Otherworldly Architect

After the finals of League of Legends Season [-], the year quickly entered its fourth season.

The development progress of Bluestar's latest game "Soul of Mortals" (codenamed "Soul") has quietly reached 40%.

The Alpha version is already gaining momentum, but the first batch of tests is mainly the first map.

This map is also used for players to learn the combat system. It is the least difficult level in the entire game, which is equivalent to a game demo.

Slightly different from the previous Alpha tests, the main purpose of this test is to verify gameplay.

As early as a month ago, Bluestar had just released the announcement of "Alpha Test Trial Experience" on the official website, and the players had a collective climax.

The official registration channel has been collectively bombed!

Originally, the registration form was just a short personal information filling, allowing players to fill in their name, age, education level, game history and other typical information.

Unexpectedly, the enthusiasm of the players was too high.

They even spontaneously wrote a small paper in the last column "Game Experience"!

Some people have a more unpretentious style, so they write: [More than 12 years of game experience, cleared all Blue Star games at least three times, and rank [-] in the League of Legends...]

Some people are eager to show their special experiences, and will write: [I am the teacher’s apprentice, I have heard the teacher’s speech live, and even took a photo with the leader at the carnival! (There is actually a link to the group photo at the back)]

Some people simply posted their resumes that they spent a lot of money on.

Participating in an internal game test, it was like an audition forcibly, and there was no one else.

In fact, what Blue Star wanted was only twenty or so players with different styles.

As a result, 10,000+ people signed up on the first day, and all of them came for the new game.

There are even people who want Mingxiu plank road to secretly hide Chencang, and like Ling Lingqi, come to a legendary job-he thought to himself, what if he is also attracted by the chief designer of Ming?

As a result, the excessively large number of applicants forced the official website to close the registration channel in advance, and issued another notice——

The selection of testers this time is completely random!

There is no other way, not to mention whether manual selection will cause players to be dissatisfied, so many people cannot be seen manually at all.

It is the most reliable to directly let the AI ​​system randomly select [-] places.

Finally, after the secretary checked the information of these players one by one, he sent out the test invitation letter from Blue Star.

Today's Blue Star Studio system is still very complete. The invitation letter is only valid for the day, and it is divided into several categories such as tours, tests, and talks.

Players are most familiar with tour and test, of course, many lucky fans have proudly posted on the forum.

The background of the invitation letter is uniformly the Blue Star LOGO.

The envelope of the tour invitation letter has a blue stamp, the envelope of the test has a red stamp, the envelope of the interview has a gold stamp...and so on.

The corresponding stamp will be displayed under the player's forum ID.

On the forum, the players are affectionately referred to as "Little Blue Chapter", "Little Red Chapter" and so on...

Among them, the "Golden Badge" will be looked up to!

The first batch of test players of "Mortal Soul" also held the "Little Red Badge" in their hands. After passing the security check of Blue Star, they followed the secretary to the dedicated player testing station.

The young lady arranged for everyone to use a dedicated VR device, and at the same time opened the test process instructions built into the game.

At this time, outside the test room, the designers of "Mortal Soul" were standing there early in the morning.

The leader is naturally the statement!

He has learned from experience, this new player testing station has placed a single-sided glass, and the players don't know that the designers are next door.

But designers can observe their game experience up close.

The overall game is not yet finished, but the content of the first one is quite complete.

The protagonist will wake up from the graveyard and use his inner voice to guide the player to operate.

Going all the way, arriving at the first bonfire point, after the protagonist sits down, let the player start to choose occupations, weapons, and other customized personal characteristics.

The combat system of "Mortal Soul" is quite diverse.

Players can choose one of five occupations before the game starts.

Each profession comes with two initial skills and two initial items, usually five blood bottles and one of the simplest weapons.

There are fifteen different weapons in the game, ranging from melee to ranged.

Each profession and each weapon will produce a chemical reaction, and there will be different combos.The system will only teach the simplest and most basic two, and the rest needs to be explored by the player.

In other words, there are a total of 75 different combat routes to choose from in this game.

And the combat itself is more strategic and challenging.

In the game, except for the BOSS, all mobs also choose a route from fifteen kinds of weapons, and the combat AI is also very clever, knowing how to use almost all combos.

It is not enough for players to skillfully use their combos to deal damage, but also to have a general understanding of the current enemy's attack characteristics, and to flexibly use abilities such as blocking and dodging to avoid the opponent's attack.

It not only tests the operation level, but also tests the combat awareness, and also involves issues such as reaction speed and resource management...

Even star players who are used to hardcore strategies can easily be hammered to death by mobs they don't understand.

Of course, there are other ways besides the frontal hard anus.

For example, first bypass the enemy in front of you, and go to the back to get a prop to restrain him;

For another example, go back to the camp and switch to a long-range weapon, and shoot him remotely by getting stuck in a strange terrain;

There are also some enemies that can be rushed over with no hesitation. If you take the props behind him, the protagonist can die...

After all, the protagonist of Mortal Souls is actually a soul.

If the body dies, it will die!Anyway, as soon as you get the "soul coins" in the box, it's fine.

As for that enemy, there is no need to provoke him anymore!

In this way, in addition to the upgrade experience of game characters.

The player can actually feel that he also has an experience bar.

For example, the first mob in the entire game is specially set to "must use a weapon that restrains the player's weapon".

So when meeting for the first time, players who are not yet familiar with combat operations will basically be tortured and killed.

After death, the protagonist restarted from the bonfire point, and lost some san values.

As soon as the san value appeared, many test players immediately became excited!

——Isn’t this the novel system mentioned by the leader at the press conference?

The san value is something that is difficult to replenish. As the san value drops, strange black shadows will gradually appear in the protagonist's vision, and weird and crazy whispers can also be heard.

Once the san value is lost, the protagonist will really die, and the body will become a mob called "husk" and stay in the game.

Players can only redefine one character to enter, start over!

If you're lucky, kill that "body" and get back some of the previous equipment and soul coins.

Of course, the current Alpha test version has not done so much, and all players don't have to worry about losing all san values ​​for the time being.

At most, it's just a few more kills by mobs that are closed by the teaching of a game...

"Fuck, this is a hidden boss, isn't it!!!"

"Why does this little monster do so much more damage than me! I have a short dagger, and he has a long gun. It can kill me!"

A master player was even on the verge of tears of humiliation.

Fortunately, he has rich experience in the game and is witty enough in combat. He quickly figured out the two combo methods of the mobs, and through two dangerous and critical dodges, he killed the mobs.

When the monster's corpse dissolved in the darkness, leaving two poor soul coins spinning around in place.

He let out a sigh of satisfaction.

"Ah! So cool!!!"

Killing this teaching Guan mob actually brought him endless aftertaste.

It feels like playing the mod of "Minecraft" in the Doomsday Age, and it took an hour to defeat a difficult BOSS with great difficulty!

He stood still and thought about his two dodges, the limit of thieves; and that combo, which was a cool fourteen combo, and it was a move invented by himself, which the system had never mentioned...

He has only died twice, and he has figured out the enemy's attack methods and distances. Does it mean that he is too genius?

Brother Master proudly raised his knife and continued to move forward, this time he encountered another mob.

And this monster actually hid on top of his head, jumped down and attacked him!

With a jump and chop, a critical strike hits the soul!

"Fuck!!!"

Brother Gao Shou died for no apparent reason, and was reborn at the bonfire with hatred.

Walking the original path again, he took a shortcut and ran into the little monster before in just a few minutes.

This time, he had so much experience, he only let the little monster play a set, and he skillfully blocked and counterattacked, and killed this monster that he once made him feel humiliated in a neat, easy and happy manner.

Then, he stood still for a while.

——What I did just now is really awesome, this kind of mob will never try to get close to me again!

——I am not what I used to be, baa ha ha ha ha!

This is the most amazing thing about "Mortal Soul".

Obviously, the characters in the game have not been upgraded, whether it is attributes or skills, they are still the most primitive, except that the San value has dropped a little, there is no change at all.

But the player himself feels a very strong "I have become stronger" pleasure.

Just like the feeling of diaosi being divorced and then counterattacking, the monster that once made him unattainable is no longer his all-in-one enemy.

It felt sour.

Moreover, this time the master brother has prepared in advance.

After arriving at the corresponding position, he blocked the sneak attacking monster, and successfully kicked it away, causing a wave of damage.

——It’s so cool!

This completely different sourness is just like the routine of wearing a book or rebirth.

Prophet of the unknown, clearly arrange the enemies who play cards according to the script.

It also made Brother Master feel from the bottom of his heart that he was so awesome, he was so happy that his blood was boiling, and he rushed towards this "little monster" with a howl——

... Well, then he lived up to expectations and was beaten to death by the "little monster" with a brand new combo.

At this moment, the designers outside the test room all bowed their heads to take notes.

Everyone had a wonderfully contented smile on their face.

"The shape design of the boss of the teaching level is quite successful. The boss didn't give him an extraordinary body shape, so he really deceived many players..."

"They thought it was a mob at first glance, and they only knew to target it next time."

"Our 'block instructor' is quite competent."

As they talked, the designers turned their attention to the back of Mingyan standing in front of the glass.

——Master Ming is indeed the same Master Ming!

——When their design ideas were still stuck on "teaching players to block or dodge", Master Ming had already proposed "let the monsters teach them to use the method that suits them best".

On the other side, brother master is already on the path of the seventh attempt.

His expression became extremely serious, and he completely entered the state of the big boss who formed a team to open up wasteland back then, and even became more focused!

He has already discovered that the monster blocking the door of the only building is not a "little monster" at all, but a genuine humanoid boss!

The kind who wears tattered clothes, but is insane with continuous moves!

This is what he found out by paying more attention to the details on the road. It turned out that this boss is a fallen priest named "Sisyphus".

The defense and blood bar of this boss is actually not high. If you stand still, the player only needs three or four combos to kill him.

The problem is that the boss's desire to attack is too strong!When he sees a player, he will rush up to attack a combo.

And his third combo can directly break the player's "block" state!

You know, many newcomers are holding their shields and shrinking.

Dodging is an instant thing, and you may be chased and hacked to death;

But blocking is a state that can last forever.

As the saying goes, "As long as I am thorough enough, no one can touch my body"...

There is also the so-called "blocking for a while is cool, and blocking is always cool"...

But this "Xisyphus" boss is different, if it keeps shrinking in front of him, it will be broken by his infinite combo, and then trampled to death.

Brother master died like this twice before!

After finally understanding the limitations of blocking, he abandoned his one-handed sword + shield weapon combination, and began to try to use a two-handed sword.

Master Brother: Come on!The father hurts!Let's see who kills who first?

……

1 minute later.

Master brother: I was wrong, I shouldn't have fantasies!help!Dad stop beating me!Ah, dying, dying... dying.

Sixth attempt.

Brother Master suddenly had a flash of inspiration and took out a spear, which is the weapon used by the mobs on the road.

It was a mob he was already familiar with in attack mode, so he tried to learn the mob's combo.

Not to mention, it's very useful!

The attack range of the long spear is very wide, a bit longer than that of "Sisyphus", just enough for the master brother to get two skins outside the latter's attack range.

You can only take two skins, you have to roll and dodge, and then look for the next opportunity to touch the boss just in time.

Once there is a mistake, if the boss's combo is touched, with the defensive ability of a weapon like a spear...

No, the spear has no defensive ability at all!

Just lie down and die.

In the seventh and eighth attempts, the master brother was only a little bit behind.

He felt that he was very proficient in his combos, and he had a good understanding of the three combos of "Sisyphus", and sometimes he could even predict the next move of the boss.

But it happened to be short of one set, and when he could kill the boss with just one more set, he made a mistake in his haste.

If he was so greedy, he would be cold.

And at this moment, the game popped up a message box.

Miss Secretary is also outside to remind players that the test time is coming soon, and they can prepare to quit the game.

Brother Master couldn't help but let out an "Ah?"

He felt that he was just getting better, and he had finally transformed from a rookie at the first level to a veteran at the third level... Why did it take 60 minutes so quickly?

This time is not enough to play this game.

He is about to overthrow "Sisyphus" soon, and the victory is close at hand, how could he bear to go offline now?

The 60 minutes of the test clearly decided, in fact, the time for the player to challenge the BOSS has already been considered.

But I didn't expect that it was still not enough, because the players cherished this game opportunity so much, they explored back and forth in the first map, and didn't miss a little bit of game content.

And Bluestar's consistent tradition is to carve out meticulously. There are already many details in the beta version of the map, and there are even easter eggs.

So this little test time feels like it flies by, and it should come out in the blink of an eye.

Then, not as expected by the designers.

Players became "Lao Lai"!

"Try again, just let me try again, I will be able to cross this alley in no time!"

"Sorry I'm suddenly deaf... What? What are you talking about?"

"I haven't finished this level yet, let me pass the level and I will end the test..."

……

This problem has gradually appeared since the end of the blue star, and the current players are simply doing everything they can.

The opportunity to test the game may be the only chance they can touch the game before the game is officially released, so naturally they cherish it very much.

Brother Gaoshou is a particularly chicken thief. Taking advantage of others delaying time, he hurried in and made the ninth attempt.

This time, all the battle strategies are kept in mind, and the thoughts are unprecedentedly calm, no greed, no mistakes...

Successfully overthrew the big boss of "Sisyphus" teaching concept!

When the body of the BOSS also began to disintegrate in the darkness, an unprecedented joy and sense of accomplishment enveloped the master brother.

He even couldn't help raising his fists high and shouted to the darkness: "I'm simply a genius!!!"

Then he didn't forget the most important thing——

Stepping over the boss' body, he stepped forward in three steps and opened the door of the church!

Ah, this is the door to the official level!It's a new world feeling!

...Then before he could take a step, the game was suddenly suspended from the outside.

Miss Secretary reluctantly paused all game content and said: "The test time has ended 10 minutes ago, please put down your VR glasses and follow me."

Brother Gao was stunned, so he had no choice but to get off the VR device.

Taking a closer look, almost all the players around had the same expression of "dissatisfied with desire".

The secretary led them to a special reception room, where customer service staff had long been waiting to ask them test questions.

Along the way, the players hadn't fully recovered from the huge shock brought by "Mortal Soul", they were chatting and discussing.

Brother Master asked around, he was the only one who defeated the boss "Sisyphus", and some people even just defeated the first mob.

How can he control his swelling!

Brother Gao Shou couldn't control himself at all, and he announced complacently: "I killed that boss, it's not very strong, as long as you figure out his combo method, use the most restrained spear..."

Wow.

Sure enough, other players made extremely envious voices, and some looked at him adoringly.

Brother Master feels that he has reached the pinnacle of his life.

But at this moment, another player said: "But, that boss doesn't have to be defeated, right? I tried a few times, and the beehive on the left of the three-way intersection can lure him away temporarily, and then he can have a chance to bypass it. The boss went straight into the church..."

"What!" Brother Gao was shocked, "You went to church?"

The player said with a smile: "I found that there is a shortcut in this game. As long as you are familiar with the map enough, you can avoid many unbeatable monsters. The boss can obviously be challenged later, because there is a glowing weapon in the middle of the church." It's a pity that there are two little monsters guarding it, and I haven't found a chance to steal that weapon, and the time is up..."

When two master players were chatting about their strategy progress, the remaining players pricked up their ears.

They feel like opening doors to a new world!

——It turns out that this boss is best not to block, it will be easier to dodge, but you have to watch the timing.

--What? The boss can skip it first and fight again with stronger equipment?

--What? When the boss is facing three times in a row, the back is an empty door. You can use two knives to do it around the back, and then hit him without injury?

Spears are not the only solution, almost every weapon has a different fighting style.

There are too many fighting skills, and so many genres can be developed for a BOSS, and each has a corresponding strategy and sense of operation.

Players can even learn new skills from monsters, and temporarily change to a weapon for strategy.

Even if the data panel of the game character itself has not changed at all, the player himself feels that he has become much stronger.

The monsters in this game...every one seems to teach the player the correct way to fight.

There is no cramming of a single word, but everything goes without saying!

halfway through the conversation.

A player finally couldn't bear it any longer, and said, "This game...is too strong!!"

In front of him, someone turned around and said: "What are you talking about, this is the presence of the leader, isn't it natural?"

They dawdled, finally arrived in the meeting room, and began to chat with the staff.

After answering the first few questions, Brother Master couldn't help it, and said a little braggingly, "I defeated Sisyphus with a long spear!"

The staff paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "Excellent."

With just these two words, Brother Master was so satisfied that he said flatteredly, "It's so-so, I'm about to go to church."

The staff member nodded and said casually: "Well, after the church, it's the second level. Your progress in the strategy is very good."

After he finished speaking, Brother Gao's eyes widened, and his saliva was about to flow down.

——The second level!You have already done the second level?So why not let us play... oh no, test?

—What is behind the door of the church?

Scratching the heart and scratching the lungs, itching to death.

The author has something to say:

Prototype "Dark Soul".