Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 349 - 358: Still a Historical Legacy Issue!

Chapter 349: Chapter 358: Still a Historical Legacy Issue!

In the scene imagined by Wei Chengjie, President Gu was probably leisurely fanning himself and laughing breezily, with everything under control.

But in reality, Gu Fan’s villa was in complete chaos at the moment.

Lilith was freaking out in the living room, pacing back and forth in a fit of rage, while voraciously munching on potato chips to calm her emotions.

Meanwhile, Gu Fan shrank into a corner of the sofa, silently flipping through the underlying code of the game on his laptop, trying to identify the cause of the bug.

Clearly, the issues that cropped up in both games were a huge blow to Lilith!

Weren’t things looking up just now?

The ratings for "Endless Fantasy Legend" had already stabilized; logically, it should have been safe, right?

And the new version of "Shadow World" was being harshly criticized, with the unending negative emotions from departing players pouring in.

But in the blink of an eye, both games developed new issues, causing many of the players who had left to come back. Not only were they no longer contributing negative emotions, but they were actually causing a lot of negative ones!

This was something Lilith couldn’t accept!

At this time, she was eager to find out what had caused the bug this time.

If Gu Fan couldn’t provide her a sufficiently reasonable explanation, she was already set on throwing a fit!

"President Li, I... I’ve roughly figured it out."

Seeing Gu Fan look up, Lilith quickly stepped forward, hands on her hips, and attempted to tower over Gu Fan, who was sitting on the sofa, "Spit it out! What exactly happened? Start with that ’Oathbreaker’ Talent!"

Clearly, the Talent "Oathbreaker" had to bear the absolute main responsibility for the collapse of the new version of "Shadow World".

Had it not been for this Talent converting Elemental Damage into Arcane Damage, players wouldn’t have been able to use Arcane Conversion to boost their other damages. And all the outrageous developments that followed would never have happened.

Besides, just the sound of "Oathbreaker" was suspicious. It was supposed to be the conversion of Brightness and Dark Series spells, so how did it get involved with Elemental and Arcane?

It almost seemed like someone was up to mischief!

However, Gu Fan was quite forthright; he turned his laptop around and showed Lilith several lines of code on the screen.

"President Li, strictly speaking... this should be considered a legacy issue, something that was a discarded concept from the game’s very original version."

Lilith was stunned for a second, "Discarded... concept?"

She, of course, understood what discarded concepts were — designs that were originally planned but never fully realized.

Discarded concepts exist in virtually every game, as there are hardly any that are 100% completed according to the original design plan.

Lilith looked at the computer screen skeptically; the code looked like gibberish to her, completely incomprehensible.

It wasn’t until Gu Fan explained it to her, almost word for word, that Lilith began to get the gist of it.

"President Li, look, in the original game, which is ’Demon World Conflict,’ the design aimed for players to freely choose their Talents and Skills to create their desired builds."

"Thus, to further enrich the gameplay, the ’Oathbreaker’ Talent was created.

"In the original design of the game, many of the attributes were opposing, two sides of the same coin.

"Just like Brightness and Darkness, Elements and Arcane, Physical and Magical, and so on."

"Wait a minute!" Lilith knitted her brows tightly. "I understand that Brightness and Darkness are two opposing facets, but why are Elements and Arcane also considered opposites?"

Gu Fan explained, "This... according to their original setting, Elemental Power is acquired through communicating with nature, like the way Shamans and Druids can have a certain physical prowess, and as long as they have strong faith, they can obtain power; whereas Arcane Power is derived from one’s own intelligence, representing a fundamental difference in essence.

"Thus, when a sage who communicates with nature abandons that connection to seek out personal wisdom, he would gain Arcane Power.

"According to the original design, the ’Oathbreaker’ Talent had many different conversion methods, which was to provide players with more choices and possibilities.

"But due to the development team’s lack of capability, they later abandoned this fanciful scheme, retaining only the most basic one: the mutual conversion of Brightness and Dark Series Spells.

"They then changed this Talent to be exclusive to Priests and tailored a profession-specific task for it.

"But... the underlying code that was already written, they didn’t change.

"After all, under normal circumstances, only Priests can choose this Talent, and Priests only have Brightness, Discipline, and Dark Series Skills, so it was impossible to select Elemental Series or Arcane Series Damage."

Lilith was utterly astonished, "So you’re saying, this bug has actually been present since the 60th version?"

Gu Fan nodded, "Yes.

"The reason why players didn’t discover it in the 60th version is mainly because the Elemental Damage was normal at that time, neither too high nor too low, and players didn’t think of converting it to other types of damage. Moreover, after unlocking all professions in the 60th version, players scarcely played Arcane anymore, so no one thought to exploit the ’Arcane Conversion’ Glyph.

"But come the 70th version, Elemental Damage was excessively boosted, and players attempted so many things revolving around Elemental Damage, and that bug was unearthed..."

Lilith was still full of disbelief, but her rational mind told her that what Gu Fan was saying was most likely true.

Because such a thing couldn’t be faked.

’Shadow World’s’ 60th version was still operating normally, and its code was untouched. And the original versions of ’Demon Realm Conflict’ were still there.

All Lilith had to do was to have someone check, and she would know whether this bug was a historical legacy issue as Gu Fan described.

Since Gu Fan dared to speak so confidently, it was likely he already had full confidence.

"Damn it!"

Lilith was furious, the unfinished ’Demon Realm Conflict’ had caused her so much trouble!

The previously inexplicable all-profession gameplay was due to a historical legacy issue from ’Demon Realm Conflict,’ and now ’Oathbreaker’ was for the same reason!

What kind of a vast vision did the producer of ’Demon Realm Conflict’ have?

It was bad enough that you didn’t finish eating your cake, but could you not throw the leftover sesame seeds everywhere? Cleaning them up is very troublesome!

However, Lilith obviously didn’t want to just let the historical issue take all the blame; she continued indignantly, "Fine, I know there are historical issues here, but doesn’t anyone else bear a bit of responsibility?"

Clearly, by "anyone else," she was very much inclined to refer to Gu Fan specifically.

Gu Fan, on the other hand, looked sincerely puzzled, resembling a programmer completely oblivious to the ways of the world, "President Li, to whom specifically are you referring?"

Lilith was choking with anger, "Then explain to me, what is the deal with the ’Arcane Conversion’ Glyph? And why are there so many pieces of equipment that increase Elemental Damage?"