Earlier in the month, Jiang Chen contracted out the specification of the “Phantom” helmet to workshops on Coro Island with a production cost of 40 USD per helmet. Jiang Chen aimed to sell each helmet for 50 USD, so a single helmet would have a profit margin of 10 USD.
The high rate of return brought a wave of startups in Xin.
There were no more fishermen on Ange Island. People grasped the opportunity to purchase production equipment and started workshops in their own backyards. They only needed to produce 1000 helmets to gain 10 thousand USD in profit; it was a much better business compared to fishing.
After they got accustomed to the taste of money, the clever ones would start building bigger plants, expanding production, lowering costs, and making more money…
And they would become capitalists dependent on Future Group.
The calculations showed that a helmet cost roughly 500 USD. Jiang Chen planned to set the price at 1500 USD. Based on the tariffs of each country, the price would vary 5 to 15%.
Although the price of 1500 USD was a bit pricey, from another perspective, it would allow users to gain eight more hours when they could have their eyes “open.” Was that still considered expensive?
It was like giving them a second life!
And Future Technology promised that the “Phantom” had a warranty of more than five years. Any helmet broken with normal usage within two years could be replaced while any helmet malfunctions within five years could be replaced at half price – the warranty was impeccable.
For users who opened the helmet out of “curiosity,” they had to pay for their curiosity, unfortunately. The agreement and package explicitly stated that any activity exposing the interior of the helmet could cause the interior to “oxidize.” A helmet damaged in this manner would not enjoy the warranty provided.
On the production side, due to low production rates of the helmet, it meant that only part of the population could obtain one. Jiang Chen trusted that even at a price of 1500 USD, the “Phantom” would be out of stock for a long period of time.
…
Late into the night, inside the virtual reality MMORPG testing room, 2000 players quietly laid on their recliners and carried out the testing.
In the first 20 days, the internal tests were conducted in the morning. But the employees soon discovered that when “Phantom” was active, the user’s brain would be in sleep mode. So when the testing was done in the morning, it shifted the players’ biological clocks. It meant that the players were all energetic even well into the night.
The fact that the helmets affected their biological clocks was undoubtedly a problem, but it also meant the virtual reality helmets had an excellent ability to lure people to sleep. Even for players with insomnia, they could use the helmet to obtain a great night of sleep.
Although this was just a minor detail, the employees recorded this data to provide better information for when the game would officially be in operation.
It was day 25 of internal testing.
After their initial shock, the players became accustomed to the otherworldly experience.
At first, a lot of mages loved to throw fireballs in the starting village only to be killed by guards who came to the rescue, and it wasn’t until all the NPCs in the city displayed unfriendly attitudes towards them that their brain-dead behavior stopped.
They couldn’t be blamed as anyone who suddenly possessed magic wouldn’t think about saving the world first; they would probably try to frustrate the NPCs and cause extensive damage instead.
However, there was no doubt that even if the Florentine psychology was brought out, this behavior still followed a certain pattern.
And it was because of this that most mages chose their second job as a fire mage or undead mage.
One was powerful. The other was evil.
According to user preferences, the game designers in the other world could only use the raw data and wave their “butcher knives.”
“The weather is quite nice today.”
“Let’s nerf the mage.”
These two sentences were commonly spoken in Du Yongkong’s office.
Since they couldn’t see the players, they didn’t know why internal testers favored mages or why they were so keen to light up the NPC’s building with fireballs. It was something Du Yongkong had never seen in the twenty years of his professional career.
It wasn’t until Du Yongkong reported the mage getting nerfed to Jiang Chen that the behavior stopped.
The virtual reality in the apocalypse took a century to mature from its infancy, so the players in that world didn’t feel too astonished by the freedom and magic of the world – they were already accustomed to it.
To put it in simple terms, the internal testers in the modern world displayed behaviors similar to primates in awe of civilization due to the hastened timeline of the availability of virtual reality. Just like an an indigenous person who had a musket thrown into his hand, their first reaction wasn’t to be repelled but rather to come closer to the muzzle, wondering how the black hole could spit out fire.
Nerfing the damage on the spell would decrease the game’s playability, but without nerfs, no one would play warrior which would impact the overall gaming experience. After careful consideration, Jiang Chen instructed them to nerf the scalability, but not the damage.
For example, C level equipment for a warrior required 100 gold with a drop chance of 10%, while C level equipment for a mage required 1000 gold with a drop chance of 4%. If most noobs couldn’t afford to play a mage, they would automatically choose another profession.
And at level 20, players would gain an opportunity to redistribute their stats and choose their class again.
Also, for classes like the priest, the game designer on the wasteland made similar adjustments.
25 days after the change, the playability of the game increased quite substantially.
As Wei Wendong played an archer he just created, walking in the woods, the symbol of <Connection Lost> suddenly popped up.
“Disconnected?” Wei Wendong frowned.
The battery should be full. The “Phantom” connected to Wi-Fi could potentially disconnect in theory, but this is the first time this has happened…
He chose to log out, put down his helmet, and look around only to discover it was pitch black in the hall. He could slightly make out that the players around him were all experiencing the same situation as they woke up from their games with a blank expression.
“Everyone, please remain calm. There’s been a small accident outside.”
An employee walked in and spoke to the crowd with a loudspeaker.