Chapter 17.1: Anti-Harassment Protocol

Chapter 17.1: Anti-Harassment Protocol

While 8 a.m. wasn't ideal for a server launch during the long holiday where most people tended to sleep in, "OtherWorld" had garnered high levels of interest from both helmet-owning gamers and helmet-less internet trolls due to the prevalence of live streams, mocking videos, and sarcastic essays regarding the game.

That was why, despite the announcement for the server opening at 7 a.m. on the same day, "OtherWord" was able to achieve over 90% of registered players coming online when the server opened at 8.

And then... before even half an hour passed, more than 50 of these over 280 players were disconnected.

So, what would these unfortunate players do during the half-hour "resurrection cooldown" in real time?

Naturally, they went to the official website's message board to engage in fierce wars of words with online trolls.

While it was frustrating for players to learn that they would have to wait a day to download the in-game screenshots they had taken, it didn't dampen their spirits much. They had finally played the game, experiencing being slain by highly intelligent NPCs generated by the game's artificial intelligence.

Thus, even without screenshots, these players confronted both the "willing to pay gamers" as well as the internet trolls that were smearing the game.

With a full 30-minute "resurrection cooldown" on their hands, they had some free time.

After venting their frustrations during the cooldown, they went back online to continue playing as the new batch of "deceased and forcibly kicked offline" players took their places.

However, despite the game's players battling in turns, the official site's message board, which allowed commenting without a login, was still overwhelmed.

The reasons for this were simple. Vanilla Pudding's viral video had attracted excessive attention, and the long National Day holiday meant that there were too many idle people that found it enjoyable to group up and launch attacks without any consequences or risks.

Yang Qiu was about to upload some entertaining clips of players dying on the official site when he noticed the message board was in a more chaotic state than ever before. After mulling for a moment, he posted a notice saying that the message board would be closed in 24 hours.

"SMH, this game is fun, but are the game devs brain-dead? A randomized Potential system that doesn't allow players to reset their characters or reroll initial stats. What were they thinking? Aren't they afraid of the players' backlash?"

"Get lost if you don't want to play. With the realism of this black technology, I reckon that I can even become a special forces soldier in a year."

"I just don't get it. Having fixed Potential values would benefit everyone, but why insist that some people have to eat sh*t? Do they not eat enough sh*t on their own and want others to suffer too?"

"Maybe the game devs have their reasons. After all, the beta just started, and it's too early to draw conclusions. Besides that, I've been gaming for so many years and have never heard of this game developer before. Let's be a little more tolerant of small studios."

While these players that logged off were having their lunch and participating in a debate over whether Potential values were fixed or not, a player with the ID "Ou Huang" suddenly jumped in and drew animosity by saying, "Am I the only one who finds random Potential values interesting? How would we be able to exhibit our uniqueness in OtherWorld if everyone is the same? Of course, my Potential values are maxed out, JK."

As a result, comments such as "Ou Huang must die," "Get lost," and other derogatory remarks appeared beneath his post.

At this point, another player, "Unceasing Entropy,'' posted her thesis: "Compared to discussing whether it's fair to have fixed Potential values, I think we should first consider the principles behind our operations in the game.

"My friend mentioned to me that our actions in the game should be accomplished by brain waves since we are wearing helmets. This idea seemed slightly presumptuous, but after careful consideration, I realized that it made sense.

"Proof being that high-intensity activity in the game seems to make us hungry quicker.

"If we say that we consume 'brain power' during the process of playing the game, then that said process should be concentrating and carrying out a certain sort of labor. And this feedback to our bodies in reality means that sugar and calories are consumed faster.

"Thus, could it be possible that people with stronger brains, mental strength, and ability have higher Potential values?

"Of course, I don't have any more reliable evidence to support this conjecture at the moment, so everything is just speculation. However, I still insist that there is a correlation. After all, among the three closed beta players whose Potential we know, Blossoming Strokes, who has the highest Potential value, is quite a bigshot web novel author with a completed six million-word novel of relatively high quality.

"Her Potential Value is as high as 48, and she should be 49 now. Compared to the player above who claims to have maxed out Potential value after logging in, Blossoming Strokes should be the player we know closest to leveling up.

"By the way, I'm just an average straight-A student from a second-tier college. My initial Potential was 45, and after playing in the morning, it's now at 46."