Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

395 Chapter 380: Who Talks About Morality With You in the Game?_2

Let's talk in the afternoon, in the afternoon.

Without a full meal, there's no energy to work.

*

[14:20]

After eating his fill, Lincoln went to the virtual world to take a nap.

——Actually, he first went to the virtual world, where Mavis put him to sleep. After falling asleep, he would leave the virtual world, and the headband would automatically enter standby mode.

When he woke up, Mavis would control the headband to start up again, pulling him back into the virtual world.

In his own perception, it felt like he was sleeping in the virtual world the whole time.

But technically, such a process was not necessary.

When he was in a light sleep state, he could still exist peacefully in the virtual world.

But when he entered deep sleep, his brain's neural signals would become complex and chaotic, making the analysis no longer stable. Although he could still exist in the virtual world, his entire form would become unstable.

Lincoln didn't want to become a mosaic in front of Mavis… So he firmly refused to stay in the virtual world for the entire sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying on a small sofa, with Mavis still playing with his hair. And it was already 20 minutes past his work time.

However, oversleeping, for a boss, is of course not an issue.

Stretching and sitting up, Lincoln finally prepared to get to work.

But before he could really start, he saw that Randall, Fred, Little Chun, Clark, and Samuel together sent him a meeting invitation.

Lincoln turned to look at Mavis.

Mavis immediately understood and told him, "It's about the Honorary Player selection!"

"Oh, that," Lincoln nodded. "I'll go over for a bit."

"Okay!" Mavis waved goodbye to Lincoln obediently.

*

Sitting in the virtual office, Lincoln carefully looked through the several Honorary Player selection plans in his hands.

For example, Randall's plan focused on performance, because the previous batch of Honorary Players from "Assassins' Alliance" were all selected from the Freedom Day events, which were still ongoing. So his plan allocated at least 80 slots to the players with outstanding performance.

The remaining slots were allocated for influencers, the players who spent more time online and made a significant contribution.

Fred's plan was somewhat similar to Randall's, as he planned to combine the Honorary Player slots with the Night City competition activities.

From then on, each month, a fixed number of in-game competitions would be held, including gunfights, racing, and casino hero competitions. Then, the top 10 players in the competitions would be awarded the Honorary Player title.

The rest would be allocated as flexible reserves, given to the most influential or outstanding players of the month.

Samuel's operation team for "Traveler of the Wind" and "Paradise", and Clark's "Light Encounter", being casual games of a different type, had quite different selection plans.

They prioritized "online duration," "gameplay development," "providing help to other players," and the largest chunk, "creating high-quality derivatives or peripherals" as the key selection criteria.

Shen Ping and Yu Wenwen even planned to introduce a "publicity system", which would publicize the list of 100 honorary players for the next month on the last three days of each month.

If any player provides evidence that a player on the list has misconduct, the title would be revoked.

Lincoln immediately shook his head in disagreement: "This system won't work."

Shen Ping and Yu Wenwen looked at Lincoln in confusion.

"A publicity system works fine in reality, but that doesn't mean it will work the same way in a game. Games and reality are ultimately different. In a game, 'misconduct' is a difficult behavior to define."

Seeing their puzzled expressions, Lincoln thought for a moment and said: "Let me give you an example. Suppose we create a massive multiplayer online game, and then there's a player who does nothing but slaughter newbies every day for 365 days, from the first day to the 365th day. Would that be considered misconduct?"

"Of course." Shen Ping nodded firmly. In "Paradise", some "professional bottleneck" players were already very annoying, especially in an entertainment setting where everyone is on a similar skill level.

If someone relies on their experience in playing the game to bully new players, it's truly despicable and could even ruin the game environment!

"But if this player keeps killing and gains a huge reputation to the point where not only the victims know him, not only the players within the game, but even the entire gaming circle recognizes him, would that still be considered misconduct, or a contribution?" Lincoln questioned.

Shen Ping and Yu Wenwen were both stunned, as they hadn't considered this possibility.

But Lincoln wasn't done: "Another thing to consider is that the fact that players in "Paradise" intentionally cause trouble, as well as the player in my example who kills newbies, isn't it because the game mechanics don't prohibit them? Since the game mechanics don't prohibit it, why shouldn't players be allowed to play this way?"

Shen Ping and Yu Wenwen didn't quite know what to say.

They were not experienced game designers, one with a background in traditional operations, and the other in graphic design, so some ideas were slow to change.

For example: politeness in reality is not necessary in games, sometimes even morals are unnecessary.

Would you say that Yi's behavior of bombing a female NPC's bathroom, and even posing for a group photo with the naked-escaping NPC is moral?

Completely immoral!

But is it fun?

So much fun...

Another example: fighting and scheming in games are often not about hatred, but purely for entertainment.

Hardcore players in "Assassins' Alliance" still enjoy using random matching to ambush other players and never get tired of it!

It's only in the past few days that they've tried to move the battlefield to Night City, and related PVP behavior has somewhat decreased.

Once they unlock the main storyline of "Speed Chase" in Night City, the larger-scale random matching system will undoubtedly usher in a more intense PVP trend, without a doubt.

Lincoln even considered whether or not to introduce a mechanism to separate players who like PVP from those who don't.

"So," Lincoln concluded, "let the players resolve their grudges within the game rather than by using 'reporting' as a way to show off outside the game. That would only stifle the game's potential."

While speaking, Lincoln thought of Camille Victoria, who had been live-streaming "Paradise." Many of the show's effects were created by punishing "bottleneck" players.

But if Cloud Dream came forward and said that the "bottleneck" gameplay was "misconduct," it would be equivalent to officially banning this kind of playing style.

Once players were allowed to report those with similar behavior, it would be easy to create an atmosphere of complete rejection of this kind of playing style.

But then, all players would have to play by the rules, not only affecting the game's playability but also causing the intensity of competition on the track to decline.

But this is a race, competition, and contest! Is it really appropriate to make everyone so polite and friendly?

At any rate, Lincoln doesn't want this to happen!

In his heart, the abuse of reporting is a bad practice.

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