The brave sniper stared blankly at the inexplicable victory settlement screen before him, his face full of confusion.
Didn't the match just start?
How did it end?
"Do you guys know what's going on?" he asked his viewers for help, bewildered.
But the viewers were also confused, unable to answer his questions:
"Server bug?"
"Plugin issue, conflicting with the system?"
"Can't be, Dream Builder shouldn't make such a low-level mistake."
"Why didn't you disconnect when others did? Does the [Honorary Player] title come with special treatment?"
… …
The live stream was filled with questions.
"This kind of problem has never happened before. It only appeared after installing the [Civilization Sprayer], so it must be related to this plugin," the brave sniper tried to analyze.
"But correlation doesn't equal causation; it could just be a coincidence."
"Let's play another round and see."
He re-queued for a match, patiently waiting to enter the game.
After teleporting into the map, he didn't rush to find a weapon, nor did he look for a hidden place to hide.
He just stood in the middle of the spacious courtyard, opened the chat window, and after a few seconds of preparation, was about to start trash-talking.
But before starting, he thought of something and said to the camera:
"Brothers!"
"Let me state in advance: I am a civilized and polite person."
"I never swear at opponents or teammates in games!"
"I'm only trash-talking now to figure out why so many opponents are disconnecting and to help Dream Builder troubleshoot game vulnerabilities."
"So everyone must understand: this isn't uncivilized; it's scientific spirit!"
After the disclaimer, the brave sniper, amidst the laughter of his viewers, began to trash-talk—
[Brave Sniper]: "Everyone, I want to test the effect of the [Civilization Sprayer]! I'm very sorry, but I have to offend you all."
[Brave Sniper]: "Everyone here is trash!"
Before the opponents could react to his words, the plugins on their computers reacted first.
The keyword—[trash]—was immediately recognized.
The [Civilization Sprayer] immediately activated automatic counterattack!
And because the brave sniper indiscriminately attacked everyone present, the coverage was extremely wide.
—He successfully triggered the "nuclear button" of all 99 people with a single word.
Massive amounts of profanity spewed out, instantly flooding the chat channel.
The same scene as the previous match played out again.
The chat channel frantically spammed, the visual afterimage of the text blurring into a large block of color.
After ten seconds, people started lagging.
The first batch of unlucky players crashed and exited the game on the spot.
Then, in rounds of five or six seconds, people continued to crash and leave the game.
The brave sniper's live stream also started to lag.
He tried his best to withstand the game's lag and explained the conclusion: "It seems that's really the case! This plugin crashes the host or the network!"
"It seems that I'm going to win again…"
"It seems that [Honorary Players] don't get special treatment either."
"That's satisfying!"
… …
Two minutes later, the brave sniper reopened his live stream.
"Okay, it's confirmed that it's the plugin's problem, but I'm not sure about the specifics," he said.
"I'll report the problem to Dream Builder and check the game's crash log files to see if there are any clues."
—
While the brave sniper was reporting the problem to Dream Builder, this situation was spreading rapidly!
The one thing players never lack is "curiosity."
Not only do they not lack it, but they even have a bit too much of it.
They drill into holes, click on question marks, accept quests, kill monsters, open mechanisms…
These are all normal.
Even if they know they can't win, even if they know NPCs can't be killed, they can't help but want to try and see what happens if they kill them.
Even if they scold themselves for being stupid and impulsive afterward, they will still do it again when they encounter a similar situation next time.
How could such a group of people be deterred by the fear of being sprayed?
Even many players who are usually very civilized and never swear in games can't help but want to say a few words and see the power of the [Civilization Sprayer].
As a result, the unusual "peace" was quickly broken.
The sprayer was triggered in large numbers.
The lucky ones were just in 1v1 situations, with two players exchanging insults.
Until one of their devices couldn't handle it and the game crashed, causing them to disconnect.
The unlucky ones were accidentally swept up by too many people, and this kind of spraying spread rapidly.
Until a large number of players disconnected and left the match.
Soon, everyone knew the power of the [Civilization Sprayer]—
This thing can really spray people offline!
It's not the sprayed players who are breaking down, but the devices of both sides.
Spraying is no longer a battle of words, but a hardware showdown!
What's even more outrageous is that, whether it was intentional by Xu Meng or not, even though Dream Builder could create highly intelligent NPCs, this [Civilization Sprayer] was particularly stupid.
Its recognition was quite inaccurate.
Someone in "War of Kings" had a teammate ride a horse over their head, almost getting trampled.
Subconsciously, they pointed at the cavalry's horse and said:
"Watch your horse!"
With just this one sentence, they directly activated the [Civilization Sprayer] of both themselves and their opponent.
And within 1 minute, it detonated the clients of everyone…
After that, some people mastered the use of this thing.
—
In Huan Yue's live stream, Huan Yue first switched the camera to show all the viewers his host.
Then, he said excitedly:
"Brothers, do you know why I spent more than 80,000 yuan to build a host?"
"Now, let me tell you the answer!"
He directly logged into "War of Kings", started matchmaking, and entered the Carentan campaign.
This map has open terrain, making it ideal for large-scale battles.
What needs the most attention is avoiding being covered by fire in open areas.
After entering the map, Huan Yue did not follow his teammates, ignored the captain's command, and rushed forward crazily, all the way to the forefront stronghold.
In front of him was a large group of 30 people charging at full speed!
But Huan Yue's face remained unchanged.
He shouted at the approaching opponents: "Fuck your ancestors! With all your might!"
The next second, he was focused on by more than 30 [Civilization Sprayers].
The frequency of verbal attacks was denser than the bullets from the opponent's guns.
Huan Yue's sprayer also started automatically, indiscriminately counterattacking everyone.
Both sides started lagging at the same time!
Huan Yue didn't care. He squatted behind cover, only needing to show half an eye to provide viewers with a view.
The opponents were out of luck!
During the charge in open terrain, the game suddenly lagged severely. How could they play?
Seven or eight opponents were immediately shot down by Huan Yue's teammates who followed up.
Then, those opponents who hadn't been shot down suddenly disappeared from the spot.
The system刷刷刷 (shuā shuā shuā - whoosh whoosh whoosh) displayed a row of prompts for players exiting the game.
Enemy and friendly forces were affected at the same time, disconnecting one after another.
When this full-map explosion ended, only 6 people remained on the field.
Huan Yue let out a long sigh:
"Ha—so satisfying!"
"Hahahaha, I knew it, the money I spent on the computer wasn't wasted!"
"I spent 80,000 yuan to build this host back then just to wait for today!"
The viewers in the live stream expressed being amazed.
At the same time, they all wanted to fight this tycoon.
… …
… …
The disastrous game crash event, of course, quickly spread to Dream Builder's side.
Before customer service had time to report it, Xu Meng took action—
He forwarded a dynamic he had previously posted:
[Okay, you asked for it.]
When players saw this forwarding, they remembered that Xu Meng had given three warnings before.
So, was everyone else at fault?
How could that be allowed!
Players immediately left messages to refute:
"Aren't you cheating?!"
"We want hardware! Not software!"
"You release a product, we spend money to buy it, and we compare our hand speed. Whoever is faster controls the 'nuclear button'."
"If you released hardware, it wouldn't be like this now!"
… …
What is it like now?
It's a hardware war!
It's a balance of power!
When everyone has a "nuclear button", it's either full-field peace or mutually assured destruction.
A special reply—[Now I finally understand why major countries can achieve relative peace]—received more than 30,000 likes in a very short time!
Under the dissatisfaction of the players, Xu Meng followed their advice and quickly released the [Civilization Sprayer ] version.
This version improved the accuracy of profanity recognition.
It could basically avoid the [Civilization Sprayer] from automatically activating due to "accidental injury."
Although this didn't prevent the large-scale damage caused by "actively provoking the whole field" like the brave sniper and Huan Yue, at least it wouldn't accidentally pull others in because of someone else's swearing.
This effectively limited the killing range of the [Civilization Sprayer].
—Ensuring that the "hardware showdown" could be limited to the scope of "one-on-one" in the absence of "terrorists."
Words that were not originally intended to be said were released in advance:
"The [Civilization Sprayer] plugin will automatically expire after April 1st. We wish you a pleasant gaming experience."
Xu Meng's statement put most players at ease.
After tomorrow, everything would return to normal.
Then the current chaos would become a rare bit of fun, just enjoy it!
But there were also a small number of people who were not satisfied with this decision—
Expiring after one day was too short!
Not enough to play!
But they thought about it—
Since the [Civilization Sprayer] is a plugin, does this mean that Dream Builder's games actually support plugins?
Then, by studying this plugin, could they break through Dream Builder's time limit?
So that even after everyone else's plugins expire tomorrow, they could still use it?
Wouldn't that be invincible?
More ruthless players thought of another idea:
If Dream Builder's games don't allow it, what about other games?
Could they use this [Civilization Sprayer] thing in other companies' games?
No sooner said than done!
A group of techies didn't even bother playing the game and immediately started "research and development"!
