Official Website:
[...]
[5. Content on Level B2 of Shelter 404 will unlock after the "Bloodhand Clan" dungeon is cleared.]
[6. Wasteland Tip: The weather is turning cool, so remember to bundle up. Also, if you see the lady boss of the weapon shop dozing off, please wake her up so she doesn't catch a cold.]
That day, at 6:00 p.m. sharp as usual, the official website updated its announcement right on schedule. The comment section below was swiftly overrun by players who basically lived on the site.
Tail: "Throne! (≥ω·＊)丿"
Quitting Smoking: "First!"
Quitting Smoking: "Damn it! My first floor!"
Scavenger Lv99: "Fuck, I thought there was a game update!"
Spare the Life Under the Blade: "Excited over nothing!"
Elaina: "Speaking of which, another batch of players is coming in. Which wave of new players goes live tomorrow again? (Funny)"
Cut the Crap: "The fifth batch! Forty people in total! So hyped, hahaha! I was too excited to sleep last night. Tomorrow night I'll finally get my hands on it!"
Makka Pakka: "Bro, don't celebrate too early. I'm telling you, the grind in this game is insane!"
Midnight Chicken Slaughterer: "Forming a Strength-type team! Any newbies want to chop trees together? Come chop trees, axes are the GOAT!"
Spare the Life Under the Blade: "Nobody fight me for them! Quack quack quack, the newbies are all mine!"
Ye Shi: "Brother Blade! Hold it together! Your mature and steady image is crumbling!"
Old Ah Bin: "This guy is terrifying. (°Д°＊)"
Xiao Xiao Xiao Bookworm: "Is this game wholesome? It is, right? Getting nervous."
The official website was as cheerful as ever, brimming with merry vibes.
Tomorrow would mark the fourth day of Alpha 0.4 going live, when forty fresh rookies would arrive in the game world.
And the population of Shelter 404 on the surface would rise to ninety!
Chu Guang glanced at the pre-registration count, which had just broken the eight hundred mark. This was largely thanks to the illustrations a certain mole had drawn on the forum, attracting quite a few curious passersby.
Chu Guang clicked open the thread and saw that the drawing was actually of himself.
Hey, truth be told, it looked pretty handsome.
No, more accurately, it was quite a good likeness.
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "What else do you guys want to see? There only seem to be these few NPCs."
I Am the Darkest: "Doujin! I want to see doujin!"
No Umbrella on a Rainy Night: "Yes! I want a doujin of Tengteng and Yaya! (Nosebleed)"
Tengteng: "No, you don't! (#`Д′)丿×╰ひ╯"
The Little Match Who Sells Girls: "Yaya and the leech!"
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Holy shit, you pervert."
Chu Guang chuckled secretly as he watched.
How wonderful. His game was becoming livelier by the day.
Although the announcement posted on the Wasteland OL website today contained no news regarding development progress—only lore and settings gradually revealed as the story advanced—many clever players still managed to glean a great deal of crucial information from it.
In the Ox and Horse Club group chat.
The group members led by Old Bai basically logged off and got out of bed right at 6:00 a.m., keeping remarkably healthy sleep schedules.
Every time they logged off, the first thing they did upon waking wasn't washing their faces or brushing their teeth, but opening their phones to shoot the breeze in the chat.
And right now, the hot topic was today's announcement on the official website—
Old Bai: "Holy crap, there's quite a lot to unpack in this update!"
Quitting Smoking: "Brother, tell us quickly! T.T"
Old Bai: "To sum it up in one sentence: a new NPC added! A new 'Faction Relations' mechanic added! Plus new 'Backstory' and 'Personality' profiles for NPCs! In any other game, the damn devs could brag about this for three whole patches!"
Who Doesn't Understand Love: "Pity Brother Ye Ao left the group, or there'd definitely be a good laugh right now. (Grin)"
Ye Shi: "Who knew his psychological endurance was so pathetic? I just said 'bark some more, dog,' and he ragequit. (Funny)"
Gale Force 8: "Wasn't the mute the real reason?"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "(Funny)"
Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes: "(Eating melon)"
Without Brother Ye Ao, the group chat had lost a lot of its amusement.
Still, the guy had basically struck it big now, having upgraded from the group's resident mascot to the beloved clown of the entire Wasteland OL forum.
Fang Chang: "Forget about that guy. Let me share my analysis first. Even though the official website didn't release new content in the form of 'Alpha 0.5,' this soft update actually packs enough content for a full version! My guess is that perhaps because this part of the content doesn't require new closed-beta players, the devs didn't bump the version number."
Old Bai: "Makes sense. Every time the version number updates, closed-beta slots seem to be handed out. No version bump means the content being tested is still within the framework of Alpha 0.4."
Fang Chang: "Bingo! In fact, you guys probably noticed that starting from the last version, the frequency of our interactions with NPCs has practically multiplied. First came the visiting caravan, then nearby natives coming to cooperate, and today an entire player-run caravan was organized to head to Brown Farm. Anyone want to guess what this means?"
Seeing that no one replied, and guessing that everyone was listening too intently, Fang Chang didn't wait any longer and answered his own question as he kept typing.
"It means... a wider world! Think about it from the devs' perspective: why introduce the 'Faction Favorability' mechanic right at this moment?"
Ye Shi: "Uh, I've got nothing. Why don't you elaborate?"
Fang Chang: "I still remember what Brother Guang said at the very beginning: Wasteland OL aims to create a completely realistic world! Since it's a realistic world, NPCs will definitely evaluate player behavior and react accordingly, right?"
Ye Shi: "Sounds reasonable, but what does that have to do with the wider world you mentioned? NPCs already had favorability ratings to begin with."
Fang Chang: "That makes a huge difference! In the game's lore, players are members of Shelter 404, so it's not just about one-on-one relationships between a player and an NPC, but also how NPCs evaluate players as a collective whole! For example, if one of our players kills a native today, the native's family, friends, and neighbors aren't going to welcome us with smiling faces tomorrow, are they? Even if 'neutral' doesn't turn into 'hostile,' it'll at least become 'wary'!"
Ye Shi: "Holy shit? You mean collective liability?"
Gale Force 8: "That makes things pretty difficult. It's fine now while our circle is small, but once the player base expands, there's no guarantee everyone will be sane."
Fang Chang: "Not necessarily. Few veterans cause trouble; it's mostly entitled newbies. Usually, those rookies have no guns, no money, no stats, and zero mechanics. If they actually pick a fight, they'll just get hammered into the ground by NPCs. As long as issues are caught and dealt with early, it'll be fine. Once they grind for a while, develop their characters, and their save files become valuable, they'll have sunk costs. You get what I mean?"
Gale Force 8: "Makes sense."
Ye Shi: "??? What, what, what? What did you understand?"
Fang Chang: "Entitled newbies acting out is something for server ops to worry about after closed beta, so let's not get into that here. In short, opening the faction favorability system shows that the devs are deliberately guiding players to consider things from the perspective of the shelter's collective interests. Why do this all of a sudden? Obviously to pave the way for 'unlocking new maps' and adding larger 'NPC factions'!"
Old Bai: "I agree with Fang Chang's take. Not sure if you guys noticed, but item five in today's update announcement mentioned that Level B2 of the shelter will open after the 'Bloodhand Clan' dungeon is cleared! What does that tell us? It's obvious that the new map is already preloaded—it's just not open yet."
Ye Shi: "Damn, are they testing the AI or testing us?"
Fang Chang: "I think both! After all, games are meant for people to play. If they want to build a near-realistic world, an open virtual community, they have to test player behavior within that community and adjust server rules and gameplay accordingly. I have to hand it to the development team—this approach is simply unmatched!"
Old Bai: "Alright, alright, stop singing their praises for a second. Do you have any ideas? What's our next move? Keep hunting?"
Fang Chang: "Prey will only get scarcer once winter sets in, so hunting won't yield much. Since the war with the Bloodhand Clan has already begun, I suspect the manager will soon raise the bounties on marauders. The next phase of gameplay should just revolve around that."
Gale Force 8: "Makes sense."
Ye Shi: "Right, we bought our land but haven't broken ground yet. When are we building our house?"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Yeah, yeah! I'm waiting to open my workshop. (Funny)"
Gale Force 8: "No rush on that. Building it ourselves is too inefficient; we might as well hire a few people to build it."
Fang Chang: "My thoughts exactly. Leave house construction to the lifestyle players; our focus should still be earning money, leveling up, and upgrading gear."
Chu Guang, who hadn't lurked on his QQ account in quite some time, looked at the monitor with deep admiration.
As expected of Brother Fang Chang!
His grasp of the meta was even sharper than that of the game designer himself.
"Starting tomorrow, I'll increase the bounties on marauder targets."
"Capturing a hostile faction target—once confirmed as a marauder—will grant an extra bonus of 20 silver coins and 200 contribution points on top of the original 5 silver coins. Bringing back a marauder corpse will grant an extra bonus of 10 silver coins and 200 contribution points on top of the original 5 copper coins."
"If the target is a decurion, the bonus reward doubles!"
"Right, to prevent rookies from rushing out to feed kills, I should also set a level requirement for accepting bounty missions. Hmm... let's set it at Lv 2 for now and adjust later based on how things go."
The top tier of players had basically reached Lv 2 in their gene sequences, while veteran players like Old Bai, who joined early, were even at Lv 4.
Grinding to Lv 2 meant they already had a decent understanding of the game, and the bonuses from base attributes would keep players from being at a total disadvantage against marauders.
Of course, the most important part was that players at this level had savings. With just a little more effort, they could afford the cheapest pipe rifle in the weapon shop.
Chu Guang checked the storage lockers every day.
On top of that, he had Xiao Qi keep track of every silver coin handed out, so it was fair to say Chu Guang knew how much money the players had on them even better than they did.
In reality, the land itself wasn't expensive, costing merely 10 silver coins per square meter.
By now, the vast majority of players had saved enough money to buy land; they were just stuck waiting to accumulate the 2,000 contribution points needed to upgrade to citizens.
Perfect—no need to hoard it. Anyone with money should pull it out right away to buy guns. Once they had guns, they could hunt bandits, earning both money and contribution points.
Once the dungeon was cleared, this window of opportunity would be gone!
"We'll see how it goes. If not many people buy tomorrow, I'll have Xia Yan offer a ten percent discount on basic firearms at the weapon shop."
Naturally, the promotion applied only to pipe rifles and revolver rifles, certainly not ammunition.
A copper-jacketed steel-core bullet produced in Boulder City sold for 1 silver coin at the weapon shop. A rolled-brass cartridge produced in Red River Town sold for 5 copper coins.
If it was the "inferior" ammunition handmade by the weapon shop's lady boss using black powder, it was slightly cheaper, selling for 2 copper coins apiece.
Too expensive?
Go complain to the lady boss. What did that have to do with the manager?
It wasn't his shop anyway.
Chu Guang's face beamed with a broad smile.
Finally, he didn't have to worry about supplying ammunition to these players.
Once the players bought their own guns, they could waste ammo however they pleased—after all, they were spending their own hard-earned money.
Sitting in the corner memorizing her books, Xia Yan suddenly shuddered without warning.
Even though the vent was blowing warm air, a chill crept down her back. She couldn't shake the feeling that the man sitting in front of the computer was plotting something "evil" again.
The grin on his face was stretched so wide it practically reached his ears...
Chapter 76