The number of players of o is growing at an amazing rate.

Before this, the most popular m-touch rpg game in North America was EQ, with an average online presence of more than 300,000 people in total.

This is already a very impressive achievement. In fact, when the industry predicts the number of players in O, it is just speculation that they will attract 500,000 to 600,000 players in half a year, and then it may reach one million within a year.

But beyond the expectations of everyone in the industry, to be precise, beyond the expectations of everyone in the industry except Jester, O met the standard of Wu Shiwan active players in just three weeks, and the number of active players in three months reached one million. At the end of 2005, almost one year after the official release of O, this number reached an astonishing 3.5 million!

Moreover, the number of people has not stopped.

In addition to being surprised, the industry also made some new predictions. It is said that O is likely to exceed the number of active players with more than 5 million in the second year!

This number is similar to what Jester himself expected. Jester himself used his own memory and real data to speculate. It is estimated that by the end of this year, that is, the end of 2006, it will almost reach 5.5 million people. Before the expansion pack is released, this number should be a peak.

If the expansion pack is not released later, it will probably reduce the number of active players in this game to a certain extent.

However, after the expansion pack is released, the number of people will surge again.

Now o has just announced the door opening mission of Anqira, and all players around the world are constantly working hard to become the first door opening hero.

Jester finished his work today and held today's regular meeting for his colleagues. He did not work overtime. The O development team is currently in a rest period, and the previous tasks are basically handled almost. From the next month, at least half of the manpower can be drawn out before he encounters the subsequent development of "The Burning Expedition".

"The Burning Expedition" is the first expansion pack of o's subsequent.

It is also the only expansion pack that Jester will be responsible for.

He has already mentioned this in an internal meeting. He will officially retire when the "Burning Expedition" is almost done. He may not wait until the "Burning Expedition" is finished.

Of course, he would not participate in the second expansion pack, but Jester still gave his own advice.

You can use the follow-up of the Alsace story to make the third expansion, the distant Northrend continent and the end of the Lich King story, which is a very gimmick combination.

If you add some stories about Titan Guardians and ancient gods, it would be great to players.

Of course, Jester doesn't care whether this suggestion will be adopted. Because he said that what he is responsible for is the first expansion pack, and what he can do is only on the first expansion pack.

In fact, there was a quarrel in the O development team about the expansion pack's environment. At the beginning, when the O development team first discussed the expansion pack, they agreed with the EQ expansion pack method, which is to completely withdraw the environment.

However, this plan was directly denied by Jester.

The reason is very simple.

It is not his game design plan that he can't turn the previous effort spent on the map into useless work just because of an expansion.

The game world of O envisioned by Jester should be an orderly game world. He should not be just a game where players at full level can experience the fun of the game. A successful game should allow players at all levels to experience the fun of this game. This is the design of success. If everything is full level, it is the beginning.

So what qualifications are there for this game called rpg?

Is the so-called rpg the one that everyone is crazy and cool, Long Aotian?

Obviously not.

This world needs legendary heroes who can defeat the Fire Demon King Ragnaros and the Black Stone King Nanafarios, and other low-level players also need to fill it.

Only the class structure at the top of the pyramid will never be stable, because this is a castle in the air.

Why do we say that level 60 is fun? In addition to the RPG style of the various settings of level 60, the most important thing is that. Because at the beginning of the game, although it is still at full level, it can only be experienced by most content. However, due to the lengthening of the leveling time, it takes an ordinary player a long time to upgrade from level 0 to level 60. He plays for four hours a day without interruption, and it takes about 30 days to reach level 30.

It takes seven days to level up for twenty-four hours.

Such a long leveling time actually set up a pyramid architecture for O invisibly.

The most important thing is that players at low levels and above level 30 will also be useful for players who are level 10 or even level 20 when leveling up to fight monsters.

The key to whether a game's level architecture can be stable is whether the economy is stable enough.

Being able to obtain materials that are also needed at the lower level at the lower level will stabilize the economy at the lower level, even if many players cannot reach level 60.

At level 40 or 50, you will also have a great time playing.

Even if you are at level 60, if you don’t play raid like you are working, there are still many things to play.

In this way, the architecture of the entire rpg game is healthy.

Starting from the first expansion pack of the original O, the price was no longer healthy due to the withdrawal of the environment. The span of ten levels of useful level and the span of sixty levels of useful level are completely different.

This is what Jester wants to change.

If the world of an RPG game is healthy, then it is absolutely impossible to fully adopt the design idea of ​​removing the environment.

It’s not that you don’t need to withdraw from the environment, but that you can’t withdraw from the environment in all.

For example, there are some things that do require a withdrawal environment, such as equipment. There is nothing to say about this withdrawal environment. The equipment of the expansion pack should be better than the original ones. Of course, you cannot make the expansion pack's blue and green installation better than the original graduation purple installation, which makes it unreasonable.

But there are some things that cannot be handled with the idea of ​​relieving the environment. The simplest one is the material.

Not many players care about equipment obtained at the lower level, but it does not mean that they don't care about what they can obtain at the lower level.

If, because the expansion pack is opened and the original things are treated as a withdrawal environment, these players will allow almost all the things they get in their first sixty level level training careers, and there is no way to obtain income through normal transactions. What? Do you think someone will charge low-level materials for practicing business skills?

How many talents can practice business skills like this?

Can the normal circulation of goods be formed?

Keep low-level materials in a stable economic state?

This is certainly impossible.

What Jester is most annoying about is the so-called full-level is the beginning. Since the full-level is the beginning, why don’t you let the full-level play at the beginning?

Since you want to do all the withdrawal environments, why not let players play the expansion pack at level 60 at the beginning?

Because this is rpg.

RPG cannot use this method that gives you level 60 from the beginning.

Of course, as the level behind is too high, after using this method of retreating the environment, even though Blizzard didn't want to, he still used it to give you a character to play with the expansion pack, and gave you a set of equipment for a certain amount of money and various skills.

As for why this happens?

Very simple.

That is the low-level map and version, which completely turns Blizzard into a useless thing through this purely retreat-environment development idea.

It's like garbage, discarded like worn-out shoes.

Jester doesn't want this.

He felt that as long as the low-level materials are also the setting that the expansion pack needs to use for commercial skills, the low-level map will not become a profitable existence. As long as the economic system is healthy, players will naturally play this level of content.

Jester convinced the development team that this is the biggest difference between "The Burning Expedition" and the original "The Burning Expedition".

As time goes by, the version of O has been opened to the Shadow of Naxxamas. Players can collect fragments of the orange rod in this version. It is said that in the next version, the task of the orange rod is completed.

This is also the third orange outfit that appears in o.

In the original history, in the Blizzard's idea, the orange stick, which is the crow stick, actually needs to be completed in Karazan.

However, when designing the version, the impact of attribute expansion was not taken into account.

After the Shadow of Naxxamas was opened, I found that the attributes were expanded to the point where there was no way to continue to open Karazan, so I moved this team dynasty at a glance to the level 60 expansion pack, which has to be said to be a helplessness.

In fact, you can know from the acquisition of orange weapons. For example, the orange two-handed hammer of Savras and the Hand of the Flame Demon Ragnaros, which is the starting item dropped in the Heart of Molten Fire, but it requires the forging materials in the Black Wings Nest to be made. This is a weapon that can only be made across two large team dungeons.

This is also the way to obtain the crow pole.

However, it was ruined by the Blizzard team, which had designed the rpg game a bit awkward.

In desperation, he changed the method of obtaining the crow pole and moved Karazan to the burning expedition.

And this world naturally doesn't need to be like this.

Although the problem of attribute expansion is an inevitable problem for RPG games, it is not too serious under the control of Jester's foresight, at least not so serious that it was impossible to open Karazan after Nax Sarmas.

In fact, Blizzard's designers were a little shameful at that time, and knew that the bad impact on the game experience after the expansion of attributes would be very serious. Therefore, they did not launch Karazan at level 60 at that time. Although Blizzard's designers were still relatively immature in design, they looked at their handling of the game.

They really want the best game.

If it was a Blizzard designer a few years later, how could he care about these things?

Isn’t it just the attribute expansion? What’s so great about it?

In a certain O server in North America.

It is the server where Dark's Night Elf Hunter named Kelly Dark.

Dake said in the guild that he might not be able to continue to follow the guild during this period, and many people asked curiously.

Because Dak is a person who likes to participate in events very much.

And Dark's answer made them very sad.

"My condition has worsened again. The doctor said I can't face the computer for so long and have to go for treatment. The time may not be enough."

After Dake's explanation, the people in the guild realized that Dake, who had been with them for so long, was actually a seriously ill player, and the disease he suffered from was actually a leukemia that was incurable now.

And I knew from Dake that his condition is already very serious.

Dake is a very famous player in the server. His reputation is not because of his good PK skills, not because he has never lost many times when he planted a flag at the gate of the Iron Fortress, nor is it because he was the first killing guild. He was famous for showing off his wind sword every day on the iron bridge to attract attention, but because he likes to make friends, help others, and help others.

Whenever someone mentioned Kelly Dark, the night elf hunter, someone would say, "He, I know him, he is very good, he has done it for me..."

Answers like this.

So, when Dark told his condition in the guild, the news quickly spread across the server.
To be continued...