Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Captain Qin Yi followed AEEIS's guidance and familiarized himself with the control panel's usage in the plot image. He began the basic operations training.

In the game, Qiao Liang followed AEEIS's guidance and familiarized himself with the game's operating mode. He also fought in the basic stages.

At first, Qiao Liang knew that this was an RTS game and was worried that he would not be able to play it well. However, he did not expect the game to be much simpler than he had imagined!

Qiao Liang had played some traditional RTS games before, such as Star Ocean and Fantasy Battle. However, they were not very good. He would only be tortured if he fought others.

That was because traditional RTS games had very high requirements for players. Not only did they have to fight multiple battles but they also had to have very high APMs. What's more, they had to be very familiar with the various tactical details.

If he met an opponent who was slightly stronger than him, it would be a one-sided abuse.

Qiao Liang was not a genius player to begin with. He was just a little smarter and more persevering than ordinary people.

Otherwise, he would not have suffered so much when he played Repent and be Saved.

However, Mission and Choice was different from other RTS games. There was no need to give accurate orders to every unit. It was enough to give orders to an entire unit.

AEEIS would constantly strengthen this concept during the teaching process.

Simply put, players often needed to do a lot of micro-operation in Fantasy Battle and Starcraft. For example, the most basic operation was to "pull troops". The disabled soldiers in a team had to be pulled away. This operation could avoid losses on their side, not give the enemy experience, break the enemy's formation, and so on.

Whether they could pull the troops well or not would directly determine the players' team battle ability. The gap between experts and rookies would also be infinitely widened because of this operation.

That was because resources and units in traditional RTS games were too important. They had to be carefully calculated. Most of the time, heroes would bring five or six soldiers to fight the opponents. The impact of losing a soldier would be huge.

In the constant collision of these details, the gap in resources between the two sides gradually widened, and the stronger side gradually determined the victory.

This was a classic RTS game approach. Of course, it could not be wrong. However, its problem was that the threshold of the game was too high. For players who could not achieve these, the fun of the game would be greatly reduced.

On the other hand, Mission and Choice simplified these operations directly on the game mechanism. Even if it could not be done, it would not affect the game's experience.

There were gains and losses. After discarding these minute operations and meticulous planning of resources, Mission and Choice had a lower difficulty and a grander scene.

The map of Mission and Choice was extremely vast, and the perspective was very free. After players made some simple operations, they had a lot of time to think about the next step, watch the intense battle on the battlefield and check the feedback of the various troops.

Movie-level plot images, huge scenes in the game, and extremely low difficulty level gave Qiao Liang a good first impression of this game.

…

It was also his first time coming into contact with the entire control system. He had also started training from the simplest battle. Qiao Liang felt very immersive.

He thought about it carefully and felt that it might be because the entire plot was more ingenious.

In most RTS games, many protagonists would work together to drive the plot.

For example, in 'Fantasy Battle', different races had different heroes, and each hero had its own storyline.

In the entire game's plot, players had to constantly change their positions. One minute, they might be controlling the A hero to fight B hero, and the next, they would be completely reversed.

Of course, it did not mean that this traditional method was bad. Most successful games had their own gameplay. There were pros and cons.

The advantage of this approach was that the game could accommodate a very large and diverse worldview. It could also highlight the epic feel of the entire story.

However, the problem was that players were basically playing the game from God's perspective. There was no sense of immersion. The emotional experience was more separated from the protagonist's emotional experience most of the time.

The plot of Mission and Choice took a different approach.

The entire plot focused on Captain Qin Yi alone. AEEIS did not overshadow the main character at all. It only used an unassuming and emotionless electronic voice to constantly remind Qin Yi to do various operations.

That way, the players would naturally place themselves in the role of Qin Yi.

Add to that the fact that AEEIS would speak directly to players during the game strengthened this sense of immersion.

As the plot progressed, the players' emotions also changed according to Qin Yi's emotions. They could even empathize with him more than in the movie.

One obvious point was the change in players' emotions when they added the "realistic elements".

Before joining the 'realistic elements', the players were like Qin Yi, 100% of the soldiers who followed orders. They would fight whatever they were directed, and the entire battle process was very smooth.

After the players made some simple instructions, AEEIS's artificial intelligence would refine these instructions. Therefore, the human army looked unstoppable. The players' mentality was naturally the same as Qin Yi's. They unknowingly swelled.

However, after adding the 'realistic elements', the soldiers suddenly had their own thoughts. Most of the time, they would disobey orders and do something that made people angry.

The morale of the entire army had collapsed before many losses had even appeared. They scattered in all directions. The players were so angry that they were half-dead. The feeling of pride and complacency from before had also disappeared.

At this time, AEEIS would guide the players' operations and provide some data analysis. The players would naturally make the same choice as Qin Yi after realizing that the effect was not bad after trying.

After the players made their choice and completed this part of the game, Qin Yi would make the same choice in the plot image to further enhance the players' immersion.

The experience was slightly different from traditional RTS games.

Traditional RTS games would mostly issue targets before letting players take action.

Most of the time, the players did not do what they wanted to do when commanding the battle. Instead, they did what the mission required.

However, in Mission and Choice, most players would make similar choices as Qin Yi through clever plot arrangements. That way, players would be more immersive and understand Qin Yi's situation and behavior.

…

Time passed by without him knowing.

Qiao Liang was completely immersed in the game and could not stop!

This feeling was similar to some of the more outstanding movies overseas.

The special characteristic of such games was that they would use a movie-like plot to run through the entire game. The entire process would be fast-paced and full of twists and turns.

'Mission and Choice' had achieved a balance between film and game.

Players would play the game for a while. Once they were tired, they would enter the plot and relax.

The plot acted as a starting point and threw a new problem for gamers, creating a sense of anticipation. Once gamers had seen enough of the plot, they would enter the next stage of the game. This cycle continued.

On top of that, the game's immersion was extremely strong. In the second half of the game, Qin Yi's anxiety, confusion, and despair could even infect the players in front of the computer, causing the players to also want to continue the game with such anxiousness.

Qiao Liang felt like his emotions were being played in the palm of 'Mission and Choice'. It was a strengthened movie experience!

Qiao Liang had roughly deduced that the game's plot and movie content were probably the same when he played till the mid-point!

The content was exactly the same but the game and movie experience had their pros and cons.

The advantage of the game was that players could experience it personally after every plot. The game was an interactive art, and players had much more freedom in the game than in the movie. On the other hand, if players made decisions based on their own will in the game just happened to be consistent with the decisions made by the protagonist in the movie, it could exponentially strengthen players' sense of immersion and their sense of identity with the protagonist.

This sense of participation was incomparable to movies.

The advantage of the movie was that the experience was better.

The content of the movie was much more concentrated compared to the game. The entire emotional process had been compressed. What's more, the movie theater's big screen and sound system were much better than the players' computers and headphones.

Thus, Qiao Liang had thought that he could refund the movie and use the game to freeload the movie. However, he no longer thought that way.

After playing the game, he wanted to go to the cinema even more!

Such an impressive setting and special effects, and Lu Zhiyao's acting skills were so good. How could he enjoy watching this film on his own computer's small screen? It would be a waste even if he was on big television!

He had to go to the cinema to watch such a good movie.

On the other hand, movies could not replace games because the game gave players a sense of participation and immersion that movies could not achieve.

"Boss Pei is so crafty!"

"He actually used this method to earn two batches of my money!"

"However… I hope that I can come here a few more times in the future!"

Qiao Liang's wallet might have been dealt a double blow, but he had also received double happiness.

"That's strange. The problem of the plot splitting that I was worried about did not appear?"

"How did they do it?"

More than half of the entire plot had passed. Naturally, this was no longer a secret. Qiao Liang understood after some thought.

The most important thing to do was to arrange the plot.

The plot of "Mission and Choice" could be said to be Lu Zhiyao's one-man show, or it could be said to be a scene between Lu Zhiyao and AEEIS. However, no matter what, such an arrangement was a combination of risk and opportunity.

The risk was that all the audience's eyes were focused on Lu Zhiyao alone. If his acting skills were superb, the audience would feel great; if his acting skills were bad, the entire movie would be dragged down by him and fall to rock bottom.

In addition, the plot of the entire story was actually divided into stages. The connection between the stages was very natural, but the stages were very clear.

Thus, when such a plot was incorporated into the game, gamers would have a strong sense of participation and immersion. At the same time, the plot and video would be perfectly connected to the game.

Thus, gamers would not think that the game was split. Instead, they would think that the entire game was very coherent!

"There's actually such a plot?"

"My gaming knowledge has been subverted again!"

After figuring this out, Qiao Liang was amazed by the game.

It was impossible for games to achieve this effect even if they were to change movies or movies.

He had to set up the game and movie together. At the same time, he had to consider the two different artistic carriers of the game and movie. He had to combine their shortcomings and strengths, and then use his deep understanding of the two arts to combine the two perfectly with a plot!

The most important thing to achieve this was not ability, but courage.

Qiao Liang believed that there were many people who could write games and movie scripts that were suitable for games and movies. However, bosses who dared to use the same script to make games and movies and invest huge sums of money should be extremely rare in this world!

The plot continued.

The storyline of the game was exactly the same as the movie. It was only because the players were more immersive and had a longer time that the feeling was stronger.

At the final stage of the plot, Qin Yi's speech boosted the morale of all humans. In the final battle, Qiao Liang suddenly realized that the soldiers who did not listen to orders previously had suddenly changed. Many people were willing to sacrifice their lives in order to defeat the Zergs. The communication of "Humans Live On Forever" was jumping rapidly on the screen…

For some reason, Qiao Liang suddenly felt tears welling up in his eyes.

He knew very well that this was just a game and that the soldiers inside were all fake programs. However, for some reason, he felt that these soldiers really had life in that instant.

Qiao Liang instantly understood Qin Yi's complicated feelings as he watched them charge towards the Zergs and sacrifice themselves. Coupled with Lu Zhiyao's exciting performance, Qiao Liang's heart was filled with mixed feelings.

On the other hand, after seeing Qin Yi being betrayed and becoming the new ruler of the Zergs, opening his eyes and flying into the universe, Qiao Liang was deeply shocked. He did not come to his senses for a long time even when the screen turned black and the production team list appeared.

The entire game process was not very long because the film itself only had a capacity of two hours. The game's stages were interlaced between the plot, extending the entire plot to about six hours.

Of course, this was the most basic game's difficulty duration. Players could experience higher difficulties after clearing it, and the game time would increase accordingly.

It was already morning outside.

Qiao Liang was a little sleepy but he was more excited!

The game would automatically follow the previous plot before the plot was completed. The title picture and various new game models appear only after the story mode ended.

There were many game models but Qiao Liang was not in the mood to study them. He only had one thought in mind - to recommend the game like crazy now!

Of course, Qiao Liang's body could not take it anymore. The most important thing now was to have breakfast and catch up on sleep.