Chapter 8: Toxic Novice Outfit
As for games...if there are players, there must be NPCs.
Most of the corpses that Yang Qiu brought back from the Great Swamp were completely white skeletons, but there were also a dozen that had not completely rotted away due to the special burial place and had turned into wax zombies.
This kind of zombie that is not completely rotten... Yang Qiu thinks that if it is used as a "game character" by the player, it probably won't work. The white skeleton that looks relatively pleasing to the eye is enough to challenge the player's nerves. If you really let the player choose a zombie as a character, the player will probably quit the game on the "create character" interface.
So, I just used them all as NPCs.
Undead creatures have extremely low IQs, are slow and dull, and are incapable of doing anything, but it is possible to trigger repetitive reactions according to a fixed process, such as making formulaic sounds to recruit people when seeing a naked white skeleton (the undead can only make fixed syllables according to commands, and actually have no idea what they are saying), or issuing tasks in a rigid manner according to the number of players... This is much simpler than asking undead creatures to clean up or something.
Now looking at the reactions of these three players, Yang Qiu feels that his choice is correct... To put it bluntly, no matter how hardcore a gamer is, he is still a gamer, just like the most fanatical CS fans will not run to Africa to become mercenaries to satisfy their addiction to war.
"Damn it, I was wrong. Player characters aren't the most realistic, NPCs are. But..." Skull No. 2 roared, "—Is it necessary to be so realistic? Can you give players who aren't good at horror a chance to survive?"
I was also very upset when I was given the medicine, muttering incoherently: "I was wrong too, I think I am just a person who loves dragons, Undercity is good, and the fat man in Undercity is also good... Cartoonization is the best, and those who pursue a realistic style are all evil..."
No matter how much they roared or how much they collapsed, their bodies were very honest... They stepped forward and imitated Qin Guan's way of interacting with this zombie NPC.
"Are you all willing? That's great." After receiving the player's response, the zombie NPC followed the set reaction, slowly stood up, entered the cabin, and took out three cleaning tools.
Each set of cleaning tools includes a tin bucket, a wooden-handled broom, and a dustpan.
Qin Guan, the bravest one, swallowed his saliva and took the tools first.
After getting the tool, a task message popped up on the empty task bar in Qin Guan's character panel:
"Street Sweeping"
"Exile Town is in ruins. Now that you have awakened, perhaps you should do something for this town."
"One hour of cleaning: 0/1."
Skeleton No. 2, who was the last to take the tools, glanced at the task bar information and asked in confusion, "What does one hour of cleaning mean? Do they want us to clean for an hour?"
"Not really. If the first novice task takes so long to clean, who would be willing to do the task?" said Give Me Medicine.
"Let's first see how long it takes to clean. It's the first task after all, and we have to do it." Qin Guan said.
Next, the three first test players started working...
They definitely won't care about the large pieces of garbage, such as collapsed beams, stones that came from nowhere, and carts that are so broken that they are completely unsightly. They are not really here to engage in production and construction in the game, so no one cares whether your roads are unobstructed or not. It's good enough that they can help sweep up the dust on the streets.
He swept the road with a broom and said in surprise, "Damn, this road is paved with stone slabs? It's all covered with black mud and you can't even see it."
"There are quite a lot of wooden houses here, and the area is not small. It must have been bustling in the past." Skeleton No. 2 said as he scanned the area. "Come to think of it, although the official racial background does not mention it, the NPC called us compatriots and gave us the task of cleaning up the streets. Maybe we players were originally residents of this Exile Town, died for some reason, and then resurrected... What do you think, will the main quest of this game be for us undead players to rebuild and revive Exile Town?"
Qin Guan couldn't help but glance at No. 2: "Hmm... maybe it really is in this direction, you have a rich imagination?"
"Of course, I make a living by writing online novels." Skeleton No. 2 said proudly.
"Oh, so you're from the online literature circle. No wonder!"
Skull No. 2, ID Miaobishenghua, real name Wang Miaomiao, a mid-level writer in the online literature circle, and a 28-year-old single SOLO dog who has achieved financial freedom.
Miaobishenghua is neither a hardcore gamer nor does she know much about VR games. The reason she “entered the circle” was, like Qin Guan, because she was attracted by the three promotional videos on the official website. In addition, the material fee of 188 yuan is just the profit of writing an extra thousand words for a mid-level writer like her... So she paid the money readily.
When creating the character, she was almost scared by the overly realistic "character modeling"... If she hadn't felt that she had paid for it and it would be a bit of a loss if she didn't enter the game to take a look, and if she hadn't thought that maybe the modeling would be a little more cartoony after entering the game, she would probably have quit the game.
Once you really enter the game, the word "quit the game" disappears from the dictionary of brilliant writing.
Impossible, absolutely impossible. Even if she was playing a game with skeletons and the NPCs were zombies that scared children to tears, she would never quit the game - even if she was just a super marginal online game player who played the game only for the scenery, she would still play this game hardcore until she finished it!
VR games are so awesome! In comparison, PC games, consoles, arcade games, and mobile games are not even as good as the mud under the feet of VR games!
If she had known this earlier, she would have fallen into the trap of VR a long time ago!
Hmm...what a wonderful misunderstanding...
The three of them chatted while sweeping the dust. After about ten minutes, the message in the task bar indicated "Task Completed".
"It's said that the novice mission can't let people sweep the streets for an hour. Even if the hardware of this game is awesome, it won't dare to be so willful." I was very proud of guessing it right and giving me medicine.
"It seems that the tasks of this game are still within the normal range." Qin Guan also breathed a sigh of relief.
When he created his character, he had already decided to make videos to be a tap water. But if the official thinks that their hardware is awesome and doesn't take the player experience seriously, and the task system is a mess, then he will definitely be scolded by the audience who have joined the pit...
The three of them chatted and laughed as they went back to the zombie NPC to hand in the task.
The zombie NPC took back the cleaning tools they returned, and then... took out three sets of clothes from the wooden house, which looked shabby but seemed quite sturdy.
A pure white short-sleeved pullover and elasticated shorts.
The three players who got this set of clothes were all confused...
"Is it my illusion? The style of this clothing... why does it look so familiar to me?" He shook out the pullover and pants given by the NPC and said with a trembling voice.
"It's not an illusion... This looks like the kind of T-shirts sold at a big sale at the entrance of the vegetable market, three for ten yuan." Qin Guan's mouth twitched, "And these pants... They're the five-yuan-a-pair one-size-fits-all shorts that Pin Shaoshao has been advertising a lot recently."
The three of them were silent for a while.
"It's poisonous! Isn't this a world of swords and magic? Isn't there a worldview of the undead race?? Directly using T-shirts and shorts from the real world as novice outfits? Aren't you afraid that the players will be distracted?" Qin Guan complained vigorously.
"I'm really convinced. Can't the artist devote some of his energy from scene design and character modeling to designing novice outfits that match the background?" I was so amused that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Will I die if I draw a clothing blueprint?"
On Earth, in the computer room.
"It's not cost-effective to order specific styles." Yang Qiu responded expressionlessly.
He just disguised the magic plane as a game, but he couldn't really turn the other world into a game. The consumption of players in the game couldn't be created out of thin air.
Rather than spending money and effort to find manufacturers to make custom products, wouldn’t it be better to sell off the ready-made goods to clear out their inventory?
“Forget it, at least it can be worn.” The casual player Miaobishenghua didn’t care too much about the impact on the immersive feeling, and put on the clothes as soon as he got them.
Qin Guan, who cared a lot about the immersive gaming experience, was silent for a moment and put on his clothes.
It's okay when everyone is naked, but when others are wearing clothes and you are not, the atmosphere becomes awkward...
After experiencing the baptism of novice outfit styles, the three players have a better understanding of the style of this game, which is very "eclectic" despite its focus on details - in fact, they should have thought of this earlier. Just from the official website that is so simple that it seems like they can't afford artists or programmers, it can be seen that the producer of this "Otherworld" game is definitely a man who does big things...
After giving the novice outfit, the zombie NPC no longer interacted with the player. Qin Guan endured the nausea and got close to it, but it seemed as if it couldn't see the player. There was nothing they could do, they could only continue to explore this exile town on their own.
Fortunately, the dog planner had no intention of hiding the NPCs and placed them in quite conspicuous locations. As soon as they walked out of the street that they had swept the dust from, they saw another zombie NPC standing by the wall in a daze.
"This armor, this axe... are the NPC in the promotional video!" Qin Guan was overjoyed when he saw it and immediately walked over.
When the player approaches a certain distance, the NPC wearing tattered armor and holding a huge battle axe is activated, and the helmeted face turns around.
Under the helmet is a well-preserved and particularly refreshing zombie face.
Qin Guan, who had just become excited, calmed down instantly...
"Hi, fellows." The zombie general, who is definitely the ultimate villain in the movie, took the initiative to talk to the players in a hoarse and low voice with a terrifying face that looked like a child crying at night. "It seems that you have just woken up from eternal sleep. Would you like to help me do something?"
"I'm willing." Qin Guan resisted the urge to run away and responded without crying.
It's just outrageous... The real thing is so much scarier than the one in the video!
These are friendly forces - what's even more outrageous!
The zombie general who was also scared to death gave me medicine and muttered to himself in despair: "I will never scold Sylvanas again... Sylvanas is simply the most charming and perfect undead queen..."
As for her brilliant writing skills...she had completely disappeared behind the person who was giving me medicine. She hung her head and stared at the bony instep of her feet, with no intention of looking up or forward at all.
The zombie general, who looked very unfriendly, gave them the task of eliminating rats in an area south of Exile Town.
The three people who accepted the mission were not busy completing the mission this time. Instead, they continued to explore the town and look for NPCs.
After walking around the streets and alleys around the birthplace, the three found a total of ten zombie NPCs, each with its own unique characteristics.
Except for a few NPCs that ignore people, most zombie NPCs will give players tasks, but all of them are tasks such as "Repairing Houses", "Removing Garbage", "Clean the Streets", and "Collecting Firewood and Stones".
So the three of them discussed it and decided to do the task given by the Zombie General first... At least this task required them to kill rats, which was much better than doing miscellaneous work such as repairs or cleaning.
Following the location specified in the mission, the three of them arrived at the southernmost part of Exile Town, an area with almost no completed wooden houses and only ruins.
"This is the area. Let's see where the rats are first." Qin Guan said, picking up a stick, thinking for a while, and then picking up a stone in his hand.
Seeing this, the people who gave me medicine and wrote poems also learned to find suitable stones, sticks, etc. as weapons...but they didn't have the courage to step on the mice with their feet.
The three people who thought they were well prepared entered the ruins fearlessly...
With a "click", Qin Guan, who was leading the group, stepped on and broke a rotten wooden board.
Qin Guan glanced down, didn't care, and continued walking forward... Although he was not wearing shoes, there was no flesh on his feet, so there was no question of whether it hurt or not.
Then... Qin Guan, who had good eyesight, watched helplessly as a rat head the size of a football emerged from behind a half-collapsed earth wall...
Player 3: “???”
Before the three confused people could react, the rat with a head as big as a football and eyes glowing red rushed out from behind the earth wall...
"What the hell?!"
“Nima!!”
“ Aaaaaaah——!”
"Tsk..." In the computer room on Earth, Yang Qiu showed an expression of dismay, "Three level 0 guys accepted a mission from a special NPC zombie general, and immediately challenged the small BOSS in the Novice Village... Well, this kind of challenge mission still needs a patch and a level limit."
