Chapter 1095: Welcome Prison Keeper Into The GOG Family
June 11th, Monday…
At Tengda Games…
Hu Xianbin and Min Jingchao were seriously thinking about Repent and be Saved’s new downloadable content, Eternal Reincarnation.
Ever since the meeting with Boss Pei last Monday, Tengda Games’ designers have been filled with inspiration. They could not wait to turn this downloadable content into reality.
However, after a week, this state of inspiration became a torture for everyone.
That was because they had inspiration but could not start production immediately. It was also very uncomfortable.
It was unbearable!
It was just like an author who had obviously thought of a brilliant idea but could not write it immediately. Instead, he had to repeatedly consider, polish, and perfect it for two months. He could not write a single word in the main body. This torture was not something anyone could tolerate.
The designers of the games department were the same.
They could only do some minor preparatory work, such as briefly conceptualizing the game mechanism, making minor edits to art resources, and so on.
However, they could not really plan projects, design specifics, formal development, and so on.
As for why Boss Pei did not make it very clear, everyone guessed that it was to let everyone acc.u.mulate inspiration and acc.u.mulate well. Don’t be in a hurry to achieve success, don’t mess up this good idea.
That was understandable, but it was still very uncomfortable.
Hu Xianbin and Min Jingchao were in a similar state.
Hu Xianbin had developed Mission and Choice previously. The game had stabilized after it was released. There were no large downloadable content or continuation development plans for now. Thus, Hu Xianbin spent most of his time thinking about Eternal Reincarnation.
On Min Jingchao’s side, GOG’s various compet.i.tion zones were about to hold the finals for the Spring Compet.i.tion. The game version was already very stable. There was no need to update it for the time being.
Min Jingchao had nothing else to do. He was very interested in the downloadable content of Eternal Reincarnation, so he helped to design and conceptualize the gameplay.
The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to create this downloadable content immediately.
It would feel quite exciting to fight especially with such a unique combat mechanism!
Of course, the prerequisite was that it was in the hands of an expert.
However, Boss Pei’s orders could not be violated. If Boss Pei said that they could not officially start developing it, then they could not develop it.
Hu Xianbin was a little worried as he said, “The feeling of being filled with inspiration but unable to be officially developed is too uncomfortable!”
“Boss Pei wanted us to wait two months before officially developing it. His intention was good. He wanted us to acc.u.mulate inspiration and prepare before starting production.”
“But… Do we really need two months? That’s too long!”
“Given the size of this downloadable content, it can barely be done in two months. After all, the main scenes and monsters have not changed much. Many art resources can be used again. Three months should be enough even if we add testing and adjustment.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Min Jingchao nodded. “It does feel a little strange. This progress is a little dragged out.”
If Pei Qian heard their conversation, he would definitely scoff and say, “What do you know!”
This had nothing to do with dragging it out. The reason why it had to be delayed for two months was mainly because it was just in time for the settlement cycle!
That was because the previous game development was within the settlement cycle. Thus, it could be developed according to the normal progress.
However, the downloadable content of ‘Eternal Reincarnation’ was relatively special. It was coincidentally at the end of the settlement cycle. If it was developed now, it would take three months to develop it steadily. That would delay the settlement.
That was why he decided to postpone the development for two months to avoid the settlement cycle.
However, Hu Xianbin and Min Jingchao did not know about this. They felt that something was amiss. They naturally had doubts when they thought about the Tengda spirit interpretation criteria of ‘Boss Pei’s unreasonable actions must have a deeper meaning’.
Previously, they had been filled with inspiration and had been seriously thinking about the design plan. Thus, they had buried these doubts in their hearts for now.
However, now that the design plan was more or less complete, they could not write a formal design plan even if they had drafted a draft. They also could not start production.
This question surfaced again in this torturous state, and it was difficult to ignore it.
Both of them fell silent and pondered.
Hu Xianbin frowned and said, “Do you think Boss Pei is hinting that we have something else to do by purposely giving us such a long time and not allowing us to start working on the downloadable content for Eternal Reincarnation?”
Min Jingchao nodded. “I think that’s possible.”
“What else could it be? What kind of work can be completed within two months and be slightly related to Eternal Reincarnation?” Hu Xianbin thought hard but still had no idea.
Suddenly, Min Jingchao’s eyes lit up. “Eh, I know!”
“Can we create a new hero for GOG?”
“Two months is enough for us to produce a new hero. What’s more, this new hero can be used in the combat mechanism in ‘Eternal Reincarnation’.”
“GOG has not seen such a popular new hero ever since Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan, was born.”
“The new heroes have good reviews and are balanced, but there has never been a hero as popular as Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan.”
“In these two months, we can design GOG’s new hero, ‘Prison Keeper’ while acc.u.mulating inspiration for ‘Eternal Reincarnation’ and prepare for the early stages.”
“Wouldn’t the rhythm be more perfect if we make this Prison Keeper of the new hero first and then warm up the publicity for Eternal Reincarnation around this new hero?”
Realization dawned on Hu Xianbin. “That’s right. That makes much more sense!”
“If Boss Pei really wants us to do something in the next two months, that would be it!”
Both of them thought about it and felt that this was indeed the most likely option.
What’s more, he had nothing to do now. Wouldn’t it be best to create a new hero?
At first, Min Jingchao had intended to release the news of the new hero, the Prison Keeper, on the stage of the GPL’s Spring Compet.i.tion finals. However, after some discussion, they decided against it.
The GPL’s Spring Compet.i.tion finals were this weekend. It was a little late compared to the normal Spring Compet.i.tion schedule. After all, it was June. Logically speaking, the summer compet.i.tion was about to start.
However, this was mainly to take care of the time in the other compet.i.tion zones.
The other zones were formed later, so the league began relatively late. The time of the various zones were uniformly opened for the summer compet.i.tion at about the same time. That was to ensure that the summer compet.i.tion schedule for the various zones had already been completed when the second global invitational tournament was convened.
Originally, the Spring Compet.i.tion Finals was a very good time to promote the new hero. However, there were two considerations: First, it would be impossible to create a promotional video in a week. It would be very boring if only text messages were released and there was no video information. Second, Boss Pei had requested that no information about the copyright development of the inspiration cla.s.s could be leaked in a month. Strictly speaking, this new hero should be part of the copyright development.
Thus, both of them gave up on that idea.
However, GOG’s summer compet.i.tions in various regions around the world would begin in about a month.
They could announce the new hero when the summer compet.i.tion began!
Min Jingchao and Hu Xianbin were filled with motivation once they had a goal.
The unique mechanism that they had finalized for the inspiration they had acc.u.mulated for Eternal Reincarnation could be used to design GOG’s new hero. They could work hard to develop a hero that was as popular as Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan!
…
The design plan for the new hero was quickly released with the cooperation of the two.
Obviously, they had to benefit from the inspiration that Boss Pei’s original ideas had given them, as well as the acc.u.mulation of ideas and game designs over the week.
The new hero was called the ‘Prison Keeper’. He was a physical a.s.sa.s.sin.
Its pa.s.sive skill was ‘adjustment’, which was similar to the aura value in Eternal Reincarnation.
The Prison Keeper did not have mana bars or energy bars. Instead, it had stamina bars. It would consume stamina no matter whether it was releasing skills or ordinary attacks.
In addition, there would be a circular halo effect under the feet of the Prison Keeper. It would expand and shrink according to a certain frequency. This circle was the aura value. Expansion meant inhaling, shrinking meant exhaling.
When the circle was expanded to the maximum, it would be the best state for attacking or releasing skills. If one attacked frequently under this condition, it would be able to achieve the adjustment effect. It would speed up the stamina recovery of the Guardian, increase the movement speed slightly, and increase the chances of blockage.
On the other hand, if he attacked or released a skill at the wrong time, the jailer would automatically adjust his aura value to adapt to the attack frequency. However, the side effect was that the aura value would gradually become chaotic.
The aura value would be represented by the color of the circle of light under his feet. It would still be the same as Eternal Reincarnation. At the beginning, it would be regular white, chaotic yellow or red, and the aura would be smooth green.
If the circle of light under the Prisoner’s feet was green and his stamina bar was full, it would be best not to fight him head-on.
The first and second skills of the Prison Keeper were ‘Perfect Parry’ and ‘Step and dodge’.
This mechanism corresponded to the perfect parry or dodge mechanism of the protagonist in Eternal Reincarnation when he pushed the joystick against the enemy’s attack.
There was a difference between these two skills.
The cooldown time for the perfect parry was short. There was no displacement effect, and the physical consumption was not high. However, it had a certain chance of failure. It required the mouse pointer to point in the right direction and use skills at the right time to trigger the perfect parry. Otherwise, it would not be a perfect parry and would even result in a failure.
Whether the parry was perfect would affect the damage taken by the hero, the change in aura value, the consumption of physical strength, and the cooldown of the skill.
On the other hand, the cooldown time for step and dodge was relatively long. It had a short distance displacement effect and consumed more stamina. However, it was much easier to operate than to parry. It was more friendly to the opponent’s handicap.
The difficulty of parrying could be simply divided into three types: the ordinary attacks of opposing heroes were relatively easy to parry; ordinary skills apart from big moves were more difficult; the parry of big moves was the most difficult. To succeed would not only require skill but also good luck.
It would be very difficult for players to succeed in parry considering that there were differences in the timing, flight speed, and other factors for each hero’s skill.
Once the parry failed, it was equivalent to using one’s face to receive the skill. The consequences would be very serious.
These two skills and the settings of the aura value were the key to whether the hero could show off.
The third skill was “Switching weapons”. According to the settings, the Prison Keeper was a Martial G.o.d and was proficient in various weapons. Thus, he could freely switch between different types of weapons.
Min Jingchao designed three weapon models because it was not appropriate to make it too complicated.
One was a dual-wield weapon. Under this mode, the swing would be longer before the attack, the attacking distance would be larger, the attacking strength would be slightly higher, the sweeping attack would have AOE effect, but the attacking speed would be significantly reduced.
The second was to hold a sword with one hand. Under this mode, the attacking distance, attack speed, and attack power would be moderate, but it would have a slight increase in block effect.
The third was a dual dagger. It had the shortest attacking distance and the lowest attacking strength. However, its attacking frequency was extremely high. What’s more, it could generate additional critical damage when attacking the enemy from behind.
When choosing different weapon modes, one had to consider the current aura value state and the effect of the equipment. For example, if one wanted to walk the path of the a.s.sa.s.sin, they could use the critical hit speed to equip the main dagger. If they wanted to walk the path of the half tank warrior, they could mainly use the dual-wield weapon.
However, he could not use one weapon to the end. In order to encourage players to change weapons more, every time he switched weapons, there would be a short period of damage increase and a small buff to increase the success rate of parrying.
It was also easy to explain in terms of setting: If they used the same weapon for a long time, the enemy would be able to see through their tricks. If they changed their weapon to another attack strategy, the enemy would be caught off guard and could deal additional damage.
The ultimate move was Martial G.o.d Awakening. It had both pa.s.sive and active effects.
The pa.s.sive effect was that every successful parry or attack could weaken the enemy’s aura during a continuous battle with the enemy. A ring appeared under the enemy’s feet, showing green, white, yellow, and red.
The more disordered the enemy’s aura, the slower their movement speed would be and the more damage they would take. When the breath was in a red disordered state and the health bar was less than 8%, the Prison Keeper’s damage would directly trigger the kill effect.
However, the prerequisite was that they had to continue attacking. If they could not continuously suppress the enemy’s aura value, then the enemy’s aura value would gradually improve until it turned green and disappeared.
Apart from that, there was another pa.s.sive effect: becoming obsessed. When players frequently used parries but failed continuously, and the number of deaths kept acc.u.mulating, the prison keeper would enter a demon state. At that moment, the success rate of his parrying skills would increase. There was even a chance to trigger the automatic parry effect.
On the other hand, the active effect of the big move was to enter the awakening state of the Martial G.o.d. The effect would be greatly improved when weakening the enemy’s aura. What’s more, the enemy’s aura value would be good and slow. The killing line would also be raised to 12%. After killing one person, the effect would increase for a small amount of time. In other words, it would be easier to harvest the battlefield.
However, this killing effect was not brainless. Instead, it had to disrupt the aura value before killing. Thus, it would not be too invincible.
All in all, this was an extremely difficult hero.
Its game mechanism was very worth studying. If it could be played well, it would be a strong choice whether to fight one on one or harvest the battlefield.
However, the conditions were very harsh to play well.
He had to block the Aura Point attack or release skills. He had to accurately release every parry skill according to the different skills of different heroes. He had to choose the right weapon to parry and dodge. He also had to think about what weapon he should play and match it with his equipment to adapt to the rhythm of the three weapon modes. What’s more, he had to choose correctly whether to team up or not.
Experts and lousy players were not playing the same hero at all.
However, what was interesting was that even if the player was lousy and kept giving this hero away, he could still guarantee his bottom line by entering the bewitched state. This hero could also display skills through parrying effects. He would not become pure trash after giving it a few times like Literary Genius of the Winds Ruan, leaving only happiness.
In terms of balance, this hero was completely different in high-end games and compet.i.tions compared to low-end games.
In a low-end game, most people would not be able to play well. Thus, they did not have to worry about him being too strong. They did not have to worry about him being too scamming even if they had the demonization mechanism.
In high-end games and compet.i.tions, the enemy could counterattack by targeting his aura value and changing the settings of his weapons. What’s more, even though the Prison Keeper’s parry looked strong, they might be instakilled once the parry failed. High profits were accompanied by high risk.
It was normal for professional players to not be able to show off. However, if they did, the viewing pleasure would definitely explode.
Min Jingchao even had a premonition that the hero, Prison Keeper, would probably form a happy duo with the Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan, in the future and compare who would be happier.
However, no matter what, no matter how much he could give the hero, Prison Keeper, it would still be a lot more useful than Happy Ruan.
The designer had done a lot of good!