Chapter 178: An Interesting Scene
"Appointed Managers?" Both Hundred Shots and Daffodil Daydream gaped with their eyes wide open.
Zhang Yang smiled and explained to them. "That's right, as appointed managers, you will receive proper salary from the guild. You will have to put all your focus into managing the guild. Take it as a real job!"
Both Hundred Shots and Daffodil Daydream exchanged a confused and 'hard-to-believe this was real' kind of look. Both of them had jobs in their real life. It would be unwise for them to give up on their current job to be a virtual game manager. After all, how long could a game last for? 5 years? 10 years? It will eventually die down!
Zhang Yang laughed. "Hold on to your thoughts and listen to my explanation before you reject my proposal. So far, I will pay you 10,000 dollars as the fixed basic salary! In the future development of the guild, you'll get appropriate bonuses!"
Both of them expressed dubious expressions. Zhang Yang continued to explain. "You see, 'God's Miracle' started with around 5,000,000 players. Now, the number has risen to a staggering 170,000,000 players! This took only 2 months! This clearly demonstrates the pulling power of the game! I can be certain that the number of players would even exceed 1 billion! 2 billion, even! What does this mean then? This game is an endless, unlimited market and well of opportunities! If a guild is raised into a proper one, it could become a money-making machine!"
Hundred Shots scratched his chin and said, "Zhan Yu. It's not that I don't believe you! But this is just a too big decision for me to make now! I have to think of the risks and opportunities!"
Daffodil nodded.
Zhang Yang explained further, "As a guild, the perks and advantages would only come after level 50! Look at the current situation of the training grounds. The one closest to the main city is a level 10 training ground. Another area further out is the level 20 training ground, beyond that is the level 30 area and so on! By now, I'm sure that you have experienced it first hand on how troublesome it is just to get to the training grounds. Just taking the "plane" to the training ground would take around 1 to 2 hours!"
Zhang Yang paused a while and continued to speak. "Players would need to restock and resupply, they would need to fix their equipment, and they would need to visit the auction house, banks and more. All these would require them coming back to the main city. Think of how much time is being wasted just walking back and forth!? Right now, the furthest training area would take at least 1 to 2 hours, and when the game matures enough, level 50 fields and up will appear. To save players' time, there will be a territory in the map and has a teleportation circle, linked to the city's teleportation circle! [Teleportation Scroll] can also be used to bind to the map's territory and be used to teleport there as well!"
Zhang Yang leaned his chin on a hand. "Territory could be claimed! Anyone could fight for the authority of the Territory and claim the rights to obtain the fees for the Teleportation Circle! Think of it. If we set the fees to only 1 gold per use, how much gold would we receive when 20,000,000 players use it to travel daily?"
Of course, 20,000,000 might be a little too much to expect. But since a Territory could appear elsewhere, sharing it with at least 1,000,000 players is an easy feat! Right now there are already 170,000,000 players around, and the number will rise to 1 billion or even 2 billion!
Both Daffodil Daydream and Hundred Shot was shocked beyond words!
"To claim a Territory, I would need the strength of the entire guild! I can't do this alone or with just a few players! The guild would need to be a super guild to achieve such feat! I need more than just numbers. I need the players to be strong in fights and easy to work with!"
Hundred Shot thought for a while. "Zhan Yu, aren't you the soul of the guild? So far, everyone in the guild has viewed you as their idol! Everyone would be willing to do your bidding if you said so!"
Zhang Yang laughed loudly. "I'm just but a rather skilled fighter. I can bring a team into dungeons and claim the First Clear Achievement. That, I am good at. But to manage a guild, I don't have the patience and time for these troublesome matters. I need help. I need someone to help me settle the problems in the guild in my stead. I need someone to handle the guild's account! That is why I hope you guys to accept my proposal. Right now, the guild has nothing to offer to you. I can only issue 10,000 dollars as salary to the both of you for now. But, I do hope that after 2 months, our guild would be in shape to claim the game's first Territory! By then, your salary would be at least 100,000 dollars!"
Daffodil sighed and said, "This decision is still too large for me to decide now. I would need some time to think it through!"
Hundred Shots said, "I need to discuss this matter with my wife!"
Even if the popuilarity of the game was at its peak, but if all future updates of the game is squashed into this small period, anyone would feel rather anxious. No one could really predict how would 'God's Miracle' be like in the next few years! The current situation might just be a pre-festival!
Zhang Yang nodded his head. "You guys take your time to think about this. This decision might be the one that will affect your entire life!"
In all honesty, there were things that Zhang Yang could not reveal too much about! In his previous life, there were a number of player who had depended on the game to become millionaire, and even billionaires! A super VRMMORPG that had over 2 billion players worldwide, greatly exceeded the expectations of the game! Like football and basketball, soon, this game would be a culture among everyone. It would eventually be another large money making industry!
After 3 to 4 days of thinking, Hundred Shots and Daffodil Daydream did not let Zhang Yang down; both of them agreed to Zhang Yang proposal, having believed in him! Following Zhang Yang for the past few days, they had been selling equipment and had collected more than 100,000 gold coins! With the additional bonus of 400,000 gold coins that Zhang Yang had sold the [Guild Upgrade Order], both of them had earned at least 600,000 dollars in a short period of time!
If they had not quit their job, they might have to work for at least 8 to 10 years to accumulate that amount!
That was why, even if they did not have much hope for the "Territory", they could still follow Zhang Yang into fights and earn enough money to cover the loss of their job! They could even earn a large fortune just by playing the game! Even if 'God's Miracle' only operated for a year, they could earn say...around 1,000,000 dollars! By then, it would never be too late for them to find a new job!
Furthermore, when Zhang Yang had explained the interesting future ahead of them, how could they just let it pass by without grabbing it! Just thinking about it could give them many sleepless nights to come!
The two of them eventually quit their jobs and focused fully on the game. Zhang Yang had immediately issued their first month salaries as means to encourage their decision.
Under Zhang Yang's arrangement, Daffodil Daydream was to be the financial manager. She had immediately established the campaign to recycle old equipment for guild contribution points. The campaign was to encourage players to contribute their discarded equipment into the guild storage for points instead of selling them in the auction house. That way, high-level players could accumulate wanted equipment and low-level players would not have to grind the same dungeon over and over again! They would only need to complete a few guild quests to get the equipment they want!
Hundred Shots was tasked as the guild human resource manager. He would be in charge of recruitment and expulsion of the members of the guild. Lone Desert Smoke would only recruit players with suitable characteristics. Those who are egoistical, selfish, rude, or fraudulent in manners such as cheating in a dungeon for equipment, cheating players for gold, would not be recruited into the guild. Since the guild had many join requests every single day, Hundred Shots could not risk adding a rotten apple into the guild in order to prevent the guild from collapsing from the inside.
Under the supervision of those two; Lone Desert smoke had become lively and happy. Everyone was rather cooperative and had formed strong bonds between players. Slowly, the guild had managed to morph into a strong guild. It was not all because of Zhang Yang and his merry little band contributing to the guild's fame alone now. Eventually, they had their own way to shine.
...
On September 14th, 3pm, Han Ying Xue managed to reach level 50!
'Ding! Congratulation to Player Little Snow for being the first player to achieve Level 50! Obtained Luck +1!'
'Server Announcement: A Level 50 player has emerged in the game! The patch <Expedition> has official started! Players can find any guard in main city for further explanation of the patch! Further description of the patch can also be found in the official website!'
'Server Announcement: New Profession available! Rune Crafting has been added into the game! Please talk to the main cities' Rune Crafter for further explanation about Rune Craft!'
After a chain of announcement, players around the globe got excited and headed to the nearest guard to asked about the <Expedition> patch! Some of them even logged off the game to read the detail explanation in the official website. Other players found their way to the Rune Crafter in the city to ask about the profession.
Han Ying Xue and the rest of the gang were a little lazy. They know that Zhang Yang was a "Beta player" and quickly private messaged him for information.
To save time and trouble, Zhang Yang partied up with everyone and explained in the party channel.
"I'll talk about Rune Craft first." Zhang Yang coughed. The patch <Expedition> has been brought forward by as much as half a month earlier due to Zhang Yang presence in the game.
"Rune Craft consists of two parts. The first part, Break Down. The second, Rune Crafting. A Rune Crafter can disassemble equipment in the game and obtain Rune Essence! The better the grade, higher the level, the obtained Essence would be better! The equipment grade would change at every 30 levels. Let's say that I disassemble any level 10, 20, or 30 Black-Steel tier equipment, I would obtain a [Level 1 Black-Steel Essence]. If I disassemble a level 40, 50, or 60 Black-Steel equipment, I would obtain a [Level 2 Black-Steel Essence]."
"Rune Essences would be used to craft [Rune Stone]s. These [Rune Stone]s could be used to upgrade existing bonus attributes in the weapon! For example, Enhanced Strength +2 effect is obtained when an equipment is upgraded twice using [Rune Stone]s, increasing the Strength by 20 points. Enhanced Vitality +3 effect is obtained when the equipment is upgraded 3 times using the [Rune Stone], increasing HP by 160 points. The maximum upgrade count is 10!"
"High level [Rune Stone] can be used to upgrade low level enhancement. For example, a [Level 5 Rune Stone] could be used to get Enhance +4. It cannot go the other way around. To get a +5 enhancement, you must use a [Level 5 Rune Stone] or higher. When the equipment reaches Enhancement level +10, there will be an extra effect to it. For example, with Enhanced Vitality +10, every attack would have a <Lifesteal> effect! Now enhancing with [Rune Stone] has success rates. Once an enhancement fails, not only would the material would be burned, the original Enhance would also drop a level."
Zhang Yang laughed a little. "Why is the profession only being introduced now? If the profession was introduced into the game since the very beginning, no one would want to disassemble their equipment! Now, with majority of players reaching level 40 and more, the equipment that were discarded in to the auction house is just too much, to the point where new players would not need to grind low level dungeons to get their equipment! New players could just buy the items that they need from the auction house! This was not what the developers intended. Now that Rune Crafting is introduced into the game, many low-level equipment would be disassembled! This is one of the methods for them to earn a stable income as well."
"Huh..." said Wei Yan Er with her mouth wide opened. "In that case, what is this <Expedition> thing?"