People Aren't What They Used to Be!

The Ox and Horse chat group was even livelier than usual today. Although quite a few players in this group had pre-registered early, fewer than a fifth had actually made it into the game. Most of them were just onlookers who had clicked pre-register and stayed to watch the spectacle. "Hahaha! I just saw some idiot list five silver coins for one yuan, and it was gone in a flash!" "Damn it! I missed it!" "Holy crap! I just saw a big boss list eight hundred silver coins and cash out forty grand!" "What the hell?!" "@Dog Admins, was that one of you guys?!" A newbie definitely couldn't come up with that kind of money. Even though the newbies hadn't gotten into the game yet, they often watched the dog admins brag, so they had a decent grasp of the game's situation. Nobody stepped forward to claim the transaction. The message was quickly washed away by the chat stream. After a while, however, an admin finally piped up. Ye Shi: "Brothers." Jieyan: "What's up?" Ye Shi: "I want to go pro." Jieyan: "?" Lao Bai: "..." Kuang Feng: "..." Fang Chang: "*Side-eye*" Ye Shi: "Holy crap! What's with that reaction? Your boy is... the highest-level Perception-type player on the entire server, all right? Is it really that weird for me to go pro?" Fang Chang: "Not at all. I just wanted to ask which 'amateur player' logs an average of twelve hours a day. *Side-eye*" Jieyan: "Hahaha, I was just about to say that! If that doesn't count as pro, what the hell does?" WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Excellent! Full of vigor! Come fly planes with me, it feels amazing! *Grin*" Ye Shi: "Get lost, get lost, get lost!" Who Doesn't Understand Love: "Sigh, watching you guys makes my heart itch... Earning a hundred silver coins a day means five thousand a day, doesn't it? Damn it! I should have filled out the application form with you guys back then!" Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes: "This price volatility is honestly a bit absurd. Do you think someone might use this thing to launder money?" Fang Chang: "Umm... I don't know about laundering it over a keyboard, but in reality, money laundering requires meeting three conditions *at the same time*—hard to trace, high enough volume, and high control by the market maker. Obviously, Wasteland OL meets none of those three." The platform itself provided no payment tools. Money laundering wasn't just swapping US dollars for Zimbabwean dollars; it meant turning illicit income into legitimate income. Wasteland OL's anonymity was only anonymous between players. If Player A used the banking system to transfer money to Player B to buy game items, what kind of anonymity did the bank have? Absolutely none. Not to mention trading volume. The total volume was less than a few million silver coins, yet turnover was near two hundred percent. Setting aside how much could actually be laundered, which idiot would launder money through a market controlled entirely by someone else? Even the Federal Reserve had to test the waters before easing monetary policy. The operator could crash the market simply by tweaking data with a flick of a finger. They could credit an account with a hundred million silver coins, lock it for 'suspicious transactions,' and leave the user clutching useless numbers in a single-player sandbox. Try to launder money like that, and you'd literally end up washing dishes. Laundering money through game gear was even more surreal than doing it through the US stock market. At least the stock market had massive volume, and foreign investment profits could actually be legitimized through certain channels. In-game currency was a medium of exchange inside the game, but outside the game, it was merely 'in-game assets.' Its circulating supply was adjustable at the operator's whim. Swapping a million US dollars into a million silver coins or a single piece of equipment today might mean that million dollars would only be worth a hundred bucks tomorrow. Unless the operator cooperated with you. With just a shred of common sense, why would someone sitting on a gold mine whose Beta pre-registrations had already surpassed a million cooperate with your petty dish-washing business? Helmets could be delivered directly to players, and the official website had operated normally all this time. Even if it hadn't received formal written approval from official authorities, it had at least received tacit consent to some degree. Of course, Brother Scrambled Eggs was a chef by trade, so it was normal for his perspective to be narrower. Most people barely knew how to write the words 'money laundering'; who would actually understand how the process worked? Fang Chang: "Beta 0.2 is actually very interesting. The devs didn't set a direct price for silver coins. Instead, they allowed players to consign them freely, and they even collect transaction fees in silver coins. Obviously, the operators of Wasteland OL don't intend to make money off this platform at all. Quite a few of you have probably fleeced some wool by now, but I wonder if you've thought about why the devs did this." Clutching his phone, Ye Wei's face flushed slightly. To be honest, he really hadn't considered any of that. "Why...?" Fang Chang: "The NASDAQ was originally established to regulate America's chaotic over-the-counter market and provide financing channels for small businesses. Offline trading of silver coins has always existed, just on a small scale and kept under the table. As player numbers grow, someone would definitely set up a trading site like IGXE outside the forum. The devs setting up this platform themselves means it's safer for players, prices are more transparent, and it's easier for the devs to regulate. "Beyond standardizing the market, it allows Alpha players to cash out a portion of their in-game earnings. It sounds strange, but the game company is essentially handing us red packets." And those red packets were quite substantial. As long as a player hadn't lost their mind and listed a hundred silver coins for ten cents, everyone had made a bit of money when the trading platform first went live. Especially that Yaya. One silver coin had been traded for an entire Bitcoin. Who knew which fool had played the sucker? Yaya had stepped forward offering to return it, yet the buyer never came forward to claim it. It could only be described as charity. WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Do you think some idiot might sell their gear for silver coins? *Funny*" Fang Chang: "Idiots exist at all times. But there's a basic rule of thumb here: whether you sell your gear or adopt a more conservative approach in the game, it will cause you to drop down from your current tier. "Let me make a prediction. There will be two future trends. First, in-game assets will become more transparent. Backseat onlookers will pay closer attention to land prices, equipment costs, and economic trends in the New Alliance. They might even write strategy guides based on clues we provide, or indirectly invest in the game's industries by having other players hold assets on their behalf." During the Age of Discovery, not everyone had actually traveled to the colonies. Most people had merely read a few lines in the newspapers, yet that hadn't stopped a London physics professor who doubled as Master of the Mint from holding shares in a colonial enterprise. The silver coin trading platform was designed to handle assets in any form. Beyond real-world assets, it naturally supported the trading of in-game assets. At the same time, investing in the game world wasn't limited to silver coins; it could involve other things as well. Technology, for instance. Even though black technologies were everywhere in the game—you could pry a battery off an exoskeleton and find solid hydrogen—the most fundamental railways and communication facilities were still stuck at World War II levels. Still in its Beta phase, Wasteland OL held limitless potential, and all of these were prospective markets. Fang Chang: "The second trend: maintaining a level advantage will be harder than in Alpha. Casual players will play however they want, but those willing to grind will pour more silver coins into leveling up and boosting combat power, especially with the newly introduced caravan and corps systems! These two systems will be massive money sinks, but the returns will be enormous! "The Beta test will be a reshuffling. Alpha players will cash in a portion of their returns based on what they contributed during Alpha. By the same token, Beta players will see what Alpha players earned and grind even harder to level up before the Gamma dividends. "To sum it up: if you have spare silver coins, go ahead and sell some. Give newcomers a chance and a better game experience, while improving your own life a bit on the side. "Just remember not to sell too much. After all, along with contribution points and sequence levels, silver coins represent one of your 'shares' in this game. Over-leveraging will get you pushed out in Beta; your spot will be taken by new shareholders, and you'll miss out on the Gamma dividends entirely. "Also, be a bit careful when trading. There are plenty of game asset trading platforms out there, and no law forbids reselling game gear. Nobody cares about small private transfers, but if the sums get too big, you'd better think through the payment method. "And don't forget to pay your taxes." Fang Chang spoke at length with heartfelt earnestness. Ye Wei couldn't shake the feeling that half of it was directed at him, especially that last sentence. Still, he felt his buddy was being overly cautious. He wasn't an idiot; how could he possibly trade all his silver coins for cash? Even farmers knew to save seed grain for the spring plowing, let alone someone who had played games for years. His understanding of gear trading rules and real-world precedents was far superior to that of clueless novices babbling blindly. Just as Ye Wei pulled out pen and paper to calculate how many silver coins would be appropriate to list for sale, he noticed someone tagging him in their smaller private group. There were only four people in this small group. Fang Chang, who had just posted that mountain of text in the main group, had come over to tag everyone. Before Ye Wei could even ask what was going on, the message Fang Chang sent next made him hold his breath. Fang Chang: "I talked it over with Lao Bai. Niuma Brick Factory has been running for nearly half a year now, and we've never paid out dividends. With the trading platform going live, this is the perfect time for a distribution." Dividends! Ye Wei had almost completely forgotten about that. Lao Bai was the manager of Niuma Brick Factory, but the four of them held equal shares of five percent each, totaling twenty percent. Because the shelter held eighty percent of the shares, taking dividends was actually suboptimal. If they used earned silver coins to buy machinery and land, they could hire more labor and expand production, making the pie even bigger. Consequently, they hadn't distributed a single silver coin since the early Alpha days. Thinking about the rewards from the brick factory's exclusive missions, Ye Wei instantly grew thrilled. Fang Chang: "...The silver coins should arrive within two hours. While I'm bullish on Wasteland OL's long-term value—and the value of a second life can't be measured in worldly money—the price of silver coins will definitely pull back amid short-term volatility. "Too many ears in the big group. I didn't want to be too blunt there, since leaking screenshots to the forum would look bad. I'll say a bit more here. "Set aside the funds needed to develop the Burning Corps. "Dump the rest." *** Day two of Beta 0.2. After a full day of busy work in the real world, Zhang Hai put on his helmet and laid down that evening, only to find that the world inside the game had completely changed. Previously, everyone would rush over to his stall to eat noodles the moment they logged in. Today, they had all run off to buy Didiwei nutrient paste and the green wheat cakes baked by Bet Street residents. A long line stretched outside the NPC store, its head and tail lost from sight. It took no imagination to guess why. Looking at the steaming pot and the completely empty tables and chairs, Zhang Hai couldn't help but sigh. "People aren't what they used to be!" "Cheapskates! Is it really that serious? Do they have nothing but money in their eyes?!" Passing regulars overheard the grumble and couldn't hold back their retorts. Ye Shi: "Son of a bitch! Do you have no shame?!" Elaina: "You're literally the most expensive seller here, okay?!" Elven King Fugui: "Six silver coins for a bowl of pulled noodles! Why don't you just rob us?!" Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Exactly! Boss Yaya at least has big tits and a nice voice! What do you have?!" With his foul temper and sharp tongue, Zhang Hai fired back right then and there. "How do you know mine aren't big? Want to find out?!" Ye Shi: "Piss off!" Jieyan: "*Barf barf barf!*" The nutrient paste in their hands suddenly lost its appeal. Watching his customers scurry off in disgust, Zhang Hai finally began to regret it. The customer was king; he shouldn't have indulged in cheap trash talk inside the game. "Can't go on like this." Seeing that no one was coming to buy, and watching the white foam bubble away in the pot, Zhang Hai had no choice but to quietly alter the price on his wooden board to five silver coins. "Someone should buy it now, right?" Yet things went contrary to his wishes; it had virtually no effect. With a darkened expression, Zhang Hai wiped away the newly written five and forced himself to write down a four. A full hundred-percent profit margin down the drain! What a catastrophic loss! Zhang Hai's heart bled with pain. Still, whether thanks to the price cut or because the dog planner took pity on him, several NPC customers showed up today. Some had noticed the lower price and came to try something fresh, while others brought their wives and children for a meal together. Faces other than players finally appeared at his stall. Looking at the curious, tender face of a child trailing behind their parents, Boss Zhang ultimately couldn't bring himself to cut corners on the ingredients. Because the price had become slightly more affordable, even more customers arrived by nightfall, keeping him so busy that he didn't even have a moment to catch his breath. Yet the NPCs never rushed him; after all, even if they tried, he wouldn't understand. He bustled about until half an hour past peak mealtime before finally earning a brief respite. Exhausted as he was, watching the NPCs devour his noodles and seeing the hard-earned silver coins in his drawer brought an involuntary smile to Zhang Hai's weary face. Maybe... He ought to hire an apprentice. And open a couple of branch stalls over by the farm. The game version was evolving. He had to make a few changes of his own. Just as Zhang Hai was contemplating the future, an uninhibited shout came from the stall entrance. "Old Man Zhang! A bowl of noodles!" "Get lost! Where do you get off calling me old?!" Zhang Hai didn't even look up before glaring right back. "Look at this face of mine—twenty at most!" Standing beside her, Sisi gave Tail a tug. "Tail, that's rude. Besides, how do you know his age? What if he's younger than you?" Tail replied with practiced wisdom. "Sisi, you don't get it. What young person uses their real name as a handle? And what young person gets defensive when called an old man?" "I'm your daddy." Zhang Hai let out a chuckle as he placed two bowls of noodles on the table. Having paid at lightning speed, Tail zipped into a chair, eagerly pulling chopsticks from the bamboo holder. Just as she was about to dig in, however, she let out a shriek. "Giao!! Why is there one less slice today?!" Zhang Hai kept a straight face. "The price dropped. Is it strange that the portion shrank?" Tail put on a pitiful expression. "But, but... why does Sisi have more than me?!" "My hand slipped." "Despicable! You evil capitalist!" Dropping the act, Tail sighed, shook her head, and muttered, "Sigh, considering this is my last bowl of noodles, Tail won't hold it against you." Zhang Hai's meat-slicing knife halted. He glanced at the lively young girl. "Last bowl? You quitting?" "No way! We're only at Beta 0.2!" Tail giggled. "This game is getting more and more interesting, okay?" Zhang Hai asked in confusion, "Then what's with the last bowl...?" "Tail wants to start a mercenary guild! A mercenary guild needs capital, so Tail decided to go traveling with Sisi!" Tail's eyes sparkled. "And Sesame Paste and Rou Rou too! We agreed to set out tomorrow!" "Stop blabbing." Sisi lightly tapped Tail with her chopstick-holding fist. Amid the latter's mournful squeak, she cleared her throat and calmly explained, "Basically, the caravan system... This spendthrift spent real cash on a bunch of useless digital junk, so I have to help her earn it back." Zhang Hai let out a heartfelt sigh. "You kids need moderation... What's the point of paying to win? Isn't enjoying the game normally good enough?" Tail pouted unhappily. "Retired old men don't get an opinion!" "Which eye of yours sees me as retired?!" Zhang Hai rolled his eyes and tossed two slices of freshly cut cooked beef into her bowl. "Eat and get lost!" *** Three days had passed since the launch of Beta 0.2, and the Ox and Horse Squad were not the only ones dumping silver coins. How to dump them? Naturally, everyone had their own method. While the silver coin consignment market lacked candlestick charts, historical transaction listings were completely transparent. Players merely needed to adjust their prices slightly relative to others; in essence, it wasn't fundamentally different from trading skins in CS:GO. Those who hated hassle could list ten or twenty thousand silver coins directly at a flat rate of one coin per yuan. Those willing to take the trouble could split their stash into several or dozens of small orders of a hundred silver coins each, listing them at tiers of 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, and so on, waiting for buyers and leaving transaction volume to luck. Though slower, it maximized returns. As large volumes of sell orders flooded the market, the price of silver coins finally began to recede after trading volume hit a record high. And all of this unfolded right under a certain person's nose. "Heh, clever little rascal." Looking at the back-end transaction logs and the massive surge in pre-registrations, Chu Guang sipped his Nuka-Cola and smiled as he enjoyed the show. Fang Chang had likely traded US stocks before; his intraday swing-trading—buying the dips and selling the rips—was thoroughly polished. He would dump a large order to hammer the price into single digits, secretly scoop it back up with small orders, oscillate a few times, and even manage to offload his buddies' coins alongside his own. Right now, the guy was probably busy counting his cash. Others had sent private messages inquiring about his background, wanting to have a straightforward discussion with him. A discussion? Discuss what, exactly? What was there to talk about between a 'fallen empire' and 'interstellar primitives'? The shelter was, after all, the Human Alliance's last stand. Chu Guang would have to be out of his mind to resort to laying his cards on the table to beg for cooperation, especially when the other side could easily mistake him for an extraterrestrial civilization or some higher entity. What did a dimensional strike in the information domain entail? Power outages? Network blackouts? Child's play. A single sneeze from Xiao Qi could upgrade the parallel world's Earth to a new version, turning a 'second world' into 'the only paradise,' with salvation hidden within the game of a higher civilization. If those parameters were physically embedded onto the official website, would people play it? The UN Security Council Big Five would scramble to play it. Refraining from clicking the 'Overstep Act' didn't mean the option didn't exist; it simply meant there were better options that aligned more closely with his moral principles. Do honest labor, and what was owed would naturally come. Chu Guang was a reasonable man: work for him, and you would receive compensation from him. Today, that compensation could be real-world money; tomorrow, real-world status; in the future, it might even ascend to the level of civilization itself. A heritage from a higher civilization. The beneficiaries were hardly limited to individuals. So anyone wanting to enter the game had to fill out the form honestly, apply for a 'work visa' according to the rules he established, and abide by local 'laws and regulations.' The New Alliance was, after all, an heir to the Human Alliance. Did the Administrator not deserve some face? As for how Chu Guang viewed the silver coin market's fluctuations? From a comfortable seat, naturally. If someone was willing to spend hundreds of thousands to buy a single silver coin, or trade hundreds of thousands of silver coins for one dollar, what did that have to do with him? To him, weren't both just paper? As long as players were willing, they could list ten thousand silver coins for one yuan as an act of charity. Everyone earned money within the bounds of their own comprehension. What was more, in the real world, silver coins weren't currency that could put food on the table; they were in-game items. Was it worth it? Was a +999 Dragon Slayer Blade worth a real house? Was metaverse real estate worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? If you took it to its logical extreme, wasn't all virtual property just scrap paper? At the very least, silver coins in Wasteland OL could genuinely purchase land that could be developed freely, rather than deceptive cardboard mockups. Finding it expensive proved a person was rational. Believing it impossible merely proved they had seen too little. The New Alliance had grown from a barren wasteland to its present scale thanks to the efforts of generation after generation of players across different versions. Now that Wasteland OL had successfully reached the Beta stage, Chu Guang naturally wanted to share some benefits with those who had helped him. It was also the well-deserved reward for their tireless grinding. Yet Fang Chang had only guessed half the picture. Chu Guang's initial intention in developing this platform truly hadn't been to earn scrap paper from another world. Nor had it been solely to distribute dividends to closed-beta players and regulate the OTC market. There were two deeper objectives. First, assigning value to the grand vision Wasteland OL had promised. Second, redistributing in-game wealth. The former would give players greater incentive to complete missions and participate more actively in the corps and caravan systems he had laid out. The latter would make the in-game economic circulation far more rational. A bowl of pulled noodles costing less than two silver coins could sell for six silver coins under negligible taxes and land rent. Not even illicit trades enjoyed such insane profit margins! The only reason it could sell so high was that high-income players had pampered the market. As levels climbed, high-level players accumulated far too many silver coins, more than equipment purchases could ever drain. Ordinary wastelanders earning barely ten silver coins a day could hardly afford products priced arbitrarily by players. After all, no matter how much their income grew, it could never outpace 'immortal' players. The players had formed a closed economic loop among themselves. In practice, they were the gentry or knights of the New Alliance. Without administrative intervention, the risk of exporting inflation to the native NPC market would continue to accumulate. How to relieve that risk? Establishing an official silver coin trading channel and assigning value to the currency was merely the first card Chu Guang had played. A portion of the liquidity circulating in the closed loop would be released outside the game, while another portion would be bought up by players eager to grow stronger in the new version, funneling into equipment, trade caravans, or other areas, entering a virtuous cycle. Meanwhile, players who had jokingly shouted, 'Too expensive, give me two more bowls!' would think more seriously about the weight of their currency—whether what they bought with silver coins was truly worth it, and whether their own pricing was reasonable. If a nation's citizens harbored no respect for their own currency, and the gentry hoarded unimaginable wealth without putting it to proper use, the resulting risks went far beyond simple inflation. The New Alliance already had over a thousand players, and more would gain closed-beta access in the future. The sooner these issues were resolved, the better. "...Niuma Brick Factory, which never paid dividends, finally did. No. 81 Steel Mill distributed dividends too. A portion of the idle silver coins on the books flowed out of the game, another portion landed in other players' hands, but the vast majority went into the New Alliance's treasury. Both inflation and fiscal deficit issues were resolved in one stroke. "New players also get a better game experience. Beyond spending time grinding for gear, they can take shortcuts through spending real cash once silver coin prices drop. Meanwhile, top-tier players have solved their real-world livelihood concerns, freeing them to devote more energy to the game. "Backseat onlookers still don't have closed-beta access, but they've gained a chance to participate indirectly. "This round should count as... never mind, no need to count." Chu Guang counted on his fingers for a moment before giving up. He had won so many times he had lost track. In short, call it a win-win. "Master... why do people who can't even get into the game buy game currency?" Xiao Qi asked, perplexed. Its confusion mirrored what it felt when facing snails that were clearly weak yet insisted on crawling over to probe it with their tentacles. Taking a sip of his cold drink, Chu Guang replied casually from the sofa. "Everyone has their reasons. Some pay for a lesson; others pay for a dream. Our job isn't to dictate which leg players step with when they run, or which hand they use to wipe their backsides. Our job is to keep the vast majority of athletes on the track and clear rule-breakers out of the race." Those who secured game access were all adults. Adults had to take responsibility for their own actions. He was an Administrator, not a babysitter. One small-time player had spent two hundred thousand to sweep up twenty thousand silver coins, the largest single order being eight hundred silver coins bought for forty thousand yuan. If she spent it all on pulled noodles, it would be an absolute disaster. But what if she used it to buy nutrient paste and transport it to the southern plantations, or traded it for weapons to haul to Red River Town? Twenty thousand silver coins were worth far more than twenty thousand. "Silver coin prices seem to be falling." "Normal. It means the New Year's red packets are almost used up, and it's time for them to log on and get back to honest bricklaying." Chu Guang stretched and rose from the sofa. Xiao Qi asked curiously, "If the price keeps falling, will anyone still buy them?" Chu Guang replied breezily, "Prices move toward consensus amid divergence, and toward divergence amid consensus. Expanding volume marks the beginning of a reversal; shrinking volume signals the end of a trend. Whether one silver coin trades for a hundred yuan or a hundred silver coins trade for one yuan, to us, it's all just numbers. "If things ever reach the point where a bailout is truly needed, driving the price up is effortless. I could just post the complete blueprints for solid hydrogen technology on the official website, attach ten study-abroad slots with guaranteed mastery, slap a price tag of a hundred million silver coins on it, and see what silver coins are worth then. "Think about how much trash we scavenged and how many buns we steamed for the Pioneer just for that magnetic-confinement plasma cutting machine tool. Looking back now, tell me if that deal was worth it. "Never look at problems only on the surface."