Chapter 193: What the Hell is This?! (Combined)
《War of Kings》 had previously been heavily criticized for its 50GB demo and 25GB update patches.
Now, the official version has ramped up the size to a staggering 200GB!
If Dream Building hadn't started pre-downloads three days in advance, players with slow internet speeds might not have finished downloading until dawn.
Aside from the download speed issue, hard drive space is also a problem.
In today's gaming world, even the most famous masterpieces try to control their game sizes.
100GB is a threshold.
If it really can't be compressed, they'll try to keep it within 150GB.
Otherwise, players will start to suspect:
Is there really this much game content, a lot for your money?
Or is your technology so poor, your optimization so bad, that you're shifting the blame to the players?
Games are never better just because they're bigger; if it can't be converted into gameplay, it will only become a disadvantage.
When 《War of Kings》 started pre-downloads, many players in Dream Jinli complained:
[For this damn game, I deleted 60GB of videos. If the game sucks, I'll go to Dream Building and find Xu Meng to make him download my videos back!]
[Outrageous, I bought a 1000 yuan SSD for a 168 yuan game]
......
Many people finally managed to free up space to download the game, thinking they were all set and ready to play.
But when the game went live at midnight, they excitedly tried to enter the game, only to find that they had only completed the download before, and there was still an installation process before playing.
And the space required for decompression is twice the size of the game itself!
Many players—especially those who mainly played mobile games and gacha games, and only came to play 《War of Kings》 because of the 《Frost Snow Project》 and the synesthesia suit—were almost about to break down.
Even the streamers Orange Juice and Seven Flowers were a little dazed.
They streamed the deletion of video materials late into the night.
—Their hard drives were filled with video materials left over from streaming. They said they would cut them into videos and post them when they had time, but in reality, they piled up more and more. The more they piled up, the less they wanted to cut them. The less they wanted to cut them, the more they piled up…
Over time, it became a historical problem.
Now they finally found a reason to delete them happily, freeing up space for the game.
After deleting enough space and waiting for the installation to complete and the game to start, it was already an hour later.
And that was considered fast.
Many players were still waiting for the installation while frantically complaining online and in groups.
Various game media and self-media outlets also didn't expect that the first hot topic after the release of 《War of Kings》 was neither sales nor game content, but that everyone couldn't get into the game…
This situation didn't greatly alleviate until two hours later, when players around the world entered the game one after another.
The big brother in the game media field, one of the chief writers of [Game Observation]—Fire Knife, was also one of these people.
As the person who first smelled the ambition of Dream Building to produce buy-out games and had been tracking the progress of 《War of Kings》 since the Cologne Games Show, he naturally couldn't miss the game's launch day.
Experiencing the game as soon as possible and writing and publishing articles as quickly as possible are also his professional requirements.
After coaxing his children to sleep, he tiptoed to the study and opened the game.
Then he was stuck in the installation process for almost two hours…
But in the end, it was finally installed!
He sat outside the lakeside cabin and clicked the 《War of Kings》 icon, and a system prompt popped up—
[Do you want to inherit Demo account data?]
“Inherit! Must inherit!”
Although Fire Knife couldn't grind as much as streamers and college students, he had accumulated some [War Bonds] and [Collectibles] over the past month, and unlocked some weapon skins.
This took him a lot of effort, so he was naturally reluctant to give it up.
After confirming the inheritance, the game's main menu page popped up.
[Hell on Earth], which could not be selected before, can now be entered normally—in addition, there is a new [War Zone] option.
Fire Knife was very patient and first selected [Hell on Earth].
Another option popped up—
[Are you sure you want to skip the tutorial level [New Recruit Report] and go to the brutal battlefield?]
“Confirm.”
[Currently matching your first battle. After completing the first battle, you can choose your own battle server]
After the last line of prompts, the screen in front of Fire Knife slowly went black.
In the darkness, there was a crackling sound of flames burning.
A weathered voice sounded in Fire Knife's ear—
“In 1944, the Allied Operation Market Garden encountered setbacks, and the strategic objective turned to the Rhine.”
“Subsequently, the largest-scale breakthrough battle of the Siegfried Line was launched.”
Along with the narration, the darkness in front of Fire Knife gradually lit up.
It was the perspective of an eagle passing through the sky. Under the special lens language, it was still in the Netherlands one second, and the next second it came to the border between Belgium and Germany.
The camera quickly swooped down, and the narration continued—
“In this breakthrough battle, there was a long and tragic battle that caused pain to both sides involved.”
“This is the longest single battle in the history of the United States Army, and also the longest battle fought on German soil.”
“This is—the Battle of Hurtgen Forest.”
The ground got closer and closer, and the things happening on the earth became clear—
The trees were burned black, the machine guns in the bunkers spewed out iron rain of death, and the soldiers fell like straw in the charge.
The tank's shells hit the bunker, and the solid cement shattered like tofu, blasting in all directions.
On both sides of the tank, the soldiers bravely moved forward, and then fell in the hail of bullets.
The smoke and mist dissipated, revealing the trenches filled with corpses under the thick fog.
The soldiers of both sides pierced each other's bodies in close combat, and the bodies that had lost their lives still supported each other, unwilling to fall.
“Tens of thousands of soldiers died in this brutal battle.”
“There are rumors that even death failed to end this battle.”
“In the thick fog of late autumn, hunters still see undead fighting in the fog!”
“Now, latecomers, go witness their fight, go end this battle!”
With the burning battlefield as the background, the system prompt appeared again—
[Choose your camp]
Two badges appeared in front of Fire Knife, [Allied Powers] on the left and [Axis Powers] on the right.
Fire Knife didn't think much and casually chose [Allied Powers].
—After all, Xia Country was an Allied country during World War II.
[Choose your duty]
A tree-shaped table appeared in front of him.
There was only one cell at the top, which read [Commander].
Below the commander were three cells, which read [Combat Squad], [Armored Squad], and [Reconnaissance Squad] respectively.
These three cells were not selectable, and the selectable ones were the next level of cells—those specific [Squad A], [Squad B], [Squad C]… [Armored Squad], [Reconnaissance Squad 1], [Reconnaissance Squad 2], and so on.
In each squad, there were also [Squad Leader] and [Member] to choose from.
Fire Knife looked at this tree diagram and didn't know where to start.
“Does it take any conditions to be a commander?” He tried to click the [Commander] option.
As a result, a small window popped up—
[Commander position application submitted]
[Current number of applicants for the position 14 / 1]
“Good家伙, 14 people applied to be commander?”
“Are there so many great people? Then I won’t join in the fun.”
He quickly canceled the selection.
This position requires saying a lot of words at first glance, and his wife and children are asleep, so it's not suitable for doing this.
He randomly selected an empty squad to be a member.
There was no competition for this position, so he quickly confirmed the position and started selecting a class.
The classes were also much richer than in the Demo—
[Rifleman], [Assault], [Automatic Rifleman], [Machine Gunner], [Medic], [Support], [Engineer], [Anti-Tank]…
It was another dazzling pile of classes.
Fortunately, these classes are just refinements of the four major classes in the Demo. You can basically understand the positioning by looking at the names. Fire Knife quickly chose [Assault].
Preparations were now complete.
But the fight for the commander position continued.
Until the 90-second preparation time ended, the system randomly selected one commander from the remaining 6 applicants.
Seeing this, Fire Knife was already screaming inwardly that something was wrong!
Entering the battlefield, seeing the scene of the Hegen Forest, he immediately heard a lot of complaints in his ear:
"Damn, isn't it? Randomly select a commander? Are you kidding me???"
"This is outrageous, does anyone even know how to command?"
"Forget it, let's just pretend there's no commander and do our own thing."
...
In addition to these complaints, there were also a lot of chaotic shouts:
"C squad, come here, C squad, come here!"
"Which squad am I in? I forgot!"
"Where's the tank? Where's my tank?"
"Did Zhumeng finally delete the mentally challenged loader? Hooray!"
"Damn, this picture! These details! This house! These wheels! This dirt! This tree! No wonder this damn game is so big!"
"Wait a minute, a blowtorch? Using this thing to repair a tank? Seriously, bro?"
"Damn, using a watch to build outposts and barracks? What a time-traveling WWII smart watch!"
...
Fire Knife looked around, a large group of recruits scattered around.
Most ⊥ new ⊥ small ⊥ say ⊥ in ⊥ six ⊥ 9 ⊥ ⊥ book ⊥ ⊥ bar ⊥ ⊥ first ⊥ hair!
Some people were looking at the surrounding environment, some were taking out weapons or props from their bodies, studying how to use them.
At the same time, everyone was chatting loudly.
There was no sense of tension on the battlefield at all, but rather like arriving at a vegetable market.
He was a little speechless, the epic and cruel feeling created by the opening CG was completely destroyed.
But soon he adjusted.
It's just a game, everyone is just having fun, don't be so harsh.
He pushed his left hand with the haptic glove and walked to the person who had just shouted "C squad assemble", and asked softly:
"Are you the captain of C squad?"
"What did you say? Speak louder!!" The player with the ID [Marxism] replied loudly.
Fire Knife helplessly brought up the chat box and typed:
"Are you the captain of C squad?"
"I am!" The old brother quickly replied, "You are my team member, right! OKOK, everyone is here, get in the car, let's go!"
Fire Knife didn't think much, and controlled the character to jump onto the supply transport truck.
The truck engine roared, and the driver led the squad away from the headquarters.
Some people saw the truck leaving and ran out with it, but their speed couldn't keep up with the vehicle and they were soon left behind.
The noisy sound quickly faded away.
Then Fire Knife heard the driver's voice: "Captain, where are we going?"
The captain said heroically: "To the front line of the war!"
"No..." The driver was a little helpless, "I mean, which road are we taking specifically, which point on the map are we going to?"
"..." The captain was silent for a few seconds, "Follow the main road and go to the nearest stronghold, let's take one down first."
Obviously, the squad leader was also playing for the first time.
"OK, let me see which road to take to the nearest stronghold," the driver replied.
Fire Knife didn't participate in the conversation, just stood in the truck bed looking around, looking at the dilapidated street scene.
Until he found the small building with half of the second floor collapsed by shells, getting closer and closer!
"Damn! Turn! !"
He finally realized something was wrong and quickly reminded.
"I'm looking at the map! Damn! This car..."
Before the driver could finish shouting, the supply transport truck crashed head-on into the building on the street.
The small building, which had already been bombarded by shells and was crumbling, could no longer withstand it and collapsed in this impact.
The entire supply transport truck, along with the entire squad on board, was buried in the ruins.
[Huo Huo Zhen's Husband (Commander)]: "?"
[Huo Huo Zhen's Husband (Commander)]: "Why did the supplies suddenly decrease by 300 points?! Is there a bug???"
Fire Knife looked at the [Redeployment Countdown: 9 seconds] in front of him and couldn't help but blink.
"The one we were driving, is it a vehicle for transporting supplies?" His voice was very small.
The squad leader, who had asked him to speak louder before, now also lowered his voice: "Maybe...is it?"
"Uh...sorry, I was just looking at the map..." The driver's attitude was very good.
"Cough, it's okay, just change someone to drive next time."
"It's all Zhumeng's fault, the houses on the side of the road will collapse...who could have thought of that???"
"Do we have engineers? Can they come back and fix the car?"
"If it's fixed, can the supplies be recovered?"
The team members didn't have any negative emotions - while everyone thought the matter was nonsense, they also found it a little funny, and they were talking about it for a while.
Amidst the laughter, the 6 members of the squad were resurrected at the birth point again.
At this time, there were already very few people at the birth point, and the resurrected people were also rushing to the front line.
- Looking at the chat channel, the front has already started fighting.
Only one person remained motionless, holding a map in his hand, passionately commanding:
"A squad advance two squares!"
"B squad go around from the north, pincer attack!"
"All squads in E7 area, pay attention, I want to call in a bombing! Pay attention to staying away from the stronghold circle!"
"Why did C squad die halfway? Did the enemy infiltrate? Is it an enemy reconnaissance squad?"
Originally, the commander's voice command should only be heard by the squad leader.
But now they were too close, and they could hear everything clearly.
Fire Knife was very embarrassed and immediately bypassed the commander and ran to the front line.
Captain Marxism didn't change his expression: "No, we encountered a car accident."
"Car accident?" The commander finally put down the map, raised his head, and looked at the squad leader blankly.
"Yes, it's all Zhumeng's problem," the squad leader said firmly, "Okay, we're going to support the front line."
After speaking, he led the squad straight to the front line.
Without the car, they didn't take the road anymore, they just went straight.
Obviously, many people had the same idea as them - not far away, they saw the tracks pressed into the ground by the tanks, as well as roadblocks, walls, and even dilapidated buildings broken by the tanks...
The armored squad chose the wildest route to the front -
They took a straight line!
All the obstacles on this line were ruthlessly crushed and hit by them!
"Damn, awesome!" A teammate couldn't help but exclaimed as he looked at the wild passage in front of him.
"It looks so cool!"
"I want to drive a tank next time too!"
Several people were envious.
They climbed up a slope until they saw a tank stuck on an anti-tank pile, with its upper half raised high and white smoke coming straight from the engine...
The entire crew ran out, worrying about the tank.
Four meters away from the side of the tank, there was still one person standing there motionless, and another person was kneeling in front of him, not knowing what he was doing.
"What's the situation with you?" The teammate shouted from a distance.
The crew members wearing tank hats also shouted back: "Our tank is stranded! As for them, it seems like they stepped on a mine, and they are disarming it!"
As soon as the voice fell, there was a "boom" and the mine exploded.
The two people were instantly blown into the sky!
Black mud splashed three or four meters high, and mine fragments splashed out, hitting the tank armor again, and being bounced off again in the clanging sound...
The crew members outside the tank instantly fell to the ground!
The Fire Knife squad, which was still some distance away, was also shaken badly - the vision was distorted and shaking, and the picture was blurred.
Fortunately, they were not attacked by fragments.
Fire Knife looked at his fallen comrades, speechless to death -
"We haven't even seen an enemy yet! And we've written off a supply truck, a tank, a crew, and 8 infantrymen?"
"Is the non-combat attrition so outrageous? ? ?"
"What the hell are we fighting for!"
There are a little less today, I will make up for it tomorrow!
—
Thank you [Big Porcelain Merchant] for the 1500 points reward.
Thank you [Wandering in the Wind] for the 100 points reward.
