Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 355 - 350: Opening the Access to [Virtual Chang'an]

Chapter 355  - 350: Opening the Access to [Virtual Chang'an]

Indeed, as soon as Lincoln finished speaking, he saw Clark and the members of the Light Encounter Group behind her show disappointed expressions.

Lincoln thought for a moment, opened up a teleportation gate, and said, "Follow me."

With that, he went in first.

[Virtual Chang'an·Development World]

When he last took the girls to the ancient architecture world, the [Virtual Chang'an] project had not really started.

They only knew that Lincoln had created a virtual world to record ancient architecture and was building several ancient cities at the same time.

Lincoln also mentioned that he wanted to develop a new game where players would "build architecture with blocks."

"Unfortunately, this incredible building has long vanished from history. What we see now is a reconstruction based on scholars' research of ancient records, after exercising a certain amount of imagination."

That is to say, the development of "Assassin's Creed: Chang'an" was only known to a small part of the company's employees.

The members of the Light Encounter Group didn't know about it before this.

"This is..." Clark looked at the system prompt that popped up in front of her eyes, "Virtual Chang'an?"

"Yes, our next big project, or perhaps the one after that, depends on the time it takes to solve several key issues," Lincoln explained as he gestured for everyone to follow him up the Meditation Temple Tower in front of them.

"This game will set the main battlefield in the Tang Dynasty's Chang'an. For this, I plan to recreate an entire Chang'an City in the virtual world."

"Of course, we are not pursuing a historical recreation; for the sake of gameplay and romance, we will add many unrealistic but magnificent buildings."

"For example, the tower we are in now: Meditation Temple Tower. This is most likely the tallest tower in Chang'an from the historical records."

"It has a pure wooden structure, three hundred and thirty feet high, which is nearly a hundred meters when converted to modern units."

"By comparison, the tallest building in Chang'an today - the Big Wild Goose Pagoda - is only a little over 60 meters tall and made of brick and stone."

"Unfortunately, this incredible building has long vanished from history. What we see now is a reconstruction based on scholars' research of ancient records, after exercising a certain amount of imagination."

"How accurate is it? It's hard to say."

"But who can deny its grandeur and beauty now?"

During the conversation, they had climbed to the seventh floor of Meditation Temple Tower. This floor was 11 meters high, and the outer corridor was over 30 meters long on one side, making it still spacious even with all the people standing there.

Standing at the highest point, nearly a hundred meters above the ground, they could see that all the buildings below had become small.

Lincoln stopped talking.

Little Chun, Clark, and the other members of the Light Encounter Group gently touched the vermillion railing beside them. The cool breeze blew against their faces, and the copper bells in the shape of wind chimes under the eaves swayed gently, making a pleasant tinkling sound.

Naturally, they felt an amazing sense of transcending time and space.

Disappointment, frustration, and dissatisfaction all gradually faded at this moment.

But at the same time, another idea quietly surfaced and grew stronger and stronger-

"Can I join this project too?" Clark looked at Lincoln with eager eyes.

The artistic style of "Light Encounter" naturally decided that, while it was appealing, it would also be limited.

No matter how well they made their visiting ancient seasons, they could never achieve what they see now in front of them!

This is a natural limitation of the art style.

"Um, it's not impossible," Lincoln thought for a moment and said, "but it's a bit too early to talk about it now."

"At this stage, basically, experts in related fields are leading the construction of this city, and it's not your turn to contribute yet. If you get involved too early, when the city is finally built and there are inconsistencies in style, you'll have to redo it, which would be causing trouble for yourself, wouldn't it?"

"As I said before, don't be impatient. Just wait a little longer."

Clark also understood, "So boss, you mean that by doing the ancient-themed season for Light Encounter later, you're planning to do a collaboration at that time?"

"Yes," Lincoln affirmed, "So you guys can do another themed season, and when the development of "Assassin's Creed: Chang'an" is coming to an end, you can make an ancient-themed season, at which point the two games can have a special collaboration."

Clark thought for a moment and nodded in understanding. However, she couldn't help but ask Lincoln if she could have access to the [Virtual Chang'an] area.

Her reason was that she could get a lot of inspiration and start preparing materials for the ancient-themed season in advance.

Lincoln agreed without hesitation.

In fact, he even gave them access to the entire [Ancient Architecture Recording and Protection Foundation Map], as this was one of the original purposes of setting up the project, so it was happily granted.

After granting the access permissions, Lincoln remembered another thing, "Many players think that the Diving Season map will be inaccessible once the season is over. They even petitioned online, hoping to keep the map after the season ends. Did you guys know about that?"

Clark nodded, "We know. We've already released an announcement explaining it to the players."

"That's good," Lincoln nodded.

He looked at the continuously expanding and gradually enriching virtual Chang'an below for a while before leaving satisfied.

Little Chun, who had been silently enjoying the wind and the sound of the wind chimes after climbing to the highest floor, finally came back to her senses. She smiled at Clark and left right behind her.

Clark clenched her fists, determined to be involved in the project no matter what!

Although Lincoln knew that Xu Chun and his team were in a martial arts cauldron in Virtual Chang'an, he did not go to greet them directly.

Instead, after logging off, he reluctantly went to practice boxing with Xu Chun in reality.

Little Chun returned to the development world of "Block World (Tentative)" and continued her work.

The most common forms of various material blocks had already been completed.

Now, they were working on different expressions for special scenes and buildings.

For example, outdoor-growing plant blocks and indoor decorative plant blocks use the same block material, but their expressions cannot be the same.

This part will not be forced to be perfect at once, but follows the principle: "It's good enough."

Because in this aspect, refinement and progress are almost endless.

Of course, Cloud Dream's standard of "good enough" is definitely not the same as the industry's "good enough".

The only regret is that Cloud Dream is the only company in the industry that develops virtual reality games.

Even if Cloud Dream's employees do something outrageous, their peers don't understand, which means that they have less bragging capital...

But it's okay; this situation will eventually change.

Lincoln already has a rough timetable, just waiting to push it step by step.

The first time he saw Xu Chun, Lincoln tried to persuade him to shorten his training time.

But Xu Chun didn't give his boss any face, and rejected it directly without even a second's hesitation.

Lincoln's timetable is actually very tight.

Even because the course duration and frequency are a bit high, and he had no foundation before, Xu Chun had to arrange rest breaks for him.

On weekdays, even if Lincoln trains in the virtual world, he still has to do some maintenance training after returning to reality.

Only on the rest days marked on the schedule can he put down his training and rest for a whole day.

With this, Xu Chun still has to give him regular massages to relax his muscles.

Xu Chun's father didn't even have this much patience when Xu Chun was practicing his boxing!

Lincoln was rejected and had to continue training hard according to the course.

*

Early the next morning, the sleeping Lincoln heard a voice calling him softly in his sleep:

"Master~ Master~ Wake up~"

Lincoln squinted his eyes, rubbed them, and struggled to open a small gap.

Through this narrow view, he saw Mavis in a cute dinosaur-printed onesie on the bedside display, holding a green dinosaur doll in her arms, leaning closer to the lens, and whispering to him.

Lincoln had made that doll and given it to her; he also had an identical one on his bedside.

"Wake up~"

"What's the matter, Mavis? It's so early, why don't you sleep?" Lincoln asked sleepily.

"It's already 7:30, not that early!"

Mavis shook her head and began to discuss the matter: "It's been three and a half hours since the animals in the amusement park dispersed at 4 in the morning, and they haven't reappeared!"

"Oh!" Lincoln, hearing the news, finally woke up a bit, "Good news, is it finally returning to normal?"

Before this, the animals would come back less than an hour after they dispersed.

Lincoln doubted how many night owls were in "Paradise," playing games all night long.

Compared to before, they still haven't appeared after three and a half hours, which means that those who were looking for Little Lion until 4 in the morning finally couldn't hold on any longer.

Of course, it could also be... that they've gotten tired of playing?

Either way, it's good news.

"Hmm, hmm, hmm." Mavis nodded in agreement.

But suddenly, her nodding stopped, and she changed the subject: "It's hard to say, though."

-"What's wrong?" Lincoln knew Mavis well and figured she must have discovered some new situation.

"Someone on the Vortex Forum's "Paradise" section is organizing everyone to catch Little Lion and bring the herds to the amusement park."

"Are many people participating?"

Mavis nodded, "The number of replies is rapidly increasing, and it has already broken through 100 floors, 140 floors, 260 floors..."

That's not all; Mavis also predicted: "According to my statistics, it can reach this level of heat at this time. By noon, this post will become the hottest post in the section, and it's likely to remain the most lively discussion thread for several days."

Lincoln had an ominous feeling...

As the heat of the forum posts got higher and higher, so did this ominous feeling.

By the time he sat in his office, the ominous feeling had reached its peak.

Although the hidden Little Lion still hasn't been found by the players, there are already people on the forum organizing to set up a special [Find the Beast King] group chat.

What frustrated Lincoln most was that there was more than one such group chat.

On the way to work, Lincoln asked Mavis to join using a small account.

As a result, Mavis joined 6 groups in a row, each with five to six hundred people!

And the players in each group were very enthusiastic and full of action!

By the time Lincoln logged into the virtual world and came to "Paradise" with Mavis, the players still hadn't found Little Lion.

But they had become fanatical, not only not playing the amusement park rides, but also the number of players in [Candy Track] had dropped by a large number.

Countless players drove shuttle buses in packs, heading deep into the wasteland.

From the looks of it, they were determined to find the Little Lion even if it meant tearing down several layers of the wasteland's ground so that the herds could return to the amusement park.

"Master, why don't we just make two amusement parks, one without animals and one with animals all the time, and let the players choose which one to go to?"

Mavis, holding Lincoln's hand, looked up with a puzzled expression: "Wouldn't that solve the problem?"

Lincoln shook his head at the words: "It's the simplest solution, but not the best one."