Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

397 Chapter 382: The First to Arrive and Mock

When Lincoln found Fred, he saw him engrossed in a piece of paper, writing and drawing.

At a glance, he saw keywords like "male players, female players, underwear, multiplayer, accidental exposure, combat exposure, exhibitionism exposure, special clothing exposure," and so on.

Lincoln blinked, unsure of what Fred was thinking about.

And he felt a bit guilty: Should he pay more attention to the mental health of his employees?

With this in mind, he immediately thought of a key position that Cloud Dream lacked—

Psychological counselor.

Cloud Dream had its own emergency medical team, even before they had a professional accountant, in case an employee had an emergency while at work, they could be treated promptly.

However, so far, this medical team had never been used, and their entire job has been to give everyone general health knowledge a few times.

Despite this, Lincoln never thought of canceling the position. Instead, he expanded the team from 1 person to 3.

After moving to the new park, the original 3 people stayed put and an additional 5-person emergency medical team was set up.

However, Lincoln had only thought of preventing accidental illness but had not considered mental health issues, so this medical team had no psychological counselor on board.

This wouldn't work. They needed one!

He'd ask Quentina later.

Fred finally noticed Lincoln's arrival, and asked him curiously, "Boss? What's up, is there something you need?"

"Yeah, it's pretty important." Lincoln got straight to the point: "There's clear data feedback that many players want us to allow a simpler way to connect."

"Unlock multiplayer early?" Fred frowned, he had seen similar content before, but hadn't taken it too seriously since it wasn't that much.

But since Lincoln claimed to have clear data feedback, there was no doubt it was true, as nobody in Cloud Dream would question their boss's ability in technology.

However, Fred knew the impact of unlocking multiplayer early and wasn't keen on the idea.

Lincoln asked him to gather the group members who hadn't taken their vacation yet and share his thoughts on how to both meet the players' demand for multiplayer and maintain their motivation to complete the main storyline.

The meeting lasted quite a long time, even longer than any meeting previously led by Lincoln.

But not much new content was discussed.

The overall process went like this:

Lincoln talked about the current situation—everyone was reluctant—Fred was the first to persuade himself—everyone gradually persuaded themselves and compromised with the players' needs—Fred and the group members then worked together to persuade Lincoln to make up his mind—in the end, Lincoln also persuaded himself.

At its core, it was that simple. A lot of time was spent on people persuading themselves and convincing each other.

Final conclusion: Either don't do it, or go all the way!

Implement all measures together!

So that everyone would not have to persuade themselves only to be scolded by players for being stingy in the end.

In the end, they also discussed the impact of opening multiplayer.

—Lincoln's restrictions were geared towards the main storyline, but there was much more to play in Night City than just that.

Many activities were initially scheduled according to the approximate time it took for the majority of players to complete the main storyline.

Now, with the opening of the multiplayer feature, they had to consider whether it was necessary to change the schedule.

After discussion, they decided to change two things first:

First: Indiscriminate Death Race registration is no longer restricted by the main storyline progress.

Originally, this "registration requirement prompted by the system" format did not quite fit Lincoln's aesthetics, as it wasn't immersive enough.

Now, they simply got rid of it.

In the future, when players sign up, all they need is the registration NPC to say, "What the hell are you registering for? A broke loser without a modified garage!"

That would effectively convey the registration requirements, wouldn't it? Very immersive, right?

Second: Update the beach map early.

In the original plan, the beach map was the next step for Night City.

However, once multiplayer functionality was opened, the speed at which players could explore Night City would undoubtedly accelerate rapidly.

In other words, the game's playable content would be quickly consumed, and replenishment would need to be sped up as well.

Furthermore, the best replenished content should be able to withstand long-term gameplay for players.

The beach map was such a piece of content.

Of course, this part of the content would not be enough to interrupt the vacation plans of Fred's development team.

With the current technology and material reserves, once the vacation was over, even if a large number of team members were transferred to develop "Battlefield," the remaining members would be able to finish the beach map's remaining parts.

After all, the development team led by Fred is already overstaffed.

Quentina has fully followed Lincoln's recruitment strategy of filling up the office whenever there is space available.

Now, hiring new people for Cloud Dream has become very easy!

Even with Lincoln's absurd talent screening system, the sheer number of job seekers has easily filled Cloud Dream's office.

These new members were naturally rarely added to the already stable game teams.

Except for the three people assigned to the "Assassins' Alliance" and "Light Encounter" operation teams due to Randall and Clark's needs, the rest all went to Fred and Little Chun.

As a result, the staffing of the "Speed Chase" development team was abundant.

And the good news is that these trained, skilled developers can quickly get started on the development of "Battlefield" without the need for specific training.

Little Chun's team had also been rapidly picking up speed.

Oh... and eighteen other people went straight to the [Virtual Chang'an Construction Team] and Xu Chun's [Cold Weapon Combat Technology Development Group], gradually building and testing the game's progress.

Lincoln has recently started looking into whether there are any companies in the park that were struggling and considering buying another building.

It's fine if we have to lease!

As for whether there is such a company, Lincoln has no worries.

Come on, companies that engage in art and cultural innovation either have a lot of money and don't care about money at all.

Or they don't make money and rely on their bosses or investors to pour money into it, dreaming about taking off one day.

But the greater likelihood is that the boss couldn't hold on any longer, or the investor's funding chain has a problem, or even their passion simply fades away, all of which can cause significant problems.

That's really a possible closure at any time.

Lincoln boldly predicts that within a month, he could get another building.

——Of course, if there really isn't such a company, he's also prepared to spend money!

"If we start changing now, it'll only be completed the day after tomorrow at the earliest, and we'll need to restart once." Fred roughly estimated the workload.

"No need." Lincoln shook his head. It would take him only two hours to complete, and if Mavis were to do it, it would take at most half an hour.

"You guys write an announcement, and send it out tomorrow morning. The hotfix will also be completed by 8 o'clock tomorrow."

"Tomorrow morning?"

"A hotfix? No need to restart?"

Including Fred, everyone was extremely surprised, but Lincoln arranged the tasks and waved his hand to leave.

All that was left were the incredulous expressions of the development team.

——Because of Mavis's presence, Lincoln's brain had undergone a long period of comprehensive stimulation training, resulting in a massive leap in physical function.

This won't make him wiser directly, but his learning ability, memory ability, association ability, concentration ability and so on are far beyond those of ordinary people.

He is still not a genius, but he already has a foundation that is not inferior to that of a genius.

If he weren't so lazy and always liked to slack off, he would have become a versatile talent a long time ago.

But you can't just expect a salted fish to turn over, especially a salted fish that has everything it needs and wants.

Compared to studying like crazy and becoming a versatile talent, he prefers to stay in his comfort zone and focus his energy on what interests him.

It's obviously a waste of talent, but being able to frivolously waste life on what he likes with no regard and no burden, isn't that enviable?

Returning to the familiar small sofa, leaving the work to Mavis, and having another happy drink, Lincoln comfortably continued to watch the live broadcast.

——As for the manual coffee grinder, Lincoln only tried it twice, and then put it away because it was too much trouble.

Only when Mavis was in the mood, she would grind coffee beans for fun.

As for practicing fist?

Let's talk about it in the evening, talk about it in the evening.

That evening, as Lincoln went to practice fist, the "Assassins' Alliance" knockout competition started again.

The remaining schedule was as follows: there were two matches between four teams on Tuesday, and two matches between the remaining four teams on Thursday.

On Friday night, the four winning teams will compete in the semi-finals.

On Saturday night, the last two teams will compete in the finals.

Tonight, the [Burned Boat] Esports Club, where Lance and Roger belong, faces off against the last non-club team from the civilian sector.

Interestingly, perhaps due to the rarity of the situation, the non-professional team received more support from the audience in this match.

According to the comments in the live broadcast room, countless viewers were not tired of the commotion and hoped to see the final victory in this national competition – a team from the civilian sector defeating all professional teams and winning the championship all at once!

Unfortunately, their expectations were dashed.

The [Burned Boat] Club secured a solid victory.

However, when the game ended, and his teammates were celebrating their victory, Lance could only force a smile, and it looked even worse than crying.

The teammates wanted to comfort him, but they didn't know how to start.

Not until Lance sat alone in the corner of the resting room and sulked did his phone suddenly ring.

He felt a little annoyed but still picked up the phone to check, only to find it was a call from Shuihua.

This was the first time Shuihua had called him right after a game.

Did she come to comfort him as soon as possible?

Lance felt a little relieved, and after composing himself, he answered the phone.

As soon as the call was connected, without any delay, he immediately heard a burst of unbridled laughter —

"Hahahaha! I watched the game! Someone stuck a mouse trap on your face! Hahaha! You couldn't get it off for ages! It was tragic! Hahaha!"

Shuihua's laughter was utterly evil, and even the teammates in the resting room who were far away could hear it.

One by one, they tried hard to hold back their laughter for fear of not being able to hold it in and laughing out loud. Those with lower laugh points were shivering from the effort.

Lance was speechless about the ridicule from Shuihua on the phone, but he suddenly felt relieved as he listened.

It's just a little humiliation, right?

King You of Zhou used signal fires to amuse Bao Si, while he only lost face, which was already a small price to pay.

Moreover, Bao Si's laughter is nothing compared to Shuihua's!

Lance looked up at his teammates: "If you want to laugh, just laugh! Be careful not to hold it in and die!"

"Hahahaha! Hahahaha!"

The resting room immediately filled with deafening laughter.

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