[1] 靈丹: ling dan. A type of mytical pellet, said to bestow immortality or other lesser effects. They are a staple of wuxia and jianghu. People need different herbs to create ling dan which would have various effects.

Chapter Forty One His World

The testing department was a department in a game developer company that didn’t require relatively high skills. A normal position only required some experience with games and enthusiasm to work. In every way, Wei Wei could be said to be very familiar and skilled with games, so she more than qualified for this work.

The testing worker’s job was actually very dull. It might be talking repeatedly with a NPC to find if there is a bug, or to walk on the same map over and over … … it was not what most people thought, that you just had to play around and that was the end of it.

Today the testing department was actually starting a large batch of testing. They already didn’t have enough people and adding one more in was of benefit. The workers in the department worried initially that this rumoured girlfriend of the boss was coming to waste time, but who knew that she only needed a bit of time to familiarize herself with the controls of Dreams 2 and very quickly was up to the task

The department head felt like he had received a treasure and quickly gave approval to this future boss’s wife.

Wei Wei felt into addiction the moment she entered Dreams 2. Even when “on the jianghu, they call him mei-ge” happily came to observe, she didn’t have the mind to pay attention, causing Mo Zha Ta to dejectedly walk away. At noon when she went out with Xiao Nai to eat, Xiao Nai casually asked: “What did you do this morning?”

Wei Wei’s eyes started shining: “Did testing for the flooding quests.”

Because the weather in Dreams 2 tried to model reality as best as they could, the game had sunrise and sunset, had wind, frost, lightning and thunder. There were stretches of sunlight, and then there were prolonged periods of rain. Since there were periods of rain, then that would cause a certain place to have flooding so flood quests would be created.

After a certain village is flooded, the system would send out a notice, asking players to rescue NPC children and seniors or to help save NPC property. After they accomplish that, they would receive rewards. Players need to learn how to swim first, and then in the allotted time rescue the NPC to specified safe zone. In the water, the health would continuously decrease so if they couldn’t make it on time, the player would die and fail the quest.

So there were also quests to rebuild after the disaster and there were, of course, also quests to transport water and etcetera. Wei Wei could be considered to have played many games, but this type of special and very unique multi-person quest, it was the first time she had seen it.

During testing, she had heard the employees talking about childcare and feeding children quests, performing on the street quests, a family system, and weaving and so on. Even though she had only seen the tip of the iceberg, but the parts she had seen of the quest system in Dream 2 was already enough to amaze Wei Wei.

But at the end, the thing that had impacted Wei Wei the most today, was the scenery in Dreams 2.

The misty mountains, the vast rivers and lakes, the dense and elegant bamboo forests, the secluded and peaceful valleys, these places that she was used to seeing, when they came to Dreams 2 seemed uniquely epic in scale.

Of course, there wasn’t just the landscape. There was the smooth and graceful moments when releasing a technique, the almost-real expressions on the faces of the avatars … …

Wei Wei knew very early on that the 《Dreams of Jianghu 2》engine had been written alone by Da Shen and wasn’t a ma.s.s-produced one from another country. She had expected that on the images and the movements, it would be better than the norm, but when she saw it in action, she hadn’t thought that Da Shen’s engine would create such elegant and vibrant landscapes as well as such smooth and articulated movements.

But thinking about Da Shen himself, and that amazing team behind him, Wei Wei thought that it was par for the course … …

On the topic, with such a good engine, not taking into account how much 《Dreams of Jianghu 2》would make on its own, just selling that engine to other companies, Da Shen’s company would make a large profit.

After lunch, she returned with Xiao Nai to the company. To avoid being taken by Da Shen to yesterday’s “scene of the crime”, Wei Wei, of her own accord, went to visit meiren shixiong who was hurt from visiting her in the morning.

Xiao Nai smiled and didn’t stop her. He wasn’t the type to enjoy showing affection in public s.p.a.ces, but in the afternoon when the testing found a bug, he appeared in the testing department and in pa.s.sing fixed the programming problem.

At the time, the employees in the department had very complicated feelings on the inside. Basically they were all yelling on the inside: We can fix this ourselves! Laoda, you don’t have to come in person!

After a few days in the testing department, Wei Wei kept on feeling that Dreams 2 had fundamental differences compared to the games she had played before. It wasn’t just because of the tiny details on the landscape or the vast amount of talent and history behind it. There were some other places, but she couldn’t describe it properly, until she had seen the detailed plans for Dreams 2 and suddenly realized.

Dreams 2 had a kind of living atmosphere.

In the world of Dreams 2, nothing remained constant. Flowers bloomed and withered, the moon had its cycle, the people had successes and failures. A peony in the courtyard, might have been a bud in the past days but if you came back a day later, it might be in full bloom. In the capital city, a wine shop might have been full of customers yesterday but would have gone out of business in an instant and changed owners. A girl in the western part of the city might be secluded in her chambers this month, but next month she would have been married over into the eastern part of the city. Even the NPC that manned the herb shops would have shifts and periods of rest.

It was those little scenes and the changes in the NPC, that seemed to give people the expression of constant motion, of developing, and to sweep away the type of dead air that existed in preivous MMORPGs.

Every bit of Dreams 2’s basic functions had an unique aspect. For example there was kidnapping during the wedding, or to make your own techniques in the martial arts system, or to create a profession within a cla.s.s (People who were court officials could summon bodyguards and soldiers according to their rank, similar to Western styles of summoning.)

Different cleaver and wonderful ideas were in every corner of the game, but the most shining attribute of Dreams 2 was to tie together the living system with the jianghu system. A player in Dream 2 could either wander on thejianghu or could live completely separate from the jianghu.

This was very rarely seen in most MMPORGs. Most of those seemed to make a clear distinction. Fighting was fighting, living was living. Even if there were living systems within fighting games, that was only little bits to a.s.sist.

It wasn’t that developers didn’t want to do it, but they couldn’t achieve it. The developers domestically, to save money, usually brought engines from other international countries. And those engine were either with fighting and levelling up as the main focus with living as a side, or as living as the focus, and fighting to break up the monotony. So when the games were finished and opened domestically, they were limited by the engines they had and all felt the same.

But Xiao Nai had made his own engine, and so could escape this mode and freely compose the things he wanted.

Nevertheless, these inventions were limited to within the game. The new limit-breaking invention was on the living system of《Dreams of Jianghu 2》, to integrate client/servers and browser/server.

Using a normal colloquial explanation, it was to integrate the data that needed to be downloaded with the data that didn’t need to be downloaded.

To use the simplest example.

For example, you, in your Dreams 2 garden, planted a flower, but the time it would be flower would be when you would be at the office. What happens if you couldn’t go online at your office? Then you only needed to open the Dreams 2 webpage edition and wait in your office to harvest your flower.

Or another example. You have a son, who needed to eat three meals a day. You don’t want to put him in the system daycare, what to do? During work, go onto the webpage and feed.

You could image, in the future, these functions would transfer over to your phone.

At the moment, most large gaming companies were trying to develop a game online that was suitable for people working and didn’t have large technical requirements for a computer. But on the present market, there wasn’t a game that could combine a browser game with a 3d online game.

Dreams 2 was the leader at this.

This was a genius innovation.

“It’s not just that, you could try to reverse your thinking.” One day on the road after work, listening to Wei Wei’s never-ending praise, Xiao Nai very calmly, at least calmly on the surface, said.

“En?”

“Before the beta testing, the online edition of Dreams 2’s living system will open first.”

Ah? That was very unique, but what was the goal?

Wei Wei started to ponder.

Seeing that she hadn’t thought of the answer, Xiao Nai stepped closer and reminded: “And then just before beta testing, we would start promoting on the website the videos of the 3d version of the gardens.

Wei Wei instantly understood.

When the players of the online edition saw their gardens in the 3d game was so perfect and flawless, they would want to see it for themselves online and then … …

Everything could be deduced from there.

Da Shen’s strategy was very bold. He wanted to capture all kinds of players in one net.

Wei Wei felt her blood heat and she started to ponder even more.

The type that didn’t like fighting and killing would go in to the game and, not fight monsters and level but, but will farm, raise animals, make clothes, create fantastic food … … but if you felt it was boring being a farmer, you could find a master, learn some skills and n.o.body would stop you from walking in thejianghu. And, the system would try to tempt you. For example, plant vegetables and grow lingdan[1] by accident. After eating it, your strength would multiply. Or if you were tilling and dug out a martial arts manual, or you were making clothes and suddenly made a very good piece of armor … … and unfortunately these things couldn’t be sold … …

Therefore … …

It had to be said, Da Shen had made a conspiracy and was a manipulator.

That wasn’t quite right, he should be called a conspirator in the dark, he was an overt schemer, his best ability was to dig a hole for people to look at and jump into themselves >o

Wei Wei immersed herself repeat day after day in Dreams 2, almost forgetting to sleep and eat. One time, she didn’t notice when Xiao Nai had come to her side. As a result,he had gotten mocked by the people in the testing department.

“Xiao-ge­, how does it feel to lose to your own game?”

Xiao Nai didn’t feel that great, and this state had been there for a few days. Who could stand their only recently back girlfriend talking about the game day after day? With no other options available, Xiao Nai decided to restrict Wei Wei: “After you leave the building, you cannot say one word about the game.”

There was a little bit of secret delight in Wei Wei’s heart and a bit of feeling wronged. She tried to argue: “But it’s your game!”

Dreams 2, it’s your world.

Of course a game couldn’t be finished by one person. A game required the combined intelligence of the entire team. But Xiao Nai was the final architect of the game and also the soul of the entire project.

《Dreams of Jianghu 2》, from a certain point of view, was his world.

The experiences in the game were his values, his morals. Inside this game, Wei Wei almost felt that she was flying in his heart.

He was everywhere, perfect and strong.

It seemed like.

She liked him a little bit more even.

After staying for a whole week at the testing department, Xiao Nai picked Wei Wei up and dropped her into one of the departments under his direct supervision ––the planning department, and she started to a.s.sist with the plans.

Wei Wei didn’t have any resistance to the move.

She wanted to go to the planning department, almost desperately, wanted to in his world, add on something that belonged to her.