“Manager Ding, how is it? What is the number of online players?” Feng Yu crossed his legs and look at Ding Lei.
Based on Feng Yu’s initial plan, NetEase will change its direction toward online games. But Ding Lei wanted more. He wants the players to register a NetEase account, which allows access to all of NetEase’s products like forums, email, games, etc.
“Manager Feng, within three days, we had exceeded 300,000 players!” Ding Lei excitedly replied.
300,000 players are the number of players online at the same time. Registered accounts had exceeded 500,000, and it is still growing.
Feng Yu had told Ding Lei that the number of players online can easily exceed 1 million, and Ding Lei thought Feng Yu had said wrongly. He should mean the number of people registering accounts, as he did not expect this game to be so popular.
“Yes. The public Beta is one month, and you must submit the players’ feedbacks to Wind and Rain Games for them to make rectifications. One month later, Legend of Mir will be officially online. Have you found a company to manufacture Game Time Cards?”
“Yes. The cards will have 16-digit codes, and there will be four types of cards. 100 hours, 200 hours, 300 hours, and unlimited monthly cards. But Manager Feng, will the unlimited monthly cards be popular? 300 hours of game time is more than enough for the players. Who can play more than 10 hours a day?” Ding Lei is puzzled.
All the cards have a validity of 30 days, and to Ding Lei, the 300 hours Game Time Card might not be sellable, and the 100 hours card should be the most popular. The players can play for a while after school or work. Who will have so much time to play games?
200 hours Game Time Cards should be more than enough for those hardcore players, and the unlimited monthly cards are unnecessary.
But Ding Lei does not know that there is a type of player in Legend of Mir. They will switch players and not switch accounts. That means two to three players will be using the same account, and their account will never log off. These players make a living by selling in-game items, currency, power leveling, helping other players to clear quests, etc. in exchange for RMB.
Once this game becomes popular, these ‘professional’ players will appear. They will not only sell equipment, but they will also level up other characters for a fee.
In Legend of Mir, once the character reaches level 7, players will have to pay for the in-game time. Everyone needs a Game Time Card for them to log in.
The Public Beta is now a way to attract players. This is a trial for the players to try this new game out.
“Manager Ding, you don’t need to worry about this. Anyway, the cost of the Game Time Cards are not expensive, and I believe the Unlimited Monthly card’s sales will be higher than the 300 hours card and 200 hours card.”
Feng Yu did not explain further. Ding Lei is only a distributor, and all the promotion fees are paid for by Wind and Rain Games. Wind and Rain Games will be getting a bigger proportion of the profits, and if the Game Time Cards are not selling well, Wind and Rain Games will suffer more losses.
“Manager Feng, are we really going to expand the servers?” Ding Lei asked.
Feng Yu wants the server to have the capacity to let 1 million players go online without lagging and had prepared 4 large servers for this Public Beta. These servers are bought and not rented, and each of them is costly.
“You still can’t see how popular this game is? The Beta had only started for a few days, and how many players do you think we will have one month later? Our 4 servers might not even handle the number of players during the Beta. Call Lenovo to push them. There will be more players after the game is officially online, and we must prepare at least 10 large servers. New players will be attracted to the game through word of mouth or watching other players play. At that time, we must divide the players.”
“Are you talking about the different servers you mentioned?”
“Yes. We will open up two servers each time, and once the number of players for each server reached 500,000, new servers will be opened.”
“We can host 1 million online players and even more. Will it be too early to open up new servers when there are 500,000 players? Once we open up new servers, older players will create new accounts there, and the number of players in the old servers will drop.”
“First, there are not enough monsters and the safety zones for so many players. Let me ask you a question. If you are looking for a job, and you got two offers of the same job scope. You must start from the bottom and do everything by yourself for one of the jobs, and your older cousin is a leader in the other job. Which will you pick?” Feng Yu smiled as he looks at Ding Lei.
“I will choose to work hard by myself!” Ding Lei replied without hesitation.
Feng Yu: “……” Damn! This is a failed example!
“You chose to work hard by yourself, but what about an average person?”
Ding Lei hesitated for a while. “They should pick the company where their cousin is the leader there.”
“That’s right. Most people want to be taken care of, and it is the same in the game. The ones who choose the new servers have the same thinking as you. But there will be players who will be thinking that the high-level players in the older servers can help them to level up faster. They can even get items or in-game currency from the high-level players, and it might be more fun.”
“But will it be too early to open up new servers at 500,000 players? I still think that there will be more new accounts registering at the new servers, and the number of players in the older servers will drop. This game is fun when many players are playing at the same time. If a server has no more players, it will have to be shut down.”
“The scenario you mentioned will happen, but not so soon. It will take at least two to three years before this happens, and we can merge the servers then.”
“Merge the servers?”
“It is combining two or more servers into one. This will increase the population of that server, and there will be many world events like Conquering Shobak, city sieges, world bosses, etc. to bring the old players back. Oh… Shobak is a city in the game, and it will be added into the game later.”
“But if we merge the servers, the players will have experience and can level up faster than the players in the new servers.”
“But the players in the new servers will be playing on their characters for a longer period and will be higher level. Both players from the old and new servers have advantages and disadvantages. Each server will have top players, and after we merged the servers, all the top players in the merged servers will be fighting for the top spot and items. Regardless of what happens, all those players must buy Game Time Cards.”
Feng Yu smiles. This strategy had been used by many private servers in his previous life. Merge the servers, open up new servers, and merge them again… this will cause fights between players from different servers and will make the players top up their Game Time Cards.
Although Legend of Mir does not allow using money to buy items now, this might change in the future. But for now, Feng Yu does not want this game to become a game for the wealthy. A balanced and fair game can attract more players.
Online games are fun when more players are playing together.
“Manager Ding, trust me. We will set the direction of China’s online game and let more people take note of this industry. We will become industry leaders!”
