Xu Meng's reply stunned the netizens.
"What war?"
Isn't this nonsense?!
Besides the ongoing internet war, what war could it be?
Netizens quickly replied to him: "[Bit Storm]!!"
Xu Meng replied with a shaking head emoticon: "I don't know what you guys are talking about."
This statement left the netizens a little confused.
This is... a denial?
Could it be that... the mysterious force that has already crushed Xinli and is now fighting on multiple fronts, making several tech and internet giants wish they were dead, is not Dream Building?
Then who else could it be?
This doubt didn't last long.
Soon, lawyers and law students reacted: "Maliciously attacking other people's servers is illegal in any country! Of course, Xu Meng can't admit it!"
"But didn't Dream Building only retaliate after being attacked? Isn't that self-defense?" The vast majority of Xia Country netizens support Dream Building and naturally stand from Xu Meng's perspective to consider the problem.
"Let's not even mention that hacking behavior doesn't have the concept of 'self-defense' at all. Dream Building's counterattack is at best a black eat black..." Some law students couldn't help but complain.
"Even if there was, Dream Building's way of first blowing up an opponent's server and then staring at all opponents and beating them to death would definitely be considered excessive defense, right? ??"
With this explanation, the netizens immediately understood.
"What's there to be afraid of! Come to Xia Country and arrest Xu Meng if you have the guts!"
"If things really fall apart, with Dream Building's strength, they can randomly crash a company's server every day and see who can't take it first!"
"What's there to be afraid of? Just go head-to-head!"
...
But even these onlookers are just cheering and joining in the fun.
They don't really expect Xu Meng to admit this matter regardless of the consequences.
But they don't know—
Xu Meng is the biggest onlooker!
He had just denied in the comment section of the "Monster Hunter" apology announcement that Dream Building was related to this [Bit Storm].
And then he posted a status update himself:
[Gentlemen, I love war!]
The accompanying picture is a game screenshot of "War King."
In the screenshot, he is holding a machine gun and frantically掃射 at the enemies charging towards him. The machine gun also has the onomatopoeia "突突突突" (tu tu tu tu) written on it.
Directly above the screenshot, in the same color and font size, are four English words:
[THE WAR BEGINS NOW!]
Seeing Xu Meng's status, everyone's heads are full of question marks:
"Dude, I just convinced myself that it's right for you not to admit it, it's good for you and Dream Building, and now you're playing this trick?"
"As expected of you, Xu Meng, playing the netizens in circles."
"Externally attacking enemies! Internally playing netizens! 6!"
"Stop playing around! Your server is about to explode too!"
"So does this count as an admission?"
"First deny, then admit, guess if I really admit it or not?!"
"Of course not! Boss Xu is just promoting his own game, don't overthink it."
...
Xu Meng's operation caught the media and netizens off guard.
But the "War King" operations team was prepared.
They immediately followed up and released the "War King" apology announcement and video.
The content of the announcement was exactly the same as "Monster Hunter", also making a solemn apology for the extremely poor gaming experience caused by the server problem.
A group of people in the office solemnly apologized to the camera.
And said that after the incident subsided, all users would be compensated.
The teams of "Monster Hunter" and "War King" have apologized, and the operations teams of "Frost Snow Project" and [Sprawling Metropolis] are of course not willing to be left out.
They followed up and released their own apology announcements and videos.
The comment sections of these apology announcements were full of question marks.
The netizens' reactions were:
"Is now the time to say this????"
"We're at war! Don't mess around!"
"I think I understand, [apology] is your corporate culture, right?"
"Don't mess around, be serious! Losing will be a big deal!"
...
The "impropriety" of Dream Building employees made netizens and players anxious.
Especially the users of Dream Building.
In the past, when game companies apologized, everyone was most concerned about whether the attitude was sincere and whether the compensation was in place.
But now, everyone doesn't pay attention to these at all.
I only hope that Dream Building will not lose the fight.
But now, these development teams are not seriously "fighting", but instead running out to appease players, how can they not be anxious?
Brave Sniper simply quit the game, even turned off the Dream Building game platform and holographic device, and re-broadcasted with the previous device.
He kept calling on his friends in the live broadcast room:
"Dream Building only had the ability to fight back after closing Sprawling Metropolis, so it can be seen that the key to whether Dream Building can win is server resources!"
"Anyway, the latency is so high now that the game can't be played. I suggest everyone go offline first to reduce the pressure on Dream Building's server!"
"When Dream Building gets through this crisis, we will have plenty of time to play games."
"If Dream Building can't survive, even if some progress is made now, it will eventually turn into nothing!"
"So friends who can go offline, go offline first! Please!"
...
After Brave Sniper took the lead, other streamers followed suit.
It was not surprising that Dream Building's [Honorary Players] showed up and spoke out.
But what is commendable is that: even streamers and game UPs who are not "Dream Building-affiliated" also came out to speak out, suggesting that players temporarily exit the game to reduce the server load.
So that Dream Building can go into battle lightly and put all its resources and energy into this war!
Most netizens are not clear about how much this will help.
But just the possibility of helping has made many players take action and go offline.
The [Mass Offline Movement] spread rapidly in a very short time!
Players who stayed in the game quickly discovered that the previously soaring latency suddenly stabilized and even began to slowly decline.
In the eyes of the players, this undoubtedly proved the effectiveness of the action!
Therefore, even if the latency situation improved slightly, players were still going offline in batches.
Players who had freed up their hands and had nothing to do ran to foreign websites to promote the [Mass Offline Movement], hoping that overseas netizens would also join in and help Dream Building.
However, overseas, there are much fewer players willing to cooperate.
It is completely impossible to reproduce the grand occasion of "collective, large-scale offline" of Xia Country players.
But the players in Xia Country turned their minds and thought of a reverse operation method—
"Everyone go to register accounts with Ether Network, Avalon Network, Cloud Foundry, Gold Chain, Net News... These companies! Place orders! Then cancel! Contact online customer service to say nonsense! Inquire about business! Do anything, put pressure on them!"
Players who couldn't play games were already full of fire and had nowhere to vent, and now they were enlightened by this reminder.
They entered the game in person and stepped into this [storm]!
If only a few thousand people said this, the effect would only be a drop in the bucket.
If tens of thousands of people did this, the other party's customer service system would be under pressure.
And now, there are as many as hundreds of thousands! Millions of people doing this!
You must know that although these millions of users have no good intentions, they are all legitimate users!
Concentrated bursts of legitimate access quickly put real pressure on the server!
...
...
In the [Bit Storm], Dream Building's opponents suddenly realized that they were in a dilemma!
After Xinli's defeat, they once thought that Dream Building was also on the verge of collapse.
When Dream Building overestimated its capabilities and fought on multiple fronts, they felt that victory was just around the corner!
Dream Building's server will soon be captured by them, and Dream Building's priceless technical data will become their bag!
For the victory in front of them, even if their own server was under pressure, they did not waver in the slightest.
Until time passed, their pressure became greater and greater, and the economic losses they suffered became higher and higher...
Dream Building was still in that "shaky" and "on the verge of collapse" appearance.
They finally realized that something seemed a little wrong:
"Dream Building's appearance of being on the verge of collapse..."
"Could it be pretending?!"
