Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

As players wallowed in fervent anticipation, gaming media organizations also began to feel the excitement.

Throughout the past week, many gaming media outlets seemed to hold their breath.

It was clear that the closed beta testing for “Chang’an” was a big deal, yet they couldn’t get any game screen capture, and could only resort to text reporting.

And text reporting, was just not effective enough.

It’s not that players weren’t interested, it’s just that compared to “Pokémon” with its pictures, videos, and breaking news, the heat just wasn’t strong enough!

The editors could understand this, after all, if they were in their shoes, they would also prefer to see over a hundred kinds of soft moe little pets, players’ reactions when the promotional ceremony failed spectacularly, brawling in kindergarten for tavern conquest war and the quirky shopkeepers of the spirit beast stores…

And not to read dry texts like “players stormed Golden Prison and were surrounded leading to collective imprisonment” or “players worked peacefully, crime rate in Chang’an City declined.”

Fortunately, this embarrassment today came to an end.

Now — we got pictures!

First thing: collectively re-post the trailer of “Chang’an”.

Second thing: use the heat of the trailer to give our own pre-ratings for “Chang’an”.

Before this, not many media outlets had given pre-ratings for “Chang’an”.

First, without a trial, second, due to the insufficient heat, the media didn’t have the motivation to do so.

It was only the well-known “Game Base”, a group of Cloud Dream fans, who rushed to give a pre-rating, and arrogantly gave out a high score of 9.5.

This led many players and peers to ask them: “Was Cloud Dream secretly allowing you to play?”

The editor responded: No.

Players and peers were shocked: “Then you dare to evaluate so quickly? Are you backing Cloud Dream with your credibility?”

Game Base replied: Cloud Dream’s reputation + Tang Dynasty themes, definitely worth this score.

This response left the questioners stunned momentarily, they then realized: well… that seems quite reasonable!

The quality of Cloud Dream’s games has never been bad, its golden logo is almost flawless.

And who among the players of Daxia isn’t excited about the theme of the Tang Dynasty and chivalrous characters? Who doesn’t want to play?

Thinking about it this way, this score doesn’t seem to have any problems.

But they were not going to follow up immediately, what’s the point of giving pre-ratings without the heat? They might as well cover “Pokémon”.

But now it’s different, everything is ready, it’s the perfect time to release their own ratings and make their presence known —

“Game Frontline” — 9.0

“Player Tribe” — 9.5

“Game Research Society” — 9.0

“Player World” — 9.6

“Gamer’s Haven” — 8.8

“Digital Playground” — 8.5

“Gaming Universe” — 9.0

…..

One after another, gaming media outlets gave astonishingly high pre-ratings.

Even though after many games were released, the official scores were often adjusted down from the pre-ratings, domestic average pre-ratings above 9 are still absolutely stunning.

What’s even more interesting is that a large number of overseas gaming media also queued up to join this festivity.

However, the pre-ratings of overseas media as a whole are more conservative, whether it’s because they didn’t participate in the closed beta testing, or they were very unfamiliar with Daxia’s history — even though in their view, scoring so high in advance already seems absolutely absurd.

*

The final average pre-ratings could only be calculated the next day.

Before that, another group of social media influencers also got excited by the trailer — history bloggers collectively reached climax, and began to analyze the frames of the trailer one by one.

They wished they could strip away the clothes worn by every passerby in the trailer, every shop signboard, every piece of jewelry worn by noble women, every sword, every official… and analyze them thoroughly.

Under these people’s analysis, of course, “Chang’an” was not flawless, and soon the details of inaccuracy were discovered —

The silver currency that is always a controversial topic, the accents of the NPCs when speaking, blatantly irrational variety of dishes, carriages, and trolley cars on the streets which almost became public transportation…

However, these blogger researchers were lenient towards this, they would say when pointing out these irrational points: “Considering that Cloud Dream is making a game and needs to consider the player’s gaming experience, these changes can be understood.”

In fact, these changes are indeed for the purpose of improving the gaming experience, and Cloud Dream is more aware of these historical inaccuracies than anyone.

The moment the development of “Chang’an” just began, Cloud Dream pulled in experts on Tang history as consultants, and not one or two, but a full consultation group composed of twelve experts!

In addition to answering questions for the developers, these experts were strolling around Chang’an looking for incorrect details.

Once errors were found, as long as it does not involve the player’s gaming experience, corrections would be made immediately.

And if it involves the player’s gaming experience, it would be subject for discussion and the final decision to “retain” or “correct” would be made by Lincoln.

So, every obvious error that was left was deliberately left by Cloud Dream.

Without exception.

*

While the outside world was crazily enjoying this heat, inside Cloud Dream Company, the remaining eighteen employees of the Operation Department were having a small meeting on the promotional plan for “Chang’an”.

This is their last task before going on holiday, after completing this task, they will receive their overtime pay and go home for the New Year.

Resting his hand on the desktop, Samuel made a statement full of domineering spirit: “From now until the game is released, I want ‘Chang’an’ to always be the center of the topic!”

“Now, we begin the first step!”

Everyone in the room immediately got up and began to act. Their specific action was this:

Releasing another video clip!

The official “Chang’an” account, which had remained dormant since its registration only occasionally posting about development progress, experienced a twentyfold increase in its follower count within an hour following the release of the final trailer! It soared up to 8 million followers.

And these 8 million followers were the first ones to see the brand-new promotional material—

[Night Rain]

“Rumble——”

A flash of lightning tore through the night sky, the rolling thunder followed, leaden clouds obscuring the moonlight. In a short while, droplets of rain began to descend from the heavens.

The sound of rain went from sparse patterings to a rapid shift in intensity. Soon, besides the sound of thunder and rain, there were no other sounds to be heard.

That was until the sound of a painful cry resonated through the rain—

“No!”

The camera seemed to be attracted by this sound, swiftly piercing through the rain curtain and flying over the eaves of house after house, until it plunged into a forest.

There, five men dressed in black and wearing masks were attacking a man and a woman.

Among the masked men, one wielded a long-handled axe, one a long sword, one held a knife, one clutched a paper bag filled with a powder that could be medicine or quicklime, and the last stood twenty steps away, holding a bow waiting for an opportunity to strike.

The man and the woman each held a sword, but the one in the woman’s hand was notably shorter and seemed to be ill-fitting. It wasn’t hard to deduce that the man was her partner.

Observing the woman’s pregnant form, it became clear that they were a couple.

But the five black-masked men showed no hint of mercy and attacked relentlessly.

The woman could hardly move, it was thanks to the staunch protection from the man beside her that she was barely able to maintain her stance.

The skills of the husband, on the other hand, were terrifying. Even when he was surrounded and attacked simultaneously by three people, as well as under the watchful eye of the bowman from a distance, he made no signs of defeat.

His speed was incredibly astonishing. The clashing sounds of the swords, knives, and axes, the flying sparks, seemed to continue incessantly. His figure kept dodging, as if not hindered at all by the muddy ground beneath his feet.

His opponents, too, looked formidable, restraining them in place with well-coordinated advances and retreats.

“You must run!” the woman urged her husband to leave.

But the man remained silent, his long sword creating flashes of cold light with its movements. Even the rain seemed to be swept into sword-like trails by his fierce attacks.

The bowman finally found his chance, and a sharp arrow shot out, drawing a straight path through the air, breaking through the rain and aiming right for the man’s right eye.

But the man had just blocked a quick sword with his own weapon. He stepped heavily on the ground and leaped backwards, swinging his sword straight down in mid-air!

In a slow-motion replay, the sharp blade of the sword split the metallic arrowhead and effortlessly split the arrow shaft and flight into two.

Tiny splinters of wood flew past his eyeline, bursting droplets of rain!

But the man did not blink, because the second and third arrows were right behind the first.

Once more, the man swung his sword, performing the astonishing feat of “arrow cutting” yet again. But by the third arrow, he didn’t succeed and could only manage to deflect the arrow.

Yet, in the next moment, the audience realized that it was not a mistake——

The deflected arrow headed straight for the brow of the black-clad knife wielder, forcing him to halt in his tracks and use his knife to deflect the incoming arrow.

Without him as a cover, the man successfully broke through the interception of the enemies wielding long weapons and lunged at the black figure holding a sword!

“Crack!”

Another lightning bolt fiercely struck down, and this time it was so close that the lens was shaken.

The sound that followed was not of clashing swords but of the sword-wielding man’s voice——

“Go!”

Without the slightest hesitation, the pregnant woman sprinted, breaking out of the enemy’s circle!@@novelbin@@

She moved so fast that even the black-clad bowman’s arrows got left behind. The man who was holding the long axe immediately broke away from the group and gave chase.

——Because the sword-wielding man, had been stabbed in the shoulder by the black-clad man, was now firmly gripping the opponent’s sword guard and arm.

But his own sword was plunged into the chest of the opponent behind him, the black-clad man who had been holding a paper bag, throwing out powdery medicine and hidden weapons from time to time.

At this moment that man was spitting out fresh blood, feebly fell onto his knees, and soon lost consciousness.

“Crack!”

Lightning struck again.

The man erupted once more!

Despite being the one with a sword in his shoulder and in a disadvantageous situation, he was the one to launch another attack——one hand was still tightly gripping the sword guard, while the other crashed into the sword-wielding hand of the enemy.

He was aiming to seize the sword!

Only by seizing the sword could he fend off the incoming black-clad knife wielder, and secure a sliver of safety.

But in the next moment, the black-clad man did something astonishing——

From the handle of his sword, he pulled out another smaller sword!

It was a sword disguised as two, mother and child!

In the blink of an eye, blood splattered!

A splash of deep red color in the night rain turned into pitch-black ink in an instant, painting the entire screen black.

Abrupt drum beats filled the air, a white ink-like stroke quickly wrote two large characters on this pure black paper——

Night Rain!

“Boom!!”

The final drum beat finally fell.