Chapter 11: Entrepreneurial Goals – Part Two

In the quiet of the night, back in his rented room, Gu Cheng did not rest. A newly purchased desk lamp sat atop a wooden wardrobe; its light flickered unsteadily due to the extension cord stretching too far and causing voltage instability.

Under this unsteady glow, Gu Cheng bent over his desk, organizing his notes.

“In history, ‘Dragon Clan’ was more popular than ‘Legend’ during the same period in the East Yi domestic market. However, after both were introduced into the Huaxia market, the trend reversed. The biggest objective reason was: Legend was better suited to the relatively primitive state of Huaxia’s network infrastructure at that time.

Dragon Clan’s player-versus-player combat was too intense, and character output was disproportionately high compared to health pools—life and death often hinged on a razor’s edge. Network lag and frame drops exacted a steeper price in Dragon Clan than in Legend. A two-second lag could mean a level 100 player being killed by a level 90 enemy.

Legend, on the other hand, cleverly copied the advanced design from Blizzard’s classic ‘Diablo II’—the mechanic of ‘gradual health regeneration after using a potion’ rather than instant healing. This provided a superior gameplay experience compared to the traditional instant-heal model. Gradual regeneration made both PK and monster-killing more measured, relieving players from timing their potion use to the split second and significantly improving Legend’s tolerance for high latency.

For a market like Huaxia, where broadband penetration was only one-fifth that of East Yi, such tolerance was critical. This meant Dragon Clan would only be enjoyable for users in first-tier cities or well-connected second-tier cities, while Legend could ensure participation from internet café users even in third- and fourth-tier cities.

Additionally, Dragon Clan’s sense of leveling accomplishment was weaker than Legend’s. Partly, this was because it overemphasized tactical coordination and countering. In Dragon Clan, it was common for a character’s approach or skills to be countered, and even with a ten percent level advantage, a player could still be beaten—this sense of being countered dampened leveling motivation.

In Legend, while there was also a class counter system among Warrior, Mage, and Taoist, it was unlikely that a level 30 player would be defeated by a level 27 counter-class. Moreover, the aforementioned instant healing mechanic further undermined the sense of achievement in Dragon Clan. For high-health professions, this became a disguised form of suppression, making warriors in Dragon Clan relatively weak and unbalanced, which would inevitably affect long-term spending.

Finally, top-tier equipment in Dragon Clan was much easier to acquire compared to Legend, leaving players without motivation for years of sustained investment...”

Gu Cheng took his notes seriously, pausing now and then to ponder and revise, drawing on over a decade of experience in entertainment product analysis from his previous life. He combined this with today’s data and personal gameplay experience to draft a thorough analysis report.

In his notes, he mentioned, “Instant full healing after using a potion robs high-health professions of a sense of accomplishment.” To the uninitiated, this might seem obscure. Put plainly:

For example, in Dragon Clan, a level 100 warrior has a maximum health of 50,000, while mages/priests have 16,000; archers/rogues, if not dual-spec'd for spells or health, have about 20,000, and if they do pick up some buff magic, they end up with the lowest health in the game—around 13,000.

Originally, the warrior’s health is three times that of a mage, two and a half times that of a rogue—quite the source of pride.

But if both sides have 20 potions each, each restoring 15,000 health instantly, and there’s no cooldown or limitation, the only thing that matters is who clicks the potion faster—unless the warrior can instantly kill the opponent with one blow, health pools become meaningless.

In actual PK, the supposed 50,000 to 20,000 health advantage between warrior and rogue turns into 350,000 to 320,000—proportionally, the warrior’s superiority is greatly diminished.

Lacking skills and magic support, warriors ended up heavily suppressed in early versions of Dragon Clan.

History later proved this true: players of Dragon Clan tended to be much more refined than those of Legend.

This does not mean warrior players were inherently coarse, but that most coarse personalities gravitated toward the warrior class. It’s like saying not everyone who’s good at liberal arts will study them, but those who are bad at science almost always do.

Dragon Clan’s implicit suppression of the warrior’s sense of accomplishment naturally led to the core consumer bases of nouveau riche coal barons and passionate small-time hooligans flocking en masse to Legend-type games.

Only after Legend’s explosive popularity did other online games start to notice this issue and adopt the “gradual healing after potion use” system from Diablo II, or else added cooldowns to potion use. This restored the warrior class’s sense of pride—so what if you have more potions? You can’t drink them all in time! It’s still the naturally long health bar that reigns supreme!

...

Viewed from decades in the future, such analysis might seem like building castles in the air, lacking any big data support.

But in the year 2000, with limited resources, this was all Gu Cheng could do.

“Lights out, time to sleep.” Gu Cheng twisted off the lamp and collapsed onto his worn bed, feeling more confident than before.

Perhaps someone inexperienced would ask: After all this analysis, isn’t the conclusion still to represent Legend? Why not just state it outright and stop pretending to be some high-and-mighty professional?

But the reality wasn’t so simple.

A low-IQ reincarnator with no real skills might get lucky, relying on future knowledge to choose the right general direction.

But then, what would you do if the East Yi developer inflated the licensing fee? How would you negotiate? Once you secured the domestic publishing rights, how would you position the product and select target cities?

If you couldn’t analyze these things and merely remembered “Chen Tianqiao got the Legend rights and struck it rich back home,” you’d be doomed from the start.

For example, if you obtained the Legend license and then targeted the first wave at Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen—the cities with the best network environments—and went head-to-head with Dragon Clan’s publisher, Legend would be crushed without a trace. Those cities have the network to run Dragon Clan smoothly—who would bother with Legend?

For Legend’s publisher, “surrounding the cities from the countryside” was a strategy that had to be understood.

The next morning, Gu Cheng considered whether it was time to visit Legend’s developer.

He’d looked up information about Legend online yesterday: it was developed by a game company called WE-MADE, located in the Guro District on the western outskirts of Seoul.

Guro District, close to Incheon Port and Incheon Airport, was a hub of foreign-oriented economic activity. Most of Seoul’s import-export and software companies were registered there.

After washing up, Gu Cheng left his apartment, grabbing a pancake-like street snack for breakfast at the subway station.

An hour later, following the address he’d copied from the internet, Gu Cheng found the WE-MADE company: an office floor near the Guro subway station.

The company occupied the entire seventh floor—by his estimate, it housed over a hundred employees.

Determined to give it a try, he strode confidently into WE-MADE’s reception area.

“Hello, sir, may I help you?” The receptionist greeted him politely.

After all, Gu Cheng was dressed neatly today, and his looks were enough to warrant a pleasant reception from the staff.

“I’m interested in your company’s game ‘Legend’ and would like to speak with someone in charge about a possible partnership to adapt it into an online game.”

“Do you have an appointment, or could you provide your company information?”

Gu Cheng was only here to scout the place—he hadn’t even registered his own company yet, so of course he had nothing to provide.

“I’m just here to take a look. I’m from Huaxia and don’t have a company in East Yi.”

The receptionist’s smile stiffened.

It was her duty not to let just anyone in to disturb the management.

“In that case... I’m not familiar with the project you mentioned, but I’ll check if any relevant managers are available.”

She picked up the desk phone and dialed an extension. The person on the other end seemed to indicate it wasn’t their responsibility and hung up.

“I’m sorry, but the people in charge are not available. Would you like to leave your contact information so we can follow up?”

Only then did Gu Cheng remember he hadn’t even bought a cellphone.

“Never mind, I’ll come back another day.”

He cast one last glance at WE-MADE, turned away with calm composure, and took the elevator downstairs.

Since it wasn’t rush hour, the elevator was nearly empty.

With nothing to do, he read every advertisement posted inside.

“WE-MADE is hiring: four C++ programmers, two artists, one game designer...”

“CMS Professional Training Institute offers C/C++, JAVA, VB, PHP, graphic design courses...”

He was only passing the time, but then he thought perhaps enrolling in a short-term course wouldn’t be a bad idea.

As an IT elite from the future, his conceptual understanding and knowledge of architecture were top-notch, but he didn’t know the most basic programming languages of the present—a hero with nowhere to wield his dragon-slaying sword.

This “tragedy” was mostly due to the fact that, in the future, primitive languages like C and JAVA were obsolete. Starting with Visual Studio 2030, code became more human-readable, almost like writing in plain language—even direct programming in Chinese was possible.

Enrolling in a training course would at least give him a broad overview of the current landscape—not a bad thing.

Besides, until his agency company was registered, WE-MADE was unlikely to pay him any attention. With time on his hands, he might as well learn something, and who knows, he might even get acquainted with some WE-MADE staff.

He had no doubt that, in this office building, some WE-MADE employees were also brushing up at CMS.

“Sir, this is the first floor—aren’t you getting off?” Gu Cheng, lost in thought, was jolted back by a passing office worker.

He looked up and realized the elevator had reached the ground floor.

“Oh, no, wrong floor,” he replied casually, glancing at the location of the training school on the ad and pressing a new floor button.

“Strange guy, missing his floor on the elevator,” the office worker muttered as Gu Cheng left, still puzzled by this odd passenger.