Chapter 108 - Ten Years In Video Games, Nine Years in CG

Chinese RTS fans were also discussing this brand new RTS game.

In a community of Legion Conquest players.

“I heard there’s a new Chinese RTS game that is quite popular recently.”

“I’ve also heard. I think it’s called Warcraft. It uses Western Fantasy.”

“…Really? I thought Western Fantasy and RTS games are taboo in the Chinese video game industry. Didn’t Emperor Dynasty and Zen break themselves trying? Who would be daring enough to try the two together at once?”

“Thunderbolt Entertainment, the one owned by Chen Mo.”

“Chen Mo? Never heard of him.”

“You’ve heard of Plants vs Zombies and I Am MT right?”

“Huh? Isn’t that a mobile game company? They’re moving onto PC games? RTS games at that?”

“So brave…”

“But I’ve heard this guy has some magical powers or something, no matter what genre they tap into, the game becomes insanely popular. I’m downloading Warcraft as we speak, I’ll let you guys know how it goes.”

“Go forth! The people of our village will be waiting for your good news!”

—

Everybody in that community were RTS fans, and a large majority of them played Legion Conquest.

One of the admins in the group, Kaiser asked, “What? New RTS game? Send me the link, I’ll try it out too.”

Many replies came after the message.

“Wow, K-god wants to try it himself? Alright, I’ve got something to look forward to too.

“Even K-god is getting the itch, alright, I’ll try it out too.”

“K-god, you can download Warcraft from Thunderbolt Gaming Platform, it’s just a search away.”

This Kaiser guy was well known in the Chinese RTS community. There are a few superstars in LEgion Conquest, and Kaiser was one of them.

However, Kaiser wasn’t the best of the best, and was only top ten in the country. The reason he was famous was because he’d always criticise Legion Conquest on various forums, and was even known to give the developer suggestions, and of course, almost none of them have been used.

Kaiser was seen as the prime source of opinion in the RTS community in China. He had also made a tutorial series for Legion Conquest, and also had his own fan base.

This guy was usually quiet year round, and seemed like the cool, quiet type. But they couldn’t help but speak out after hearing about a new RTS game being released.

In reality, this K-god with a huge fan base was just a second-year senior student.

Xue Kai, game ID: Kaiser, 17 years old, legend in Legion Conquest.

Xua Kai came from a well-off family, a huge fan of RTS games, and gained a huge fan base through streaming and videos. However, he still had many strong opinions on LEgion Conquest.

He had also expressed his opinions to the developers, as it’s an overseas game, even if Xue Kai got someone to translate his recommendations, the developers of Legion Conquest wouldn’t even bat an eye.

Therefore, Xue Kai had been waiting for a better RTS game to appear. Upon hearing that a Chinese designer developed an RTS game, he tried it out filled with hope.

What if. What if the game was actually kinda fun?

After finding Thunderbolt Gaming Platform, he registered a Thunderbolt Game Pass and downloaded Warcraft.

It didn’t take long before the download finished.

The icon was a young man who was filled with evil intent. Although it was difficult to tell from such a small icon, it felt really nice.

Xue Kai double clicked the icon to enter the game.

The logo of Thunderbolt Gaming flashed across the screen/

An ominous gust of wind, the camera zoomed through the clouds, free as a bird.

Following the ominous winds, a melodious tune started playing.

A crow flew over the snow covered peak, through a desolate gorge, finally reaching a populous human city.

The palace of humans, the imperial capital of Lordaeron

There was chattering, and the king, Terenas, sat on the throne deep in thought.

At the same time, the crow flew out of nowhere right in front of the king.

The background music turned dark, and the ominous crow drew the attention of the king.

As everyone else in the room was chattering, the crow started to glow a suspicious green, and turned into a human as people were panicking.

Medivh.

His face was hooded, but his voice could be heard throughout the entire castle.

“Humans are in danger. The tides of darkness will arrive again, and the world is on the edge of war!

“The only hope for your people is to move west, to the forgotten lands, Kalimdor!”

The king was visibly upset, standing up from his throne, “I don’t know who you are or what you believe in, but now is not the time for prophecies! If our country goes to war, we will decide how to protect our citizens! Not you!”

At this moment, the background music turned into a sad melancholic tone.

Medivh’s now had a disappointed tone, “I’ve once lost my humanity, but I won’t let that happen again.

“If you can’t solve the problem, I’ll get someone else you will.”

Medivh turned around and took his leave, leaving one message behind.

“I’ve warned you, and the fates are in your hand.”

The screen turned black, signaling the end of the cinematic before entering the game.

Although it was short it contained a lot of information. Xue Kai didn’t pay much attention to the story of Azeroth previously, but he had gotten a lot of information from this cinematic.

Humans were currently under attack by the orcs, and there was an unknown disease spreading too. A mysterious person entered the palace of the humans, but his words weren’t taken seriously by the king.

This short cinematic managed to bring out everything that was important, although Xue Kai didn’t know who Medivh was, nor did he know what his human city was about, but it was more than enough that the story captured his attention.

Moreover, the cinematic was really well done.

In this world, China wasn’t lacking good animation or CG companies, nor were they lacking in good sound effects companies or voice actors, the only thing lacking was money.

Good CG could be achieved with enough money, it wasn’t the best of the best, but it wasn’t too far off either.

The only problem was that many of the developers weren’t willing to spend that money.

These cinematics would be two to three minutes long, and the money to make that cinematic was almost enough to make a mobile game.

Why would Chen Mo spend so much money on CG?

It wasn’t known how much Blizzard spent on CG, but it was commonly accepted that the three minutes for the CG for Wrath of the Lich King was around five million USD.

In the parallel world, due to the improvements in animations and CG, as well as the lower pay meant that it was much cheaper.

Chen Mo didn’t even pick the highest quality CG, but a slightly cheaper one, one that he was happy with.

Even so, Chen Mo still spent around thirty-seven million RMB.

And this was the result of it, a cinematic that summarises all the key scenes from the previous versions, minus many many parts to reach the thirty-seven million price tag.

For example, the opening scene for Warcraft was changed to when Medivh warned the king, cutting out everything before it.

Chen Mo spent a huge chunk of money from I Am MT just to make this cinematic. Some parts that couldn’t be fit into the budget had to be replaced with rengerings or pure narrations in order to save money.

Truthfully, if Chen Mo wasn’t financially supported by a game like I Am MT, he would’ve never been able to spend money on things like these, and would’ve needed to settle for something cheaper.

If Chen Mo went all out on the cinematics, the cost of the game would easily surpass hundreds of millions, there was no way he could’ve spent that money.

The game itself, including the artwork and the like didn’t even come close to the cost of the cinematics. Chen Mo finally understood the meaning behind, ‘Ten Years In Video Games, Nine Years in CG’

Only Chen Mo and Guo Feng from Dazzling Aurora Studios knew about this, whereas Su Jinyu and the others were completely in the dark. Su Jinyu and Qian Kun would probably die from shock if they found out.

It was a huge risk after all. If Warcraft didn’t garder many players, wouldn’t Chen Mo be out tens of millions?

If he spent that money on a scammy mobile game like I Am MT, he would make so much more money!

But Chen Mo knew the worth of spending that money on CG.

It might not work out for other games, but it was definitely worth it for Warcraft! Every single cinematic in this game would go down in history, it was worth it even if it would cost double the price!

The reason Chen Mo was willing to spend all this money was not because of the immediate return, but to build up the brand of Warcraft to enable future games.

Moreover, thirty-seven million was only about six million USD, considerably cheaper than the original!

—

Xue Kai was very impressed at this level of dedication. There were very few overseas companies who were willing to spend this amount of money, and even less so in China.

Moreover, this cinematic wasn’t just about the quality of animations, it was also content rich!

Xue Kai was completely shocked for a few seconds before starting campaign mode.

After the human price Arthas exchanged a few words with Lightbringer Uther, the combat started.

The game started off with a few simple tutorials, guiding Xue Kai to left click to select, and move units with right click.

“Huh? The controls are different compared to Legion Conquest.”

Xue Kai was shocked as Legion Conquest was the gold standard for RTS games, there were very few RTS games who even dared to deviate from that combat system.

As a senior RTS player, Xue Kai didn’t start playing immediately, but chose to look deeper into the controls for Warcraft.

Left click to select, right click to move, and after the unit it selected, there were a few more commands, including move, stop, hold, attack, patrol and abilities.

Moreover, all these actions had shortcut keys.

“Hold? Patrol?”

Xue Kai clicked on patrol then somewhere on the map, then Arthas began to run between the two points.

“The control system is so rich in this game. This has much more depth than Legion Conquest,” exclaimed Xue Kai.

Moreover, he found the design of Hero Abilities quite refreshing. In LEgion Conquest, although there were a few special units, there wasn’t a ‘Hero’ class.

In Warcraft, heroes were a part of the game, there was an icon of the hero on the top left, and heroes would even have special abilities that were very useful in battle.

Moreover, there was an inventory in the bottom right. Although he didn’t have anything, it was obvious that this game supported the use of items.

“Interesting, there are so many new innovative things in this game.”

Controlling Arthas, Xue Kai started completing the objectives.

During that process, Arthas kept talking, responding to Xue Kai’s commands.

“Of course.”

“For glory!”

“May the Holy Light bless my people.”

This was similar to Legion Conquest, it wasn’t perfect there, and was quite awkward at times.

On the other hand, the voice lines for Warcraft were managed by Chen Mo himself, using the original ones as reference. Xue Kai felt that these voice lines were very natural, keeping to the Western Fantasy theme without all the awkward translations.

It didn’t take long for Xue Kai to beat the first level.

As Xue Kai had a strong background in RTS games, the campaign levels didn’t pose much of a threat to Xue Kai as he swept through them.

After beating the first level, Xue Kai didn’t continue immediately, instead sending a message to the group chat.

Kaiser: “This game is amazing. Legion Conquest doesn’t even come close to this!!!!”