Super Spender

Chapter 225 - 225: 220: Efficiency is Life

Finn Lewis paid another visit to ICBC, meeting once again with the bank president that he had previously engaged with. The difference was that Finn, who had had to make an appointment for their last meeting, headed straight to the president’s office this time where he was eagerly expected. As soon as Finn arrived, Matthew Chan, wearing a broad smile, stood up, reaching out to shake Finn’s hand.

“Mr. Lewis, we’re truly honoured by your visit. You seem to be running a big operation this time. Do you have any investment plans? Our bank provides comprehensive personal financial management services,” Matthew Chan said,

still grinning. ICBC had just granted Finn a loan amounting to 10 billion Flame Nation coins funds, equivalent to just over 1.6 billion Federal Coins. Including

Finn’s own funds, he was now operating with roughly 1.8 billion Federal Coins.

After settling the cost of the building acquired yesterday, Finn still had quite a substantial amount left. Everything had been arranged by Henry Lewis. All that remained was for Finn to authorize it. Given his current assets, 10 billion Flame Nation coins was just a drop in the ocean. Even if it were 10 billion Federal Coins, ICBC would still dare to lend to Finn because these assets were all premium assets.

With the asset from ICBC under his belt, Finn spent the next few days witnessing the astonishing efficiency of the intelligent robots. By the third day, both Zero Holdings Investment Company and Virtual World Limited had been successfully registered. However, both companies had been registered domestically and Finn hadn’t bothered registering them offshore in the Cayman Islands or places of that nature to avert taxes. For Finn, were taxes ever really a problem?

On the fifth day, the signage outside the headquarters of the erstwhile Silver Sea Group was replaced with that of Virtual World. Although this building was merely a temporary holding, no major changes were made. By day ten, the primary recruitment process was complete, and the whole structure of Virtual World had been fully formed, with only four intelligent robots utilized.

Jay Sommer was shifted over to serve as CEO of Virtual World Limited, while Henry Lewis left the county for Proudly Nation. As for financial issues, all were managed by Zero, so there was no need to worry about the capital flow.

All other recruitments were fresh graduates, most of whom had just completed their studies. Although they were new, the core business of Virtual World did not require them to have proficiency so there wasn’t much for them to do. They had ample time to learn. Had it not been necessary to keep some things under wraps, a single intelligent robot would have been sufficient to handle this task.

Once these tasks were completed, there were only about ten days left for the public testing of NW’s new game, “World”. There hadn’t been any large-scale promotion of “World”, but the exposure it had gained from thrilling trailers released was so immense that the game media took it upon themselves to advertise it.

The official forum of “World” was close to crashing due to capacity as the daily active members exceeded 150,000. This figure was indeed astonishing, as not all players were interested in the forum – most were just interested in the game.

As “World” continued to release new expansion packs, screenshots, roles, etc., on its official website, the player’s interest continued to climb. Especially when they learned that the so-called fixed perspective in the video was the legendary instance difficulty, where all players had fixed perspectives, like playing CS, but in the first person. Ignoring the properties enhanced by the BOSS, it was already very difficult to survive with just this feature.

However, what the game players feared was not how difficult the game was, but whether the game was genuinely fair. As long as it provided equal opportunities to all players, they were willing to endure anything, even at the hands of a menacing BOSS, again and again, like a moth to a flame.

Because of “World”, Finn temporarily stayed at WY’s headquarters in Celeston City, making it easier for him to handle affairs.

Though Leo Johnson was no longer the majority shareholder of WVY, he still remained its CEO and chairman, so he naturally handled the affairs here. However, his face bore an unrestrained smile these few days. An early version of the New World had already been tested internally by the development team, and none of the internal testers had discovered any bugs.

Leo didn’t know how Finn had managed it but encountered no problems, and there was nothing else he could do but accept it. Although I,VY claimed that the game was developed in 10 years, Leo knew that this project had only taken less than two months from inception to public test. Therefore, it was understandable for Leo not to feel assured. But coming out from the test carried out by the development team members, there was no need to worry anymore, as not only did they not find any bugs, but they also noted that the game’s eight professional classes’ balance was unprecedented.

In the player’s hands, it was all about operation techniques, for one thing. The other was the overall game system. They had experience with the Mirage I game engine, but the most impressive part was the Mirage game engine’s powerful rendering capacity, which was on par with the visual effects of a Floral Village-grade movie.

This is truly a cinematic-level visual quality, but after some time of testing, the development team discovered that wasn’t the most impressive part of the engine. Instead, what was jaw-dropping were the light and shadow effects, as well as the rendering of character movements within the game.

The sensory feedback from every skill and action feels extremely intense. As soon as you start using skills, you’ll find that you just can’t stop. The flurry of cool skills, all aligning well with real-life movement, can easily outperform any games currently on the market.

That’s just one aspect. Another is the game’s handling of details. Players who have played any game know about the map glitches like how one can find places where bugs pop out at the edges of the map. But in this game, you can’t find such places.

Even in remote corners of the game, you won’t encounter any bugs. All rendering is in place, and the movements of the characters and in-game mounts, even the swinging of their arms when they walk and the realistic trembling of their muscles, are scientifically accurate.

The more you play the game, the more you’ll find it hard to put down. It’s often said that details make the difference and the game’s details are just exemplary. The development team is thoroughly floored by it. If they were to upgrade the game, they wouldn’t even know where to start.

The game doesn’t even need to be upgraded with its plethora of well-laid contents. However, the game does not swamp players with a surge of features, leaving them in a daze. Even though there are abundant game systems (more systems means more monetization opportunities), they won’t overwhelm the players.

Before every system is introduced, you would get enough guidance, by the time you can effectively utilize a system, you’d already be familiar with it. Each system has its unique gameplay too. In short, the game is like another complete, detailed world.

If public testing wasn’t already scheduled, the development team would have rushed to begin public testing immediately.

“Do we have enough publicity stunts?” Finn Lewis asked thoughtfully three days before public testing.

“Huh? Do we need more? Passing all other games, ours has become the talk of the 17173 website. We don’t need more publicity. Right now, no game dares to announce a public test within the same time frame” , Leo Johnson replied, somewhat speechless.

“With so many players, shouldn’t we give out some bonuses?” Lewis, stroking his chin, suggested.

“Eh, Director Lewis, what bonus are you thinking of?” Leo Johnson, hesitant and a bit speechless, asked instead of contradicting Lewis, everyone knew that Lewis was a big spender. His reputation was widespread and everyone looked at like it was a tech company run by a prodigal boy.

“Other companies always reward something like a mobile phone for leveling up, right? We won’t reward those things, nor physical prizes. In all servers, the first 10,000 players to reach the highest level will receive a luxurious nine-day trip to the Malya Kingdom, sponsored by our company.” Lewis pondered before speaking.

“Director Lewis… are you kidding?” Leo Johnson almost dropped his jaw. Other companies indeed reward phones and such, but that only costs a few bucks. Altogether, rewards from other games don’t even exceed half a million.

But Lewis directly offers ten thousand slots… This is simply… Leo Johnson had no words.

“It won’t cost much. Consider it a benefit to our players. Moreover, this money will soon be recouped from the players. If we give back something to them, they will always remember our goodwill. As a player myself, I get it. It’s settled then. Oh yeah, each player can bring two family members with them,” Lewis pondered and threw in another line.

Leo Johnson was totally speechless.. This is not much? In your eyes, what is considered much then?