusks, etc., but you can't get any finished equipment.

In Qixia Town, the "beginner village," the only place where you can fight monsters is Black Wind Stronghold, which is also the only bandit stronghold mentioned in the TV series.

Yang Jiawei accepted a mission from Constable Xing to "scout the outskirts of Black Wind Stronghold." He only needed to circle halfway down the mountain and return to collect his reward once he reached the designated location.

He went to the blacksmith's shop to buy weapons, but they only sold kitchen knives, hoes, and axes...

Yang Jiawei, wielding an axe, charged towards Black Wind Stronghold. He had barely reached the foot of the mountain when he saw players being chased by bandits. They hadn't run far before being hacked to death by the bandits.

"No, brother, these bandits are only level 5, the same level as you. You can't beat them even if they're the same level?" Yang Jiawei typed.

The player typed a string of "55555" and then said, "I only have a wood-chopping axe and haven't practiced any martial arts. They have long sticks and know how to use stick techniques! Although it's just a couple of moves, it hurts a lot when they hit you."

Yang Jiawei said, "Let's form a team."

The player quickly respawned and ran back. The two of them, carrying wood-chopping axes, weren't in a hurry to complete their reconnaissance mission. They found a lone bandit and attacked him. At first, the fight was quite difficult, but with another player joining the team, the three of them fought much faster.

Moreover, the number of players here is increasing, and the respawn rate of low-level bandits can't keep up.

They chatted while fighting monsters:
"There are so few monsters in this game. Once players start registering, so many people will flood into the starting village, and it will be impossible to find any monsters."

"It's estimated that the main way to level up is by taking on missions."

"I don't think so. We'll definitely still have to fight monsters. This is just the outer edge of Black Wind Stronghold. There should be more monsters once we go into the mountains."

Where can I learn skills?

"It seems that the shops and NPCs in Qixia Town currently only offer some life skills for learning." "In the promotional video, Bai Zhantang is a true master. I guess if you raise your favorability with him, you can learn martial arts from him."

"Damn, the bandits dropped a skill book!"

"What skill?"

"Basic Staff Techniques, First Form. Didn't you just explode a long staff?"

"I picked it up, I'll trade it to you."

"Thanks, bro, let's be friends."

"..."

Just then, a player frantically shouted in the public chat: "Haha, I found a hidden quest. First, go to the blacksmith to buy a kitchen knife, then equip it, and then run to talk to Li Dazui. After a couple of sentences, Li Dazui will become available for the quest! The quest is called 'The True Kitchen Knife Sect Trial,' and it's a series of quests!"

This news spurred players to find all sorts of ways to discover hidden quests.

They bought everything they could equip from various shops in Qixia Town and then went to talk to various NPCs.

Sure enough, one hidden quest after another was discovered.

Some don't even require equipment or props; you only need to put the relevant items in your inventory.

For example, lollipops are described as: something for children to eat, but they seem to have other uses as well...

Buy a lollipop, go talk to Mo Xiaobei, and you can give the lollipop away after a few words.

Upon receiving the lollipop, Mo Xiaobei would mysteriously say, "Now that we're friends, I'll teach you a move from the Hengshan School of Kung Fu. You absolutely mustn't tell anyone, not even my sister-in-law."

Yang Jiawei played for a while, and then his father shouted from the living room that it was time to eat.

After dinner, Yang Jiawei didn't immediately log into the game, but instead went to browse the official forum of "Wulin Gaiden".

There are many posts shared by players here, especially those discussing the game's storyline.

Yang Jiawei clicked on a post about Li Dazui.

"You Ke is playing a very long game. The main characters in the TV series are not as simple as they seem in the game. Take Li Dazui for example, the Cleaver Sect trial is actually a series of quests. Moreover, the word 'true' is added before 'Cleaver Sect,' which is clearly to distinguish it from the Cleaver Sect, the shipping organization in the TV series..."

"My irresponsible guess is that Li Dazui is probably a super expert, and the real leader of the Kitchen Knife Sect..."

"I've completed the first stage of the Kitchen Knife Sect's trial and learned one of their introductory knife techniques. This technique is ridiculous; it's not very effective against bandits, but it deals bonus damage to wild boars. Plus, it has a passive effect that improves cooking skills..."

"There should be advanced moves later on, which will probably increase damage against humanoid monsters as well, otherwise joining the 'cleaver sect' is simply unplayable. But being limited to equipping only cleavers is really frustrating. Imagine walking the world with just a cleaver. It's fine if you're alone, but what if you're playing the game with a girl..."

Yang Jiawei then went to look at another post.

"There are many mysteries surrounding the game 'Wulin Gaiden,' and I treat it entirely as a puzzle game. I've even created a new character and re-entered the game to memorize every single line of dialogue with each NPC. Especially those guys at Tongfu Inn; some of their conversations might contain important information..."

"Take Lu Xiucai for example. Lu Xiucai wrote martial arts novels, but nobody read them. The game asked players to read his novels. The game actually showed a few pages of the novel, and I guess most players skipped the reading stage. However, I read those pages carefully, and one section explained in great detail how to use the Judge's Pen..."

"Lu Xiucai's signature weapon should be the Judge's Pen. The novel's protagonist is called Lu Luodi, the Scholar with the Divine Pen, and the pages shown to the players depict the protagonist's fierce battle against notorious bandits in Guanzhong. This is probably based on Lu Xiucai's real experiences on his journey to take the imperial examination..."

"Those pages of the novel also mention that Lü Luodi's grandfather once served as an official in the capital and was drawn into a political vortex in the court because of a family friend. So, was Lü Xiucai himself also connected with certain forces in the court?"

After reading the post, Yang Jiawei felt that these guys were all incredibly awesome.

On the third day of the closed beta test, another post got a lot of upvotes: This crappy game is a hardware killer!
"A computer with 1GB of RAM and a low-end graphics card can't really play this game. It can only run at the lowest resolution and lowest graphics settings to wander around the newbie village. Once you enter Chang'an City, it'll just explode on the spot, the lag will be so bad you can't even move..."

"A computer with 2GB of RAM and a mid-range graphics card can enter Chang'an City at low resolution and low graphics settings. But you can only stroll around the streets. Don't even think about using your light-footed skills to fly onto the rooftops and enjoy the beautiful night view of Chang'an City. The RAM and VRAM simply can't handle it. The further you zoom out from the rooftops, the more buildings appear, and the more laggy it becomes!"

"The current mainstream configuration for internet cafes is 4GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti or GTS 450 graphics cards. With this configuration, even if you fly to the roof for a wide view and play at medium resolution and graphics settings, the game will lag terribly. You have to turn everything down to play smoothly."

"To run at medium resolution and quality on the rooftop of Chang'an, you'd need at least a computer from a Wangyu Internet Cafe. Forget about it in regular internet cafes... As for high resolution and high quality, I estimate you'd need a computer costing over 2 yuan!"

Players who didn't get a beta test invitation code were lamenting on the official forum, because many of their computers weren't powerful enough.

If they want to play, they have to go to an internet cafe.

Moreover, it's at least a mid-range internet cafe!
If you want a slightly better experience, you have to go to a high-end internet cafe.

If you want the perfect gaming experience, spend tens of thousands of dollars to build your own computer.

Principal Wang had a great gaming experience. He spent money to buy an invitation code for the closed beta test and was happily playing "Wulin Gaiden" on his high-end computer.

This guy even deliberately took a screenshot and showed it off, making a bunch of netizens drool.

(End of this chapter)