Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 264 - 273: Organize a Guild Group

Chapter 264: Chapter 273: Organize a Guild Group

As these words came out, the four alternate account fans on the scene all struggled to keep a straight face.

God damn, we’re helping out too, who’s carrying whom here!

But in the current situation, expecting Instructor Ding to solo the dungeon was hardly possible anymore; these four players with alternate accounts, who were originally just there to play dead bosses, now had to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

As a result, they wiped for another three hours.

Although Instructor Ding had gained strength after levelling up, becoming much more powerful than when he was at level 12, his higher-level skills, though weakened, could still play a role in the mechanics. But the problem was, the other four teammates had become weaker!

In the past, when Instructor Ding first cleared this game’s dungeon, he teamed up with some of the first players to enter Shadow World, who generally had experience with clearing difficult raid dungeons in other MMORPGs, so they cleared it after wiping for three hours.

But this time, there were new players among these alternate accounts.

Instructor Ding patiently commanded and repeatedly taught them the boss’s special mechanics in the dungeon.

But these mechanics were clearly not something one could learn in one or two tries, so they wiped many times more.

The only good news was that these four newbie players were all watching Instructor Ding’s live stream, so he could directly command them by voice. Otherwise, if he had to command by typing, Instructor Ding guessed he would have collapsed even more.

Around 11 p.m., they finally cleared the Fel Rift dungeon.

Instructor Ding almost slumped into his computer chair.

He had originally planned to have a good time leading the alternate accounts today, but why did it feel like a prison sentence!

The only good news was that he still gained experience from killing the dungeon’s minor monsters, so he levelled up once after this run-through.

But the problem was that the experience from the dungeon’s minor monsters was still at the lower end, so it wasn’t a lot. If he had spent those three hours doing quests and levelling up outside, he could have levelled up at least twice.

In summary, it was still a loss, a big loss!

Throughout the process, it was clear that a lot of negative emotions were contributed.

Instructor Ding was speechless, and from then on, he stopped talking about leading alternate accounts and instead organized a powerful team to level up with.

Clearly, if it weren’t for the game being produced by Nitiandang, and if it weren’t for the game’s truly beautiful art, Instructor Ding figured he would have been annoyed enough to quit long ago.

But even now, despite these two advantages, Instructor Ding was quickly losing patience, hovering on the edge of quitting the game.

Only one obsession was sustaining him.

He wanted to see what gameplay was like after reaching max level in the game, and what the experience of a max-level raid dungeon would be.

Even Instructor Ding held onto a sliver of hope for the raid dungeon’s gameplay.

After all, raid dungeons and dungeons for newbies were two different things.

For veteran MMORPG players, it’s acceptable for raid dungeons to be difficult, to wipe all night long, or to spend a week clearing a new raid dungeon is normal. Even a harder raid can make success and the sense of achievement afterwards much stronger.

As long as the difficulty of the raid is within a reasonable range, and there’s no situation where it’s absolutely impossible to clear due to numbers or mechanics, everyone can still accept it.

...

...

January 8, Thursday, 7 p.m.

Instructor Ding’s live stream started earlier today, as there was a task to complete.

During the day, the brother who was controlling the account left him just shy of a full experience bar to reach max level, just so that Instructor Ding could experience the moment of levelling up to 60 himself.

After reaching level 60, Instructor Ding planned to farm the prerequisite dungeons a few times, hoping to enter the game’s first raid dungeon "Lava Mouth" that day to take a look.

As a ray of golden light flashed by, Instructor Ding finally felt one of the few exhilarating moments since he started playing this game.

"Finally, max level!"

At this moment, his Demon Sorcerer finally reached level 60, and the experience bar disappeared, meaning he had reached the game’s highest level.

Since the last time he returned to the level 12 initial dungeon six days ago to lead alternate accounts, Instructor Ding stopped talking about leading alternate accounts and focused solely on levelling up.

Of course, he only took on high-difficulty instances or completed some core main quests during his evening live streams, to ensure the streaming effect. During the day, he handed over the account to someone to help with practicing professional skills, gathering materials, or teaming up to clear some errand and resource collection side quests.

In terms of progress, Instructor Ding’s level was not among the first tier of the server. After all, the first tier consisted of those studio accounts that cycled through three shifts or some top-tier "Gan Di" with both the techniques and the dedication, who had reached max level about two or three days earlier.

However, Instructor Ding was one of the relatively leading players in the second tier.

Since its release, more than two weeks had passed in "Shadow World," and reaching max level so late in the game, while not particularly slow, had been a real torment.

Fortunately, having reached max level at last, he didn’t have to suffer through leveling up anymore!

Instructor Ding felt as if he had climbed out of the bitter sea and arrived at a happier shore.

Although he was well aware that the difficulty of the raid instances would only be higher, he considered the higher difficulty acceptable when pioneering raid instances.

During the time it took him to reach max level, of course, a lot of things had happened.

First and foremost, one could clearly sense that the game was experiencing a serious player attrition!

Since leveling up almost always required teaming up, as going solo was basically impossible for certain quests, Instructor Ding had added many people as friends along the way.

However, these friends often logged off on the first day and wouldn’t come back online on the third day.

Instructor Ding had no choice but to add new passersby in each new area, and so the cycle continued endlessly.

By the time he finally reached max level and opened his social list, he discovered that less than one tenth of his friends were actually online.

Next to most of the grayed-out avatars, it was marked: online 3 days ago, online 5 days ago, or even online 9 days ago.

Those who have played similar games know that if a player hasn’t logged in for 3 days, it’s highly likely they’ve abandoned the game. There’s almost no other possibility.

This is because the stickiness of MMORPGs mainly comes from being online for long periods. Once a player hasn’t played for 3 days, it’s easy to forget the game, unless a friend in real life pulls them back in. Otherwise, they generally won’t log in again.

It made Instructor Ding feel somewhat reflective. Although he had reached max level, he couldn’t feel happy at all and had a strong sense of loneliness.

Secondly, the online public opinion of "Shadow World" worsened further!

This was also to be expected since this broken game hadn’t brought any good gaming experience to players since its launch!

After level 6, almost every wild monster had the health of an elite monster, which discouraged a group of lone wolf players;

The high-difficulty novice instance turned away another batch of newbie players;

The compression of high-level accounts in low-level instances agitated some players who wanted to carry their alt accounts.

After several rounds of selection, the remaining players were, to some extent, a little masochistic.

Of course, is it absolutely impossible for a high-level account to carry an alt? That’s not entirely true.

But it could only be done in some rather special ways, like the main account helping the alt account by defeating quest monsters.

Even though these quest monsters had attributes higher than players of the same level, when a high-level account went back to a low-level area, as long as they didn’t enter instances, their level and attributes wouldn’t be compressed.

However, this method of carrying alts was too troublesome, so players still complained loudly and didn’t regard it as a form of mercy.

As for the player attrition in the game, everyone could see it—anyone with eyes could notice.

Therefore, the online reviews of the game by players continued to plummet, dropping lower and lower.

Aside from a few real masochists who thoroughly enjoyed suffering in high-difficulty instances, most players pondered daily about exactly why they were playing this game.

Of course, a sizable group of players shared Instructor Ding’s mindset, sticking with it purely out of trust in the game "Nitiandang" and wanting to see just how difficult the raid instances could be.

Once that last thread of hope snapped, it would be minutes before they left the game and dropped a negative review.

Last but not least, there was the not-so-bad news.

The Guild "Brotherhood" that Instructor Ding had established had grown quite strong.

The guild now had over 120 active players online simultaneously at night, and with the continuous recruitment, the number of newcomers was still increasing.