Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 360 - 369 mod Recruitment Event

Chapter 360: Chapter 369 mod Recruitment Event

August 28, Friday night.

Gan Di went out for a late-night snack and then prepared to start the enjoyable second half of his night.

He opened a folder on his computer named "mod," containing mods he had completed or was currently working on.

As an amateur enthusiast, Gan Di’s skills were decent, but he wouldn’t create mods for just any game. He had to genuinely enjoy the game, it needed to be popular, and the mods needed to significantly change the game.

Recently, he had set his sights on Legend of Infinity Fantasy.

This game met all his criteria, not only offering rich gameplay but also having ample room for modifications.

So far, Gan Di had created three or four different mods for this game. They weren’t completely finished yet, still in the final tweaking stages, adjusting specific functionalities and data parameters.

"Haah~"

Gan Di yawned and was about to continue advancing the progress of these mods when he noticed someone had sent him a private message on a video website.

"Gan Di! Quick, look, Nitiandang has launched a creative workshop! There’s even a mod collection event!"

Gan Di was momentarily stunned, then burst into ecstasy.

Hey? Isn’t this tailored just for me!

So far, several of the most popular mods in the Nitiandang game were created by him. Of course, many other skilled modders from within the country had joined in, but Gan Di was the pioneer, giving him a significant head-start. Thus, whether it was the popularity or the number of downloads, his mods maintained a leading advantage.

Having a creative workshop meant that these mod creators could now upload their mods directly to the workshop, instead of going through the NEXTMOD website.

This was definitely major good news!

Because NEXTMOD was a foreign website, logging in and downloading were not very convenient; the all-English site could deter most players even with web translation.

But with the creative workshop, players could easily download mods with just a few clicks on the official platform, and they could even see ratings and reviews from other domestic players.

This was undoubtedly good news for both mod creators and users.

Nitiandang was holding a mod collection event?

Alright, alright, alright, no matter what the prizes were, Gan Di felt they were already in the bag.

However, when he found the page for this collection event, Gan Di was stunned.

This event... didn’t mention any rewards!

The content of the entire event collection page was quite simple, beginning with a few standard phrases—the type any game launching a creative workshop would have—essentially thanking the officials and players for their support and proclaiming the official opening of the creative workshop for the game, blah blah.

But the content that followed was the crucial part.

"Nitiandang game is now soliciting the following types of mods from all excellent mod creators:

"Incredible challenges

"Arduous journeys

"Unexpected setbacks

"Frustrating dead ends

"Things the developers wanted to do but dared not do"

And in the rewards section, what the officials wrote was also somewhat strange.

"Exceptional mods that receive official recognition, will be given priority display on the creative workshop homepage, or added to the player’s ’autodownload’ menu;"

"Outstanding works that do not get player approval will also receive special compensation rewards from the official."

Gan Di scratched his head, feeling slightly confused.

This kind of call for submissions, have I ever seen it before?

First off, what the heck are the requirements for submitting a mod? These impossible challenges, arduous journeys, unexpected setbacks, and so on, aren’t these first four points basically the same thing?

Of course, if one really wanted to nitpick, there would still be subtle differences, such as how an arduous journey emphasizes the whole process is challenging, whereas unexpected setbacks often appear suddenly in a relatively smooth gaming session, posing high difficulty levels or challenges.

But overall, these first four points all seem to point to one type of mod—the high-difficulty mod.

The so-called high-difficulty mod involves changing the game’s values and mechanics to make combat more difficult.

For instance, the game "Ascension" once had a high-difficulty mod called "Mad Journey," where almost all the bosses were revamped. Not only was their health massively increased, but it also included many complex mechanics and full-screen attack skills, making those players who could thoughtlessly beat "Ascension" suffer once again.

However, such high-difficulty mods are very niche within the mod community, with few people playing them.

If you’re talking about popular mods, it would have to be appearance replacement mods, especially those less serious ones.

Of course, the official platform’s creative workshop definitely doesn’t allow those too over-the-top appearance mods, but general appearance beautification mods are still passable, the more popular among players.

Besides those, mods like interface beautification, functional mods, and so forth are also very practical for players.

However, Nitiandang officials made no mention of these types of mods.

As for the fifth point, it is even more baffling. What does it mean by "things the development team wants to do but dares not to do"?

What exactly does the development team want to do? Only the devil knows!

Surely it isn’t that the development team wants to annoy players but dares not, so they leave it to mod authors, right? That would be too outrageous!

Then the rewards seem even stranger.

Officially recognized outstanding works will receive priority downloads, or be added to an automatic download list, which at first glance seems somewhat reasonable.

The so-called "automatic download" is a default feature of the official platform. Players using the creative workshop can turn on an option called "outstanding mod automatic download."

Once this option is enabled, those mods recommended by the official or by a large number of players will be downloaded automatically, enhancing the gaming experience.

Of course, the officials are extremely cautious in selecting such automatic download mods, and most players don’t turn on this option, preferring to download manually. However, a small number of players do choose to enable it by default.

So this point seemed quite reasonable at first glance.

But the next one is very strange.

"Outstanding works that do not get player approval will also receive special compensation rewards from the official."

Logically, "works that receive player approval" should also be "works that receive official approval," which suggests that player and official approval are two different standards?

Nowhere from beginning to end is it mentioned what will happen to "works that receive player approval."

Just focusing on the letter of the word, it indeed gives a weird feeling, but of course, nobody thought too much about it, assuming Nitiandang’s creative workshop probably followed similar rules to other games’ workshops.

It’s just about the mods that received lots of likes or downloads getting featured and so forth.

Just as Gan Di was about to close the page, he suddenly noticed a line of small text at the bottom.

This line of text started with an asterisk and was in a very small font, and its color was close to the background color, which could be easily missed by most people.

"All mods must pass official platform and Nitiandang review before being uploaded; Heavenly Games holds the final interpretation rights for this event."

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