Chapter 132 - Balance in Warcraft

It didn’t take long for the success of Warcraft overseas to be spread within China.

“Warcraft is doing pretty well overseas? Especially in Europe and America? That’s weird, haven’t they seen fantasy games before? Why are they buying it?”

“Yeah, although Warcraft is doing well, but satisfying players overseas? I never would’ve thought.”

“The overseas players rated the game quite highly. There was even a game reviewer from Britain that gave Warcraft a high score for its story!”

“The players also love it! Chen Mo must be making the big bucks this time. Warcraft took over the Chinese RTS market, and now its heading for the international market?”

“I’m so jealous.”

“Geez, I can’t understand it at all. Maybe prodigies do exist.”

“Yeah, there’s no way it could be replicated.”

“Sigh, lets just make another copy of I Am MT.”

“Why are you all so depressed? I think it’s a good thing for the Chinese video game industry. Chinese games and especially RTS games never had a presence on the international market. Chen Mo’s Warcraft is also an opportunity for other Chinese games to expand out of China!”

“But what does that have to do with us!”

“Yeah. Moreover, Chen Mo made a Western fantasy game. It doesn’t have much to do with getting our culture out there at all.”

“You guys are asking for too much. It’s true that Chinese culture doesn’t have much ground internationally, but isn’t it the same for games, movies and books? We’ll need to take it step by step, I think this is a good start.”

“Sight, I guess we’ll need to see what Chen Mo does.”

—

Chinese players.

“Have you heard that Warcraft was doing quite well overseas?”

“Yeah, the reviews were really good too. It was doing especially well in Europe and America!”

“It’s great that the game is able to make it out of the country to allow for players all around the world to experience the greatness of Chinese games, an RTS masterpiece at that!”

“Wow, I’m so looking forward to playing with international players!”

“It’s great that China got the game first, we have three four thousand point players already. We should be able to beat Korea this time right?”

“It’s hard to tell, there are so many RTS freaks in Korea!”

“Chen Mo’s amazing! I must sing praises for another month!”

“One month? You must do three months!”

—

The experience store had been popular the past few days.

Many Warcraft ‘pilgrims’ from the Imperial Capital came to the experience store to see Chen Mo in person.

Players never really paid much attention to video game designers, and would at most send razor blades when they aren’t happy about scummy business practices and balancing.

But Chen Mo was different, Chen Mo was Silent’s alter ego, the developer of various strategies, the one who reached the top of the ladder with straight wins. His commentary was enjoyable and charismatic. It didn’t take long before he gained a huge fan base especially within the Warcraft community. Anyone who talks badly of Chen Mo would get a bunch of angry fans after them.

Chen Mo’s popularity increased even more after Warcraft’s release. Players would visit him everyday, making his life quite difficult.

As Zou Zhuo lived nearby, he was now a regular at the experience store, practicing Warcraft everyday dreaming of reaching thirty five hundred points.

The experience store was quite small with enough room for eighteen computers and ten massage chairs. Two of them were reserved for Qian Kun and Zheng Hongxi too, there weren’t enough seats at all.

There were many players who went to the experience store just to play games, but as there weren’t enough seats, many went to Fates Internet Cafe to play Warcraft. This made Zhuo Yao really happy as she gained plenty of business this way.

Chen Mo was troubled, as the players were really friendly and the experience store was open for players and the designer to interact with one another, it wasn’t reasonable to ask them to leave.

This made Wen Lingwei and Jia Peng feel really out of place. They treated the experience store as their second meeting point, but from Warcraft’s popularity their meeting point was taken.

Chen Mo was now considering a bigger experience store.

But those were still an afterthought. Although he had the money, he was still in a developmental stage, and it wouldn’t be wise to expand willy nilly as the experience store was just a front for the work he does.

As Warcraft was hugely popular, there were many who were interested in Chen Mo just to see him, but it should return to normal in a few month’s time when it would cool down slightly.

Chen Mo was saving his money to develop more games, it wouldn’t be a wise choice to spend it on buying or renting properties.

So after some consideration, Chen Mo decided to stay, and would only entertain the idea once he makes a game that would surpass Warcraft.

There were player discussions everyday on the Warcraft forums. Most of the discussions were about strategy, and story and playstyle topics were becoming less common.

But these topics were more than enough to keep them occupied for a long time. Topics like which races were stronger, the best way to play different matchups, and the best way to play mirror matchups would usually be quite heated, usually ending in ‘1v1 me’.

Many players ranked around fifteen hundred liked talking trash. There were even some who were known to do that in the forums, making the forums a bit of a disaster.

Therefore, Chen Mo thoughtfully included the points of the players when they comment. From then onwards, there were less quarrels and the forums became a much more peaceful place.

Posts like these were becoming more common.

“I wanted to talk trash when I saw the title, but then I saw thirty five hundred points. Whatever, I’ll back off I guess.”

“Uhh, thirty seven hundred god? I’ll do some worshipping, although I don’t understand what’s going on, it looks incredible!”

“Twelve hundred points? You’re making posts at that level! Reach two thousand before you talk!”

“Trash talkers were solved by Chen Mo just like that.

—

Warcraft was basically completely balanced in the previous life. Especially after version 1.24e, Blizzard would only release small changes once in a while.

In this version, other than the Undead being slightly weaker by virtue of finding it a bit difficult to get mines, the other races were more or less even with none of them having a noticeable advantage.

Moreover, even though Undead was known as the weakest race, it wasn’t so bad that nobody would play it.

Undead never made it once to the finals of WCG for the first ten years it was held, but in WCG 2012, Chinese Undead player Ted beat Korean Orc player the second time in the lower bracket, and beat Moon who was known as the fifth race 2:0 to reach the finals. Then they proceeded to beat Chinese Orc player fly 2:1 to be the first one to win with Undead.

These players were the best of the best, especially when lyn and fly were Orc players, and it was accepted that it was difficult to play Undead into Orcs.

This demonstrated that Warcraft is a very balanced game with incredibly rich content. Che Mo would make more balanced changes to this version to make it an incredibly balanced RTS game, allowing the players to play years and years without getting bored of the game.