Chapter 125 - 6: Gaming Ecosystem

Chapter 125: Chapter 6: Gaming EcosystemIt didn’t matter much back in the Newbie Village, but now in Luoyang Town, there are so many things to spend money on. Inner Strength, Qinggong, Saber Skill, Riding Skill, Equipment, elixirs, talismans... There are so many things I want to buy, but too little silver in my bag. I can only sell off some assets and try to make as much money as possible. Luckily, there are still some items in my backpack that can be exchanged for money. I Want to Be Immortal also looked forward to learning martial arts with great anticipation; after all, it was not just ordinary Combat Skills but the Cultivation Techniques and Internal Cultivation Methods from martial arts novels, Wall-climbing... "Where should we sell?" "Don’t rush, let’s gather some intelligence first. Remember, Cheng Xian, oftentimes intelligence is more valuable than equipment in games. Whatever you plan to do, the first step is to gather intelligence. Don’t just go in blind." Xiao Jie said and started to stroll through the stalls, casually browsing through the items for sale, and quickly he fixed his sight on a target. The stand had only a few low-level green equipment and even two pieces of White Board Equipment, clearly a pauper, and the stall owner was only Level 16. The equipment on him was so-so, and even the way he hawked his wares was listless. "Friend, do you have a moment to chat?" Xiao Jie said, and directly initiated a trade, sending over 200 Wen. The man was taken aback, "Brother, what does this mean?" "I’m just trying to gather some information and consider these 200 Wen a fee for asking questions." To gather information, one should not approach those with too high a level or too good equipment, or they might think you are insulting them by offering 200 Wen. For this guy here, 200 Wen might not be a lot, but it probably counts as a windfall for him. "Okay, no problem, ask away." The man said, anyways, he wouldn’t be able to sell this junk anytime soon, so better to make that 200 Wen. "Let’s get this straight, I don’t have any secret information to sell to you." "No need for secret information, just some common sense questions. We are new to this Luoyang Town and not very familiar with the surroundings. Brother, you’re Level 14, you must have been here for a while right? So, I want to know a bit about the situation here. Isn’t there an auction house in this game? Why are people setting up stalls here?" "Auction house charges a fee, you know, 10% man, and they take it from both buyers and sellers. That’s a 20% loss coming and going, so you save where you can. Generally, those who don’t mind the hassle will sell at the stalls, only those rich guys who don’t care about money buy from the auction house." So that was it, Xiao Jie nodded his head. "On our way here, we didn’t see any players leveling up." "What’s there to level up on those wild beasts? The experience isn’t much, their combat strength is fierce, and the key thing is that they give too little experience to big groups and are too difficult for lone wolf players. Besides, now everyone is leveling in teams; lone wolf players are rare." "Oh, why is that?" Xiao Jie probably guessed why but sometimes you have to go along with the conversation to give the other party space to elaborate. Indeed, the man immediately took on a tone as if to say, "You don’t know the half of it, kid." "What else could it be? Safety first, everyone knows you only live once, so of course, you train the safest way possible. You should have seen those early generation players, all of them acting tough and valiant, but they suffered heavy casualties. Players these days have wisened up, safety in numbers, right? The most popular leveling strategy now is the human wave tactic, a big group of a dozen or several dozen people picking a Monster gathering and training there exclusively. Chopping down whatever pops up. It’s safe with more people." "And there’s also the level compression team, usually teams of three to five players who specifically target low-level monsters; it has to be at least five levels lower to be safe. No matter their nasty skills or ambushes, you can just steamroll them with the level attribute difference. Chop them all down. The most common practice is to take on monsters five levels lower. Fight Level 10 monsters at Level 15, and Level 15 monsters at Level 20. However, there’s a 10% experience penalty for each level the monster is lower than the player, so fighting monsters five levels down means you only get half the experience. But it’s safe, and you can level up slowly." There are even more extreme methods, suppressing seven levels or eight. Thus, you see Luoyang Plain has monsters that are only in their twenties, but here in this town, there are players that are Level 27 or 28, all coming here to farm the lower-level monsters. Of course, the leveling efficiency is a bit poor, after all, this game penalizes you for fighting monsters under your level, and the more people there are, the less experience you get." So that was it, it made logical sense. "Besides the human wave tactic, level compression strategy, is there any other way to level up? Are there no normal ways to fight monsters?" "Of course there is, like the currently popular Cavalry Formation strategy. This requires players with horses to be allowed to join the group. A team of about a dozen, all mounted, with the front row using Riding Spears and sabers, and the rear with bow and arrow firing in unison, no monster can stand a few waves of the charge. Even when encountering a wild boss, it’s no threat, the entire group just engages in Mounted Shooting, the infinite kite tactic. If a monster is even a little slower, it can’t even touch before being shot to death. Especially after the Military General Team of the major guilds start leveling, you’d see these cavalry teams everywhere; it’s quite the trend." Xiao Jie thought to himself that this made sense; he had assumed he was just lucky, but it turned out the game was already this competitive. "But where do all these Generals come from? Isn’t it said that it’s very hard to get the Military General profession?" "Led by high-level players, directly delivering players from Newbie Village to Luoyang Town, 10 silver coins to learn Riding Skill, then buy a bunch of lousy horses, spend money to boost the State Mansion’s reputation to Respected, then go back to Newbie Village to pick up a long spear and start leveling up. If you have a horse, it’s safer and more reliable. By Level 10, there’s a very high chance of getting the Military General profession. The whole process, if someone guides you, will cost about a million or so. Tsk tsk, too bad I was broke back then, otherwise I would’ve followed this route too." Their words were filled with unstoppable envy. Xiao Jie thought to himself, it sure is comfortable to have a large guild as backup, unlike a newcomer solo player like him, who had to fight tooth and nail just to level up to 10. But the man seemed to have opened a floodgate of words. "Besides that, there’s the ’Waiting for Rabbits’ method. First, you need to learn ’Sudden Increase,’ then find a wilderness tower, house, or large rock and use Qinggong to jump up there. After that, you wait for the monsters around to respawn and use a bow and arrow to kill them for leveling up. This kind of play is suitable for dealing with those monsters that can’t jump or climb. It’s just that the efficiency is slower because the game’s monster respawn rate is relatively slow. Generally, only solo players with no teammates would do this." Xiao Jie thought to himself that everyone indeed comes up with all sorts of ways to avoid dying. "No choice, this game has too many accidents. A while ago, a guild organized more than thirty people to go into a mine, but something happened, and not a single one came out. Buddy, take my advice. All the big guilds are recruiting now. I suggest you join one. It’s always better than going it alone." "Thanks for the info." "Feng, should we join a guild? I think the Dragon Soaring Knights look pretty good." "No, we won’t join." "Why not?" "Everything has its pros and cons. Joining a guild certainly has its benefits; strength in numbers, mutual assistance when going out. But once you join a guild, you’ll inevitably have to face various forms of hidden exploitation. Unless you’re part of the guild leader’s inner circle or clique, as an Outer Circle member, you’re just cannon fodder when danger comes. In an ordinary game, you might bear with it, but in a death game like this, you can’t join so lightly." "But what if the guild leader is a good person?" Xiao Jie let out a cold laugh, "If the guild leader is a good person, providing help for the members with all they’ve got, I’ve seen such guilds too, but they can’t last long. The better the guild leader is, the more likely it is for entitled ’giant babies’ to emerge amongst the members. In the end, the guild leader, having spent all their energy, either leaves in disappointment or becomes corrupted. It boils down to the bad driving out the good. No matter how passionate players are, constant wear and tear will deplete it sooner or later. Only actions driven by interest are sustainable. So where does the interest come from? Of course, from the members. Either by prioritizing equipment drops for themselves or distributing it to their friends and relatives. I’ve seen too much of this. So, inevitably, almost all turn into interest groups. If you can enter the inner circle, great, otherwise you’re just fodder for others." I Want to Be Immortal felt somewhat disheartened by Xiao Jie’s cold reality check. "Is it that dark?" "No helping it, it’s human nature. Of course, there are some guilds that remain fair and just without changing their initial intentions. If you really want to join one, go ahead, you might actually find one. But you’ll have to be careful." "No Feng, I think you make sense. If I joined a guild and the guild leader assigned me to be a Tank or do some dangerous task, should I listen? What if the guild’s task conflicts with my plan to resurrect my brother... Let’s just stick together, the two of us." Xiao Jie thought to himself, the boy is teachable. "Exactly my thoughts. If the two of us want to level up, we must strengthen our power as much as possible. Inner Strength, Qinggong, Saber/Axe Skill, and Riding Skill—these four are essential. Our next goal is to secure these four. Then we can go leveling up. Sell this ’Sweeping Thousands of Army’ somehow, keep an eye on the prices of others’ items, and make sure not to sell it for too little. I’ll take care of the rest." "Don’t worry, Feng. Selling a Skill Book is no problem for me." Xiao Jie traded the ’Sweeping Thousands of Army’ to I Want to Be Immortal and headed to the pawnshop with the remaining items. Xiao Jie inquired about the location of the pawnshop from the guards and headed straight there. Having farmed a lot of Funerary Items from Tomb Robbers earlier, there might be something valuable among them, but they needed to be identified first to know their worth. For identification, you could buy an identification charm or have Chao Feng at the pawnshop do it for a fee. Having someone do it was much cheaper, relatively speaking. Upon finding Chao Feng and explaining his intent, the man nodded, "The fee for identifying an item is 100 Wen, regardless of its value. Would you like to proceed, sir?" Xiao Jie replied, "Certainly, no problem. Start with this Stone Seal for me." He clicked to submit the item—Strange Stone Seal. Even though he knew it was a spirit stone seal, it still had to be identified before it could be used. There went 100 Wen just like that. "A fine piece, a spirit stone seal, can be used to unlock ancient Immortals’ secret treasures and mechanisms in Ancient Tombs." Xiao Jie thought to himself that at least the man knew his stuff and proceeded to submit all of the Funerary Items from his backpack.