Otherworldly Architect

At the end of December, the first batch of "game peripherals" in the true sense of Bluestar Studio was finally launched on the official website mall.

Since this batch is basically at the sample level, there are many processes and exquisite production, and the quantity is relatively rare.

Each Mingyan game occupies a periphery.

The surroundings of "My World" are of course the furry dolls of "Tintin" Creeper.

The green ghost figure, round and cute eyes, plus a little fluffy feeling of "may explode at any time"...

Well, this is a peripheral of a mysterious sand sculpture, but it is still the most popular one.

My world players still eat this set!

The mosaic monster is a familiar stranger to them, and it is the most recognizable monster image.

They didn't feel happy enough with other monsters as peripherals.

"The Story of Hachiko" is surrounded by a Q-version Hachiko badge.

Things like this are naturally useless in the interstellar era, and are basically collectibles.

Just like the blue star in the 21st century, using stamps as collectibles.

Very memorable.

And all the income from this badge, Blue Star promises to donate all of it to the Pitt Dog Rescue Foundation.

This message will be displayed directly in the badge purchase information.

The players who saw it couldn't help being a little proud, but also a little bit worried.

——Hey, Blue Star started throwing money again!Come and stop him!

Around the League of Legends is a mug.

The game map has been carefully modified into a beautiful pattern, which is decorated on the cup.

Players who bought this cup will also receive a "little cup cup" emoji in the game.

The expression is very cute, and the price is very low.

Even if you sell emoticons directly at this price, many players will pay for it.

What's more, there is a limited edition cup?

Before the sale on the official website started, a large number of players had already set their alarm clocks, ready to start robbing at the same time.

On the day of the sale, a total of [-] mugs were swept away at an astonishing speed.

You should know that for the first batch of blue star peripherals, each account is only allowed to purchase one.

But even so, it was completely sold out in just 2 minutes!

Players who came late could only refresh the page over and over again, and then look at the message "Baby is sold out" in frustration.

They knew their favorite game was hot, but they still didn't expect it to be this hot.

Most of these players who bought peripherals really took a fancy to these exquisite and commemorative little things.

But there are also a small number who want to send money to Blue Star.

There is even a small group of people who come to "invest".

You must know that the first batch of limited edition peripherals of some classic works also have a high value-added space and are valuable for collection.

As time goes by, players' feelings for a good game will slowly grow.

The limited editions sold that year will naturally rise.

Therefore, they think that the League of Legends will eventually reach the height of feelings——

Let the batch of limited peripherals they collect become high-end goods in the market, and eventually sell for hundreds or thousands of times the price.

Each of the first batch of peripherals only has a stock of [-] pieces, and if they are sold out, there will be no more.

At the same time, it also brought millions of sales to Blue Star.

But this is actually not very profitable, because the cost of trial works is actually very high.

The cost will not drop enough to be profitable until the mass production starts in the future.

Blue Star Studio made an internal estimate, and then placed the first batch of peripheral orders for official sales with the foundry——

If the development goes well, the official peripheral mall will be officially launched early next year!

The production of this batch of peripherals also suddenly made the Blue Star Studio look a bit crowded.

During this time, the studio slowly expanded to a team of more than 100 people.

After the employees get their favorite peripherals, they usually choose to put them next to their workstations, where they can enjoy them at any time.

Coupled with the large servers and workstations, the original seventh and eighth floors really couldn't fit.

Mingyan has entrusted a real estate agency to help him find a more suitable location.

Blue Star Studio will have to relocate sooner or later, and it's best to do it in one step.

If the funds are sufficient, the entire building will be bought if it is clearly stated that it will not be possible, and it will be used as the "Blue Star Building" in the future.

However, he is also looking for a suitable different world at the same time.

Well, when "Blue Star Doom" is launched, as long as the sales volume is not too bad, it is estimated that the funds on the books will be enough.

……

This month passed quickly, and it was another small New Year's Eve.

There are only 50 days left until the New Year's Eve when "Blue Star Doom" is scheduled to go online.

And on this day, the closed beta of the BETA version of "Blue Star Doom" has gradually come to an end.

The testing team ended up with good news and bad news for Mingyan.

The good news is that the scores of the internal beta of the BETA version gave "Blue Star Doom" a high score of S!

They invited nearly a hundred players in total, from all age groups, industry fields and different education backgrounds.

And these players almost all gave good reviews.

What shocked them the most in the whole game, apart from the smooth and natural combat operations, was the extremely realistic game scenes and plot characters.

Therefore, when these players experience the core plot under the guidance of the staff, almost all of their feedback focuses on the plot.

Some people even burst into tears after the experience, unable to get out of their emotions.

In order to obtain more objective data, the staff had to extend the testing process to allow players time to calm down.

But most people still have a steady stream of things to say about the plot and a lot of emotions to express.

Fortunately, the test experts are professional and can guide them to answer the questions they want one by one.

For example: What do you think are the shortcomings and deficiencies of the current "Blue Star Doom"?

This question still confuses many people.

A more experienced player replied: "The game experience is too short, I can hardly keep my eyes open, and I experience new surprises every minute. As for the flaws and deficiencies, I have no impression... Hey, to be honest, I Now I really like Blue Star Doomsday, so you insist on picking on me, isn't it a bit cruel?"

"..."

Then, the staff quickly showed him a few clips of his own play.

The player frowned and tried to remember, and finally said: "Really, whether it is the gameplay, the depth of the plot, or the details such as dubbing, they are almost impeccable. I can only pick a few meaningless flaws, For example, in the scene of the fight on the train, there seems to be a part of the model."

"Moulding" is a game term that refers to the overlapping of models such as items and characters in the game, resulting in visual errors.

In any case, the staff carefully wrote down the opinions of the internal test players.

And that player is indeed very discerning.

——Because the "train fight" episode was the bad news that had to be reported to Mingyan.

That episode tells the story of Russell and Louis, who met a group of survivors and were besieged by mutated zombies when they were walking alone.

Russell lured away the mutant zombies, and then Louis started the train, and the three followed the train away from the group of survivors.

Naturally, there was a fierce fight on the train, and Russell, of course, won the final victory in a dangerous manner.

And here's the problem: Russell needs to fight on the vehicle, and then switch scenes as the vehicle advances.

The problem of vehicles and switching scenes is simply an eternal problem.

In the 21st century, Bluestar was struggling when it was making PC games, and it was still the same when it came to VR games in the StarCraft era.

With Bluestar's existing technical means, there is really no way to solve it.

You know, the vehicle in the game is not necessarily a vehicle, it is usually made by tricks.

In the player's eyes, a train is coming.

In fact, maybe the production team was too lazy to do train movements, so they made a train-shaped helmet, put it on a monster's head, and let the monster run along the rails...

Well, it looks very realistic anyway, and that's enough!

It is impossible for players to drill into the ground and find that there are two monsters with short legs running desperately under the train!

And vehicles with fighting scenes are even more difficult.

If you want to move, but also want the protagonist to move with you, there will be many technical difficulties.

Model penetration is only one of the problems, what is more serious is the gravity anomaly, the protagonist flew into outer space...

Or there are too many things to calculate inertia, the protagonist's hair is left floating in place, but others are still moving forward, so the protagonist becomes a big bald head and plays handsome in place...

The most tragic bug, Mingyan has seen the protagonist and the boss kissing each other directly, and they fit together directly, regardless of each other.

To this problem, the solution clearly given is to make the scene move.

— Another classic visual deception.

Let the vehicle stay in place while the whole scene zips backwards.

From the player's point of view, it is impossible to tell the difference, just like the scene does not move and the vehicle moves.

This solution still has some bugs, but at least it is much better than the protagonist's head flying out.

Because the fight scene doesn't know how long it will last-God knows how long it will take the player to kill this BOSS.

So this moving scene does not know how long it will take to fly, and it can only be made into a looping scene that can be used indefinitely.

If the camera is zoomed out, it looks like a donut is constantly spinning.

Then the problem is coming.

What should I do if there is a vehicle for playing games and it is required to switch scenes? !

"Blue Star Doom" fell down here.

When Russell beat the boss into the second stage, he needed the train to pass through a tunnel and enter the forest.

Transforming the map in this way indicates that Russell saved those survivors.

The infinite loop donut scene cannot solve the problem of cutting scenes.

Moreover, it is necessary to cut from the ruins of the city to the tunnel first, and then cut out of the tunnel to enter the forest—two switchings!

This matter has troubled Blue Star's design team and program team for a long time.

They have made four sets of plans successively, but no matter which one will still leave certain bugs.

Now this plan still seems to have quite a few flaws.

According to the test experience, if the players in the internal test can find one problem, it means that there are at least ten potential problems.

With a personality that is clearly said to strive for excellence, she cannot tolerate this level of contradiction.

He will only give the best work he has tried his best to the player's hands!

And when he clearly found a problem like this, he couldn't pretend to be deaf and dumb and treat a defective product as a finished product.

That night, Mingyan asked the members of Blue Star Studio to work overtime for the first time.

The secretary gave advance notice and made sure everyone had a clear idea of ​​why and what was going on.

This time, when they gathered in the conference room, they all silently faced the title written on the whiteboard.

[How to solve the vehicle problem? 】

That night, Blue Star's technicians discussed until night before they were forced to interrupt their overtime work reluctantly by Mingyan.

And Mingyan sat alone, lost in thought.

The lights in the meeting room came on and off, went off and on again.

Until the next morning, Varian stepped into the room and was stunned the moment he opened the door.

"Boss, didn't you come home last night?!"

Mingyan was awakened by him, raised his head sleepily, and then subconsciously went to gather up the draft paper on the table.

Varian said: "Stop, boss, you haven't slept all night, have you?"

Mingyan smiled wryly, stood up and laughed at himself: "Oh, the knowledge reserve is still not enough."

Mingyan from 4000 years ago has always been troubled by high-end knowledge.

He has worked very hard and slept very little, but he often still feels that he does not understand the high-tech of the interstellar era.

The interstellar people have lived in this world for decades, and they have only studied for seven or eight years, but they still feel deeply ignorant!

Just like the current technical problem, he read the information all night and thought about it all night, but he couldn't come up with an effective solution.

Varian was already frightened by the words, and quickly said: "Don't make fun of your own health. Boss, I will clean up here. You can go to the office and sleep for a while."

Mingyan shook his head and said, "I can't sleep because my mind is too active."

Then he sighed softly, picked up the documents, and went back to his office.

Varian: "..."

He looked at Mingyan's back and thought about it a little worriedly.

Past experience tells him: Mingyan often forgets to sleep and eat when he is deep in thought, and it is difficult to listen to others' words to persuade him to rest.

Well, except for one person.

Thinking of this, Varian decisively took out his mobile phone and sent an email to Xia Cheng's public mailbox.

On the other hand, after Mingyan returned to the office, he also dealt with his daily email correspondence.

From the time the League of Legends joined the First League earlier, he had a certain amount of contact with chairman Ning Yufeng.

At this moment, seeing Ning Yufeng's name, Mingyan asked him this question on a whim.

——As the boss of League One, maybe he can give very reliable advice?

Unexpectedly, Ning and Feng responded quickly to their emails.

[...Compared with senior game architects, I can't say that I really understand game production.However, when it comes to the performance of the game screen, there is a skill that can be shared...]

[… the architect is actually doing a magic show for the audience.When the audience can't understand the series of logic that happened behind the scenes, they will often be amazed at the incredible phenomenon they see...]

At the end of the email, he expressed his trust in Mingyan's design capabilities.

By the way, he jokingly said: [Recently, I received two VIP tickets for a magic show, is Chief Designer Ming interested? 】

Mingyan smiled after reading the email.

As for Ning Yufeng's invitation, he was really busy recently, so he had no choice but to decline.

However, Ning and Feng did give a good idea, which made Mingyan think about it.

—A magic show?

……

Two hours later, Xia Cheng had arrived at Blue Star Studio.

Because he was very familiar with Mingyan, he reported to the front desk and then stepped into Mingyan's office.

As soon as he entered the door, he saw Mingyan,

——Mingyan has already fallen asleep lying on the table.

On the computer, a video explaining magic is still playing in a loop.

The magician's hands are playing with a coin, attracting the attention of the audience, but behind the scenes, there is a black box operation using magnets...

On Mingyan's desk, several new design drawings were scattered.

Xia Cheng picked up two of them and looked at them, they were all schematic diagrams of CG storyboards.

Xia Cheng understands Mingyan - he can sleep with peace of mind, it must have solved the problem in front of him!

He never doubted Mingyan's design talent, not even for a second.

Mingyan can even give people a god-like sense of trustworthiness in this field.

Everyone knew that sooner or later he would solve the problem, everyone was counting on him.

Only those close to me feel distressed.

"You work too hard."

Xia Cheng sighed, brushed away Ming Yan's disheveled forehead hair, and saw his deep dark circles.

Mingyan fell into a deep sleep, completely unconscious.

Xia Cheng gently picked him up and put him on the camp bed next to him.

During this period, Mingyan suddenly said: "The player is waiting..."

Xia Cheng looked down, only to realize that this person was talking in his sleep.

——I'm afraid I encountered reminders in my dream?

Xia Cheng hilariously covered Mingyan with a blanket.

After a long time, he sighed helplessly.

A few hours later, when Mingyan woke up from the camp bed, he was a little dazed.

Fortunately, his secretary told him that Xia Cheng had been here.

Mingyan suddenly realized that he looked at the time, and it was only three o'clock in the afternoon.

He woke up because he dreamed that the player rushed to his office to urge him to change.

Mingyan immediately notified to go down to the meeting.

He found the solution to the train puzzle!

"We can use magic tricks to attract the player's attention and stealthily change the day in places they don't realize."

Said plainly, turned on the projection.

"With our technical means, it is indeed impossible to seamlessly switch the background map at any time. But we can insert the battle transition CG, and when the player sees this close-up shot, the scene will be switched immediately!"

Under the stage, pairs of eyes looked at him with reverence.

——Master Ming came up with a solution in just one day of independent thinking!

It really deserves to be a clear statement, which is convincing.

According to the stated plan, this plot does not need to be modified at all.

Even in terms of expressiveness, it is even better than before!

The only problem is that the program needs to restructure the logic here, which may take a certain amount of time.

However, the programmer "Ling Lingqi" newly recruited by Blue Star can be said to be very amazing.

He took over the production content of this part, which can ensure that the re-production can be completed in a week.

"Blue Star Doom" will definitely be released later than expected.

But it will never be delayed for too long.

Speaking of which, the programmer Ling Lingqi also broke the rules and invited him directly from the forum for an interview.

Due to his poor health, he was allowed to work from home all the time, expressly and exceptionally.

Since Ling Lingqi joined Blue Star, she has never even shown up in the studio.

When everyone mentioned this matter, they all cast their eyes on Boss Ming.

——That is to say, only a genius like Chief Master Ming can tolerate the eccentricities of other geniuses.

……

At the end of January, the last problem of "Blue Star Doom" was overcome.

However, the time for later debugging is very tight.

Therefore, it will take at least one month for Blue Star Studio to package it up.

In other words, its official release date was forced to announce a delay!

Bounced tickets are actually quite common in the game industry.

After all, the production cycle of a game is so long, and it is impossible to be predictable in project management and arrange everything that did not happen.

But what is common is common, and players who are waiting hard should cry or cry.

[I'm going to die, I can't breathe, I'm going to die if I don't play with Blue Star Doomsday...]

【Dry! ! !Why did I play League of Legends so early?If I didn’t play League of Legends, I wouldn’t know Bluestar Studios; if I didn’t know Bluestar Studios, I wouldn’t see the promotional video of Bluestar Doom; if I didn’t see the promotional video of Bluestar Doom, I wouldn’t now Waiting for release is so painful! 】

The publicity of Blue Star's doomsday hasn't stopped since the Alpha version closed beta.

To this day, there are already three official promotional videos, all of which have aroused great repercussions among the players.

Ling Xiaoman's retro-style rock soundtrack is played to the fullest in this game that describes the end of the world 4000 years ago.

The moment each player heard the music, goosebumps all over his body.

Very touching, very shocking!

In order to appease the players' anger over the ticket bounce incident, Bluestar Studio hastily released a fourth promotional film.

Well, because the main body of the game has been basically completed.

So this time I released the "actual trial play promotional video"——

In other words, let the players see what the internal beta players have played.

Seeing the promo video released again.

The internal test players toss and turn in it, blowing up one cool BOSS after another;

When the camera turned, it showed their shocking expressions when they saw the plot;

And in the actual screen of the game, a desolate and mysterious city ruins, two figures walking alone on the vast map...

The players who have been looking forward to it are about to go crazy.

[I have waited hard enough!You guys even let me watch videos of other people playing games! !Why can't I play it!Ah ah ah ah ah! 】

【devil!The person who planned this promotional video must have won the true biography of the leader! 】

[Do you want me to cry and beg you to take my money away?I'm fucking... I cried QUQ first, come on quickly. 】