Chapter 51

Seven o'clock.

As players gradually logged off, the official website began to buzz with activity.

It had been 12 hours since the Alph0.3 version was released. Whether it was the pre-registered players who hadn't yet received access or the cloud players who hadn't even bothered to pre-register, everyone was eagerly awaiting the first-hand information about the new version.

Chu Guang delivered a meal to Xia Yan, then hummed a tune as he returned to his computer, opened the forum, and started browsing.

The first post he saw was from Laji Jun.

【Finally confirmed today! The tire factory three kilometers north of the abandoned construction site is a raider camp! There are about 50 to 100 people! I originally wanted to capture a prisoner, but they were a bit too many. Fortunately, they were clearly scared by me too. I knocked out the dog that bit my arm and escaped while they were reloading.】

【Damn, that dog almost bit off my tail! The raiders I encountered this time were much more aggressive than last time!】

Chu Guang: "……"

The content of this post didn't quite match what he had heard half an hour ago.

Chu Guang remembered that this guy had said he hadn't provoked those raiders, and that the injuries on his body were from running into a raider patrol on his way back.

But according to the post, it sounded like he had actively gone out to capture a prisoner.

This kid wasn't telling the truth.

Chu Guang thought for a moment and shook his head.

Forget it, it's not important.

The first posts usually don't have much substance.

The forum's regulars had been listening to Laji Jun's boasts about the raider camp for nearly three days. After three days of waiting, he ended up fleeing in defeat.

Everyone in the thread expressed their inability to accept this.

Jieyan: 【What do you mean, 50 to 100 people? How many exactly? You're a worse scout than a Teletubby.】

Irena: 【I'll take off my pants but won't fart, hey, just for fun. (Funny)】

Ye Aonaiwohe: 【Loser, less than a hundred and you're scared? Can't kite them? Kill one at a time, repeat a few times, and you'll wipe them out. Pfft, what am I saying, this game doesn't even exist!】

HaomingziDouRangGouQuLe: 【Move, you're trash!】

Si Si: 【With a special class and you can't even beat a few small fries, how embarrassing! Let me play!】

JianLaji99Ji: 【??? Show me how you move? Grass! Even the small fries use tactical flanking, alternating fire, and even release dogs. Can you believe it?!】

Jieyan: 【I'd like to! Give me your account, I'll show you.】

JianLaji99Ji: 【I'm a noob!】

The thread completely derailed, turning into a heated debate, much like the time Bai Gei's crows and the players had a showdown.

No matter how he described the situation, he couldn't shake the label of "noob" in the cloud players' minds.

Perhaps only when the game adds a screenshot feature can he clear his name.

Chu Guang was well aware of the raiders' combat capabilities.

These people might not have strong equipment or physical attributes, and their discipline was as poor as goblins in a fantasy world, but their urban combat skills were almost maxed out.

After all, since the beginning of the Wasteland Era, these people had never stopped fighting. The genes of plundering had long been ingrained in their blood and bones, passed down through countless generations.

After refreshing his memory with Laji Jun's post, Chu Guang closed it and continued browsing the forum.

It had been a while since the players logged off, and many high-quality posts had already started to appear.

What surprised Chu Guang the most was that many of these high-quality posts came from new faces he had never seen before.

For example, an ID called "Canyon Escaped Mole."

Chu Guang checked his profile and found that he was a new player who entered the game in the Alpha0.2 version.

From his past posts, it was clear that he had found the Wasteland OL official website through a link shared by a friend, thanks to an urban legend circulating in the single-player game community.

In short, he was also someone who had a lot of free time at night.

**Mole News: Hardcore Observations on the New Version! Cloud Players and Newbies, Please Bypass!**

"Hello everyone, I'm your big-nosed mole. After logging in today, I found that the game has undergone a major update. The development team has finally delivered a small part of the grand vision they painted, and I absolutely love the new version! Yay!"

"First conclusion: I'm blown away by the new economic system! Although there are only a few simple supply chains currently, the details already reveal the development team's ambition! They are indeed playing a big game!"

"However, I won't just spout empty praise. I'll simply share my discoveries, which might be helpful to you!"

【Currently, there are two recognized low-threshold, high-reward money-making methods in the game: one is burning cement, and the other is hunting. The former is stable and can be done solo, but it requires competition because there are limited spots each day. The latter is unstable, requires equipment, and is almost impossible to do solo. If you want to go the hunter route, it's best to form a team with a perception-based character!】

"Burning cement doesn't require much skill, so I'll focus on the hunter playstyle!"

"A 30-kilogram mutated hyena can be sold to the grain warehouse for 5 silver coins, or you can spend time butchering it to get 12 kilograms of raw meat, which is worth 40 silver coins. Isn't that amazing?"

"Of course, this is just the value! Value! Important point."

"The grain warehouse at the outpost doesn't accept raw meat, only unprocessed prey and dried meat. Like in other games, NPC shops have a buying and selling price difference. For example, buying one kilogram of dried meat costs 5 silver coins, but they only give you 1 silver coin per kilogram when they buy it back, a fivefold price difference! Isn't that ridiculous?"

"Making dried meat from prey you hunt and selling it to NPCs can earn you more, but buying raw meat from NPC shops and processing it yourself might even result in a loss!"

"But it's not that bad. I've seen worse in other games. In online games, it's common for something bought with 1000 game coins to only sell for 1 game coin. The brilliance of this game's design is that it encourages player-to-player transactions rather than buying from NPC shops through the price difference."

"Here's a small idea: hunting teams can collaborate with one or two players to butcher prey and make dried meat and fur."

"Part of the dried meat can be sold to players at a price lower than the grain warehouse, 1 to 9 silver coins per kilogram, depending on the player's budget. If you can't sell it all, you can still sell it to the grain warehouse before nightfall and make some profit."

"Through this process, although it takes more time, the theoretical income from a single mutated hyena can at least double, isn't that great?"

"Additionally, based on my research, running a trade route is also a viable playstyle, but it's currently difficult and unprofitable. Buying one kilogram of dried meat from NPC shops for 5 silver coins and transporting it to Brown Farm can theoretically get you 5 kilograms of grain. However, bringing the grain back to the outpost is only worth 5 silver coins, and that's the NPC shop price! The buyback price is even lower! Selling to NPCs or players results in a significant loss."

"Considering the current expansion pack is called 'Winter Is Coming,' I suspect the development team's focus isn't on the trade system. I'm very excited for the next version, where they might focus more on developing the trade system."

"An economic system with no exports and only internal sales is incomplete. Balancing production and imports through tariffs and prices isn't more interesting? Please consider it, development team! If the server CPU allows!"

Chu Guang finished reading the post, liked it, but didn't leave any comments.

The idea was good, but it wasn't significant at this stage.

Keyboard economists often fall into the trap of idealism, and grand narratives don't help solve immediate problems.

From the perspective of a game designer and player, this idea to enrich the game's playability is indeed good.

But from the perspective of the manager of Vault 404, it's a different story.

For Chu Guang, everything in the vault, including the players' bodies, belongs to him. Why would he let them trade their belongings with their neighbors?

Unless they can do it better.

But that's clearly impossible.

Even Chu Guang himself often faces discrimination and suspicion from some scavengers on Bet Street due to his accent, and his lack of knowledge about the market and rules makes it impossible to leverage his sales experience from his previous life.

This is the wasteland.

A dystopian conglomerate of scoundrels and villains.

Compared to rule-abiding bankers or economists, scammers and dealers of dubious financial derivatives fare better.

Letting players trade with these local tycoons, even if they can use 1% of their persuasion skills, what would be the point?

Better to bring a gun.

Chu Guang suddenly understood the old leech—oh, no, the old mayor of Bet Street.

This guy was indeed not a good person, his greed was obvious, and his exploitation was purely for pleasure, with no long-term plans for Bet Street's future.

But if the scavengers were left to trade with merchants on their own, they would only be exploited even more.

This wasn't just a matter of ignorance.

Only the most naive would believe that merchants from the Rock City would be more merciful than the local tycoons.

It's like comparing a bat and a leech, both equally bloodthirsty.

"Encouraging players to trade with local forces is meaningless. Every major export transaction must be supervised. For example, forming fixed trade teams, planning routes and trade items, setting prices, with players serving as guards and NPCs handling the transactions, with a 50-50 or 30-70 split... This can also cater to less hardcore players and simplify the trading process."

"However, tariffs are a good idea, and this can be noted! In the future, based on real needs, we can consider allowing external NPCs to directly participate in the players' market... on the condition of barter or using the vault's currency."

And under supervision.

"Free trade?"

"Ha ha."

"I'll tell you who to trade with freely when I need you to fight."

Besides the strategy post by "Canyon Escaped Mole," there were also discussions on building techniques by civil engineering dogs and metallurgy students exploring efficient steel production with limited materials.

Some conversations eventually moved to N Station and A Island, bringing unexpected new traffic to the website.

The urban legend of a "fully immersive virtual reality MMORPG" was growing. Although most people treated it as a joke, a small portion took it seriously and clicked the pre-order button half-jokingly.

The number of pre-orders was steadily increasing.

What surprised Chu Guang was that Lai Ri Fang Chang, who was usually the most popular and "understood him the most," didn't share any game insights on the forum this time.

It was like the sun rising in the west.

While Chu Guang was browsing the forum, the Niu Ma Club group chat was also buzzing with activity.

Although Brother Guang hadn't been active for days, the topics in the group were mostly about Wasteland OL, at least in the morning.

Lao Bai: "Fang Chang, did you see the post on the official website? The one by the big-nosed mole."

Kuang Feng: "His name is Canyon Escaped Mole."

Lao Bai: "It doesn't matter!"

Fang Chang: "I saw it. The methods proposed in the post are interesting, but not very significant."

Lao Bai: "Huh? I thought it was pretty good! Selling a prey to an NPC for 5 silver coins, and if you find someone to butcher and dry it, the value at least doubles, right?"

Fang Chang: "Ha ha, theory is one thing, but he overlooked the existence of contribution points."

Ye Shi: "What do you mean?"

Fang Chang: "Think of citizenship as a Shenzhen hukou, and contribution points as the points needed to obtain it."

Kuang Feng: "Nice, your analogy is a bit wild..."

Fang Chang: "Same idea. Among all the players, besides us, only the carpenter Mosquito and the tailor Teng Teng might have enough 2000 points. In other words, everyone else needs to earn contribution points, become a citizen, and then make money."

Citizenship is required to buy land.

Even a fool could see that the earlier you buy, the better the location.

Fang Chang: "Consider this, then analyze the rest. Who among the six of us is suitable to be a butcher? Do you have any butchering experience?"

Lao Bai: "Uh, that is a problem."

Ye Shi: "Wait, is butchering that difficult?"

Kuang Feng: "Anyone who has ever bought vegetables at a supermarket wouldn't ask that."

Fang Chang: "Ye Shi is still in school, so it's normal for him to lack life experience. The method mentioned in the post is currently not feasible. We need to find a salesperson and a butcher, and splitting the profits among six people might not be more profitable."

"Actually, I've already done the math, but didn't say anything. When Tomato and Egg become citizens, we can try to talk to them about cooperation, though I don't have high hopes."

Ye Shi: "Why?"

Fang Chang: "You're naive. Why would they cooperate with us? Save up money, buy a piece of land, open a restaurant, and take on the butchering business. Isn't that better?"

Lao Bai: "Damn! You're right, if they have butchering and cooking skills, they'll make a fortune in this game!"

Fang Chang: "Only for now, it might not be the case later."

Fang Chang: "Our top priority is to level up and increase our proficiency. In any open-world game, life skills are initially easy to make money, but in the mid to late game, the top players are always the true strong ones!"

Kuang Feng: "You've really mastered this game... I've always wondered why you didn't become a professional player."

Fang Chang: "I didn't have the chance before, but now, ha ha, I feel the opportunity has come."

Jian Laji 99 Ji: "Boss! Please accept my knees!"

WC Zhen You Wenzi: "Take me too!"

Fang Chang: "Sure, ha ha! We're all in the same group, so let's call our guild the Niu Ma Club!"

Lao Bai: "Cough, maybe we should change the name?"

Ye Shi: "Why? This name sounds great. (Funny)"

Fang Chang: "It doesn't matter. But I have to say, Mosquito, your contribution points should be almost enough, but Laji Jun has been grinding in the wild and is probably still a bit short. Your top priority now is to become a citizen, and then save money! When we form a group, we'll build a house right in front of the respawn point, with a street-front shop on the first floor and large standard rooms on the second and third floors. Isn't that great?"

Lao Bai: "That will be our guild base in the future! (Excited)"

WC Zhen You Wenzi: "Bro, you're solid!"

Jian Laji 99 Ji: "6666!"

Jieyan: "Grass! I really want to play!!! T.T"

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(Thank you to "Big Green Stick with Peanuts" for the alliance donation! ~~~~)