Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 492 - 475: The Collective Wisdom of the Anchors

Chapter 492: Chapter 475: The Collective Wisdom of the Anchors

"If my speculation is correct, then there must be a deeper meaning to what Nitiandang is doing...

"Even including these two bugs, no, game mechanics, they were also part of the plan?

"’Nitiandang did it on purpose,’ right... That phrase is almost becoming a meme, and if I just say that to the players, I’m sure to be ridiculed like crazy.

"But I really feel like with so many coincidences, there seems to be some invisible force in control...

"I should talk it over with someone and see if my conclusions are valid. I can’t handle this on my own; I need to pool our wisdom."

Li Wenhao had indeed speculated something.

He took all the anomalies in "Blood of Lies," including the storyline, multiple endings, bugs, and the unusual promotional methods, and faintly, amidst these abnormal features, he grasped a certain commonality.

But he wasn’t entirely sure if this was just far-fetched or if there was something to it.

Conclusions drawn in isolation tend to be very subjective, so Li Wenhao wanted to discuss it with a friend, and it would be even better if this friend were also a victim of the Nitiandang leak incident.

Originally, Li Wenhao wanted to talk to Instructor Ding, but on second thought, although Instructor Ding was very popular, he wasn’t very smart when it came to game plots, and talking with him might not yield much.

Better to find Chen Tingquan!

When it comes to game plots, Chen Tingquan was the smartest.

Li Wenhao thought that if he could reach an agreement with Chen Tingquan, then bringing in Instructor Ding would be even more secure.

With that thought, he sent Chen Tingquan a message: "Brother Quan, are you there? Have you seen the Nitiandang leak incident that’s been going around online?"

After not even a minute, Chen Tingquan made a voice call.

"Ah, bro, I’m just fretting over this! I’m left speechless; it was supposed to be just a regular outdoor merchant event, who would have thought there’d be such a pitfall!

"I’m just a harmless treasure appraisal streamer, and I nearly got scolded to death in the fan group today!"

It was evident that Chen Tingquan was perplexed too, so he immediately called Li Wenhao to vent his frustrations.

Li Wenhao, sensing an opportunity, quickly said, "Brother Quan, would you like to join me to salvage our reputations?"

Chen Tingquan was taken aback for a moment, "Salvage our reputations? But, bro, with things the way they are, is there even any room left for that? These temporary workers from Nitiandang are too outrageous, they’ve handed the evidence straight to others, and we’ve all been hammered to death; what’s there to salvage?"

Li Wenhao hurriedly explained, "Brother Quan, don’t you think this whole thing has been fishy from the start?

"Let’s talk about Nitiandang’s previous games; weren’t they all made very intricately? Weren’t the gameplay, mechanics, and promotions all well-coordinated?

"Even those so-called bugs were eventually proven to be game mechanics, right? This shows that the Nitiandang team has a high completion rate when making games.

"So far, all of Nitiandang’s games, remember, all of them have had no updates, and everyone is playing them happily. Not only that, Nitiandang’s new games are almost always released on schedule, without delays. What does that tell us?"

Chen Tingquan thought for a moment and said, "It means... the initial design completeness of these games was very high? It shows that Nitiandang has strong project management skills? And that the departments work well together?"

Li Wenhao nodded, "Exactly! Brother Quan, do you think such a team would make such a low-level mistake?

"A temporary worker, how would he get his hands on the confidential list of streamers for this event? Didn’t the person giving him the list ever say it was a confidential event? Even if not, when he used the official account to post on Weibo, didn’t he need to ask for approval from his superiors?

"Even if we overlook all that, why did he choose midnight to post on Weibo? And then delete it immediately? Brother Quan, does this seem reasonable to you?"

After pondering for a moment, Chen Tingquan suddenly said, "When you put it that way, it does seem a bit absurd."

There was clearly a paradox: if the temporary worker didn’t realize the seriousness of the issue, then how could he delete the Weibo post within two minutes of posting it? Keep in mind that it was the middle of the night; everyone else at Nitiandang had already left work and gone to bed, so there couldn’t have been a "superior immediately noticing and decisively ordering the deletion."

If it was the temporary worker who decided to delete it, then that meant he was very well aware of the seriousness of the post. But then the new issue arises: he’s courting death this way, isn’t he afraid of being punished by Nitiandang?

Most netizens didn’t pay much attention to this, after all, in this day and age, incidents of temporary workers taking the blame for sloppy organizations are too common, and Nitiandang’s case isn’t the most absurd.

But considering Nitiandang’s continuous display of extremely high project management standards in the past, this sudden low-level mistake was strange.

"But just this alone probably can’t explain much, can it?" Chen Tingquan asked further.

Li Wenhao nodded, "Right, just this alone doesn’t explain much. But if you combine all the doubts, then this matter doesn’t seem so simple.

"Brother Quan, think about it, what exactly is the official purpose of this activity?

"Although we did indeed cooperate in the promotion and lured in a batch of players, how many can that really account for? Compared to the sales of the game, our promotional efforts can only be described as a drop in the ocean, yet the officials are willing to spend so much money on us."

"Of course, in terms of the outcome, we didn’t make a profit either, since after the incident got exposed, we were criticized harshly, and our reputation suffered a huge blow. The problem is, regardless of whether this thing blew up or not, Nitiandang was operating at a pure loss!"

"Why did they start this event in the first place? There has to be a reason, right? It surely can’t be because Nitiandang is our long-lost father."

Chen Tingquan fell into thought again, "Hmm... That makes sense. Actually, when I first saw the contract, I was also very puzzled. But there was nothing particularly tricky in the contract, so I signed it.

"Now that I think about it, in the entire event, Nitiandang was at a pure loss, spending so much money on the event, which actually didn’t achieve the expected publicity effect. Not to mention that now such a vicious incident has been exposed, this event is pretty much like smashing their own pot."

Li Wenhao continued to explain, "Brother Quan, think about it, isn’t the real ending mechanism of ’Blood of Lies’ very special? Those two bugs, were they really bugs? Maybe they were also a special game mechanic?

"As outlandish as it sounds, many of Nitiandang’s previous mechanisms were also mistaken for bugs, right?

"So, putting together the plot, the ending, and the special mechanics, I have a bold conjecture: I think this publicity event was deliberately orchestrated by Nitiandang, just to match these two special game mechanics and the special God-making Ending!

"If we incorporate these two special mechanics into the interpretation of the plot, it seems there will be more interesting discoveries..."

Li Wenhao’s explanation left Chen Tingquan stunned.

Originally he wanted to say, isn’t this nonsense?

But in the end, he found that there were too many points that corroborated each other, describing it as a mere coincidence seemed to be somewhat inappropriate.

It was more like an invisible hand had arranged all of this...

"What do you think, Brother Quan, do you think what I’m saying makes sense? If you agree, then let’s go find Brother Ding, and then find an editor who’s good at video editing. Let’s do a collaborative submission, with the hope of reversing the public opinion!"

Chen Tingquan thought it over briefly, then decisively nodded, "I think it’s worth a shot!

"Here’s the plan, we split up, you go talk to the instructor, explain it to him in detail, and I’ll study the plot some more to provide you with some details.

"Then, we find an editor, preferably one who wasn’t involved in this event, one who seems to have no vested interest with us, but key is they must be dedicated and able to produce videos quickly.

"Speed is of the essence here, we need to finalize the video content as quickly as possible, with the goal of finishing the editing tonight and publishing it at dawn! Otherwise, if we drag this out, our reputation will rot completely, and by then, it will all be too late!"

Li Wenhao was thrilled, "Alright, Brother Quan, let’s get moving!"

And like that, spurred on by Li Wenhao, a dramatic self-rescue operation by the streamers began.

With the collective wisdom and effort of numerous streamers and editors, even more clues were found, and this theory began to become more and more refined.

...

In the evening, Lilith was humming a tune, browsing through the forum posts.

A day had passed, and her mood had significantly improved.

Because that trump card, damaging to heaven and earth, had worked!

All day today, the hot topic on the forums wasn’t the game, but had turned into "the biggest scam in gaming history." Angry players went after the streamers left and right, and many streamers had no choice but to take leave, burrowing their heads into the sand like ostriches.

But obviously, this wasn’t a long-term solution.

For the sake of popularity, the streamers would sooner or later have to come out and face all this.

As for Nitiandang, the official Weibo was, of course, already overrun, with unceasing demands for Nitiandang to explain or to fire the temp workers.

But none of those had any significance, because what Lilith wanted was precisely this effect.

Fire the temp worker?

Sorry, the one who posted turned out to be an investor of Nitiandang, how could they possibly be fired? Too funny.

And as more similar comments appeared, Lilith just became happier.

Because this meant a continuous stream of negative emotions being credited to her account.

Even though the players’ negative emotions caused by external events couldn’t be fully collected, and perhaps most couldn’t be collected at all, for Lilith, just seeing the players’ outrage was enough to make her very happy.

"This is truly delightful! Thinking about hiring the streamers back then, I was simply a genius!"

Lilith couldn’t help being self-congratulatory, even unconsciously browsing the forums for several hours. Gu Fan had already gone upstairs to sleep, and she was still in the living room, scrolling with tireless enthusiasm.

However, it was at this moment that Lilith suddenly jolted, sensing that something was amiss.

Because a video had appeared on the homepage of her video website and was rapidly gaining popularity at an alarming rate!