Chapter 170 - Pay to Win Level Two

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Chen Mo was now an A-grade video game designer in the Illusion game editor[1].

Chen Mo: Video Game Designer (A-grade)

Creativity: 80

Systems: 73

Level Design: 77

Story Writing: 88

Original Art: 83

3D Art: 64

Monthly Resources Quota: 3GB/360GB

Creativity, system, story, and artwork increased slightly, 3D art increased dramatically, no change in level design.

The increase in the resource quota increased multiple times since Chen Mo reached A-grade, but he didn’t have much use for this at all.

Other video game designers would use a lot of the free resources as placeholders then make many changes after the game was mostly complete. But Chen Mo didn’t use this as he knew clearly what the game was supposed to look like, which was why he barely touched the free resources. Most of the resources he used in games were finished works by another company after providing sketches.

When Warcraft was selling like hotcakes in China, Chen Mo was already one of the best videogame designers in RTS games. But perhaps the Game Committee didn’t raise Chen Mo to a A-grade video game designer because they felt that Chen Mo was too young and was only good at RTS games.

But when Warcraft also sold well overseas and when he made classic games like Wulin Legend and Onmyoji, Chen Mo could be considered as one of the best in the mobile industry, and could manage both Western and Chinese themes on the PC side of things.

Which was why the Committee finally gave Chen Mo his identity as a A-grade video game designer and invited Chen Mo to be a honorary Game Committee member.

The Game Committee’s definition of a A-grade videogame designer was someone who was able to manage large scale PC games or manage a decent chunk of a large scale VR game. A S-grade videogame designer was someone who was able to manage a large scale VR game.

Of course, there was still a difference between them, one must make a high quality VR game to be able to become an S-grade videogame designer.

The process of becoming an S-grade videogame designer from A-grade was a long and hard process. Not only does making a large VR require strong abilities, they also need a lot of money to spend in development, and in China only a few big companies could afford that cost.

Chen Mo wasn’t in a hurry either as developing large scale VR games took a lot of requirements, moreover he had never done anything like it nor did he have enough manpower to do it.

Chen Mo had two plans in mind, spend money to unlock the next stage of his attributes, plan his next hires, and expand his team to one large enough to work on large MMORPGs or small VR games.

Of course, consider a new office if necessary.

Chen Mo launched the virtual screen on his bracelet.

System , numbers, level design, and story writing were all maxed out at level one.

Original Art: 80

3D Art: 84

Animation : 40

Music and Sound Effects: 41

Storyboard: 36

Chen Mo must raise these stats to a hundred before he could progress to the next stage.

Under the effects of Lucky Capsule, in the ratio of 5:3:2, he would need at least two hundred and nineteen skill boots to max out these skills, or make seventy three draw tens.

This included the chance of duplicate skill books for the maxed out skills, which would cost him around seven million RMB.

Chen Mo pulled the trigger as seven million didn’t mean much to him at this point, it was money that he had to spend eventually, and he’d rather spend it earlier to reap the benefits sooner.

Money spent like this was much more useful than cars or property.

Chen Mo used the same strategy as before, drawing as much as he could after he drew a Lucky Capsule. After almost fifteen minutes, he finally maxed out his attributes and drew a bunch of special equipment like Memory Playback Potions and Super Focusers.

A pop-up appeared on the screen: “You’ve maxed out all your abilities, would you like to proceed to level two?”

There were two options, Yes and Confirm.

Chen Mo almost died, “Do I even have a choice?”

Chen Mo clicked on one of the buttons.

There were cool effects on the screen, many coloured dots flied around on the screen before finally landing on the wheel.

The wheel disappeared, and in its place was something similar to a slot machine.

However, It was different to normal slot machines, the new system was split into three categories, the leftmost one had three different options: Design, Presentation, and equipment.

Design included the original designer skill books.

Presentation skills included art, music, and storyboarding.

Equipment referred to special equipment.

The middle column corresponded to the subcategories of the previous column.

Design: Numerics, story writing, professional knowledge.

Presentation: Art, Music, Cinematics.

Equipment: Consumables, Permanent Upgrades.

The rightmost column was the possible equipment.

Chen Mo was shocked to see that the prices also changed. It went from one hundred thousand credits per spin to one hundred diamonds per spin.

Chen Mo was happy to welcome a reduction in price.

But as he took a closer look, he noticed the exchange rate was one thousand RMB to 1 diamond.

“What?! Isn’t that ten times more expensive? It was ten thousand per spin, and now it’s a hundred thousand a spin! Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’ll find it cheaper if you change it to diamonds? No!”

Chen Mo was speechless. Turns out the system had inflation in mind, changing the credits into diamonds, and increasing the price tenfold.

Chen Mo was a bit conflicted, but decided to put in one hundred thousand and make a draw.

After pulling down the level, the columns started spinning, and stopped from left to right.

Design – Story Writing – Storywriting skill book (Level 2)

Story Writing skill book was neither good nor bad for Chen Mo. Chen Mo decided to consume his first level 2 skillbook.

Chen Mo noticed that system and level design disappeared after reaching level two. The attributes he had now were story writing, numerics, and professional knowledge.

In the first level, Chen Mo could recreate most stories from his previous life with the help of a Memory Playback Potion; in the second level, Chen Mo could probably make big changes to the story and polish up ones that weren’t done well in the original.

Chen Mo guessed that there would be a third level, and Chen Mo could probably create an entirely original story that was of high quality.

Chen Mo could handle the balancing of mobile games with level one in numerics, and could probably better deal with balancing of more complicated games like MOBAs in the second level.

Professional knowledge encompassed many things, such as literature and history.

It would even be helpful in FPS games for knowledge like ballistics, recoil, and knowledge of gun assembly and so on.

TL note: I know I’ve used game engine in the past, but I think game editor fits bette