Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 178 Deleting Code is as Difficult as Ascending to the Heavens

Chapter 178: Chapter 178 Deleting Code is as Difficult as Ascending to the Heavens

"Huh? What’s going on here!"

Gan Di was shocked, he looked around and indeed, the world had switched; he was back in the Mechanical World!

In single-player mode, the switching between two worlds is random, with no pattern to be found. But at least one thing was for certain: the worlds wouldn’t switch particularly frequently.

Gan Di had experienced it a few times before, but normally, he would be in one world for at least half an hour.

That is to say, this world switch was most likely not a normal transition mechanism.

So what was the reason?

Gan Di quickly recalled his previous actions and soon had a guess, "Could it be because of... the rift that Huan made?"

He decided to try again right away.

As before, he first used Huan to create a rift to another world, then struck the monsters within the rift with Zhen’s martial technique.

The operation he had performed before was done by fluke, and it contained a certain randomness; this time, deliberately attempting the action proved to be somewhat difficult, taking three tries before he succeeded.

As a result, the world really did switch again; he was back in the Immortal Cultivation World!

"It works, this BUG is 100% reproducible!"

Gan Di felt as though he had once again opened the door to a new world!

Was this BUG useful?

Extremely useful!

For solo players, the mechanism of randomly switching between the two worlds in "Ascension" is actually torture because the switch is entirely random and the timing unfixed.

If a player wanted to achieve a specific ending in the Immortal Cultivation World, they would need to complete many side quests in the setting of that world, which wouldn’t be possible in the background of the Mechanical World.

If the game happened to switch to the Mechanical World at that time, then the players could only find a spot to kill monsters and farm items, waiting until it switched back to continue with their quests.

This process was tormenting.

Moreover, the switch between the two worlds would also cause the attack patterns of the bosses to change. Take the Bone Claw Blind Man, for instance; in the Immortal Cultivation World, his attacks were mainly slashing and chopping, whereas in the Mechanical World, they were centered around throwing techniques and grappling.

Most players would obviously find the former easier to deal with, after all, rapid kills could be achieved through parrying.

Besides, there were some subtle differences between the two worlds, such as the acquisition of items, etc.

The mechanism of the worlds’ random switching made it difficult for players to plan their routes, forcing them to adapt on the fly, and sometimes to endure pointless suffering.

This was clearly unfriendly for speedrun players.

Speedrunners need "the norm," to ensure that their clearing process is stable and controllable. If there’s too much randomness, they would have to repeatedly try, and luck would account for too significant a proportion in their speedruns.

But now, Gan Di had discovered a BUG in the game that allowed free switching between worlds!

This meant that, as long as players obtained the BUG "Huan" through "Sky Swimming," they could switch worlds at any time.

Speedrunners could also plan their entire clearing process from the start, without having to worry about the impact of randomness at all.

Of course, Gan Di also realized that to achieve this "world-switching" BUG, one must possess both "Zhen" and "Huan."

That presented a question: both he and Wang Dawei had first followed the standard procedure to obtain "Zhen" at the Monastery of True Words, then used the Sky Swimming BUG to enter the illusion of the monastery again to get Huan.

What would happen if they hadn’t gone to the Monastery of True Words previously and directly used Sky Swimming to enter? Would they get the regular Relic Sword, or the BUG version?

Or what if they chose "Huan" initially and chose "Zhen" the second time upon entering? Would they still be able to get another BUG version of "Zhen"?

These questions didn’t have definite answers yet.

After all, these BUGs had just been discovered, and players hadn’t had enough time to test them.

So Gan Di decided to test it himself right away!

Though "Ascension" didn’t have the conventional save game mechanism, of course, this didn’t pose a problem for players.

They could easily locate the save files, then perform saves and loads through copying and pasting.

Without hesitation, Gan Di immediately began his research into the BUG mechanics of "Ascension"!

...

Meanwhile, in the living room of Gu Fan’s villa, things had turned utterly chaotic, like a scene of chickens flying and dogs jumping.

Lilith was pacing quickly and angrily around the living room, urgently pressing, "Gu Fan! Hurry up and figure it out!!"

It must be said that life’s great ups and downs are indeed too thrilling.

When players first discovered the "Chop Three Frameworks in One" trick, Lilith got a little nervous.

But then, she realized it wasn’t a big deal, as many players, even with the knowledge of this trick, were still getting thrashed due to their poor skills.

Seeing that negative emotions were still being collected normally, and even increasing due to more players joining the game and triggering the bugs, Lilith quickly reassured herself.

However, joy turned into sorrow unexpectedly!

"Ascension" encountered three extremely fatal bugs in quick succession: "Sky Swimming," "BUG Sharira Sword," and "Manual World Switching"!

For Lilith, these three bugs were a deadly blow, leading to a rapid decrease in the collected negative emotions!

What’s more outrageous was that Wang Dawei even linked the various bugs in the game to the game’s narrative, and through some twisted logic and obstinate arguing, he somehow made the viewers feel it made sense, leading them to believe that the previous texture and model bugs were also a part of the game’s plot.

As a result, the negative emotions that players generated from those bugs were greatly reduced!

Even when players saw incorrect textures and models, tormented by hallucinatory visions and sounds, they no longer generated as many negative emotions but instead marveled from the bottom of their hearts, even generating a small amount of positive emotions!

This was just too preposterous!

Lilith couldn’t accept this reality, so she blew her top immediately and had Gu Fan find out where these three bugs had come from as soon as possible.

Under her relentless urging, after flipping through code on his laptop, Gu Fan finally pinpointed the location of the bugs.

"Found it, President Li!

"The ’Sky Swimming’ bug is actually quite simple; it occurred because we didn’t complete the air walls at the map boundaries thoroughly, leaving some gaps. Given Li Huanzhen’s high mobility, he reached a place he wasn’t supposed to by using his hook and wall jumps, and then he fell into the water.

"When entering the void from the water, the character remained in a swimming state, resulting in free movement across different scenes..."

Lilith’s face turned ashen; clearly, the "Sky Swimming bug" was the root of all the bugs this time!

If there had been no Sky Swimming, players wouldn’t have been able to enter the Monastery of True Words’ illusions again, and they wouldn’t have obtained the BUG Sword; without the BUG Sword, they couldn’t have triggered the manual world switching.

"Damn it!

"Why were the air walls not completed! Why didn’t they show up in testing!

"Gu Fan, is this something you should be responsible for!!"

Facing the aggressive Lilith, Gu Fan retorted firmly: "How is this my fault? Isn’t it all because of your demands, President Li?"

Lilith was shocked: "My demands? When did I demand that you not properly complete the air walls!"

Gu Fan sighed, "President Li, you were the one who wanted the game to have at least 100 bugs!

"Why are there so many model and texture errors in the game? Isn’t it because we intentionally used the Myriad Editor to meet the bug count?

"This editor itself is riddled with bugs; they are simply unavoidable. And when we tested, we only fixed some of them. Isn’t it normal for these kinds of bugs to occur then?

"After all, air walls and collisions are also part of the game’s models. If we haven’t even properly checked the game’s models, all riddled with bugs, how could the air walls possibly be done so meticulously and completely?"

Lilith was still furious: "But why did the models look so complete when players were Sky Swimming? Even David said it, other games with this kind of bug would only show fragmented textures, why are the models in ’Ascension’ complete?"

Gu Fan fell silent for a moment: "Because the art team from Hell supplied complete models...

"Other companies consider the art production costs and only make the parts visible to the camera, but we always do the full set."

Lilith paused, obviously wanting to object, but after opening her mouth, she found no reason to refute.

"Alright, let’s temporarily set aside the air wall issue; what about the other two bugs?

"It just so happens these three bugs worked together, could there really be such a coincidence?"

Gu Fan located new code on the laptop: "President Li, let me explain the reasons behind these two bugs first. It’s not too late to think about whether it’s a coincidence or not after you understand.

"First is the BUG Sword, which is clearly the one I made for you..."

Lilith’s face darkened: "I know it’s the one made for me! But didn’t I tell you to delete all those items for the official release?"

Gu Fan sighed: "President Li, I did block it as much as I could."

Lilith was totally unconvinced: "Then how could it still appear? Wait, why is it blocked, and not completely erased from all the related code?"

Gu Fan explained, "President Li, deleting code is not as simple as you think! To make this item appear in the game and have an effect, it’s not just about setting it up in the item table, it needs to interact with various complex codes in the game!

"But such interactions are very troublesome to remove...

"Ah, you might not understand this way, but basically, deleting code is a hundred times harder than adding code. That’s a consensus among programmers.

"If you don’t believe me, look at this question."

As he spoke, Gu Fan pulled up a Q&A website with his phone and located a question: Why would game development teams often choose to leave unused assets in the game files instead of completely deleting them?

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