Chapter 124 Three Thousand Players Enter the Arena
Monday, November 11, Earth time, an ordinary working day.
Qin Guan had so much fun playing weekend activities over the weekend that he recorded several GB of video material without editing it for a minute. He got up early in the morning and sat in front of the computer, and hurriedly dubbed, edited, and did the silly post-production...
After finally catching up on the videos he missed over the weekend, it was already noon. Qin Guan, remembering that he hadn't eaten anything in the morning, hurriedly looked for his phone and ordered takeout.
While waiting for the delivery guy to come to his rescue, Qin Guan opened the player forum...
Then his jaw dropped.
“《I got the helmet ahahahaha!! I’m in another world!!》”
“《Let’s see the live broadcast of the freshly- released helmet unboxing!》”
"《I got the helmet, I've applied for annual leave, my vanilla wife, I'm here to see you~》"
“So happy! Let’s take a look at the helmets that the SF Express guy just delivered!”
“《I’m about to enter the game, what do you want to say!!》”
“Bloody face, I sold the helmet for 88 yuan, and now I bought it back for 188 yuan. I will definitely not resell it this time.”
"What the hell? Didn't the last announcement about opening registration applications go on for nothing? They even sent the helmets without saying anything?!"
Qin Guan was confused and quickly called a friend who had also applied for the same account: "Brother Wang, are the helmets being distributed today? Have you received them?"
"I got it!" A cheerful and deep male voice came from the other end of the line, "The applications of the three people in my family have been approved. It was just delivered by SF Express. Cash on delivery. The helmets for me, my wife, and my sister-in-law have all arrived! Thank you for notifying me immediately, Xiao Qin!"
"All three of your applications were approved? Was this application so easy?" Qin Guan said in amazement.
"I don't know. I applied on the website but received no response. I thought there was no hope. Unexpectedly, the courier came early in the morning." The man on the other end of the phone was very happy. "I'm still at work. Your sister-in-law and my younger sister-in-law have already logged into the game to play. Please take care of them if you see them, Xiao Qin. Their IDs are still the same as when we played World of Warcraft together before."
"No problem, no problem." Qin Guan responded repeatedly.
The guy he called to ask was called Wang Jianguo, born in the 1980s, a dozen years older than Qin Guan, and an old World of Warcraft player. Qin Guan met him when he was playing World of Warcraft before he became a UP host. Ten years ago, Brother Wang was also a well-known figure in the online gaming circle, and was considered the first generation of online gaming masters.
After asking Brother Wang what time he would be online today and agreeing to continue developing the Blood Alliance (guild) together, Qin Guan hurriedly called other netizens to confirm whether their applications had been approved...
Then he discovered that the official pattern of issuing numbers was extremely random. The applications of Brother Wang, his wife, and sister-in-law were all approved, but not even one-third of his other fans, netizens, college classmates, etc., who he had a good relationship with, got a number. He called to ask, and most people were cursing the official for playing dirty. They were obviously among the first batch to apply, but they didn't make any splash at all.
As the saying goes, people’s sorrows and joys are not the same. Although those guys who didn’t get the numbers were very miserable, Qin Guan just thought they were noisy... He said a few words of comfort and hung up the phone.
The delivery guy brought over the life-saving small pot of jelly. Qin Guan ate it quickly, wiped his mouth, put on his helmet, and lay down on the bed.
It is still the Exile Town with clear skies and a pleasant autumn breeze.
As soon as Qin Guan came online, he let out a “Yo”…
What a familiar scenery!
The area around the online point, the entire intersection, and the end of the street as far as the eye can see are all crowded with naked skeletons!
These newbies are basically cloud players who have been hanging out in player forums for a long time. They have all seen the videos and pictures posted by the old players, but after actually logging into this magical holographic real-life game in person, they are not much more mature than the first batch of players when they logged in...
Running around, jumping, yelling, falling apart while running, banging one's head against the wall, etc. are all common operations . It is not uncommon to run face to face into a zombie NPC at the corner of the street and let out ghost howls.
Qin Guan glanced around at the noisy newcomers, and expressed his contempt for the bunch of newbies who were screaming and running back from the street corner - they were afraid of even the NPC who issued quests, and they went to the Spider's Nest and the Poison Mist Swamp to kill monsters or participate in expedition quests. Wouldn't they be weak in the knees even when they saw the Demonic Clam, a big gift package monster that players loved to see?
“Vanilla, Vanilla!” Several players waiting near the birth point seemed to be trying to use the novice initial skill identification technique. They scanned the ID above the head of Qin Guan, an old player wearing equipment, and immediately waved excitedly, “Here, here! It’s us!”
Qin Guan skillfully used his identification skills to see the IDs of these newbies, and immediately walked over happily: "Er Gou, Lao Jiu!"
Players who play a lot of online games and have a certain degree of fame like to use the same ID for a long time. For example, Qin Guan always chooses a shemale account no matter what game he plays, and his ID is Vanilla Pudding. These two netizens who met in other games also have a habit. They applied for the "Alien World" beta test account with great difficulty, and their IDs are the same as in the old games, "Lin Ergou" and "Nine-tailed Fox".
"This game is awesome!" The player with the ID Lin Ergou gave a thumbs up and said excitedly, "Lao Jiu and I played for a while. We went to Life Lane to watch the European sturgeon boss and went to see the rats at the southern gate of the town. It was awesome. It was just like playing in a movie scene!"
"Then why don't you complete the novice tasks and get a set of novice clothes first?" Qin Guan asked curiously.
"You think we like being naked? We can't get in line!" The player with the ID Nine-Tailed Fox pointed at the zombie NPC on the first avenue that issued novice tasks and said, "The upper limit of that task is 30 people, and it takes ten minutes to complete a round. There are hundreds of people in line, and we can't squeeze in at all."
Qin Guan slapped his head and thought, that's right... there are a total of 3,000 player accounts released this time, and it's noon now. Those who have received the helmets are taking advantage of the lunch break to log in and have some fun. The novice missions will definitely be long in coming.
"Then let's do it later. If people who are working or studying are offline, the queue won't be so exaggerated." Qin Guan said, "Anyway, there are naked novices everywhere now, so it doesn't matter whether they wear clothes or not. Have you two decided what you want to do?"
"We need warriors." Lin Ergou said with a beaming face, "Don't you say warriors are easy to find jobs (and easy to form a team)? Your Blood Alliance is short of warriors, right? Hurry up and train me up."
"You are so clumsy and you still want to play a warrior? Haven't you seen the video put up by Entropy Bu Da Zao? Warriors require operation, so don't show off." The nine-tailed fox, who knew everything about the matter, immediately mocked.
"How can you talk like that? This game is different from traditional games. I'm clumsy at playing PC games, so how can I be clumsy at this kind of game?" Lin Ergou was not convinced.
Qin Guan himself has a clumsy hand, and he knows the pain of playing a warrior. He said solemnly: "Er Gou, you might as well play a mage. Mages are more scarce than warriors, and they are more employable."
"Can he play a wizard? The job change alone is enough to stop Ergou." The nine-tailed fox waved his hand.
"Fuck you, Laojiu, are you looking down on me? What if I'm stuck in my job change?" Lin Ergou didn't really want to play a wizard, but he really wasn't convinced after his friend said that.
"I want to play Walker with my sister. If you can successfully change your job to Mage within one month after I change my job to Walker, I will acknowledge you as my brother." The nine-tailed fox said disdainfully.
Lin Ergou slapped his ribs until they made a crackling sound: "I'll definitely be your brother-in-law!"
"What the hell?! If you can't do it, you're my son!"
"You wish!"
"So you still want to be my brother-in-law? You can't even pee if you can't afford a mirror!"
"Alright, stop talking nonsense. Come on, I'll take you to the town hall and the Travelers' Guild to familiarize you with the route." Qin Guan waved his bone claws.
The town hall of Exile Town is still a very shabby mud house. Because there are not many NPCs here and there is no need to take care of any government affairs, Brother Lahong, the player's mayor, rarely comes here. Only the players' camp leader NPC Lao Yang (his projection) sits in the open door all year round.
Qin Guan led his two friends to the town hall at the end of the First Avenue, pointed at the NPC sitting behind the table and said, "This is Lao Yang. Ergou, when you reach level one in the brick-moving task, come to him to take the task and increase your reputation. One good thing about the wizard mentor is that he won't attack players casually, but it's not good to offend them too much. I heard from the phantom on Brother Lahong's side that if you go into the town hall and rummage around, destroy furniture, etc., Lao Yang will deduct your territory reputation and directly deduct it to negative. Without territory reputation, you can't go to the Undead Chamber of Commerce to exchange for good equipment, and you will wear the blank suit until you die."
"I understand, I understand." Lin Ergou nodded repeatedly, "Don't worry, my greatest strength is that I am not reckless. I will definitely not provoke Lao Yang."
Qin Guan brought the two brothers to the Traveler Guild on Second Avenue, led them into the hall that the players had painstakingly built, pointed at the NPCs sitting inside and said, "These are the newly added Traveler Mentor NPCs. Didn't we have a Westram defense mission in the game last week? Some of the captives captured by the villain caravan we attacked were converted by Lao Yang to serve as mentor NPCs."
Ken, who had been feeling uncomfortable for several days because of the two rows of strange green words floating above his head, looked with veins on his forehead at the undead who were pointing at them rudely and talking behind their faces.
The nine-tailed fox said in surprise: "Huh? Is that mentor NPC named Ken glaring at us? Can the NPCs in this game really understand what the players are saying?"
"Do you think I'm kidding you?" Qin Guan said proudly, "Not only can they understand what we say, the action logic of these NPCs is also affected by their character settings. Now the walker mentors in Exile Town are prisoners in terms of personality settings, so they have better tempers than the walker mentors in Westram. They are not like Hal's gang who chase players around and chop them for nine blocks at every turn."
"Awesome!" Nine-tailed Fox and Lin Ergou both gave a thumbs up.
