Almighty Video Game Designer

The match ended after seventeen minutes.

Zou Zhuo typed GG as he stared at his Deathknight die with disbelief.

(GG stands for good game, usually by the loser first, praising how well their opponent played. This was usually done out of respect, with no negative connotations.)

At the end-screen, Zou Zhuo scratched his head out of confusion. He didn't quite understand how he was beaten, and just felt like he lost in every single aspect.

His opponent didn't do anything special either, going with the usual Blademaster +2. However, this felt completely different to the other matches Zou Zhuo played previously. He was on his backfoot the entire match, and felt that the game was never in his favour.

Moreover, he would lose small things here and there and would never manage to gain them back.

Zou Zhuo thought that the game lasted twenty or so minutes, only to discover at the end of the game that it only lasted seventeen minutes.

The spectators were also in shock.

"What happened? Fatty lost?"

"… It only lasted seventeen minutes!"

"How did he win? I didn't notice anything out of place from the orc player. It feels like he just kept harassing and steamrolled fatty's units during the last battle."

"My goodness, I don't understand anything in this battle among titans!"

"Another round?" asked Chen Mo.

Zou Zhuo scratched his head, "I wasn't quite in the zone the last round, let's go again!"

Chen Mo nodded, "Alright."

They started playing another round.

Zou Zhuo was much more careful this time around, giving his full focus. He also managed to find out that Chen Mo was playing Night Elves this time using a scout.

"Relax, relax. There's no way he could play all the races right?"

Zou Zhuo steadily killed neutral creeps, but this time he was met with Chen Mo's Demon Hunter. Although it couldn't go invisible like the Blademaster, he had mana burn. Every Time he saw the Demon Hunter on the screen his mana would get burned then it would run away. He couldn't catch up to him using his Deathknight at all, and there wasn't much else he could do.

After a few more mana burns, the Deathknight had no mana and couldn't heal itself even if he wanted to.

Zou Zhuo was now so irritated that he couldn't train units without worrying about the Demon Hunter. It either would come out of nowhere to hit his Crypt Fiends, end up killing Acolytes in his base.

Zou Zhuo called GG after twenty minutes.

It was just as before, there weren't any special strategies with nothing out of line, but Zou Zhuo still lost for some reason.

He just couldn't beat him!

"Going for more?" asked Chen Mo.

Zou Zhuo shook his head violently, "No more! That level of skill isn't normal. What's your elo?"

Chen Mo replied, "Me? I haven't even finished my placements."

Zou Zhuo laughed, "Stop kidding, how could you be playing at this level before completing your placements? Are you playing on a smurf?"

Chen Mo realised that it wasn't too out of line to assume that.

Zou Zhuo said, "Add me as your friend, I'll consult you for strategies in the future."

Chen Mo nodded, "Sure."

After adding each other as friends, Zou Zhuo said, "By the way, do you want to join my Warcraft group? There's a few highly skilled players in there. I won't be able to beat you, but you might meet someone who would give you a challenge there."

Chen Mo declined after some thought, "Forget about it, that's too much work. Maybe next time."

Zou Zhuo didn't push any further as every single high skilled player he knew wasn't super friendly.

"Alright, I'll go back to playing ranked games, " Chen Mo bid Zou Zhuo farewell and continued to play his placements.

Chen Mo didn't plan to play too seriously anyways, but this Zou Zhuo guy wasn't a challenge at all! The others thought that Chen Mo was playing seriously, but Chen Mo played quite normally, and merely outmatched his opponent technically and by knowledge.

Strategies like mine rush[1], tower rush, cyclone spam, raider rush, lich and crypt field spam, summons rush that were commonplace in Chen Mo's previous world were nowhere to be seen!

Chen Mo felt bored bullying noobs, and considered that he should give the RTS players a little hint to spice things up.

Whatever, I'll decide after the placements.

Chen Mo entered another placement match.

—

Zou Zhuo started his replay against Chen Mo within his group.

Zzz (Zou Zhuo): "I just met a god in this internet cafe and got my butt handed to me…"

There were a few other high skill players in that group, so Zou Zhuo was only just above average, hence why the message didn't get too much attention and he has actually been made fun of.

"Wow, Z-god getting bullied at an internet cafe tournament, how sad."

"Yeah, I thought you were the self proclaimed Fates Internet Cafe killer. So did you end up meeting someone tough?"

"Hahaha, I wanna watch Z-god getting bullied."

Zou Zhuo was speechless. What's wrong with these people? Laughing at my mishaps?

You guys should come try, it's not that I'm bad, the opponent is insane!

Zou Zhuo looked around within the group and found the usually quiet Kaiser.

"@Kiaser K-god, could you take a look at these replays? I've looked at them for so long and still haven't figured out how I lost. It feels like I just lost mechanically. But I thought my mechanics were decent? Is the skill gap that big?"

No replies.

Zou Zhuo was a bit butthurt but it couldn't be helped as Kaiser was hard to reach and was quite quiet in the group. Moreover, it was normal that he wasn't online when he wasn't streaming.

It didn't take long before someone watched the replay between Zou Zhuo and Chen Mo.

"What? I just watched Zzz's match, were you playing at 80% hp? @Zzz"

Zou Zhuo was speechless, "No, it's 100%."

"Why does your Crypt Fiend look like it's made of paper, the Blademaster one hits all of them."

Zou Zhuo: "I don't know either!"

"Why was it Undead vs Orc in the first and Undead vs Night Elves in the second? Are they two different people?"

Zou Zhuo replied, "It's the same guy, he beat me twice playing random!"

"What the, you're joking right? Were you playing seriously? These were so one-sided."

Zou Zhuo replied, "You think I wasn't playing serious? I gave it everything I had!"

"Well, I don't know then."

A few other players looked at Zou Zhuo's replays, but none of them could tell how he lost either. As both parties were using normal tactics and were basically mirroring each other's movements, Zou Zhuo always lost horribly.

It just wasn't the same watching replays compared to watching in person, it was even harder to tell in replays how fast the players were moving from replays. There were many players that were worse than Zou Zhuo, so what could they tell from the replay?

All they could tell was that Zou Zhou has a huge army! Zou Zhuo is attacking! Zou Zhuo has the upper hand! Zou Zhuo GG'd!

There wasn't much Zou Zhuo could do as most of the better players were always quiet, and the frequent users weren't usually that good.

Alright, I'll probably have to wait for K-god's reply.