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Published at 19th of December 2023 11:29:25 AM


Chapter 119

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Chapter 119

 

On the way back from the abandoned department store, the four members of Bull and Horse Squad were so ecstatic that they even felt the wind blowing on their faces was sweet.

The sun was setting in the west.

When Ample Time and his party dragged a wagon full of supplies and appeared at the north gate of the outpost, almost all the players' eyes widened in shock.

"What the hell?!"

"Bro!!!"

"Are you guys cheating???"

"Devs, I'm begging you! You guys really need to nerf them! If you don't nerf them, the balance of this game will be completely broken!"

A wagon full of loot!

And it was all good stuff that was visible to the naked eye!

This was too ridiculous!

The two siblings, Autumn Weed and Autumn Leaves, who were sitting behind their stall, were attracted by the players' noises and looked over. Especially the younger sister. She craned her neck forward curiously, trying to see what was inside the wagon.

But just as she was about to stand up, her older sister reached out and pulled her back.

Autumn Weed shook her head and stroked her younger sister's head. "Don't peek, it's not polite."

Autumn Leaves pouted in grievance and lowered her head. "Okay."

However, she was still curious.

Although she couldn't understand what these blue-coated people were talking about, and she couldn't see what was on the wagon, she could tell that those people were very excited.

Could it be...

A baby was born?

The players were extremely envious, and kept shouting that it was unreasonable. Many people even shouted together, hoping to get the Devs' attention.

Hearing someone calling for Devs' intervention, Night Ten couldn't stay calm anymore. With Light's character, this guy must be observing them secretly! So he would definitely hear it.

Without hesitation, he immediately shouted back. "Nerf my ass! Do you know how hard it was for me to clear the dungeon? Two creepers! One in front and one behind! There were hundreds of Crunchers! Do you know how I wiped them out? I even broke two fucking blades already!"

Seeing that Night Ten was bragging about his achievement again, Ample Time couldn't help covering his forehead.

Old White on the other hand didn't talk nonsense. He just directly grabbed Night Ten's collar, and took him away like picking up a little chick.

"What the fuck! Put me down, I haven't finished yet!"

"Just shut up, can you!"

"Yeah! Shut up!"

Gale and Ample Time pulled a wagon full of loot together, went through the north gate and headed towards the NPC's warehouse.

If these newbies knew that this wagon full of loot was just the tip of the iceberg in the dungeon, who knew how they would feel.

As for how much this batch of materials in the wagon would be worth?

It couldn't be summarised in just one sentence.

These materials were worth so much that the warehouse manager had to seek help from his superior. However, his superior, Old Luca, was equally at a loss for what to do when facing the materials in the wagon and could only report to his superior, the administrator.

"...Sir, I really don't know how to set the prices for those materials. I can only trouble you to make decisions." Standing in front of Chu Guang nervously, Luca lowered his head as if he had made a mistake.

Without answering him, Chu Guang walked straight to the wagon and glanced inside, his brows suddenly twitched.

Holy shit!

Those players hit the jackpot!

Looking back at the four excited little players, Chu Guang nodded approvingly. "Your performance exceeded my expectations... To be honest, I didn't expect you to bring back so many things."

Seeing the expression on the administrator's face, the four little players were even more excited.

We're getting rich! We're getting rich!!!

Ample Time stood upright and said respectfully. "Respected administrator, it is my honor to be able to contribute to the great cause of rebuilding civilization!"

Night Ten also echoed. "That's right! It's our honor!"

"I'm glad that you can think so, but meting out the proper reward and punishment is also an important segment for rebuilding civilization. The rewards that should be given to you, I will calculate them clearly," Chu Guang glanced at the wagon and continued, "It will take some time to count these materials. I will give you an appropriate amount, including the settlement of other resources you found in the dungeon before midnight…."

Chu Guang had used a drone to observe their gameplay before. He had also collected their chat recordings stored in their VMs, so he knew clearly what they were doing there.

The four players did not harbor the slightest suspicion about how the administrator knew about it. After all, was it strange that an NPC knew the whereabouts of the players?

Not strange at all!

After all, the administrator could even kick people out of the game.

However, when they heard the administrator use the word "Dungeon" to refer to the shelter they found below the department store, all four of them showed excited expressions on their faces.

Dungeon!

Sure enough, the one they cleared was a hidden dungeon!

Although the dungeon in this game could only be raided once...

"We are not in a hurry. You can take your time." Ample Time said respectfully.

After leaving the wagon beside the warehouse, Ample Time and his party carried Irene to the morgue, then took the elevator back to the shelter, ready log out of the game.

Chu Guang left the task of counting the loot to Little Seven, and then instructed Luca to issue a mission to recruit some strength type and constitution type players to drag back the supplies under the department store.

"...The map has been updated in your VM. If you can't find the way, turn on automatic pathfinding."

"Remember, when you get to the place, take everything you can take away and bring them back to me!"

"Don't even leave a screw behind!"

After explaining the requirement, Chu Guang stood on the elevator and returned to the shelter. He turned on the computer and started editing the Alpha 0.61 update announcement.

That's right, the version number was not 0.7, but 0.61.

This update was only a supplement to version 0.6.

As for why the sudden update?

In fact, it was not entirely because of the dungeon "reward settlement" issue of the Bull and Horse Squad. A large part of the reason was that there was a problem with the Mole's team.

Let's talk about Bull and Horse Squad first.

It could be said that the battle in the abandoned department store was very successful.

The players could wipe out the mutants in the underground garage and come back with a wagon full of materials without needing Chu Guang to worry about anything.

And these materials were very high-quality industrial raw materials!

Especially those high-quality metal materials such as chromium ingots, tungsten ingots, etc. There were at least hundreds of kilograms of them in the wagon. At present, if Chu Guang wanted to get these materials, he would have to import them from Red River Town, but the price of importing those materials would not be cheap.

As for precious metals such as gold and silver, they were conductors with excellent performance, and they were essential for making precision instruments.

Not to mention those non-metallic consumables and chemicals, they were all valuable things.

But the crux of the question was, how to calculate the reward?

If those materials were sold to the NPC warehouse, his players would definitely suffer a huge loss. Many of those materials had no corresponding orders at all, and could only be recycled as garbage.

To maximize the profit, he could only drag them to the market at the north gate and sell them slowly. But in this way, he may not be able to sell all of them until next month.

After all, there weren't that many Life Profession players who could use these materials.

The most optimal solution was to directly price them and buy out all of the materials dropped by the dungeon in the form of reward settlement.

It was equivalent to bulk commodity wholesale.

This was actually not that difficult to do. Anyway, for Chu Guang, distributing money to players was just to move silver coins from one pocket to another.

Now that he had a banking system, even the step of moving money from one pocket to another was removed.

So the reward settlement was just a minor issue.

What the Alpha 0.61 version really needed to solve was the imbalance of the dungeon gameplay and the problems with the distribution mechanism!

This problem did not appear on the Bull and Horse Squad side, but on the "greenhouse ruins" which was currently being raided by Brother Mole, and it was actually a bit serious.

The dungeon of Wasteland Online was different from that of the traditional MMORPG, and strictly speaking, it could not even be regarded as a "dungeon".

First of all, the dungeon of Wasteland Online would not refresh after it was cleared.

Secondly, the number of the monsters in the dungeon and the difficulty of the dungeon would not increase with the progress of the raid, but in many cases would decrease with the progress of the raid.

This may be in line with the logic of reality, but not the logic of games.

After all, orthodox RPG games would give players time to level up, and put the most difficult boss at the end of the dungeon.

However, in Wasteland Online, the most difficult level was probably the first line of defense. After breaking the first line of defense, the rest would mainly be harvesting.

This mechanism determined that whoever raided dungeons first would suffer the greatest losses and receive the least benefits. They might even lose their lives and all their equipment without getting anything in return.

Obviously, Brother Ample Time knew about this in advance. So after discovering the good things in the dungeon, he didn't announce it on the forum at all. He simply didn't want other players to take advantage of this ‘glitch' and profit off other people's hard work.

He didn't go to the forum to recruit a passer-by of the constitution sequence until he realised that he couldn't clear it alone with his team anymore. When discussing the specifics, he also chatted with others privately. So even until the dungeon was cleared, not many players knew that there was this dungeon.

This was a dungeon that was raided by them from the beginning to the end, and naturally there would be no problem of uneven distribution of income, or the problem of being taken advantage of by other players.

But when it came to the "greenhouse ruins", it was a completely different situation.

Since the dungeon was discovered to the present, the number of players in the dungeon had quadrupled, and it had almost become a battle involved a hundred players!

If Chu Guang hadn't seen it through the drone and the VM map, he definitely wouldn't believe that the first floor of the greenhouse, which was originally not spacious, could actually fit nearly 50 players!

And the worst thing was that, the players who came later were almost not interested in helping at all. Most of the time, they would just pick up two cocoons of Devil Moth in the back and then run away as fast as they could.

Having their hard work stolen from them, how would those players who came first have no opinions?

According to the posts on the forum, Chu Guang gradually realized that the current dungeon gameplay mechanism had serious "bugs".

Under the current gameplay mechanism, first of all, the value of intelligence cannot be reflected, and secondly, the players who explored the wasteland would suffer huge losses. Only those sneaky players would benefit from the current mechanism the most.

Was this reasonable?

Not reasonable at all!

If they were still doing this in the closed beta stage, who would be foolish enough to share their walkthroughs?

As the embodiment of justice, Chu Guang certainly wouldn't sit idly by.

Fairness was the second principle after the server environment. Since there were bugs in the existing gameplay mechanism, it must be adjusted!

[Alpha 0.61 version update: dungeon rule adjustment! ]

After typing the title, Chu Guang continued typing the contents.

First, it was to define the dungeon in the game.

All special facilities, including mutant nests, hidden resource points, and shelter ruins, as long as their search values were greater than 100 silver coins and had a certain threat level, they would be marked on the map in the form of "dungeons".

The income of small dungeons would be settled immediately after it was cleared. Large dungeons may be divided into multiple smaller dungeons, and the income would be settled in stages according to the progress of the raid.

In principle, to enter a dungeon, players must first obtain the "exploration right".

A player could only have the right to explore one dungeon at a time, and one dungeon could be authorized for only one player.

The authorized players could organize their own teams and enter the dungeon to explore. If other players illegally broke into the dungeon that had been authorized for other players to explore, it would be regarded as a violation of the right to explore. Depending on specific situations, a fine maybe be imposed, and compensation would be provided to the infringed player.

Based on the time in VMs, the first finder of the dungeon would automatically obtain the priority exploration right of the dungeon after the information was uploaded and confirmed.

"One dungeon doesn't need so many players to raid, and all of them squeezing into one dungeon is inefficient and easy to cause trouble. It is better to spread them out and explore more dungeons."

"In this way, it will protect the rights and interests of the discoverers of 'high-value resource points' and also encourage players to explore more shelters."

"Mhm, not just limiting the number of authorizations, I should also limit the time... to prevent people from hijacking the dungeons without doing anything."

Chu Guang continued to type.

Depending on the type of dungeons, the grant period for priority exploration rights would be between 3 and 7 days!

During this period, the finder of the dungeon and his teammates would have priority to explore the dungeon, or they could transfer the priority exploration right to other players through transactions.

However, it should be noted that the transfer would not trigger the exploration time to rest. In other words, the transferee would only get the remaining time of the permission.

If, unfortunately, the player still failed to clear the dungeon until the expiration of the priority exploration right period, the priority exploration right would be removed.

At the same time, the outpost would re-evaluate the difficulty of the dungeon based on the existing information, set a guaranteed clearance reward, and then openly auction the exploration rights of the dungeon.

50% of the proceeds from the auction would be used to compensate the players who lost their priority to explore, and the other 50% would go to the outpost.

This could also be regarded as compensation for the player discovered the dungeon.

After all, every bullet fired cost money, and it would be too pitiful if those players who lost the right to explore had no compensation at all.

Of course, the player who lost the priority to explore could also participate in the auction, if they felt it was worth continuing to pay for the dungeon.

After the dungeon was cleared, the outpost would evaluate the dungeon revenue according to the specific situation and give a reasonable estimate.

Players could decide by themselves whether to settle the dungeon revenue with the preset guaranteed reward or according to the evaluation price given by the NPC.

If not selected, the bigger value of the two would be set by default.

At the same time, after the dungeon was cleared, the right to explore would be automatically invalidated.

Players could continue to look for the next dungeon as the target of the raid, and the outpost would also re-plan the plots, areas, and facilities that had been cleared.

Players could make reasonable suggestions.

But whether to adopt it would depend on the judgment of the relevant NPC.

As for the dungeons explored before version 0.61, the priority exploration rights were removed by default, and directly entered the auction process to re-dispose of the exploration rights.

According to the rule of whoever found the dungeon first would get the first priority, [Sideline_slacking] who marked the dungeon entry through the VM, and successfully brought the map data back to upload to the shelter would become the biggest winner of this version update.

Although he lost the right of priority exploration, according to the auction rules, he would receive 50% of the auction revenue of the exploration right as compensation.

As for whether he wanted to split the share with [Makka_Pakka] who died with him, that would a matter between the two of them.

...

When Chu Guang uploaded the announcement of the Alpha 0.61 update to the official website, the real world happened to be 6:30 in the morning.

This was the busiest time of the day on the official website.

There were no surprises.

Almost as soon as the announcement of the 0.61 version update appeared on the homepage of the official website, the forum immediately exploded with discussions.

Tail: "First comment! (`?′)Ψ"

Little_book_worm: "!!! Breaking news! This time the version number is 0.61!"

The_Escaping_Mole: "The devs have finally noticed the problem of the dungeon's gameplay mechanism. If they don't improve it, I really don't know how to clear a dungeon with my team anymore! T . T"

Rich_elves_king: "I feel really sorry for Old Brother Mole. He is almost driven crazy by the newcomers who steal the loot from him. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"

Roshan: "Wait, does this announcement mean that in the future, one dungeon can only be raided by one team at a time?"

Tail: "What?! That means I can't steal from them anymore?!!!!∑(゚Д゚ノ)ノ"

Sisi: "Tail, please stop, please don't be so shameless."

Tomato_scrambled_eggs: "Damn, one dungeon is bound to only one person? Will the server be able to handle it when there are more people in the future?"

Quit_your_bullshit: "I don't think it's reasonable! Why does it have to be auctioned! Mosquitoes will definitely join the auction and mess around to drive up the price!"

WC_really_has_mosquitoes: "Fuck you! Am I that kind of person? And even if I join the auction, I'll bid it seriously, okay?"

Quit_your_bullshit: "Why the fuck do you need it? Have you ever gone to the frontline?!"

WC_really_has_mosquitoes: "Who said I haven't? Although I didn't go to the frontline personally, my equipment did!"

Quit_your_bullshit: "Bullshit! You killed more fish than monsters!"

Teng_teng: "Now, now. Everyone please calm down. Speaking of which, when will my textile machine be ready? Any updates?"

I_have_to_go_to_the_bathroom: "Teng Teng don't worry! It will be ready soon. There are still a few parts left! We already got the workbench, and the rubber for the pistons is also available. I promise that I'll complete it within three days!"

The_Escaping_Mole: "By the way, who knows how much Brother Ample Time made from this dungeon? Why didn't I see them coming out to show off?"

Irene: " ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) "

Night Ten: "( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"

Old White: "…Speaking of which, when will the auction of the right to explore the dungeon of the 'Greenhouse Ruins' start? (Side glance)"

Gale: "Exciting. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"

The_Escaping_Mole: "Wait!! Don't tell me you guys are going to participate in the auction too? (Horrified)"

Ample Time: "Ahem, Brother Mole... I'm sorry."

The_Escaping_Mole: "BRO!!! Give me a chance, man! What the fuck, I almost cleared it! ∑(っ°Д°;)っ"

Ample Time: "I'll definitely give you next time!"...................................................................................................................................





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