Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 291: 289: Confronting Anti -Addiction!

Even the modification involving the core algorithm of the game was seamless and efficient.

Within one minute of pausing all matches, Mavis had completed all adjustments.

So, a system message told all players that the hotfix was concluded and the game resumed!

However, after the hotfix was done, Lincoln unexpectedly saw in the studio group chat that one employee came up with an alternative but equally effective solution.

This employee wasn’t part of the operations team. He only joined the conversation after seeing his colleagues’ discussions in the group later on.

It took him some time to realize the problem “Paradise” had encountered.

He then enthusiastically joined the discussion and suggested an idea: since the Candy Track is themed like a “Children’s Paradise,” why not make all players look like children?

A good number of employees found the idea quite interesting and fitting for the game’s atmosphere.

Unfortunately, as they were still discussing, Lincoln and Mavis had already swiftly made the adjustments…

Nevertheless, the idea was great, and Lincoln decided to create a unique track gameplay based on this idea and add it to the game.

— Design a standard track combined with a miniature track, and place a “Shrinking Gate” at the boundary between the two tracks. Players passing through the gate would instantly shrink to one-tenth of their original size.

After completing the special part of the track, players would pass through an “Enlargement Gate” and return to their normal size.

Lincoln even came up with a name for this track map — “Little People Country”!

However… Lincoln glanced at the time and decided to start working on it next Monday.

Work matters should be done, as much as possible, on workdays.

That’s the least respect for the term “workday”!

Lincoln and Mavis observed the players’ in-game activities for a longer time, making sure they didn’t create more problems while fixing the issue.

After observing for a while, no issues were found in the game, and there were no negative feedback online.

Still, Lincoln didn’t forget to instruct Mavis before resting: in case there were any serious side effects, the mechanism could be rolled back immediately if necessary.

Once Mavis was on watch, Lincoln could rest assured.

Before going to bed, Lincoln glanced at the tablet on the bedside table. Mavis on the screen was yawning and looking like she was about to sleep too.

“Goodnight, Mavis.” “Goodnight, Master!”

Lincoln went to sleep.

After setting up the automatic response and emergency wake-up mechanism, Mavis closed all the gossip processes and entered a semi-dormant state.

It was a new habit Mavis had developed after syncing her daily routine with Lincoln.

Lincoln asked if it would have any effect. Mavis replied, “It’ll make me feel better!”

So, Lincoln let her do it.

Those two went to rest.

But the players in the game were far from resting!

After school, Shuihua sprinted straight home.

She felt that if Cloud Dream were to continue like this, the exercise she missed in her senior year due to her PE teacher’s sick leave might soon be made up!

After returning home, she had a quick meal.

Her parents were used to it by now. Although she didn’t always eat in a hurry like these past two days, she would generally eat faster once she started playing the game.

Every time she played the game, her parents would check a little notebook containing her test scores and find solace in her improving rankings.

That was the guarantee that Shuihua could keep playing.

Even with Mirage 2.0 [Focus Mode] to help, Shuihua had to put in lots of effort and sweat to maintain her steady progress.

To gain more time for playing games, Shuihua had even handed her bank card to her mother during dinner yesterday.

This card was opened by her mother.

It was given to Shuihua when she was little, specifically to store the Spring Festival’s money she received from relatives and elders.

While the card was kept by her, the money could only be withdrawn after she turned 18 and went to university.

When her mother saw Shuihua handing her the card and received a deposit notification of 100,000 yuan, she was shocked!

— This surprise for her mother was a favor Shuihua had asked from Lance yesterday.

But seeing the transfer was from “Lance,” her mother looked at Shuihua in bewilderment.

Her first reaction was, “Isn’t it too early to give a betrothal gift?”

An embarrassed Shuihua immediately blushed, “Mom, what are you talking about!”

“Isn’t it? Then you shouldn’t accept money from others, not even from Lance!”

Shuihua hurriedly explained, saying it was an accidental income from playing games. After much persuasion, her mother finally understood what was going on.

After that, even though her parents still reminded her that she should focus on her studies, study hard and get into a good university, they wouldn’t restrict her gaming once she was in university.

But Shuihua could feel that her parents’ concerns about her gaming had lessened somewhat.

For an ordinary family, money is indeed a vulgar and powerful thing.

Of course, the cash earned from trading the virtual currency earned in the game to Pay-To-Win Lords wasn’t 100,000, but 150,000…

Five thousand of that was directly charged into Shuihua’s Cloud Dream personal account, and the rest of the money was temporarily stored with Lance as a small reserve fund.

– -These little secrets of the girls didn’t need to be revealed to their parents…

Logging into the game, opening the mall, maxing out the monthly card, all in one go!

In the past, Shuihua would hesitate for a long time because she played games infrequently and felt it was not worth buying a monthly subscription.

But now that she suddenly became wealthy, she couldn’t help but splurge a bit.

She teamed up with Lance, charged into the competition venue, and started ranking!

It’s worth mentioning that Lance didn’t play the new game during the day and only logged in at night, not much earlier than Shuihua.

Not only Lance, but most professional players also didn’t use their daytime training time after confirming it was a casual game.

They were also among the few streamers who didn’t play the new game today and continued to fight in the “Assassins’ Alliance” world.

Only in the evening did they enter “Paradise” to experience the new game.

After all, work is work, and life is life!

Besides, Friday night is usually the peak of player activity.

The number of online players in the “Paradise” world is soaring and continues to rise!

Players who logged in as soon as the server opened during the day are not only not going offline to sleep but are even more enthusiastic about playing!

Many avid players, in order to obtain their desired appearance rewards as soon as possible, even tried to “challenge” Mirage’s anti-addiction mechanism:

Intermittent sleep.

Players already know that Mirage’s anti-addiction mechanism is not a set time, but rather judges if a player is tired enough to require rest based on the player’s neural signal activity.

So as long as you can deceive this detection and maintain a relatively stable neural activity level, you can extend your online time!

The first to find a solution was a player who tried the “Da Vinci Sleep Method” out of curiosity.

–That is, play for 4 hours, sleep for 15 minutes, play for another hours, sleep for 15 minutes, and so on.

After personal verification, he found that this sleep pattern could really maintain his mental state for an extended period without being kicked offline by Mirage’s anti-addiction mechanism!

Of course, in the end, he also proved that this sleep pattern was not sustainable. It could only be maintained for two or three days at most, and it was impossible to persist for a long time unless you had a unique physique.

But this method of combating the anti-addiction mechanism was remembered by players.

Using this method, you can not only play a game thoroughly when it is first released.

If it’s a large game vying for first kills, first completions, and other achievements, this skill could very well be the key to determining victory or defeat!

Many players who aspire to complete the “Night City New Game Speedrun” even take advantage of the launch of “Paradise” to actively practice this intermittent sleep, extending their online time!

Yi also planned to use this technique at this time.

But he wasn’t pursuing appearance rewards or chasing after first kills.

He just felt that he couldn’t lose to Camille Victoria under the crazy urging of his live broadcast room audience, and wanted to restart his “marathon live.”

He temporarily went offline, switched the video source in the live broadcast room, and took the wireless camera back to his bedroom.

He placed the camera facing his bed as he said to the audience, “Although I haven’t used this technique before, it’s just a matter of sleeping for a while after playing for a few hours, right?”

“How difficult can it be?”

“Besides, we aren’t pursuing records, so there’s no need to strictly adhere to the schedule. A certain amount of time discrepancy is completely acceptable.”

“Fifteen minutes is too stingy! So I’ll set a 20 -minute alarm clock, sleep for 20 minutes, and then get up. Please supervise me!”

After finishing speaking, he went to bed and fell asleep.

Probably because he had played all day, Yi was a bit tired, and he managed to fall asleep almost as soon as he hit the pillow.

During his sleep, many in the live audience left the broadcast room, leaving only about 500,000 people.

These people chatted in the live broadcast room while watching Yi sleep.

– -Mainly because Yi was a male anchor and only looked average. If a female anchor were livestreaming her sleep, the popularity might not only not decline but could even be higher than normal streaming. Like this, twenty minutes passed in a flash.

The alarm clock rang on time.

However, Yi didn’t wake up…

The phone was right beside his pillow. He could easily press it against his face if he turned over. The music was practically playing right next to his ear.

But he didn’t wake up at all.

At first, the audience thought Yi was playing a prank and pretending not to wake up.

But the alarm clock automatically delayed it again and again, and after it rang for the 5th consecutive time and automatically turned off, Yi still showed no

sign of waking up….