Chapter 1 After the Official Launch

After "Eternal Reincarnation" officially launched, Pei Qian and Meng Chang were, of course, also paying attention to it.

Of course, one of them was in the Advertising and Marketing Department, and the other in his own office.

They both had the same kind of surprise at the discussions appearing online, but the points they were surprised about were very different.

Meng Chang sat at his workstation in the Advertising and Marketing Department, scratching his head in confusion.

"This... what's going on?"

"Weren't we supposed to update the combat system in the last week?"

"The magic sword's automatic parry setting is obviously part of the combat system, right? Why is it already appearing now?"

"No, I have to go find Yu Fei!"

Meng Chang couldn't sit still.

Clearly, the appearance of this automatic parry would disrupt his plan to some extent!

In fact, Meng Chang's original promotional plan was very simple, still the standard application of the Pei-style promotional method: up-down-up.

First, through overwhelming advertising, he would burn money while hyping up the popularity of "Eternal Reincarnation," making everyone think it was a large DLC with a scale comparable to the "Islands of Salvation" main game, and with huge innovations in gameplay. While accumulating a large amount of attention, he would naturally plant some seeds for attracting criticism.

Then, he would split all the content of "Eternal Reincarnation" into four parts. The first three parts would update the game's new maps and new monsters first, and finally update the combat system, the most critical "key," to connect all the previous content.

Although the entire game length and scale of "Eternal Reincarnation" were almost the same as "Islands of Salvation," the scenes, monsters, and so on were all modified from the original materials, which could easily give players a "reskin" feeling.

And "reskinning" can often be equated with "perfunctory."

In the first week, players' dissatisfaction might not be so high, and they would still have expectations for the content to come.

By the second and third weeks, players would realize that everything was just the same old thing, and their emotions would definitely be somewhat out of control.

What's more, without updating the combat system, the stats of the small monsters and bosses on the entire map were still relatively increased compared to before.

Originally, the stats of "Islands of Salvation" had already been set right at the limit that players could bear. Now that the stats were increased again, without the addition of the new combat system, it would be almost impossible for players to have fun.

It might even cause a division between hardcore players, loyal players, and ordinary players. For example, hardcore players mocking ordinary players for being too weak and not worthy of playing, and ordinary players venting their anger on "Eternal Reincarnation" itself.

In this way, the controversy over "Eternal Reincarnation" would inevitably continue to accumulate.

By the last week, after the new combat system was updated, players would suddenly realize that "Eternal Reincarnation" was not just a simple reskin. This combat system really had the power to turn the rotten into the magical, turning it into a completely different game from "Islands of Salvation"!

And at that time, Meng Chang would have already received a high commission, leaving without a trace, his deeds remaining unknown.

All the surging popularity that followed, as well as the players' praise for the game, would all be left to Boss Pei.

Of course, at this time, Qiao Laoshi or Tian Gongzi would also be indispensable for their interpretation of the game's content, such as the setting of the magic sword, the improvement of the new combat system, and the various changes in the plot, and so on.

Meng Chang originally thought his plan was perfect, but he never expected that things would go wrong in the first week of launch!

The magic sword was exposed as soon as it appeared, wouldn't that be equivalent to hinting to players that the game had a completely new combat mechanism?

Then how could he accumulate players' dissatisfaction by then?

Would the combat system be so amazing when it was updated?

If players always firmly believed that "Eternal Reincarnation" would never disappoint them, and even found more suspense while constantly exploring the game content, thus maintaining their expectations for this DLC...

Then Meng Chang was afraid that he couldn't count on getting a commission, and even if he got it, it would definitely not be much.

Therefore, Meng Chang was very anxious.

He immediately got up and prepared to go to Tenda Games to ask Yu Fei what was going on, and at the same time, think carefully about whether there was any way to remedy the situation.

…

The Advertising and Marketing Department and the Tenda Games Department were both in Shenhua Haojing, and Meng Chang arrived quickly.

He went straight to Yu Fei, who was working, and explained his intention.

"Ah? Magic sword?" Yu Fei scratched his head in confusion.

Obviously, he didn't have a clear understanding of the relevant situation either.

"Wait a moment, I'll ask the designer in charge."

Yu Fei didn't dare to neglect, and immediately got up to investigate.

After all, Yu Fei had patted his chest to guarantee that he would definitely cooperate with Meng Chang's publicity work, but things went wrong in the first week, which made him feel very embarrassed.

After about ten minutes, Yu Fei finally found out the situation and returned.

"I'm really sorry!"

"It's like this, Brother Meng. When I was making the update plan and splitting the game content, I only wrote that the combat system part should be placed in the final update content."

"But there was a bit of a glitch in the specific execution. The magic sword's automatic parry mechanism was a relatively independent underlying design when it was made, so the colleague in charge of splitting the game forgot to split it out. After all, my plan didn't specify this point in detail..."

"Brother Meng, what do you think we should do?"

Yu Fei's face was full of guilt.

He had only been the acting chief planner for a month, and he originally thought the job was quite easy, but he didn't expect that he would cause trouble just after making a slightly larger plan!

Strictly speaking, this was indeed the responsibility of him, the chief designer.

Because the designers below had a lot of work to do, they would definitely strictly follow his plan when completing tasks. As the chief designer, Yu Fei should have realized the special nature of the magic sword's automatic parry mechanism as soon as possible, and written down the handling method of this mechanism separately in the plan. That way, the current situation would not have occurred.

He, the chief designer, didn't write it, so he should share the responsibility with the people below, and even he should bear the main responsibility.

Meng Chang couldn't help but rub his forehead.

This was a bit of a pain!

He couldn't really blame Yu Fei for this matter, because on the one hand, Yu Fei was just an acting chief planner, who used to be a novelist. He had only been acting for a month, and it was obviously a bit difficult to expect him to do all the work as perfectly as Hu Xianbin; on the other hand, Yu Fei had shown the plan to Meng Chang, and Meng Chang didn't realize the problem with the magic sword's automatic parry mechanism at that time.

You didn't see it either, so how could you blame others?

It could only be said that the magic sword's automatic parry mechanism was a very deeply hidden mechanism, and everyone subconsciously believed from the beginning that even if this hidden mechanism was discovered by players, it would have to be some time after the game was completely released, so they didn't pay much attention to it.

As a result, the current situation occurred.

Meng Chang was a little tangled, how should the current situation be handled?

Update the game and remove the magic sword's automatic parry mechanism?

It could be done, but how would you explain it to the players?

If you didn't admit that this was a game mechanism and said it was a bug, then you would be lying through your teeth. The players weren't stupid and wouldn't believe it; if you admitted that it was a game mechanism, but it was released by mistake, then not to mention whether it would be embarrassing and make Tenda Games' internal management seem chaotic, the most important thing was that it would prematurely expose the unupdated new combat system.

Once the players knew about the game's combat mechanism in advance, then Meng Chang's commission would basically be greatly reduced and he wouldn't be able to get it.

Therefore, Meng Chang's idea was to try every possible means to cover up this matter.

But he had no idea how to cover it up specifically.

Just then, Meng Chang's phone vibrated.

He took out his phone and glanced at it, then said to Yu Fei, "...I'll go to Boss Pei's place first."

"Since things have already happened, you don't need to worry. We'll continue to discuss countermeasures later."

Watching Meng Chang leave in a hurry, Yu Fei returned to his workstation, feeling restless and uneasy.

"Should Boss Pei take this opportunity to replace me quickly? I don't want to be this acting chief planner anyway."

…

At the same time, Pei Qian was also in his office, pacing back and forth anxiously while silently cursing in his mind.

He never expected that it would turn out like this!

He didn't ask about the promotional plan for "Eternal Reincarnation" at all.

On the one hand, it was because he trusted Meng Chang very much, and felt that his commission last month was a reflection of his strength. Although the game platform was revived by "Tian Gongzi" afterwards, that was an accident, not Meng Chang's fault;

On the other hand, it was because he didn't have too much expectation for "Eternal Reincarnation" in the first place. It was very likely to make money, as long as it didn't make too much.

Therefore, no matter what the promotional plan turned out to be, as long as it wasn't too popular, Pei Qian felt that it was acceptable.

Anyway, if it really became popular, Meng Chang wouldn't get a commission, and the unluckiest person wouldn't be Pei Qian himself, so what was there to be sad about?

But the magic sword's automatic parry mechanism was exposed after only a quarter of the content was updated, which was completely unacceptable!

As Pei Qian's own exclusive tool for skipping class, he originally hoped that players would never find the magic sword and would only suffer in the game.

After all, the original intention of making such a difficult combat system was to dissuade players.

But before the combat system could be played, the method of skipping class was exposed first, so what was the point of dissuading anyone?

Just as he was feeling depressed, there was a knock on the office door.

It was Meng Chang who had arrived.

Pei Qian directly asked straight to the point, "How could the magic sword's mechanism be exposed so quickly? Is this also part of your promotional plan?"

Meng Chang coughed twice very awkwardly, "Boss Pei, I'm sorry, this is my work mistake!"

"The thing is..."

He explained in detail the problem of his communication error with Yu Fei, which led to the wrong update of the magic sword's parry mechanism.

Pei Qian fell silent.

He instantly understood what was going on.

In order to prevent players from finding the magic sword and achieve the effect of being hidden in plain sight, Pei Qian could be said to have taken great pains and arranged three layers of insurance.

The weapon damage of the magic sword was completely lower than other weapons, and the automatic parry could not be triggered in the dual-wielding state. Players could obtain the ghost messenger weapon after killing the ghost messenger on the Huangquan Road, and they would definitely replace the magic sword;

There was a limit to the demonization value in each game stage, and it was impossible to trigger the automatic parry even if you died many times in the early stage. At most, you would make an imperfect parry action in extremely rare cases, but it was not 100% damage reduction, and you would still die;

Even if a boss wanted to clear the game with a low-damage weapon, because the boss had already mastered the combat mechanism very skillfully, he would not die many times, so he would naturally not trigger the automatic parry mechanism.

But these three layers of insurance were all disrupted by Meng Chang's routine of splitting and updating!