Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 662: Chapter 629: The Inspiration of the Employees

In the virtual world, most negative states experienced by the players are shielded.

Only a few remain, either to make the game experience more realistic or due to Lincoln’s dark humor.

[Cold] naturally belongs to the former.

Since it’s about the game experience, it’s sufficient for players to “feel” it, without it being too extreme.

So, in the virtual world, it is very rare to see players dressed warmly.

Even when the [Ecological Reserve] is a frozen wasteland, with animals hibernating and the lake frozen solid, Shuihua and his classmates only felt a chill for a moment when they entered.

The chill quickly subsided afterwards.

The location where Caleb is currently giving a lecture is no longer at the icy lake but in a mountainous area.

Leading everyone to a high ground, Caleb pointed to the hundreds of migrating reindeer in the distance on the snowy field and explained to everyone,

“Reindeer migration is one of the most spectacular animal migration scenes in nature. Sadly, we couldn’t see such large-scale migration in Daxia before.”

“But now, this regret is filled by the virtual world. The citizens of Daxia have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the reindeer migration at a very low cost…”

However, a strange thing was that whether it was Caleb explaining or the students listening to the explanation, all of them were quite thinly dressed.

At least Caleb was wearing a set of tactical clothes.

Many of Shuihua’s classmate’s were wearing short sleeves, and there was even a girl wearing a white skirt.

— Anyway, you wouldn’t feel cold in the virtual world, so everyone dressed as they wished.

[Guangxin], who was previously ambushed in the snow, was also wearing a pure white tactical outfit similar to Caleb’s, and never felt cold from head to toe.

But now, he suddenly felt something was wrong—

The coldness was getting heavier and heavier.

It wasn’t until he shivered violently that he had to accept the reality: this wasn’t an illusion, he really felt cold.

And it was very, very cold!

Every second, the perceived temperature was dropping, his body began to shake uncontrollably, his lips turned purple, his calves quivered, and his teeth chattered from the cold.

“So cold, so cold!”

His reaction was quickly noticed by Caleb, who after taking a few closer looks, concluded, “You are rapidly losing heat!”

If this were in reality, it would have been a panic.

But now in the virtual world, he remained calm, strangely asking the students around him, “Do you guys feel cold?”

“No.” Everyone shook their heads.

“Is it a system BUG?” Caleb wondered.

“It… it… it’s not likely.” Guangxin was so cold that he was slurring his words, “I… thin…think it’s because of the hunting.”

He shivered as he shared a status he had just discovered—

[Resentment]: The animals that have died under your hand are expressing their resentment through the heaven and earth.

[Remaining time: 6 days 22 hours]

“Ah, I see.” Caleb immediately relaxed.

As long as it wasn’t a system BUG, there won’t be much problem.

“Find some clothes to put on, or exit the game, I guess you’ll be fine when you leave the protected area.”

After saying that, he calmly turned around and continued to enlighten the students on the knowledge of reindeer migration.

Meanwhile, Guangxin couldn’t stay for another second as he immediately logged out of the game and left the [Ecological Reserve].

The moment he returned to his virtual house, the negative status [Resentment] disappeared immediately, and the bone-chilling cold gradually faded away.

Within a minute, he had once again regained a comfortable body temperature.

He wasn’t giving up yet as he logged into “Paradise” again and headed for the [Ecological Reserve].

As he stepped through the gate, [Resentment] reappeared again. Now that he was wearing a thick down jacket, he wasn’t going to get frozen at the entrance.

But looking at his bulky clothes, Guangxin realized: it wasn’t likely that he could continue hunting here anymore.

“Maybe I should wait until spring, when the weather is warmer to come back?”

…

Of course, it wasn’t only Guangxin who felt this sudden chill.

All those who had hunted animals within the [Ecological Reserve] in the past seven days were all traced, and tagged with the [Resentment] state.

The duration was all 7 days.

If animals were hunted again during this time, an additional 7 days were added, which could add up indefinitely.

In the short span of 30 seconds, they all were shivering from the cold, their noses running, and they all withdrew from the reserve.

Thus, the “poaching” issue in the reserve was simply and effectively curbed.

As for waiting until the weather is warmer to try again?

The mere thought of mosquitoes could deter a large number of people.

And then it would be unlikely to chase down the animals, most could only rely on ambush.

However, in reality, animals with a sense of smell aren’t like the ones in “Hunter”, where you can avoid alerting them simply by staying downwind.

——The actual situation is far more complex and challenging than that.

Even if you manage to ambush, without weapons, are you going to fight beasts with stones and sticks?

This way, the outcome is hard to predict, too.

In the end, the things that happen might become material for safety education courses.

*

After a day of travel… gathering local color, Lincoln returned to the hotel.

But he could not rest yet.

Because the employees he had been lax with for three straight days were revolting in the group chat:

“Boss, when are we going back to the company?”

“I want to work! I want to make games! I have a bunch of ideas I want to realize!”

“Including the weekend, I’ve been idle for 5 days!”

“Even if we don’t go back, can you talk about what kind of game we’re going to make?”

“That’s right, there’s no goal at all, I’m going crazy!”

…

It’s hard to ignore the flood of opinions from employees, so Lincoln had to pop up:

“I don’t mention what game to make for fear of limiting your inspiration.”

“But I have a ton of inspirations, I don’t know which are useful, which are not, I’ve filled half a notebook these days!” An employee was anxiously saying.

Good heavens!

Is the inspiration that explosive?

Lincoln suddenly got interested, “Why not start by sharing what inspirations you have?”

“I don’t know which ones are useful? And some are particularly outrageous, I feel like they might not be feasible…”

“It’s okay, feel free to share, even your most outrageous ideas.” Lincoln encouraged.

“Alright then.” With Lincoln’s encouragement, this employee began to describe his ideas: “My first idea is: build an inverted mirror image of Chang’an City underground!”

Lincoln blinked, feeling a familiar sense with the idea.

But he quickly gave up on pondering it.

Because this idea is way too outrageous, it couldn’t possibly be done.

Of course, he wouldn’t be foolish enough to say it out loud right now; he used a more subtle language: “Interesting idea, note it down for now, anything else?”

——In the future, we can create a smaller [Inverted Underground City] for players to explore, and have him be in charge then.

“The Great Fire of Chang’an! Burn down a third of Chang’an City with a single fire! Target the most prosperous, most gorgeous, most lively areas, let the players take a good look, experience it, then burn it all down! It’ll definitely leave an impression on the players!”

“Oh my!” Just hearing this idea gave Lincoln a headache.

If this is actually designed, the players would surely curse him to death ——indeed, Lincoln would inevitably bear the blame.

How much does someone have to want to take revenge on society to even think of doing this?

No, I need to remember this person.

Lincoln seriously noted down the employee’s name ——[Huo Xing].

Then pointing at Huo Xing’s name, he said to Mavis: “Mavis, remember to remind me when we get back, to have Vincent arrange a session of psychological counseling for him.”

“Okay! Mavis has noted it down!” Mavis nodded happily.

Then Lincoln turned back to the group chat, continuing:

“Everyone else? Any ideas you want to share? It might spark some ideas for each other.”

With that, everyone no longer hesitated and started to share their ideas enthusiastically:

“Build a giant bell that can be heard throughout Chang’an when struck.”

“The Chang’an Cup · World Cuju Championship!”

“The World’s No.1 Martial Arts Competition!”

“Chang’an Beauty Pageant, there needs to be more beauties from the Western Regions!”

“Folklore stories are interesting, especially those about fox spirits are widely circulated, why not give one to each player!”

“If we’re giving out wives, gorgons seem nice too!”

…

Looking at it, Lincoln felt something was off——

Here we go again ?

A good brainstorming session, how did it turn into a sexual quirk sharing session again??

Just how many people’s sexual quirks am I going to learn about today?