game trailblazer

Chapter 127 Blizzard Appears
Oriental Shenyun was originally a computer CG production center affiliated to Kunpeng Animation. Since it only had input but no output for a long time, it became a drag on Kunpeng Animation. Therefore, under the instruction of Zhang Lexing, the computer CG production center became independent. A company named Oriental Shenyun was established.Not long after the establishment of Oriental Shen Yun, it caught up with the production order of "Terminator 2". With the joint efforts of Industrial Light and Magic, it successfully completed the computer special effects shots.Relying on the box office hit of "Terminator 2", Oriental Shenyun also became popular, and received many orders for computer special effects production. Although it is inconsistent with the goal of making game CG, at least Oriental Shenyun can support own up.

Mike Ronald clicked the mouse a few times, skipped the title, clicked "New Game" again, and then a typical character selection screen came out, which is actually the character gender selection.

"Boss, this is actually a major feature of our game. Unlike other games, the character's occupation must be determined first. The character is just an ordinary person at the beginning. According to the player's usage habits, he can develop into different occupations (proficiency system), For example, if you often use fighting weapons, you will develop towards a fighter." Mike Ronald controlled the mouse to move between the two images of men and women on the screen, and finally chose a man.

The picture went black, and then slowly a village appeared on the screen, slightly dilapidated, with light rain falling in the sky, and a strong man stood outside a dilapidated house in the center of the screen and looked around, the whole style was slightly dark, Zhang Lexing's first impression after watching it was - "Diablo".

Mike Ronald clicked the mouse, and the character's equipment bar appeared on the screen, but it was still empty for the time being. Below the equipment bar were many grids (storage grids), and a few things were placed inside.Mike Ronald chose a hunting bow from the storage compartment to equip it, and a bow (paper doll system) appeared in the strong man's hand immediately, and then Mike Ronald showed the character status bar, Character skill bar and other game systems.Then under his control, the strong man came outside along the road in the village, and soon the enemy appeared, and the strong man also entered a fighting state.

"Are you in a turn-based battle?" As soon as the battle screen came out, Zhang Lexing discovered the problem: "You originally said it was ARPG when you applied, but now it's just..."

"Yes boss, we originally wanted to make it an ARPG, but found that the combat control is not easy to do, so we simply changed to the traditional turn-based combat mode." Mike Ronald shrugged and said embarrassedly.

When Zhang Lexing first saw this game, he thought it was a bit like "Diablo", but after watching it for a while, he realized that there was still a big gap between it and "Diablo". Fortunately, there was still time to change it, so Zhang Lexing Deciding to speak out my opinion can at least save Mike Ronald and his group from detours.

"There are already too many traditional turn-based battles. I suggest you change them to real-time battles. This will not only reflect the excitement of the battle, but also be fresh, and may be more popular with users. There are different characters in the character's skill bar just now. There are few skills, but it seems that there is no connection between them, can it be considered to be designed as a tree, and to learn the skills of the next level, you need to learn the skills of the previous level."

Mike Ronald explained: "Boss, we are trying to design it as a real-time battle. A new algorithm has been developed in terms of program design, which is estimated to greatly improve the effect of real-time battle. We consider skills in this way, and the tree skills are too restricted. Now, it’s not as free to learn loose skills. We still added the proficiency system, all skills can be learned, but they need to be used frequently to exert greater power. Through the rise of proficiency, skills can be upgraded, the highest It can go up to level five. The same skill will be more powerful after upgrading. For example, chain arrows, there are two arrows at level one, and four arrows at level five, and the power of each arrow increases by 50.00%. "

It seems that Mike Ronald and his group really like the proficiency system. There is proficiency in character abilities, and they don't forget to add skills. This makes Zhang Lexing feel a little bit like playing online games.

"Mike, I have some ideas about items. You can consider a random item drop system, set a batch of basic items, and then add various attributes to them, such as adding attack power, adding defense power, adding Agility or adding a specific attribute, which will greatly stimulate the player's interest in collecting. In addition, the combat area can also be randomly drawn, so that each re-entry is different, and then add some things such as underground space, ground buildings, etc. The area can also greatly enrich the fun of exploration.”

……

Zhang Lexing talked about a lot of similar systems in "Diablo" in one breath, and Mike Ronald also seemed very modest, not only listened carefully, but also recorded some of them in his notebook seriously.Although what Zhang Lexing said about Michael Ronald will not accept it completely. After all, he is also a game designer with his own ideas, but as long as he does it seriously, I believe this will be a game that can compete with "Diablo". game.

One month after visiting the company's several projects under development, Zhang Lexing left for the United States again, and it was time for the annual meeting of the VisualSystem Group.In addition to the regular content of the year, the focus of this meeting is still several versions of the operating system that are under intense development. When I left, I had been programming for a long time, and Zhang Lexing could not provide any insight in terms of technical details. Zhang Lexing still has some experience in the use of the operating system, the interface, etc., so that the visit is not in vain.

In mid-December, Zhang Lexing received a call from Russell Market Research Company—Blizzard finally showed up, and also sent a survey report about Blizzard.The report reads:

"Blizzard was established on February 1991, 2. Its name at the time was Silicon & Synapse (Silicon & Synapse), and its main members included company president Alan Adhan (one of the founders) and company vice president Mike Morwaimi. (one of the founders), programmer Frank Pierce and others...

In 1992, developed games for various game platforms, and launched its first game "The Lost Vikings", which received good market response and was approved to be ported to Nintendo's SNES console (Super Nintendo US version)... …

In July 1993, launched its second game "Rock Racing", which was once again ported to Nintendo's SNES console. In October, Silicon&Synapse planned to change its name to Chaos studio, but found that a company in New York had already registered this name. In order to obtain the right to use the name of Chaos studio, Mike Morwaime contacted this company, but because the other party asked for a price Too high ($7) and the parties failed to reach an agreement. In early December, Silicon&Synapse changed its name to Blizzard Entertainment (Blizzard Entertainment). It is said that the name was found by the two founders by looking through the dictionary...

After several years of development, Blizzard currently has a development team of 15 people including programming, planning, art and a sound engineer, and will focus on developing games on PCs in the future, and will no longer set foot in the development of SNES consoles...

According to estimates, the current value of Blizzard’s assets does not exceed 400 million US dollars..."

Unexpectedly, the famous Blizzard company in the future is still so unknown and so cheap, Zhang Lexing couldn't help being moved, and immediately sent people from the Red River Fund to contact Blizzard.At this time, Alan Adhan was also worried about Blizzard's lack of funds. Due to the company's strength and funds, Blizzard could only do one project at a time.After the expansion of the company's personnel this year, Blizzard plans to launch three projects at the same time, "Blackthorne (Black Thorn)", "The Death and Return of Superman (Superman - Death and Life)" and the real-time strategy game "Dune II" that was launched under the influence of the success of "Dune II". Warcraft (Warcraft), so the money earned from the previous two games alone is a bit stretched.

Alan Adhan was thinking about where he could get some more money every day, so as not to let the great opportunity of making money go by in vain. When he was frowning, the phone on the table suddenly rang.

Alan Adhan picked up the phone and put it to his ear, and the voice of the front desk Jenny came from the phone: "Alan, someone who claims to be the investment manager of the Red River Fund is looking for you."

"Red River Fund?" Alan Adhan murmured in his heart, "What is their investment manager doing here? Could it be...?"

"Alan, let him in?" The voice of Jenny at the front desk came again from the phone, this time looking a little anxious.

"Oh, let him in," replied Alan Adham, and whatever he wanted to do, it wouldn't hurt to meet him.

Two minutes later, a man who claimed to be the investment manager of the Red River Fund appeared in front of Alan Adham.

"Mr. Adham, I'm Joe Allen of Honghe Fund. We are very optimistic about your company's future development prospects, so we plan to invest in the acquisition of your company. I wonder if Mr. Adham has any requirements?" The visitor took out a piece of paper Hand over the business card.

"Impossible, Blizzard will never sell it." Alan Adhan's first reaction was to refuse when he wanted to buy his own company, but Blizzard worked hard with Mike and Frank. Yes, how can you just sell it like this.

"Mr. Adhan, don't rush to refuse. Since you don't have any requirements here, let me talk about our conditions first." Joe Allen was not discouraged after being rejected, and said calmly: "The Red River Fund intends to Investing USD 1000 million to acquire no less than 80.00% of your company’s five shares, and will provide another USD 500 million for Blizzard’s future game development funds. This money will not bring about changes in shareholding. Mr. Adhan, What do you think of the conditions?"

Alan Adhan knows how much Blizzard’s family has now. In comparison, 1000 million US dollars in exchange for 80.00% of Wu’s equity is definitely a high price. After the acquisition is completed, an additional 500 million US dollars will be provided as game development funds , this condition made Alan Adham very excited. In this way, not only his three brothers can get a lot of wealth, but Blizzard can also get enough funds for game development, so there is no need to worry about "Black Thorn" , "Superman - Resurrection", "Warcraft" three projects will be affected.

"I have one more request." Alan Adhan still has a bottom line in his heart. If this one can be satisfied, it doesn't matter if Blizzard sells to others.

"Mr. Adhan, it's okay if you say so." Joe Allen continued to maintain a smile on his face and made a gesture.

"I hope Blizzard can maintain an independent status, and can decide what kind of games to develop and when the games will be released." After Alan Adham finished speaking, his eyes fell on Joe Allen's face, trying to find his own satisfying answer.

"There is no problem at all. We are concerned about the growth of Blizzard. I believe that you can do a good job in game development." Joe Allen replied with a smile on his face, and then put the two agreements from his briefcase. To Alan Adhan's desk: "Mr. Adham, no matter whether we can reach an agreement on the acquisition, please accept these two agreements."

"This is..." Alan Adhan picked up the agreement and looked at it carefully. One was an agreement for Red River Fund to purchase the ownership of "The Lost Vikings" and "Rock Racing" from Interplay, and the other was an agreement The book is actually an agreement from the Red River Fund to donate the ownership of "The Lost Vikings" and "Rock Racing" to Blizzard for free. Of course, this agreement is only signed by the person in charge of the Red River Fund at this time.

"This is our gift to Blizzard. For Blizzard, the games that have been developed are like their own children. If the ownership does not belong to them, it will be a very painful thing. We can do better, but we can’t do it due to ownership reasons, so we think it would be better to hand over the ownership of these two games to Blizzard.” Joe Allen said with a smile: “Mr. Adham, you just Your name needs to be signed on the last agreement, and ownership of The Lost Vikings and Rock Racing will return to Blizzard's hands."

Alan Adhan's inner defense was completely torn. Yes, for game development companies, those developed games are like their own children, and it is really hard to refuse to be able to re-own their ownership He picked up his signature pen and signed his name on the gift agreement, and "The Lost Vikings" and "Rock Racing" returned to their mother's arms again.

After signing, Alan Adhan stood up, shook hands with Joe Allen in front of him, and said: "You are a very good lobbyist, I have been persuaded by you, but I still need to talk to Joe Allen. The other two partners can discuss it, but I believe they will not object to such a favorable condition."

At Christmas, Zhang Lexing received a very good gift - Blizzard's equity transfer agreement. He couldn't help feeling a little proud for a while, and then carefully locked the agreement in his safe.

Since then, Blizzard has embarked on a smoother development path. At least there is no CUC company involved in fraudulent accounts, and more funds can be used for the company's development.

(End of this chapter)