The Boss Behind The Game

After studying about NPC settings extensively, Lu Wu finally completed the setting of his first NPC. He named him Lu Mo, literally Lu’s demon.

In the game’s lore, he is the King of Beiqi’s adopted son.

For the players, Lu Mo is like the chief of the beginner’s village in other games. His role is to enlighten the players on some basic knowledge regarding the Land of Beiqi. Other than that, once they reach Level 20, they can pay 50 soul coins to Lu Mo if they wished to form a guild.

Of course, since Lu Mo is an NPC with a real soul, he has his own independent consciousness. Other than the necessary settings of an NPC, he also has his own hobbies and thoughts.

This would create many uncertainties and thus, increase the playability of the game.

After being sent to the underworld, Lu Mo started wandering around the Mansion of the Dead. Whenever he turned to look at the ruins of the mansion, his face would reveal a sliver of sadness.

After finishing all these matters, Lu Wu opened his notebook filled with his ideas on the back stories.

For now, the gaming experience should be great. But there was a lot to improve on the game’s content, such as job skills and NPC development.

Lu Wu even planned that when the player count reached a certain amount, he would release some expansion packs, and several of them are battlefields that would make fighting more interesting.

But these were only ideas floating around in Lu Wu’s mind. He had yet to do any real planning.

……

At the same time, Wu Guoyi, who was having a meeting at Platform173’s headquarters, received the trailer sent by Lu Wu.

At first, Wu Guoyi wanted to wait until the meeting was over before he took a look. But when he saw that Lu Wu was the one who sent it, he paused the meeting, and played the video immediately.

When he saw the thousands of Yin soldiers battling the monsters from the skies, the Beiqi flag that stood tall and proud in the wind, and the final sacrifice of the king, he could not help slamming his hand onto the table.

“Excellent!”

His subordinates gave him a strange look. Wu Guoyi immediately sent the trailer to the computer in the meeting room.

“Wear your headsets and watch this trailer.”

Everybody was confused, but they still took up the VR headsets provided beside every seat.

These headsets were often used in meetings since they usually discussed about the platform, game development, and game testing. So they needed the headsets to try out various games. But this was their first time watching a trailer using the headsets.

When he saw that everyone had their headsets on, Wu Guoyi put on his own, and told his assistant to play the trailer.

At the start, the title ‘Battle Online’ was golden-lettered, emerging from the darkness slowly.

The darkness was broken apart, revealing the underworld. A gigantic black dragon came down from the skies while leading countless monsters. It roared at the armored man to show its authority in the land.

When thousands of Yin soldiers appeared from the black fog following Lu Wu’s cry, they were all excited, looking forward to Lu Wu defeating the giant dragon.

The battle scenes that followed were less of a CG short, and more of an epic war movie. The atmosphere was rendered into the video perfectly.

At the end, when the King of Beiqi turned into a ball of fire and plunged toward the dragon, everyone was held in suspense, as if they themselves were part of the Beiqi Army.

In the finale, the world turned into a sea of fire. Sparks lit the Mansion of the Dead on fire and burned the entire land. All the soldiers bowed down their heads and kneeled on one knee, paying respect to the deceased King of Beiqi. As the image dimmed, the title ‘Battle Online’ emerged on the screen once again.

“Actual gameplay footage,” was what the trailer ended with.

Taking off their headsets, the meeting room turned noisy. Everyone was asking what kind of game was this, and how their graphics could be so amazing.

But many of them doubted if the video was taken from actual gameplay footage because it was way too realistic. There wasn’t a single game with this level of quality in the market.

Also, having better graphics on cutscenes or trailers was common practice in the industry.

But undeniably, this trailer had conquered their hearts.

Wu Guoyi smiled mysteriously, “You will know very soon. This game will be on our main page in a few days. You can try it out then. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!”

The meeting continued after that, but on and off they thought about the amazing CG trailer they just watched.

After the meeting ended, Wu Guoyi lit up a cigarette, and furrowed his brows.

Lu Wu had wanted some advice on what to improve in the trailer.

But honestly, he experienced the game first hand, so he knew that the trailer was absolutely actual gameplay footage. So, he was frustrated as he did not know what to comment.

But he still took out his phone and gave Lu Wu a call.

When the call went through, Wu Guoyi answered with a smile, “Hey, I saw your trailer. I can’t believe you did it so quickly! Did you actually prepare it beforehand?”

Hearing this, Lu Wu admitted to Wu Guoyi’s suspicions, since it was unconvincing if he said he dished out the trailer in a day right after Wu Guoyi suggested it.

“Frankly, I can’t believe that nobody knows about your team. Your skills are on top of the world! Can you introduce them to me?”

Lu Wu was in an awkward place. He couldn’t tell Wu Guoyi that he had already met the whole team which comprised of him and Bei Li.

So he kind of danced around the topic.

After awhile, Wu Guoyi suddenly said, “Lu Wu, honestly there’s nothing wrong with your trailer at all, but you lack one thing besides this.”

Lu Wu was stunned. “What is it?” he asked.

“There’s no music. The graphics and the battle sound effects were perfect. But there was no music to uplift the atmosphere. If you want to make your game a hit, background music is one of the most important factors. That’s what you lack.”

Wu Guoyi’s precise opinion made Lu Wu realize their problem. A trailer without background music was a huge problem.

Furthermore, this extended to the other theme songs in the game, which Lu Wu hadn’t thought about.

Unfortunately, Lu Wu was unfamiliar with music, so he asked for Wu Guoyi’s advice.

“Haha, that’s easy! To make a theme song, hire a songwriter and lyricist to make a song. Then, get a pop star to be your singer!”