This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 190 Alpha 0.9 Version! A Whole New Occupation System and Proficiency Level Gameplay!

Chapter 190: Chapter 190 Alpha 0.9 Version! A Whole New Occupation System and Proficiency Level Gameplay!

Official Website:

[Wasteland OL Alpha 0.9 Version Update Announcement!]

[Major Updates:

1. The number of closed beta players has increased to 800!

2. Updated the "Occupation System" and "Proficiency Level" settings.

3. New identity level "Intermediate Citizen": Requires 10,000 Contribution Points, allows the purchase of land to increase from 5 square meters to 50 square meters.

]

[Optimization:

1. New NPC "Heya": A silver-haired mixed-race girl, PhD in Engineering, 79% cybernetic enhancement with DNA defects, the sole survivor of Shelter No.117, born among the new generation of residents in the shelter. With her many stories, she seems to have many secrets hidden. (Image 1) (Image 2) (Image 3)

2. Shelter extended to Level B3, more areas opened, more intelligence for players to explore on their own.

3. New Looter faction "Chewing Bone Tribe": Due to the Expeditionary Army’s defeat, chaos spread like a plague on the dry land of River Valley Province. A huge Looter Tribe is rising at an incredible rate.

"Chaos, death, and savagery! We shall tear open the throat of civilization, suck on its bones, and hang those superficial skins on our flags to dry!"

4. Death penalty update: Resurrection cooldown remains unchanged, death penalty for players below Level 10 adjusted from 40 Silver Coins to 20 Silver Coins, death penalty for Levels 10-20 remains unchanged, death penalty for Levels 20-30 increased to 80 Silver Coins.

5. New concept of Awakening, advancing from Level 9 to Level 10 will automatically complete the first Awakening, Gene Sequence development progresses from first stage to second stage, player characters will gain at least one additional talent, and both panel attributes and real combat power will experience substantial improvement.

6. Fixed a few bugs.

...

]

[Due to the further increase in player numbers, the Player Manual and User Covenant have been updated to the latest version, adding content related to "War Principles" and "Prisoner Strategies." Players who have obtained closed beta qualifications should review timely to avoid poor game experience for themselves and others. Players who have reserved should also double-check carefully, and if they cannot accept the new rules, please cancel the reservation and wait patiently for the content-rich open beta.]

[Current Reservation Count: 23,333]

[Alpha 0.9 Developer’s Log]

Xiao Qi: "Hello everyone, I’m your beloved planner Ah Guang—’s most beloved assistant! As Washing Gull led by example in working overtime, which incurred the collective ire of the development, planning, and art departments, we decided to stuff him in a starfish can and sell it to the Mutant Tribe... However, we finally managed to roll out Alpha 0.9, and this update is very significant. Since Ah Guang is still working overtime, I am entrusted to discuss with you the design philosophy and gameplay of the new version!"

"Firstly, the biggest change in Alpha 0.9 as compared to 0.8 is that we have added an Occupation System and Proficiency Level settings for Wasteland OL."

"Honestly, when making this decision, we hesitated a lot. After all, our original intention was to create a sandbox game with freedom and a virtual community as its selling points, primarily for casual entertainment, and we had no plans to even develop a character interface; the concept of a profession seemed to run counter to that."

"However, as the game content continued to enrich and players increasingly participated in the open-world affairs, our NPC found themselves in a dilemma—there are limited things to do, and how to allocate these limited opportunities to those who need them the most."

"Zhang San likes fishing, Li Si likes farming; we have a hoe and a fishing rod on hand. Ideally, the fishing rod should go to Zhang San, the hoe to Li Si. But now that the number of players has risen to 800, if a specified manner were used to decide who gets to do the tasks, it would violate the principle of fairness, so we needed to set a standard!"

"And the Occupation System and Skill Proficiency Levels were created just for this purpose!"

"For example, when a player carries a VM to chop trees or completes a lumberjack task, their proficiency with the lumberjack skill accumulates automatically. Once it reaches the limit, the skill level increases, starting at level 0 and going up to level 10. This level is independent of the gene sequence level, each skill is calculated individually. Although advancing in skill levels doesn’t directly increase your work efficiency, it does unlock more lucrative tasks related to that skill and even exclusive titles like ’Ace Lumberjack’ or ’Forest Destroyer’!"

"Besides lumberjacking, other skills that can be improved include firearms, throwing, archery, combat, medical, scavenging, slaughtering, cooking, building, tailoring, metallurgy, manufacture, planting, mining, and more—over 40 types in total. For more details, players are encouraged to explore by themselves!"

"Compared to the Skill Proficiency System, the ’Occupation System’ is more like a symbol of identity or a title."

"For example, after ’Guo Niu’ the Warehouse Manager becomes a Scavenger, the proficiency of scavenging skills accumulates faster, and he is entrusted with important tasks in scavenging, receiving exclusive professions of scavengers and, once the conditions are met, can become a ’Master Scavenger’ or even ’King of Trash’!"

"At ’Guo Ma,’ the Granary Manager, one can take up professions such as Farmer or Butcher, unlocking more seeds or receiving more slaughtering orders."

"Moreover, some professions have certain skill proficiency thresholds. For instance, to become a Hunter and hunt more valuable targets, one must have at least one of the skills—firearms, throwing, or archery—at level 3 or pay 10 silver coins to open a hunting skill assessment."

"Similar professions include Soldier, Architect, Prospector, and more. We will also introduce Mercenaries, Adventurers, Engineers, and other professions in later updates. Stay tuned to our official website for more information!"

"New players can only register for one profession. As their citizen level increases, the number of professions they can register for also increases. For instance, a citizen can register for two professions, and an intermediate citizen for three, and so forth. Registered professions can be canceled at any time, but related achievements and titles will also be reset, so choose carefully!"

"Additionally, we will resolve the photo-taking issue in the next version, allowing players to capture beautiful moments with their cameras."

"If it’s not fixed in the next version, it definitely will be in the following one!"

...

Less than a minute after the update announcement and development log were posted, comments under the post refreshed rapidly with hundreds of responses.

However, the reason for the players’ excitement was not the newly introduced Occupation System.

It can even be said that it had nothing to do with the content of this major update.

Shadow Moon Ghost Wind: "White fur! It’s white fur! Fans of white fur, rejoice! (screams)"

This Child Indeed Fearsome As Such: "So tantalizing, too tantalizing!"

Elena: "Is no one calling out for my wife? Then let me do it. (joking)"

Quit Smoking: "The planner is awesome! (shrieks)"

Tail: "prprpr"

Si Si: "Yikes! This person—no, this tail!"

Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Tsk tsk, you LSPs, does no one care about this update’s Occupation System and Skill Proficiency Levels? Such important matters, and all the focus has shifted to an NPC! (pounds table)"

Fang Chang: "Sorry, this planner is too good. (nosebleed)"

Night Ten: "+1, Mole Old Brother rocks! (joking)"

Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Damn! How could even you, Fang Chang, with your bushy eyebrows and big eyes, switch sides!"

The post was bustling with activity.

The forum outside the post was the same.

The official website had been completely overwhelmed by backseat drivers, sand sculpture netizens, and jesters.

Especially with this Alpha 0.9 version, the number of players had jumped from 500 to 800!

Releasing 300 test slots all at once had the newcomers thrilled to bits.

What does it mean to have over 200 award acceptance speeches appear on the forum simultaneously?

Not to mention the tens of thousands of lemon-suckers and melon-eaters.

At its peak, posts were flooding in at a speed of 5 meters per second, and new posts were sinking to the second page like stones thrown into a river.

Refreshing the page again, and they were completely gone.

The server hadn’t crashed, suggesting the operators had really invested heavily!

Old White, after reading the notification, glanced at the reservation numbers.

Goodness, just a few minutes ago it was 23333, and in the blink of an eye, it had jumped to 27777, heading straight for the 30,000 mark!

Are people really solving problems that quickly?!

...

Guo Niu and Guo Ma club group chat.

No one discussed the new version on the official site, so everyone had taken their discussions to their private groups.

WC real mosquitoes: "Awesome! I just hit exactly 10,000 contribution points, soaring up there among the elites! (grinning)"

Wild Wind: "I’ve got 12,000, saving up contributions really pays off."

Scrambled Eggs with Tomato: "Dang, I’m still 2,000 short, how do you guys farm so fast!"

Quit Smoking: "Exactly! I just became a citizen, and you liver gods are way over the top! QAQ"

Night Ten: "Great, I can buy land again! (winking)"

Becoming a citizen requires 2,000 contribution points, while becoming a medium citizen multiplies that by about five.

However, that doesn’t mean the difficulty of upgrading from citizen to medium citizen is also five times harder, as the rewards of the tasks also increase with level.

If you’re serious about gaming, you can make it in a month; taking it easy, two to three months should suffice, with a daily active minimum of 120 points. Not to mention after reaching Level 5, many tasks offer 200-500 points. With good equipment and level, farming contribution points can be quite fast.

For instance, the group owner and the Dog Managers had been farming the Greenhouse Ruins recently, with both silver coins and contribution points usually reaching into the thousands, with contributions being slightly higher. The average daily income could be as high as 600 contributions, and at the low end, around 400 contributions.

Some lifestyle gamers also had similar routines, like Mosquito. The warehouse regularly had orders for making nitrocellulose, a consistently high-demand item.

Especially after the 0.8 update introduced the regional reputation system and the material donation feature, lifestyle players had one more way to earn contributions.

By donating strategic materials, not only were you gaining capital "reputation", but also earning some universal contribution points from your force!

10,000 points was really not that much.

The topic quickly shifted to the newly added Occupation System and Proficiency level system.

Fang Chang: "I just logged into the game, my archery proficiency is somehow at 4."

Old White: "Looks like they counted previous proficiency."

Fang Chang: "’Precisely speaking, it must be the proficiency we’ve accumulated since getting the VM. It’s safe to speculate that our current proficiency levels are based on that data."

Night Ten: "The Manager collecting our personal info through the VM is confirmed now. (winking)"

Wild Wind: "Speaking of which, Fang Chang, what job roles are you planning to take?"

Fang Chang: "As a medium citizen, I can carry three; I’m thinking Hunter, Soldier, and Prospector."

Wild Wind: "Not taking Scavenger?"

Fang Chang: "No room for that, sadly. Hunter is a must, a real money-maker, and just for the hunting profit bonus alone it’s essential. Soldier goes without saying, seems like it’s the child of this version. Didn’t they just update something about the Chewing Bone Tribe? Definitely going to be useful. And Prospector, need I say more? The rewards from the ecological laboratory ruins are probably going to be huge."

Quit Smoking: "Boss! What jobs should a newbie take? QAQ"

Fang Chang: "You’re a Constitution type, right? If you were a Strength type, you could start with Lumberjack to raise your strength attribute. For Constitution and Perception, hang on to Scavenger; it’s a veritable Swiss army knife. Once you level up to a citizen, you can also add Hunter or Soldier, depending on how you want to play this version."

Night Ten: "Picking up trash is the ultimate god! I don’t care, I’m sticking with trash picking. (winking)"

Pick up trash 99 Level: "Who’s calling me???"

Night Ten: "Whoa! You’re still in the group."

Pick up trash 99 Level: "Dang! What kind of way is that to talk?"

Since the last battle, this lizard guy had been "hibernating" and had hardly bubbled up in the group recently.

Seeing him after such a long time, Night Ten actually felt a sense of warmth.

Wild Wind: "By the way, have you guys checked out the new map?"

Fang Chang: "I was just about to go, wanna come along?"

Wild Wind: "Let’s do it!"

Old White: "Huh? Don’t you have class soon?"

Wild Wind: "No classes this morning; I can play until noon."

Night Ten: "Coincidence, I’m off the whole day today, guess I’ll reward myself with a whole day of gaming. (winking)"

Old White: "Kid, take it easy, don’t play games every day. In college, if you’re not going to find a girlfriend, be careful of being scammed in society."

Night Ten: "Ha, why bother dating? Is eating not enjoyable or are games not fun? The three-dimensional world is just crap, you guys go hustle—I have Little Fish, that’s enough. (silly)"

Wild Wind: "That statement alone should be enough to get you sentenced."

Night Ten: "Speaking of which, stop picking on me. When I go to the cafeteria, I occasionally run into junior girls asking for my WeChat. What about you? Nearly thirty and logging into games on time every day, so disciplined you don’t have a sex life, isn’t that an odd way to live?"

Fang Chang: "Tch, let’s kick this guy out."

Wild Wind: "+1, and it’s not that I don’t want to; I just find it dull and boring."

Old White: "I’ll just start a vote then."

[Group leader initiated a vote: Should we kick him out? 1. Yes, 2. Agree]

Night Ten: "Damn! What about friendship? And how the hell are both options to kick me out!"

Pick up trash 99 level: "Hahaha, serves you right for drawing hate!"

Everyone was old friends, and it was all joking; they wouldn’t actually kick anyone out.

The group leader had things to do during the day, so he didn’t log on.

Fang Chang, Wild Wind, and Night Ten had breakfast and set a time to put their helmets back on, quickly returning online.

They thought the elevator tower in B2 would be crowded, but when they arrived in the lobby, there weren’t as many people as they expected.

On closer inspection, wow, there was a new safety passage updated next to the elevator tower!

Wasn’t there a wall here before?

It seemed the operator had realized the issue of insufficient elevator capacity in the shelter.

With B3 open, players who didn’t want to wait for the elevator could now use the stairs to move between the floors that had been opened.

If only they could upgrade the outside elevator too!

Arriving at B3.

Fang Chang glanced around and after a moment of chin-rubbing contemplation, he gave his opinion.

"This layout looks pretty similar to B2."

Night Ten responded as well.

"Not just similar, it’s practically identical."

Wild Wind looked to a sidewall where a floor plan was displayed.

"There’s still a difference, look at the corridor between Zone A and Zone B; at the end of the corridor in Zone B2, there’s a locked storeroom. However, in the same spot on B3, the space is much bigger, with several more areas to explore."

"Hmm, I noticed that too," Fang Chang nodded, "It seems the core area of the new floor is there... Let’s go check it out."

Saying so, Fang Chang led the way, exploring towards the direction of the corridor.

After passing through Zone A and Zone B, the first thing they came across was a white room.

From the operating table-like chair in the center of the room and the room’s layout and decor, it appeared to be a medical room or something similar.

As the three of them stood at the door, two female players—one with a chin-length haircut and the other with a high ponytail—were already inside.

Looking around, Si Si exclaimed in surprise.

"It’s actually a medical room, and it even feels like a medical laboratory... Can’t the door further inside be opened?"

Tail: "Huh? Si Si, how do you know so much about this? Is it because you frequent such places?"

Si Si gave Tail a sidelong glance: "That’s not incorrect, but I go there to treat people."

Though it’s the less noticed pathology department, dealing with more formaldehyde than living patients, it barely counts as treating people, right?

Tail: "Doc! I’m sick, give me a check-up!"

Si Si listlessly extended her hands, mimicking a spooky gesture.

"I work on brains though, need to cut them open to see."

Tail: "!!!∑(ﾟДﾟノ)ノ"

Si Si: "Yeesh, how do you even make face emoticons in the game?"

Watching the two women behind the glass wall, the three gentlemen silently agreed it would be best not to disturb them.

Fang Chang: "Let’s go somewhere else to explore."

Night Ten: "Agreed."

Wild Wind didn’t speak but nodded.

The three continued forward, next passing a highly sci-fi cultivation area.

The entire cultivation area was devoid of soil, instead featuring cultivation units that looked like fish tanks, which seemed to be the official term according to the website.

Wild Wind glanced at his VM and was surprised to discover that the mini-map now displayed the name and a brief description of each facility’s function.

It seemed the Alpha 0.9 version update wasn’t just about the occupation system; it also subtly changed some in-game settings.

Not bad.

Finally, no need to rely on imagination!

"From the map on VM, this appears to be a planting area... with a theoretical planting area of 50 acres."

"Is this place really 50 acres?"

"There are 50 units of vertical planting shelves here, I guess it means each unit is equivalent to an acre."

Although there were already Greenhouse Ruins, was there still a need for such facilities?

Or did this place house a seed bank, containing pre-war crop seeds?

Fang Chang pondered to himself.

Not far away, Makabazi was holding a vertical planting unit, excitedly rambling incoherently, not knowing what he was babbling about.

And standing next to him, that seemed to be the fisherman "Stop Talking Nonsense."

"Scram! You’re not touching my land!"

"What land? This is clearly a fish tank!"

"Your fish tank looks like this!?"

"%&@*#!"

The three exchanged glances and silently decided not to disturb them, continuing to walk forward.

Further ahead, there was a very small room marked with a radiation symbol at the doorway.

"This seems to be a power room?" Fang Chang mused, referencing the text on VM, "According to official data sets, it should be where the fusion reactor is located?"

Night Ten glanced around and muttered, "There doesn’t seem to be much to see here, and the area open is small...I thought I’d be able to see inside the reactor."

Fang Chang: "After all, it’s hard to fabricate such futuristic technology in sci-fi games, usually they just give you a bunch of models to imagine."

The reactor was not in this narrow room less than 20 square meters; ahead of them was a thick wall and a closed alloy door.

There was a small window on the alloy door through which the metallic framework behind the wall and the half silhouette of what seemed to be a controllable fusion reactor could be seen.

Wild Wind walked up, curiously peered in, and lightly pushed the door.

Yet, the door felt as if it was fixed solid with the space, unmoving.

Maybe this part was simply a graphic?

Or maybe the operator hadn’t figured out how to script it, or maybe they just hadn’t intended to waste time on trivial details.

Seeing that nothing he tried elicited any response, Wild Wind pulled his hand back, his face filled with regret.

"What a pity."

Though he didn’t think the operators would have any brilliant technological creativity, anything related to his field inevitably piqued his curiosity.

It would have been nice to see what it looked like.

...

While the players were exploring new content of version 0.9, Chu Guang, the manager of the entire shelter, stood in the last area of level B3 "Functional Zone" – a warehouse temporarily inaccessible to players.

Inside the warehouse, there were two "Black Boxes," one large and one small.

[Item: Black Box]

[Number: NO.11]

[Function: Produces vital signs monitor]

[Usage Instructions: Place in an atmospheric environment, connect power, input 3L water, 300g aluminum, 200g iron, 100g copper, 50g nickel...]

[Output: Vital signs monitor, organic/inorganic waste.]

—

[Item: Black Box]

[Number: NO.X]

[Function: Clones’ exclusive dormancy pod]

[Usage Instructions: Place in an atmospheric environment, connect power, input 100L water, 50KG aluminum, 30KG iron, 5KG copper, 100g nickel, 8g gold...]

[Output: Clones’ exclusive dormancy pod, organic/inorganic waste.]

The smaller one was of ordinary suitcase size, similar to those Chu Guang had found in Shelter No.117.

And the bigger one, rather than calling it a box, it looked more like a small car.

Meanwhile, a pale blue viewing window materialized in front of Chu Guang—information cards projected by the Administrator System into his field of vision.

As he approached the box marked NO.X, Chu Guang found a set of instructions inside a palm-sized lid; these were simple stick-figure drawings, easy enough even for an illiterate person to understand.

However...

It didn’t explain what this thing was for.

After flipping through the instruction manual back and forth twice, a strange expression surfaced on Chu Guang’s face.

At that moment, Xia Yan, who had come up beside him, whispered for him the words he thought but hadn’t said.

"Clones’ exclusive dormancy pod?"

"Yikes, what is this thing actually used for?"