Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

“Let’s talk about the Safe Zone situation first, you know how complex this issue is, right?”

Lincoln had thought about the [Safe Zone] issue before, but why did he ultimately abandon the idea?

Because in “My World,” it’s very difficult to judge this scale: What kind of security level can be considered a Safe Zone?

“Prohibit players from attacking each other?”

Please! In “My World,” whether you slash people with swords or shoot people with crossbows, these are the least skillful methods.

Traps are the crucial part, okay?

Pits, pistons, pressure plates, lava, explosives, redstone … various types of strange traps will eventually be exploited creatively by the players.

You don’t even need to get your hands dirty!

“Or, make all players invincible?”

Then don’t bother with exploring dangerous areas, difficult collections, monsters and BOSS battles, and other game content.

“Or, only make player attacks ineffective against other players?”

Then the problem comes back: What about traps?

Even if very complex means are used to prohibit damaging other players, what if I demolish your house and steal your stuff?

Would that be okay?

So, this is a very extremely troublesome issue that Lincoln eventually choose to give up on because of its complexity.

With a few simple questions, Lincoln stopped Little Chun’s argument.

Last night, before she was urged by Randall to leave work, she and her development team members were always keeping an eye on the players in the public world, naturally aware the numerous battles and destructions.

They had a brief discussion and felt that the officials could intervene to turn some public worlds into safe zones, and even casually conducted a vote.

Most of them agreed with this idea, there were just some disagreements on how many worlds to designate as secure.

Some people felt that there should be half, simply dividing them according to even or odd numbers — odd numbers for the [Safe Worlds], and even numbers for [Free Worlds].

Some people felt that it was unnecessary, and that most should either be [Safe Worlds] or mostly [Free Worlds].

Finally, a few people thought that this choice should be left to the players, letting the players of these [Public Worlds] to vote for themselves.

Before they could discuss it in depth, Little Chun was pulled offline by Randall — she had to take a break.

Although Little Chun’s health was not deteriorating for the time being, she had to strictly follow the doctor’s instructions.

After going offline, Little Chun learned from Randall: The release date for Battlefield would be announced on Saturday.

So she didn’t have the heart to think about the Safe Zone problem any more.

Now that Lincoln asked about it, she had the opportunity to consider the complexity of the issue.

“So you can discuss this issue, I’m not fundamentally opposed as long as you can come up with a good solution.” Lincoln concluded.

Little Chun did not say more, simply nodding in agreement.

“As for Battlefield…” After some consideration Lincoln also agreed: “Let’s just formally announce the existence of such a game when the time comes, then play a promotional video, but not say a word about the development progress and release date of the game.”

“This should minimize the negative impact, right?”

Little Chun nodded again, this was already the best-case scenario.

Having resolved this issue, the question of how to establish a [Safe Zone] became the top priority.

She wasn’t lying before — she truly believed that both casual and heavy-duty players should have the freedom to choose how they play the game.

But seeing many casual players retreating to their personal worlds, she genuinely found it a pity.

In worlds like [World No.57], peaceful co-existence and cooperation, exploration, and shared construction were the modes she liked the most.

It’s just a shame that there aren’t many such worlds.

While not all other worlds were full of fighting, they all where a mixture of peace and conflict, with some destructive behavior to varying degrees.

Many worlds clearly look peaceful with only a couple hundred out of hundreds of thousands population wanting to cause a bit of chaos.

But many players still feel anxious, worrying about their accomplishments being destroyed.

The goal of Little Chun was to make more public worlds like [World No.57], giving all players a sense of security.

However, achieving this was difficult.

…

Little did Little Chun know: She and her work group had not yet come to a conclusion when someone else had already taken action ahead of them.

[Public World No. 61]

Early in the morning, Super Tomato and many team members came to their constructed [Heaven Hall].

At this time, the [Heaven Hall]’s foundations, walls, and pillars had already been completed. Only the complex roof of the main hall was under continual construction and adjustment, seeking to make it look as similar to the Heaven Hall in real life as possible.

But now, no one was working on this.

Over two hundred early risers had temporarily fashioned a “dragon chair” for themselves in the main hall. On the more than two hundred “dragon chairs”, over two hundred arms were hoisted, showing their agreement with the resolution.

At the same time, in the [Super Tomato Fan Alliance] group chat, the vote result had achieved a 98.6% absolute victory.

So, 10 minutes later, another familiar announcement appeared before all players –

The ‘Super Tomato Fan Alliance’ formally declares:

‘My World’ [Public World No. 61] is a peace zone, against all malicious vandalism, calling on all players in this world to exercise restraint, play rationally, build a sanctuary for peace-loving players.

We strongly advise players and groups engaging in PVP activities in [Public World No. 61] to shift to other public worlds for such activities.

We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

If you really don’t want to leave, and don’t want to stop, then we will have to sincerely apologize in advance for our crude behavior.

As usual, any player or group wishing to join the alliance or cooperate with the alliance to maintain the game environment of [Public World No. 61], please inquire.

We wish all players happy gaming!」

This announcement, in wording, seems much gentler and more polite than that of the ‘Whirlpool Forum Player Alliance’.

But in essence, both announcements are pretty much the same: “From now on, I am in charge of this world, don’t fight or else I’ll make your life miserable.”

Super Tomato was originally embarrassed to make the announcement himself and intended to entrust it to the group administrator. However, the proposed announcement organizers almost scared him to death –

The ‘Super Tomato Fan Alliance’ formally declares:

From now on, [Public World No. 61] is a peace world!

If you don’t agree, go to hell!

Said by me, Super Tomato!」

Super Tomato promptly stripped this person of his administrative rights on the spot. It was too frightening!

You must be a hater!

In the end, he had to revise the announcement of the ‘Whirlpool Forum Player Alliance’ himself and publish it.

The ‘My World’ development team, who was in the midst of the discussion, immediately noticed the announcement and had an inkling of what was going on.

The players were no different.

After all, this was already the second ‘Assassins’ Alliance’ player army to surface.

With the first and second in place, will the third and fourth be far behind?

The answer is – not far indeed!

Only five minutes had passed when the third announcement appeared –

The ‘Cloud Dream Game Platform Discussion Group Alliance’ declares [Public World No. 17] a peace zone, prohibiting all destructive behaviors!

In the ‘Assassins’ Alliance’ era, player interactions on the Cloud Dream game platform were still in the form of “evaluation areas” and “discussion groups”. By now, they had actually become forums.

The players watched the announcement with excitement, eager for the next one.

They didn’t have to wait long for the fourth announcement to show up quickly.

The ‘Assassins’ Alliance Spiritual Rhinoceros Hashtag Player Alliance’ declares [Public World No. 33] a peace zone.

Then came the fifth, sixth, seventh…

One by one the formerly half-dead 2,000-person, 3,000-person groups were activated. The former ‘Assassins’ Alliance’ player armies transformed en masse into ‘My World’ peacekeeping troops, settling into one public world after another.

Even the esport club’s grand alliance group joined this grand declaration campaign.

Of course, the status of esports clubs is more delicate, the announcements they issued had to be even more meticulous and polite, without saying a single harsh word to any misbehaving players.

They adopted a lot of “suggestions”, “hopes”, “calls”, “earnest hopes” and other such words.

The only regret of the players was: The once glorious ‘Red Clothed Army’, due to its organizational form stemming from the spontaneous actions of a large number of players, they were distributed in all group chats, but they did not have a dedicated large group of their own, so they could not appear at this time.

One announcement after another, caused a huge sensation not only in the player circles, but also on the entire Internet.

In the absence of official organization, the actions entirely initiated by the players, on such a large scale and organized manner, was shocking to countless ‘netizens’ and industry insiders.

But this was not all, soon, an overseas announcement appeared, pushing this frenzy to unprecedented heights –

[A Letter to All ‘My World’ Baekje Players]

This announcement, or rather a proposal, first appeared in the Baekje section of ‘Spiritual Rhinoceros’, proposed by a prominent Baekje broadcaster.

And once it was proposed, it immediately triggered a strong reaction, attracting the attention and support of a large number of Baekje players.

By the time this announcement had successfully circulated and was noticed by Daxia players, it had been less than 20 minutes since it was posted.

The content of the announcement was also very simple –

“[World No. 6, is ours now!]

We call on all Baekje ‘My World’ players to head to [Public World No. 6], take this world and build a lot of buildings and creations with Baekje characteristics.”

Let [Public World No. 6], become our Baekje players’ headquarters!”

As soon as this announcement came out, the Daxia players were immediately incensed.

But before the Daxia players could react, the Izumo players exploded first!

They immediately had a large number of Izumo players run to the comment section of the Baekje announcement, leaving comments in Chinese that both sides could understand –

“Bulls* it! Since when is it your turn?!”