"Mr. Kabo?" A Dreamsmith staff member approached.
"It's your turn. Are you alone, or with friends?"
"With friends!" Kabo replied quickly, patting the friend to his right. "This is Hoshino."
He then pointed to the people to Hoshino's right, rattling off names, "And Cesar, Quintin, Arlan…"
The Dreamsmith staff member had to interrupt, "Four people is the limit."
"Then it's us four!" Kabo answered promptly.
But Hoshino was a little resistant, lacking the excitement he had when he first arrived.
— He was from Izumo, a not-so-typical otaku who had just become a die-hard fan of Dreamsmith the day before yesterday, completely immersed in the beautiful dream woven by Dreamsmith with the 'Frost and Snow Project' and new technologies.
He came today to see his 'wife'.
Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that Dreamsmith would suddenly serve up an FPS game!
And with his hometown as the villain.
It was all so sudden.
But before he could refuse, the enthusiastic Kabo dragged him straight to the changing room.
Like many people from Izumo, Hoshino wasn't good at refusing others. Dragged along by Kabo and the other two friends, he changed into the haptic synchronization suit with mixed feelings and logged into the game.
At the start, he actively chose the thankless loader position.
Ignoring everything else, he focused solely on transporting shells.
Even so, he kept hearing the shouts of enemies charging to their deaths—
"Long live the Emperor!"
Hoshino, this weak otaku with poor stamina, transported shells while trying hard to think—
"When will these guys realize that the enemies are the Izumo army?"
"And when will they realize that the Izumo of these Izumo soldiers, and the Izumo of my hometown, are the same country??"
At first, he thought they would realize it soon.
But after finishing the first level and entering the forest level of the second, he began to think:
These guys probably won't realize it even after finishing the game.
Inspired by the previous players, Kabo and the others used engineer shovels to chop down trees and create simple defensive positions for counterattacks, even hitting enemies in the face with a shovel at close range, without realizing the connection between these enemies and their teammate.
Hoshino's mood changed from hoping his teammates wouldn't notice to avoid an awkward atmosphere, to anticipation.
— After all, they've been friends playing together for so long, no matter what, shouldn't you guys notice that I'm from Izumo, and the ones we're fighting in the game are also from Izumo?
But no.
Neither Kabo, the Brazilian who hadn't experienced the flames of World War II in his country, nor Cesar, the Italian, and Quintin, the Frenchman, whose countries had experienced World War II, realized it at all.
To the point that later on, Hoshino began to rethink whether his friendship with these guys was real…
But before he could ask, Cesar became dissatisfied first:
"Hoshino, be serious!"
"Huh?" Hoshino was taken aback.
"You should be shooting! Do something! You're here to fight, not to run!"
Hoshino was a little unhappy.
But unable to refuse their enthusiasm, he still pulled the bolt with his teammates.
Successfully blowing up an enemy's kit with one shot, the vodka inside shattered and ignited, setting the entire person on fire!
The person immediately screamed miserably, turning into a huge human torch!
But even so, he still shouted crazily, yelling "Long live" as he charged over.
He was almost upon Hoshino!
— Thanks to Cesar shooting through the torch man's chest.
Hoshino took a deep breath, still in shock, and before his brain could react, his hand moved first, firing another shot at the still-burning torch man.
"Bang!"
The gunshot rang out, and Hoshino was stunned for a moment.
Then he comforted himself: This isn't my fault, it's all Dreamsmith's fault.
— Dreamsmith made these soldiers too crazy, too twisted, almost inhuman, more like a group of monsters that had been bitten by zombies.
This shot, and this thought, shattered his psychological barrier.
After that, Hoshino completely threw himself into the battle, and the number of his kills rose rapidly!
His three teammates all looked sideways.
By the time they reached the third level, there were two motorcycle simulators available, and Hoshino even actively applied for the sidecar position.
Kabo drove the motorcycle rapidly across the uneven wilderness.
The motorcycle kept shaking, even flying off the ground.
Artillery fire exploded all around, and dust fell on them, making rustling sounds.
The cool breeze scattered the smoke and brushed past their bodies.
Sitting in the sidecar, Hoshino held a machine gun and frantically poured ammunition at all the enemies that came into view!
The motorcycle brought speed, and the machine gun created passion!
Hoshino completely let himself go, shouting very loudly while strafing enemies: "Hahaha! So good! !!!"
"That's the way! !" Kabo was also very excited, "Games should be played like this!"
He was completely immersed in the game.
…
When the experience ended, and the Dreamsmith staff came up to ask for their thoughts and opinions, Kabo, Cesar, and Quintin replied:
"Amazing!"
"Awesome!"
"Bravo!"
"Perfect!" Hoshino also put aside his worries and gave a super high rating of "perfect."
Whatever.
As long as it's fun.
He thought so.
"Thank you." The staff member put away the notebook and thanked them politely.
There was no need to carefully record these simple compliments, just a checkmark would do.
The real trouble was those diametrically opposed opinions:
Some people said after playing: "It's too realistic and too violent. You should control the violent expressions."
Others, however, said, "Not realistic enough. The amount of bleeding is too little. Some injuries should clearly blow people to pieces, or at least cause limb loss, but they don't."
Someone said, with tears in their eyes, "Being hit really hurts! Can't it not hurt so much?"
Someone else said, with dissatisfaction, "The pain from injuries is too simple—you have to look down and observe after being shot to determine the severity of the injury. Can't the pain be layered, divided into different levels from light to severe?"
Someone even said, "Why don't I feel anything when I'm on fire? It doesn't hurt at all, which made me forget to put it out and I burned to death."
… …
Of course, these opinions were all offered after a torrent of praise for the game.
The basic rhetoric was always, "This game is awesome! But it would be even better if XXX."
Despite running and stopping for 45 minutes, they were all panting with exhaustion.
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After the adrenaline faded, fatigue and thirst rushed in together, and their condition was truly not good.
But when the adrenaline was pumping, the passion, the reckless sprinting, the frenzy and excitement of killing, still lingered in their emotions.
Therefore, when talking about the game, they all praised it non-stop.
The entire morning passed, and the staff's survey records still showed very few negative reviews.
As the popularity and word-of-mouth spread, this exhibition hall, several sizes larger, quickly became crowded.
The Dream Building staff had to send over boxed meals, snacks, and drinks to prevent players from exhausting their energy while waiting and being hungry, and collapsing after starting the game.
It wasn't until the afternoon that the critical voices finally grew louder.
But this voice did not appear in the exhibition hall, but on the internet—
The Xia Country players became increasingly envious, but were distressed that they couldn't play it themselves. Finally, someone couldn't help but complain:
"First, the new content of 'Frost Snow Project,' and now the demo of 'King of War'…"
"Does it have to be released abroad first?"
"Give it to foreigners to play, but not to us, huh?"
Initially, the poster was simply complaining.
But as more people complained, the voice inevitably grew louder, and began to attract some more abstract passersby.
—This time, they were truly just random online users.
At this time, the game circle was still immersed in Xu Meng's lingering power of "whoever he points at dies," and no one was willing to jump out and provoke him.
Moreover, most peers were happy to see Dream Building impacting the world game market—it was better than Dream Building continuing to stay in the country and compete with them for users in mobile games.
As this outrageous voice gradually rose on the internet, the Heroic Sniper also arrived outside the Dream Building office building located on the edge of Jinghu Lake.
… …
He couldn't go to Cologne, and he had been watching Huan Yue's live broadcast for two days, and he had been envious for two days.
But just before going to bed on the second night, he had a sudden idea—
"Dream Building must have a complete set of equipment, right?"
"Otherwise, how would they do testing?"
He picked up his [Honorary Member] ID card, looked at his name on it, and a thought sprouted in his mind.
"If that's the case, can I enter their company under the name of [Scheduled Visit] and use their equipment to try out the new content of 'Frost Snow Project' and the 'King of War' demo?"
As soon as this idea was born, he couldn't sit still any longer, and quickly picked up his phone to make an appointment.
It was approved at light speed.
Then he booked the earliest flight straight to Ningzhou, and went straight to Jinghu after landing.
He took a deep breath to ease his nervous emotions, pushed open the door and walked in.
The receptionist, Xiao Qing, looked up at him and stood up with a smile to welcome him to visit.
The Heroic Sniper immediately raised the action camera in his hand and asked:
"Excuse me, is it okay to record?"
He didn't ask if he could broadcast live.
After all, "King of War" was still in development, and if he accidentally filmed something unsuitable for display, the video could still be saved, but the live broadcast would be completely over.
Xiao Qing nodded: "No problem, just try not to film the staff."
"No problem, no problem." The Heroic Sniper lowered the lens.
Xiao Qing laughed, "You don't have to be so careful, you can film me as you like."
"Come this way, where would you like to visit first?"
"See the boss's office? Or the entertainment area, the gym, or try the employee cafeteria?"
"Oh, right, the artist from 'Frost Snow Project' just happened to come over today, and everyone is discussing drawing their own smart office partners. If you're interested, I can ask for you to see if you can join in on the fun."
Xiao Qing enthusiastically introduced the Heroic Sniper.
The Heroic Sniper was very surprised—
Xu Meng's office can be entered at will? ?
And from the sound of it, how come the boss's office has the same status as the entertainment room?
Is this normal?
Smart office partner… what is that?
He was dying of curiosity, but he still remembered the purpose of his visit.
"Um, can I ask—can I try out the new content currently at the Cologne exhibition in your office building?"
"Oh~" Xiao Qing nodded knowingly, but immediately shook her head, "I don't recommend that."
"Oh, oh, can't I?" The Heroic Sniper was very sorry.
"It's not that you can't." Xiao Qing shook her head again, "What I mean is, if you just want to play the new game, I would recommend you go directly to the experience store."
"Experience store?" The Heroic Sniper was stunned for a moment, "Has it already opened for business? ?"
"Not yet." Xiao Qing replied, "But it has already been renovated, and the equipment has been debugged. These days, our employees go to play after get off work, which is considered an internal trial operation phase."
"Honorary players can play for free."
"Is that so?!" The Heroic Sniper's eyes lit up immediately.
It's so hard to adjust my schedule…
requesting monthly tickets!
