Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 544 - 527: Hosting a Beheading

Chapter 544: Chapter 527: Hosting a Beheading

Gu Fan paused briefly before continuing, "As for designing the fake-AI to only create chaos without constructing, that’s even more impractical.

"Because it’s difficult to define specifically what constitutes chaos and what constitutes construction.

"Take the functions of building and demolishing for example.

"Building in the right place is construction, while building in the wrong place is chaos;

"Demolishing in the right place is chaos, yet demolishing in the wrong place turns into construction.

"Suppose we restrict the fake-AI’s building permissions, allowing it only to demolish:

"On one hand, the fake-AI’s ability to create chaos would decrease, as players can more easily adapt to this singular action; on the other hand, we must enable the AI to discern the correct locations from the incorrect ones, because only by judging the location can it demolish parts that players truly care about, rather than helping players remove useless structures.

"And letting the AI determine the location involves complex judgment logic, which could trigger some new bugs.

"Of course, we could choose to let the AI demolish directly, but then...

"Would that still achieve our original purpose? The fake-AI would no longer be ’creating chaos,’ but just become some sort of rigid and boring game mechanic."

Lilith felt her head swell.

This matter was a bit paradoxical: too much restriction, and the fake-AI couldn’t achieve the perfect effect of creating chaos; too little restriction, and the fake-AI might cause complete havoc when the Governor was away.

And what degree of restriction was appropriate?

Probably no one knew the standard answer.

Not to mention the programmers in Nitiandang, even researchers of fake-AI, or the programmers of the official game platform, also had no idea.

Because the latest AI technology often became a huge black box; under certain algorithmic logic, the AI continually self-evolved and iterated, and what it ultimately evolved into, no one could simply summarize, let alone fully grasp.

Nitiandang had already imposed sufficient restrictions on the capabilities of the fake-AI, but the problem was that AI’s development speed often exceeded people’s expectations.

Even with many restrictions in place, if there was a misstep in one direction, there could be a complete collapse, rendering all efforts futile.

While Lilith was overwhelmed, Gu Fan continued, "As for the second issue, the bug in match settlement, there indeed was a loophole in the design that led to unforeseen circumstances.

"This settlement mechanism was initially required by your design concept draft, President Li.

"Simply put, the original requirement for this feature was: the game should conclude within a random time after the player leaves Comet and enters a new planet with nearly infinite resources. Additionally, it needed to create a false association with some mechanism in the game.

"This was to make players waste more time looking for the reason behind the settlement, generating more negative emotions.

"Our feature was indeed implemented according to this requirement."

Lilith was trying hard to clear her mind to readdress the complex situation of the second issue.

What Gu Fan said wasn’t wrong.

But it felt as though something was amiss in this process.

Gu Fan continued, "Actually, if it were only the first function, it would be simple.

"It would simply involve setting the player’s login to the new planet as the starting point and then randomly picking a time between 10 minutes and 30 minutes or even an hour for the game to settle.

"If made this way, it definitely wouldn’t lead to the current situation.

"But the problem lies in the second requirement.

"The settlement time should seemingly be linked to some mechanism in the game, creating a sense of confusion for the players, causing them to continually investigate what exactly that mechanism is."

Lilith nodded slightly, as this was indeed what she had requested.

Because if it were purely random, players would quickly realize it.

Since the settlement time was unrelated to any factors, players would stop trying and instead use mods or editors to directly achieve infinite mode.

But what if it was falsely linked to a mechanism?

Players would tirelessly search and try, wasting a lot of time and accumulating a lot of negative emotions in the process, leading to an eventual outbreak.

After much deliberation, the production team decided to link the "settlement time" with "player construction activities on Comet".

They led players to believe that, the shorter the time and the fewer resources consumed on Comet, the longer the settlement time on the new planet would be, possibly unlocking infinite mode after a certain threshold.

Because only by doing so would players continuously strive for the limit, seeking the optimal solution in their construction process on Comet and reducing their game time.

But in reality, this connection was false.

Because if it were a real connection, compressing game time during play would indeed extend the settlement time, which wasn’t what Lilith wanted to see.

The actual mechanism was: when players reached the new planet and all industrial activities on Comet had ceased for a period, the game would end.

This mechanism seemed perfect.

Firstly, it created an illusion, because the more resources left on Comet when players flew to the new planet, the longer the industrial halt. This aligned with the previous direction of misleading players.

Secondly, this settlement method was influenced not just by the resources left on Comet but also by various other factors.

For example, there were still some resources left on Comet, but a major ore among multiple minerals had been exhausted, causing the production lines set by the players to get stuck.

Even if there were still remaining resources, the industry would come to a halt and the game would end.

Because during the actual gameplay, the players could only vaguely sense that the game ending time was positively correlated with the resources involved in Comet, yet in the real gameplay process, many exceptions were found, which did not match this simple cognition.

So they would repeatedly study and waste a lot of time.

And whether they eventually figured it out themselves or painstakingly unpacked it, they had already wasted a lot of time and accumulated a lot of negative emotions.

By the time they knew the truth, these negative emotions would suddenly erupt.

Even if the players knew about this bug, they couldn’t do anything.

Because according to the game mechanics, once they flew to a new planet, the Governor and the leader, these two players, could no longer exert any influence on Comet.

By then, all they could do was watch helplessly as the remaining ecosystem on Comet completely collapsed.

It was like a dead pond, quietly heading towards extinction, and along with it, the entire game was locked.

However, the bug caused by the previous fake-AI had triggered a chain reaction again, and the silicon-based dwarves on Comet were still spontaneously maintaining this dead pond, keeping it in operation!

Although it was difficult, as long as the spaceship flying outwards was still bringing back materials, the system could operate in a minimally effective manner.

Anyway, no matter what, it was still operating, and the game would not come to an end.

This had led to the file actually launching an unlimited time, unlimited resources mode.

What’s worse, when these two bugs combined, they mysteriously gave the players a lot of room for interpretation.

Like "the power of public opinion," "micro-ecosystems," "people’s historiography and hero historiography," these terms had all made Lilith dizzy.

She couldn’t fathom how these were related to the "Star Plan" game.

"So who is the primary person responsible for this incident!!"

Lilith scratched her head in anger, feeling frustrated with nowhere to vent.

If it came to splitting the blame, she definitely couldn’t escape it, Qin Fengliang, who had proposed the idea, couldn’t escape it, Gu Fan, the prime suspect of being the Traitor, couldn’t escape it, Su Tong, as the game developer, couldn’t escape it, and even the game’s programming, development, and testing couldn’t escape it.

But since it seemed like everyone had problems, it was even harder to determine who the biggest problem was.

Up to now, Nitiandang had changed four producers, and if they kept changing like this, they couldn’t possibly promote an intern to be a producer, could they?

Lilith looked at Gu Fan, at this moment she really wanted to say,

"Gu Fan, everyone has been replaced, only I haven’t. So, I suspect that I am the Traitor."

But that was just too absurd!

Gu Fan was silent for a moment, "President Li, If we are talking about the primary person responsible ... I think it’s Gan Di."

Lilith was stunned, "Hmm?"

She hadn’t expected that at all, could the primary person responsible really be an outsider?

Gu Fan explained, "President Li, haven’t you felt that several times there was this person causing mischief?

"Whether it’s inadvertently triggering bugs or creating various mods for our game, it’s all connected to him!

"Putting aside the facts, doesn’t he have some responsibility?

"Our game has flaws; that’s true, but if no one discovered them, these flaws might not have been identified!"

In just a few sentences, Lilith’s CPU nearly burnt out.

But on second thought, it seemed to make some sense.

Before, they were catching the Traitor within the company; they had been too lenient towards people outside the company, just canceling their commissions.

Like the trainer, you could clearly feel that after the commissions were cut off, their mischief frequency had drastically reduced.

But after all, some people are fans who bring their own supplies, like Gan Di; even without a commission, he still promoted Nitiandang, who could stand against that!

It seemed focusing only on the internal wasn’t enough, external problems also needed resolution.

"But ... how do we deal with him?" Lilith raised the soulful question.

Gu Fan seriously said, "President Li, you are a famous demon in Hell! Can’t you just get rid of him directly?"

Lilith sighed, "If I could get rid of him directly, why would I ask you! You humans now live in a society ruled by law, could you not resort to violence at every turn?"

Gu Fan looked a bit regretful, "That’s right, if we can’t use the simple method, we have to use a more complex one.

"Let’s stick to the standard procedure, invite him, behead, take him as a dog.

"The beheading is a bit difficult; we might have to entice him instead, taking him as a dog is a good option."

Lilith was somewhat confused, "Taking as a dog? What do you mean?"

Gu Fan seriously said, "Quite simple, appease him! Let him design our new game!"

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