Six years of anticipation, plus Nebula Games' good reputation among players, and Lucas's own pre-release hype for "World of Warcraft."
Combined with the movie-quality animated CG trailer.
Made "World of Warcraft's" popularity instantly hit the top of the trending list and stay there.
Players were actively discussing what type of game it actually was.
But they soon got the answer they wanted.
On Lucas's official social media, unlike before, there was no silence.
Facing all the enthusiastic discussions from players, Lucas announced to global players that afternoon on his official social media that it was an: MMORPG.
This surprised many players and industry observers.
Players, on the other hand, didn't think too much about it.
Although MMORPG was unexpected, many players had previously guessed it based on the content in Nebula World.
However, for those working in the game industry, the type of "World of Warcraft" caused confusion.
MMORPG?
This was truly something they hadn't expected.
Before this, many game companies assumed "World of Warcraft" might be an ARPG.
Or a game like "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," which had an open world but was more focused on RPG elements.
After all, given the game's background story, this was quite possible.
But MMORPG left many game companies and designers puzzled.
The main reason was that the situation for MMORPGs was a bit awkward.
There were indeed some MMORPGs that were still running, but they were basically all long-operating ones.
As for new MMORPG-style games, maybe none would come out in one or two years.
Because MMORPG-style games had two outcomes.
Either they succeeded and operated for a long time, becoming a stable money-maker.
Or they became half-dead and became a money-loser.
It could be said to be very extreme.
And now Nebula Games was going to make an MMORPG.
And it was the Warcraft IP.
This news immediately grabbed the attention of the game industry.
After all, MMORPGs were widely considered difficult to make.
The difficulty wasn't just in how to charge money.
In MMORPGs, there were too many things to consider.
For example, balancing numerical values and level design, class balance, skill balance, and even the in-game story and quests, as well as resource allocation.
And development progress. If the maps of "Red Dead Redemption" and "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," and "The Witcher 3" were very large.
Then the combined maps of any MMORPG would be larger than these games.
The development cycle would naturally be extended, which is why MMORPGs generally didn't have graphics as good as top-tier single-player games.
It could be said that MMORPG-style games were one of the most difficult types of games.
Of course, this difficulty was relative to the standard of excellence.
If one was just making an MMORPG and not a good game, then naturally it was different.
And now, could "World of Warcraft" succeed?
At least looking at Lucas's promotional CG, they had definitely spent a lot of money!
After the announcement of "World of Warcraft," it undoubtedly dominated trending topics.
Even now, there was only a CG promotional video.
But unlike ordinary games, first, this was a new game from Nebula Games.
And it had appeared frequently in Nebula World before.
Plus the Warcraft IP.
And Nebula Games' first MMORPG.
Any one of these labels was enough to make it trend.
Although MMORPGs, both abroad and domestically, hadn't had any outstanding games in recent years, it was precisely because of this that the topic surrounding "World of Warcraft" was strengthened.
Not only were players anticipating it, but the game industry also wanted to see what "World of Warcraft" Nebula Games could make of it.
Judging from the quality of the promotional CG and the art style of the scenes in Nebula World, this project had clearly been in preparation for a long time by Nebula Games.
Lucas at Nebula Games was unaware of the external discussions.
At this moment, Lucas was confirming the future operational plan for "World of Warcraft" with the operations team.
Lucas had already made his decisions regarding this.
And the operations team were not inexperienced, after all, Nebula Games didn't only have single-player games. "Fall Guys," "Legends of the Three Kingdoms," "Rainbow Six: Siege," "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare," and so on, were all continuously operated games, and the team had accumulated sufficient experience during this process.
First, the game would not have an in-game shop.
Because "World of Warcraft" was a game that focused on PVP and PVE.
In the game, the sets obtained from PVE dungeons not only rewarded attributes but also appearance and honor, which was inherently a reward and a positive feedback loop.
Not to mention attributes that affected balance, purely cosmetic items like fashion and mounts.
If they were to sell fashion and mounts, they would definitely have to be better-looking than the sets obtained from dungeons, otherwise, what would be the point of releasing them.
But if they were released, the rewards from dungeons would be directly halved.
Imagine players endlessly farming for the invincible mount just for its invincibility.
And after you spent days and nights farming for invincibility, you wanted to show off in the main city, only to see people in front riding black dragons and people behind riding phoenixes.
What's there to show off about?
So Lucas never considered the option of item-based charging.
Overall, only the purest time-based payment system was most suitable.
For the time-based payment, Lucas adopted the model of the Chinese server after its agent change in his previous life, rather than the buy-to-play and monthly card structure of the US server.
The game would solely employ a time-based charging model with time cards and monthly cards running in parallel.
Later, different charging models like seasonal passes and half-year passes would be introduced.
As for the charging standard, a minute-based billing model would be used.
Charging 0.4 dollar per hour. Players could directly choose to purchase time cards with full Zack denominations or choose to top up by the hour.
The monthly card would be 29 dollar for unlimited play.
Besides this, there would be no official shop in the game, but there would be a corresponding exchange.
Allowing players to trade using in-game gold and monthly card or time card points, but a service fee would be charged, equivalent to the Time Tokens in his previous life.
Allowing players to directly exchange gold for cash was unrealistic.
It wasn't that it was technically impossible, but if it were done, the much-loved Boss Lucas might end up singing behind bars.
As for wealthy players selling time cards to obtain more gold, this was completely unresolvable.
Even setting limits on the number of sales wouldn't have much effect.
Because there were also offline channels, and "World of Warcraft" as an MMORPG, trading was inherently a game mechanic.
If trading wasn't possible in the game, players could trade outside the game anyway.
Since that was the case, it was better to guide it through official channels.
For some players, they didn't necessarily have to spend money to play the game.
They could completely earn gold and then buy time cards sold by others.
As long as they were willing to work hard, they could absolutely achieve the feat of playing the game for free.
After all, there were other players willing to "pay."
For gold farming groups, normal gold farming groups that manually farmed gold with their skills, there was no reason to interfere.
As for gold farming software, bypassing the closed CosmosVR system, and not to mention the existence of Nebula Games' defense technology experts, but would someone with such technology want to create a script for automatic gold farming?
In addition to these measures, Lucas also specifically assembled an economic research team, mainly to maintain the game's economy.
To avoid in-game inflation and 'financial crises.'
An MMORPG is essentially a small country.
The factors affecting game balance are not just gameplay and numerical values. The game's currency economy system is also crucial, and in a way, the economic system is even more important than numerical values and gameplay.
Because this type of game, which requires continuous operation and is gear-oriented.
Its core is development and growth, and growth implies value.
The collapse of the in-game economic system could mean that the character you spent a long time developing changes from a house in the city center of a first-tier city to a house in the center of a third-tier county town.
Because if players are dissatisfied with the gameplay, it can be modified. A profession that is underpowered can be fixed with a numerical patch, and too strong can be weakened.
But the economic system is irreversible.
(End of chapter)
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