All the way back from the abandoned department store, the four members of the Cow and Horse Squad felt as though even the headwind blowing in their faces tasted sweet.
The setting sun dipped toward the west.
When Fang Chang and his crew hauled a cart brimming with supplies to the north gate of the outpost, almost every player who saw them had their eyes pop out of their heads.
"Holy shit?!"
"God tier!"
"Did you guys pull up the developer console or something?!"
"Dev Daddy, I'm begging you, nerf them already! If you don't hit them with the nerf bat, these guys are gonna ascend to heaven!"
A whole cartload of loot!
And plain as day, every single bit of it was good stuff!
This was simply ridiculous!
Sitting before their stall, the sisters Qiu Cao and Qiu Ye were drawn by the commotion and looked over as well. The younger sister in particular craned her neck inquisitively, eager to see what was packed inside the covered cart.
Just as she started to stand up, however, her elder sister reached out and pulled her back.
Qiu Cao shook her head and patted her sister's head.
"You shouldn't stare like that. It's impolite."
Qiu Ye pouted sullenly and lowered her head.
"Understood."
Even so, her curiosity burned.
She couldn't understand what these bluecoats were shouting about, nor could she see clearly what was inside the cart, but she could tell they were bubbling over with excitement.
Could it be...
A baby was born?
Jealousy and envy dripped from the players as they clamored that this made zero sense, with several of them crying out in unison for "Dev Daddy."
Hearing people call for the game designer, Ye Shi couldn't stay quiet for another second. Given Ah Guang's personality, he was definitely lurking and watching right now, which meant he'd absolutely heard them!
Without hesitation, Ye Shi yelled right back.
"Nerf my ass! Do you have any idea how hard we had to grind in that dungeon? Two Crawlers! One in front, one behind, two of the damn things! And hundreds of Gnawers! Do you know how we fought through that? Dammit, I chipped and rolled the edges on two of my knives!"
Watching Ye Shi flex and posture right there in the street, Fang Chang couldn't help pressing a palm to his forehead.
Lao Bai didn't waste his breath. He reached out, grabbed Ye Shi by the collar, and hauled him off like a scrawny chicken.
"Fuck! Don't pull me! I'm not finished talking!"
"Behave yourself!"
"Yeah, sit down and shut up!"
Together, Gale Force and Fang Chang pulled the heavily laden cart through the north gate without stopping for a moment, heading straight for the NPC warehouse.
If these little newbies knew that this entire cart of supplies was merely the tip of the iceberg of what was inside the shelter, who knew what they would think.
Just how loaded was this haul?
It could be summed up in a single sentence.
The loot was so rich that the warehouse manager had to run to his superior, Old Luka, for help. Faced with the cart's contents, Old Luka was equally at a loss, having no clue how to handle it. In the end, he had no choice but to escalate it to his own superior—the Administrator.
"...My Lord, I truly have no idea how to price these items. I must trouble you to decide for yourself." Standing before Chu Guang in trepidation, Luka hung his head as though he had committed a grave error.
Without pausing to reply, Chu Guang stepped straight up to the covered cart and peered inside. His eyebrows twitched violently.
Holy crap!
We're filthy rich!
Turning back to look at the four eager players, Chu Guang nodded with undisguised approval.
"Your performance exceeded my expectations... To be honest, I didn't think you would bring back so much."
Seeing the look on the Administrator's face, the four players grew even more elated.
We struck gold! We're rich!
Fang Chang threw out his chest, wearing a solemn and respectful expression.
"Respected Administrator, it is our honor to contribute to the grand cause of rebuilding civilization!"
Ye Shi chimed in from the side.
"That's right! It is our honor!"
"I am glad you think so, but clear rewards and penalties are also an essential part of rebuilding civilization. I will calculate every bit of the reward you are owed," Chu Guang said, glancing at the cart. "Tallying these materials will take some time. I will give you an appropriate payout before midnight... including the settlement for the other resources you discovered in the dungeon."
Chu Guang had previously spectated them with a drone and recorded their in-game chat, so he knew exactly what they had been doing down there.
The four players didn't question how the Administrator knew. After all, why would it be strange for an NPC to track the players' whereabouts?
It wasn't strange in the slightest!
This guy could even kick people offline.
However, upon hearing the Administrator use the word "dungeon" to describe the shelter beneath the department store, all four of their faces lit up.
A dungeon!
So that place really was a hidden dungeon!
Even if the dungeons in this game were all one-time-only affairs...
Fang Chang replied respectfully, "We're in no rush, My Lord. We will abide by your arrangements!"
Leaving the cart by the warehouse, Fang Chang and his crew carried Elaina's body to the morgue. Afterward, they took the elevator back down to the vault, preparing to log off and wake up in the real world.
Chu Guang dumped the task of taking inventory onto Xiao Qi. Then, he instructed Luka to post a quest recruiting several Strength-type and Constitution-type players to help haul back the rest of the supplies beneath the department store.
"...The map has been updated on your VM. If you can't find the way, turn on autonavigation."
"Remember, once you arrive, bring back everything that can be carried!"
"Don't leave behind a single screw!"
Once he finished handing down these instructions, Chu Guang stepped into the elevator, rode it back down to the vault, and turned on his computer to begin drafting the update announcement for Alpha 0.61.
Indeed, the version number was not 0.7, but 0.61.
This patch served merely as a supplement to version 0.6.
As for why he was pushing a sudden update?
Truth be told, it wasn't entirely because of the loot settlement for the Cow and Horse Squad's dungeon run. A large part of it was that Brother Mole's crew had run into some trouble.
Taking the Cow and Horse Squad first.
Their raid on the abandoned department store had been exceptionally well fought.
Without Chu Guang having to worry about a thing, they wiped out all the mutants in the underground parking garage and dragged back an entire cart full of loot.
What was more, these supplies were premium-grade industrial raw materials!
In particular, high-grade metals like chromium and tungsten ingots were crammed into the cart in massive piles, easily weighing over a thousand jin. If he wanted to buy materials like that right now, he could only import them from Red River Town, and the price was steep.
As for precious metals like gold and silver, they were superb conductors, indispensable for crafting precision instruments.
Not to mention the non-metallic consumables and chemicals, which were all extremely valuable goods.
The crux of the problem now was: how should their earnings be calculated?
If they sold them directly to the NPC warehouse, the players would suffer a massive loss. The warehouse didn't even have orders on file for many of those materials, meaning they could only be recycled as junk.
If they wanted to maximize their profits, they would have to drag the items to the north gate market and sell them off slowly. But if they did that, they might not finish selling them even by next month.
After all, the number of lifestyle players who had any use for such materials could be counted on one hand.
The most reasonable solution was for Chu Guang to set a lump-sum price himself, buying up all the resources produced by the dungeon in the form of a mission reward.
It was essentially equivalent to wholesale purchasing of bulk commodities.
This part was easy enough to handle. Paying the players was just shifting silver coins from one pocket to another for Chu Guang anyway.
Now that the bank was open, he didn't even need to shift pockets.
Reward settlement was a minor issue.
What Alpha 0.61 truly needed to address was the imbalance in dungeon gameplay and the breakdown in the distribution mechanism!
This problem hadn't cropped up with the Cow and Horse Squad, but over at Brother Mole's greenhouse ruins, it had already grown rather severe.
Dungeons in Wasteland OL were fundamentally different from traditional MMORPGs. In fact, strictly speaking, they couldn't even be called "dungeons" in the classic sense.
First, once a dungeon in Wasteland OL was cleared, it never respawned.
Second, the quantity and difficulty of monsters did not increase as players progressed deeper into the instance; in many cases, it actually decreased.
This might align with real-world logic, but it clashed with video game design.
Standard RPGs always gave players time to level up, placing the hardest boss at the very end of the stage.
In Wasteland OL, however, the toughest nut to crack was often the first line of defense. Once that perimeter was breached, the rest was just harvesting.
This design dictated that pushing through a dungeon became easier the further in players got. The pioneers who spent blood, sweat, and gear to break ground were the ones who drew the short end of the stick, risking their lives without any guarantee of reaping the rewards.
Evidently, Brother Fang Chang had anticipated this dynamic beforehand. After uncovering the good stuff, he didn't say a single peep on the forum, quietly keeping the fortune to his squad.
Only when they hit a wall did he recruit a random Constitution-type player from the forum. Even then, all the details were handled through private messages. By the time the dungeon was cleared, most players didn't even know it existed.
They ate the fish whole from head to tail, so naturally there were no issues with uneven reward distribution or other players swooping in to steal their thunder.
Over at the greenhouse ruins, however, the situation was completely different.
From the moment that dungeon was discovered until now, the number of players diving into it had quadrupled, devolving into an outright free-for-all!
If Chu Guang hadn't witnessed it through the drone and VM maps, he wouldn't have believed it: nearly fifty players had squeezed into the cramped first floor of the greenhouse!
To make matters worse, the players arriving late contributed almost zero damage output. They focused entirely on harvesting devil moth cocoons from behind the front line, snatching up two bundles at a time before bolting.
It would have been a miracle if the players bleeding and sweating on the front lines didn't have complaints!
Browsing the posts on the forum, Chu Guang realized that the current dungeon gameplay suffered from a glaring design flaw.
Under the existing system, the value of scouting intel was entirely unrecognized. Pioneers ended up playing the fool, while the only ones making a profit were either shady operators keeping quiet or latecomers slipping in to scavenge the leftovers.
Was that fair?
Not in the slightest!
If things stayed like this when closed beta arrived, who would be stupid enough to share dungeon guides?
As the embodiment of justice, Chu Guang naturally couldn't sit by and watch.
Fairness was the second principle, second only to server stability. Since the current gameplay mechanics had an exploit, it had to be overhauled!
[Alpha 0.61 Version Update: Dungeon Rules Adjustments!]
Typing out the headline, Chu Guang continued drafting the specific details in the document.
First was the definition.
Any special location—including mutant nests, hidden resource caches, and vault ruins—with a salvage value exceeding 100 silver coins and a corresponding threat rating would be marked on the map as a "dungeon."
Small dungeons would settle rewards immediately upon clearance, while large dungeons might be divided into multiple smaller sectors, with rewards settled in stages based on progression.
In principle, entering a dungeon required obtaining an "exploration right" first.
A player could only hold the exploration right to one dungeon at a time, and each dungeon's exploration right would only be granted to a single player.
The authorized player could form their own team to explore the instance. If other players unlawfully trespassed into an authorized dungeon, it would be treated as an infringement of exploration rights. Depending on the circumstances, the trespassers would be fined, and the victim would receive compensation.
Based on the timestamp when map data was uploaded via the VM, the original discoverer of a dungeon would automatically receive the priority exploration right once the clues were uploaded and verified.
"A dungeon doesn't need that many players swarming in. Having everyone pile into one spot is both inefficient and chaotic. It's much better to spread them out to explore more dungeons."
"Protecting the rights of whoever discovers high-value resource points will also encourage players to uncover more good stuff."
"Right, I shouldn't just limit the authorization count, but also set a time limit... to prevent people from occupying the toilet without taking a dump."
Chu Guang continued typing.
Depending on the dungeon type, the priority exploration right would last between three and seven days!
During this period, the discoverer and their teammates had exclusive access to explore the dungeon. Alternatively, they could transfer the priority exploration right to other players via a trade.
However, it was important to note that transferring the right would not reset the timer; the recipient would only receive the remaining duration.
If, unfortunately, the priority period expired and the player still failed to clear the dungeon, the priority exploration right would be revoked.
Simultaneously, the outpost would re-evaluate the dungeon's difficulty based on existing intelligence, set a guaranteed completion reward, and put the exploration right up for public auction.
Fifty percent of the auction proceeds would go toward compensating the player who lost the priority right, while the other fifty percent would belong to the outpost.
This served as compensation for the pioneering players.
After all, every bullet fired cost money; leaving them with nothing would be too cruel.
Naturally, the pioneers who lost the priority right were also allowed to bid in the auction if they felt the dungeon was worth further investment.
Once a dungeon was cleared, the outpost would assess the loot based on the circumstances and provide a fair valuation.
Players could decide whether to settle the payout based on the preset guaranteed reward or the NPC's appraised valuation.
If no choice was made, the higher of the two would be selected by default.
At the same time, once a dungeon was cleared, the exploration right became void.
Players could move on to search for the next dungeon to tackle, while the outpost would redraw plans for the cleared plots, zones, and facilities.
Players could submit reasonable proposals,
though whether they were adopted would depend on the relevant NPCs' judgment.
As for dungeons discovered prior to version 0.61, priority exploration rights were revoked by default, and they would immediately proceed to auction for re-allocation.
Under the "finder's priority" rule, Edge Slacker—who had been the first to tag the entrance on his VM and bring the map data back to the vault—would likely be the biggest winner of this update.
Although he lost his priority exploration right, the auction rules entitled him to fifty percent of the proceeds as compensation.
As for whether he would share a cut with Makka Pakka, who had tagged along to spectate, that was between the two of them.
...
When Chu Guang uploaded the Alpha 0.61 update announcement to the official website, it was precisely 6:30 AM in the real world.
This was the liveliest hour of the day on the site.
Unsurprisingly,
almost the second the 0.61 patch notes appeared on the homepage, discussions across the forum exploded.
Tail: "First! (｀▽′)Ψ"
Xiao Xiao Xiao Bookworm: "!!! Breaking news! The version jumped to 0.61!"
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "The devs finally noticed the problem with dungeon mechanics! If they didn't do something, running this party was gonna be impossible! T.T"
Elven King Fugui: "My heart goes out to Brother Mole. He's been driven half-mad by newbies hitching free rides. (funny face)"
Meat Mountain Steamed Bun: "Wait, does this notice mean only one party can enter a dungeon at a time from now on?"
Tail: "What?! Tail can't fish in troubled waters anymore?!!!! ∑(°Д°ノ)ノ"
Sisi: "Stop right there, Tail. Please don't sound so proud of being a freeloader."
Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes: "Holy crap, one dungeon bound to one person? When more players join later, can the server handle it?"
Stop Bullshitting: "This is totally unfair! An auction again! Mosquito's definitely gonna bid like a madman!"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Fuck off! Am I that kind of person? And even if I bid, it's not like I'd just sit on it!"
Stop Bullshitting: "Like you've ever set foot on the front lines?!"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Who says I haven't? Even if my body wasn't there, my equipment was!"
Stop Bullshitting: "Cut the crap! The number of monsters you've blown up is fewer than the fish you've blasted!"
Tengteng: "Alright, alright, stop fighting! By the way, when will my textile machine be ready? This child is about to cry. QAQ"
Ya'er I Wanna Go to the Restroom: "Don't cry, Tengteng! Almost done, just a few parts left! Look, we've got the workbench now, and the rubber for the pistons too. Guaranteed ready within three days!"
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "By the way, does anyone know how much Brother Fang Chang and his crew earned from their dungeon? How come I haven't seen them bragging?"
Elaina: "(funny face)"
Ye Shi: "(funny face)"
Lao Bai: "...Speaking of which, when does the auction for the greenhouse ruins dungeon's exploration rights start? (side-eye)"
Gale Force: "Spicy. (funny face)"
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Wait!! What are you guys planning?! (terrified)"
Fang Chang: "Ahem, Brother Mole... sorry about this, haha."
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Bro, give a guy a chance! I'm about to clear it! ∑(っ°Д°;)っ"
Fang Chang: "Next time, for sure!"
Chapter 119