Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 290 - 299: Heaven Provides a Meal

Chapter 290: Chapter 299: Heaven Provides a Meal

At this moment, not only the players but even the staff of Nitiandang were a bit dumbfounded.

On Zhou Yang’s computer was a max-level account for the "World of Star Spirits" test server.

He had also selected the Dark Chain Talent and was hitting a practice dummy in the main city.

One lightning strike, and all kinds of Dark Series spells flew everywhere, looking incredibly cool.

"Damn it, how can Shengjing Group have such dumb luck, it’s like they’re being spoon-fed by the heavens!"

Zhou Yang was very annoyed.

Shengjing Group had simply copied the multi-class gameplay of "Shadow World," made some changes to the old game "World of Star Spirits," and now the popularity was almost surpassing the original!

Where was the logic in that!

Zhao Haiquan was somewhat surprised, "Eh, in our game, we haven’t seen such an overpowered BD. Why is that?"

Having been playing "Shadow World," Su Tong was silent for a moment before saying, "Perhaps, it’s because our programmers and test teams are more reliable than theirs..."

Zhou Yang couldn’t help but facepalm. He never imagined that one day, having programmers and test teams that were too reliable could also become a disadvantage.

Obviously, the two super enjoyable BDs of "World of Star Spirits" were built on the foundation of bugs.

The former was because the skill "Starlight Illumination" erroneously triggered the effect of the talent, allowing it to reduce its own cooldown time. Coupled with the Free Cast effect not consuming any mana, it resulted in Infinite Starlight Healing.

The latter was also due to skill and talent interactions exceeding the expectations of designers and programmers.

This was quite normal, considering the project from conception to launch had only been a little over a month.

The programmers at Shengjing Group worked overtime from dawn till dusk, and it was already impressive that they could fix the many serious bugs that affected the game’s operation. They simply didn’t have the time to test and modify these deeper issues.

With so many skills and talents and so many ways they could interact, it was impossible to test for everything.

On the other hand, by contrast, the various BDs of "Shadow World" still remained within an acceptable range of balance to this date.

Although there were some obviously strong and enjoyable BDs, they hadn’t created a huge gap with other BDs. What’s more, many BDs required specific sets and attribute gear to achieve their best effects.

The good news was that the balance was indeed acceptable.

The bad news was that this clearly wasn’t as thrilling as Infinite Starlight Healing or the perverse BD of Dark Chain!

Videos about "World of Star Spirits" were soaring in popularity, spreading rapidly on both long-form and short-form video platforms, which further drove up the game’s popularity.

Even short-form video platforms were hotter than the long-form ones.

The most widely shared were two short video clips.

One was of a team dungeon, where the Infinite Starlight Healer kept casting "Starlight Illumination," making it look like players had spotlights above their heads, with their health bars dropping and instantly refilling, green text floating all over the screen—the visual effects were explosive.

The other was also in a team dungeon, where a swarm of elite mobs appeared in front, and a Dark Chain user sent down a chain of lightning. The screen was darkened by the Dark Series spell effects and filled with floating yellow damage numbers. When the dark effects cleared, only corpses remained on the ground.

On the damage statistics panel, this player’s damage was incomparably higher than the others, leaving them so far behind they couldn’t even see the tail lights.

Anyone who has played MMORPG games could feel a tremendous thrill from these two videos, and this became a reason for many players to flock to the "World of Star Spirits" test server.

As Zhou Yang said, it was indeed being spoon-fed by the heavens!

However, Wei Chengjie had a different reaction than Zhou Yang’s envy and resentment; in fact, he appeared quite calm, and one could even say his expression was stern.

"To be honest, from what I know about Shengjing Group...

"This might not really be a good thing."

Zhou Yang was puzzled, "How could it not be a good thing?"

Wei Chengjie did not directly answer. He glanced at the clock, saw that it was past work hours, and got up to leave, picking up his bag from the desk.

"It’s complicated, let’s just wait and see," he said.

...

The employees of Nitiandang had left work.

But over at the "World of Star Spirits" project team, it was complete chaos.

Everyone was flabbergasted.

In the meeting room, Ji Heng was going on a tirade, berating the Test Team Leader, the functional designers, the data designers, and a few programmers loudly.

"How could there be such ridiculous bugs when it’s old code from an old game that’s been tested so many times?

"How could the Dark Chain Talent be triggered by an Element Series skill? How could ’Starlight Illumination’ possibly reduce its own CD? How exactly was this code written!"

A programmer weakly commented, "President Ji, after all, it’s code from four years ago, and the programmer who wrote this function left the company over two years ago..."

Ji Heng frowned slightly. "Then you programmers, when developing the new version, didn’t you notice something was wrong with this section?

"And you, the test team, how come such obvious issues were not detected during your testing?"

They all took a beating, and although none of them agreed with the criticism internally, they dared not stand up to argue while their boss was enraged.

The programming team had something to say: this was code that had piled up over four years, turning into mountains of mess. Who knew where mysterious interactions would pop up?

This "Ascension Mode" development was already rushed. Being able to integrate all the skills and talents of every class and ending up with only a few bugs was already a show of incredible development strength, okay?

The design team also had a point: our design was fine, this is a programming bug! Why are you lumping us together with your scolding, what’s this about...

As for the test team, they were the most aggrieved. The game had so much content, so many skills and talents, and so little time. How could they possibly finish all the testing?

In the end, the design team had a broader perspective. After all, they seemed the least deserving of blame on the surface.

A functional planner raised his hand and said, "President Ji, since it’s come to this, let’s focus on solving the problem! You tell us how to fix it, and we’ll make the changes."

Ji Heng only slightly nodded: "Anyway, such a serious bug has to be fixed right away. Start working on the fix, test it several times, and make sure we don’t create new bugs while fixing the old ones. Once we finish the fix, we’ll find a time in the early morning for an emergency server maintenance.

"Also, we need to finalize the compensation plan and the content of the announcement immediately, and give the players as much compensation as possible."

Just as Ji Heng was about to go into detail, someone came over and called out, "President Ji, President Kang is asking for you."

Ji Heng nodded, "Understood, I’ll be right there."

Then he looked at the others in the meeting room, "Get on with fixing those bugs!"

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.