You were supposed to have a fake marriage with the diva, so how did you become her father?

Chapter 351 Entering the Open World Game Arena

EA's new game is called Wildlands.

A semi-open world survival and building game with a huge map and extremely high degree of freedom.

Players can do many things in the game—hunting, fishing, building houses, farming, taming animals, exploring ruins, and interacting with NPCs.

There are no mandatory missions or story locks; you can do whatever you want.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Lu Ran arrived at the company and the first thing he did was turn on his computer, log in to EA's official website, and click to download.

The internet speed was very fast; the download was completed in less than fifteen minutes.

He double-clicked the installation package, followed the prompts to complete the installation step by step, then registered an account and entered the game.

He spent ten minutes fiddling with the character creation system when creating his character.

It wasn't because he cared too much about the character's appearance, but because he found the character creation system to be incredibly detailed—the size of the eyes, the height of the nose, the angle of the chin, the position of the cheekbones, each part had dozens of adjustment options.

He casually adjusted a few parameters, and the character looked even more handsome than himself.

"This character creation system is better than ours," he muttered to himself, making a note in his notebook: Improve the character creation system.

Upon entering the game, you find yourself on a vast grassland.

In the distance are rolling mountains, and nearby is a winding river. Several deer are grazing on the grassy bank, and a flock of geese flies south in a V-formation.

The visuals are stunning. The lighting effects, vegetation density, and model precision are all top-notch, reaching the pinnacle of the world's best.

Lu Ran controlled the character to run around the grassland. The frame rate was stable and there was no lag. The optimization was good.

He tried a few basic operations—gathering, chopping trees, mining, and hunting. Each one was smooth, with natural transitions between actions, without any abrupt shifts.

The system prompted him to build a simple shelter. He spent ten minutes collecting materials and another five minutes building it. A small wooden cabin with drafts on all sides appeared on the grass.

He looked at the crooked little wooden house on the screen and couldn't help but laugh.

In his past life, he always built the ugliest houses in these kinds of games. In this life, he has a different body, but his aesthetic sense hasn't changed at all, and the things he builds are still unsightly.

Shen Yuege walked in carrying a cup of tea. Seeing him smiling at the crooked little wooden house on the screen, she leaned closer to take a look and asked, "What's this? A chicken coop?"

"house."

"You call this a house? The walls aren't even properly laid, and the roof is crooked. It'll collapse in the wind."

"This is a game. In a game, a house just needs to be habitable; what's the point of it being pretty?"

"This isn't livable, it's just makeshift." Shen Yuege put her teacup on the table, glanced at the screen again, and said, "Is this from EA?"

"Yes. Wilderness Era just launched today. I'm trying it out."

Shen Yuege sat down next to him and watched him continue to tinker with the game.

After he finished building the cabin, he went to the river to catch a few fish, then roasted them over the campfire, ate them, and replenished his hunger level.

The system popped up a notification: New recipe unlocked - Grilled Fish.

"There's also a recipe system?" Shen Yuege asked.

"Yes. If you do something a lot in the game, you'll unlock related recipes. For example, if you fish a lot, you can unlock fish soup, dried fish, fish skewers, and so on. If you chop down more trees, you can unlock higher-level building materials. If you mine more, you can unlock weapons and tools. This system is very detailed, and every line has depth."

Watching him run around in the game, Shen Yuege asked a very practical question: "What's the purpose of this game? Is it just to keep building houses, fishing, and chopping down trees?"

"There's no specific goal," Lu Ran said. "You can do whatever you want. Build houses if you want, explore the map if you want, interact with NPCs if you want. The game won't rush you or tell you what to do. It's up to you."

"Won't you get tired of playing it for a long time?"

"Yes. That's why EA has to keep updating and constantly releasing new content. New maps, new creatures, new recipes, new NPCs—a wave every now and then—to keep players entertained. If there are no updates, user enthusiasm will wane quickly."

Shen Yuege thought for a moment: "Then this isn't a one-off deal, it's a long-term operation. Just like League of Legends."

"Yes. But the operating methods are different. League of Legends relies on competitiveness, every game is new. EA's game relies on content, you have to keep adding new things to keep players engaged. Both models have their advantages and disadvantages. Competitive games have strong user stickiness, but a high barrier to entry. Content-based games have a low barrier to entry, but high maintenance costs."

Lu Ran played for another hour or so, experiencing all the main systems of the game.

The collection system is well done; the collection feels different for different materials. Wood has the texture of wood, and stone has the weight of stone.

The building system offers a high degree of freedom, allowing players to design the shape and structure of their houses, unlike some games where players are limited to building fixed templates.

The combat system is rather weak; the bow and arrow feel soft and lack impact when hunting.

The battles with wild animals also lack variety; the attack patterns of several animals are similar, and it can feel monotonous after playing for a while.

The NPC interaction system is decent; each NPC has their own personality and preferences. Giving them gifts they like will increase their favorability, and once the favorability reaches a certain level, special dialogues and quests will be unlocked.

This system is similar to other games on the market; it's not particularly innovative, but it also doesn't have any major flaws.

Lu Ran jotted down a few points in his notebook: top-notch graphics, good optimization, large map, high degree of freedom, weak combat, and average NPC interaction.

He closed the game, opened TUTU, and checked user feedback.

The homepage is flooded with topics related to "Wilderness Era".

"This map is huge! I've been running for half an hour and I still haven't reached the edge!"

"The visuals are so beautiful, I could use a screenshot as wallpaper!"

"The freedom is amazing! I just built a villa in the game, it's bigger than my house in real life!"

"I fished all morning, did nothing else. But I just couldn't stop, I don't know why."

"The optimization is excellent; it runs smoothly even on my three-year-old computer. EA's technology is truly impressive."

"Can this game be played with friends? It would be perfect if it could be played online."

Lu Ran flipped through the entries one by one, her expression growing calmer with each reading.

It received rave reviews.

It's just like when "Samurai Warriors" was released, or even more exaggerated than "Samurai Warriors".

But he knew that the positive reviews on the first day didn't tell him much.

Players are emotional; when they see a game with beautiful graphics, a huge map, and a high degree of freedom, their first reaction is to praise it.

After they've played for a week, two weeks, or a month, and the novelty wears off, they'll calm down and start finding fault.

He turned off TUTU and opened his own data backend.

The peak concurrent online users of League of Legends dropped below two million, nearly two hundred thousand less than the same period yesterday.

User activity is also declining, with a larger drop than when "Dynasty Warriors" was first launched.

Old Wang called.

"Mr. Lu, the data has dropped. It's dropped by nearly ten percent."

"I know. I saw it."

"Should we do something? Like organize an event, give away some skins or something, to bring people back?"

Lu Ran thought for a moment and said, "No need. Let's see first. Once users try it out, they'll naturally come back. If you launch a promotion now, it'll make us look panicked. Let the users choose for themselves."

Old Wang paused for a moment: "What about the servers? Should we downsize them? There are fewer users now, keeping so many servers is a waste of resources."

"No need to scale back. Users will come back. If you scale back now, the servers won't be enough when users return, which will cause even more problems."

"Okay. I'll do as you say."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Ran leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a while.

The 10% drop was larger than he had anticipated.

He originally thought that the launch of Wildlands would impact League of Legends, but the impact was only between five and eight percent.

Unexpectedly, it dropped by nearly 10% on the first day.

It's not that League of Legends is no longer good, it's that Wildlands is too strong.

The quality of this EA game certainly exceeded his expectations.

The graphics, maps, and freedom of movement are all aspects that Sakura Games' "Samurai Warriors" can't match.

Samurai Warriors is a good game, but its goodness lies within the upper limit of Asian games.

No matter how well it's done, it's still only at that level.

Wilderness Era is different. It breaks some established frameworks and does things that others haven't done or haven't done well.

The concept of an open world wasn't invented by EA, but EA took it to a whole new level.

Zhou Mingzhe pushed open the door and came in, holding a printed data report in his hand, his expression not good.

"Have you seen it? The data has dropped by nearly ten percent."

"I've looked at it." Lu Ran took the report, flipped through a few pages, and said, "The majority of users are going to 'Wilderness Era,' accounting for over 60%. The rest are scattered across other games and platforms."

"Aren't you in a hurry?" Zhou Mingzhe sat down opposite him, staring at his expression.

"What's the use of rushing? If someone else's product is good, it's normal for users to try it out. If you make a game that's even better than 'Wilderness Era,' users will also come to try it out. That's how the market works; users will go to whoever does the best."

Zhou Mingzhe paused for a moment, then asked, "So what do we do next?"

Lu Ran put down the report and leaned back in his chair: "Observe first. See what the retention rate is after a week, see how user reviews change, and see EA's update frequency and content quality. Only by understanding the competition can we defeat it."

"Are we just going to wait like this?"

"Don't just wait around. There are a few things I need you to do."

Zhou Mingzhe took out his notebook and turned to a new page.

"First, have the technical department study the technical architecture of 'Wilderness Era.' What engine did they use? What optimizations did they make? What is their network synchronization solution? Study everything that can be studied and write a detailed analysis report."

"Second, have the operations department monitor user feedback for 'Wilderness Era.' What do players like? What do they dislike? What are the most frequent complaints? What are the most satisfying aspects? Summarize this daily and send it to me."

"Third, have the marketing department produce several comparative reviews. This isn't about criticizing EA to praise us, but about objective comparison. Lay out the pros and cons of League of Legends and Wilderness Adventure, and let users decide for themselves. The two games have different target audiences and suit different demographics. Some people like competition, some like exploration; there's no inherent superiority of one over the other."

Zhou Mingzhe quickly took notes, then looked up and asked, "Anything else?"

"There's one more thing." Lu Ran sat up straight. "Have Lao Wang get ready; we're going to make an open-world game too."

...