I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 729 - 729 728. Cutting Open the Belly to Prove Oneself_1

Chapter 729: 728. Cutting Open the Belly to Prove Oneself_1 Chapter 729: 728. Cutting Open the Belly to Prove Oneself_1 Zheng Li from the Medical Department of Yannan University was very much looking forward to this live stream.

He filled out the survey and applied for the test, but unfortunately, he wasn’t chosen to be one of the lucky ones to enter Night Country.

There was no helping it, he could only watch from afar.

However, “Morning Star” didn’t provide a live streaming interface, nor a way to record videos or take photos in the game, so everything depended on the players’ descriptions, which was nowhere near satisfying!

Even if these players exclaimed “Holy shit,” “Amazing,” and “Invincible” every day, Zheng Li felt nothing at all.

He had played Night of Summoning Spirits and was aware of the level of realism the virtual reality device could achieve, so he understood just how fun the game could be in an open-world setting like Night Country.

This feeling was akin to watching someone pick up exquisite and expensive ingredients, but not being able to see the cooking process or the final dish, nor smell it, with only a plain description like “add a pinch of salt, bring it to a boil on high heat” — it was irritatingly unsatisfactory and left him terribly eager.

At least now Zheng Li could watch the live broadcast.

In fact, many believed that the live broadcast wasn’t Lu Ban’s clever trick but a move made out of desperation.

Because there was no way to live stream the game’s visuals, outsiders had always criticized the completion level of [Cage].

Night of Summoning Spirits achieved perfect imagery within the confines of a mansion, while Night Country, according to the players’ descriptions, spanned a much larger area than just a single room.

In such a case, the volume of materials and textures required was enormous.

The initial version of World of Warcraft took thousands of people five years to develop. How long had [Cage] been in the making?

Whatever the case, it definitely hadn’t been five years, because five years earlier, Lu Ban was still an obscure college student; the predecessor to Silence Gaming had just launched their first console, and Jiangcheng Industries hadn’t even stepped foot into the gaming industry. The entire sector couldn’t possibly have had a reserve of virtual reality technology.

In the words of professionals, creativity is the least valuable asset in this industry.

Take the open world for instance, which simply involves putting activities that people can do in reality into a game. The closer it gets to mimicking reality, the greater the openness of the game. Throw in some fantastical and science fiction elements, and there you have the fundamental gameplay logic.

But to achieve this, one needs technical expertise and accumulation.

The degree of freedom for character modeling, climbing, jumping, the physics engine for fire and water, as well as those changing lights and shadows, the swaying of the woods when the wind blows—if one wants to fulfill all these, a robust technical team is necessary.

Moreover, the capabilities of the gaming console itself are also limiting. If one could use a supercomputer, then many insane codes could be executed, but under the players’ systems, developers have to pinch and scrape through every bit of memory, squeezing the CPU, to achieve the most perfect representation of the game.

Therefore, while the industry recognized Lu Ban’s creativity and presentation, had the technology really reached that level?

They harbored doubts.

This live stream was seen by many as Lu Ban’s moment to prove his worth, to show whether he had indeed “eaten that bowl of rice noodles,” so to speak, based on the content of the stream.

Of course, there were also those who wondered whether Lu Ban’s refusal to open the live streaming interface, opting only for an official broadcast, indicated he had something to hide.

It was, after all, basic practice in the gaming community: impressing with visuals at press conferences but delivering a drastically reduced quality in actual gameplay, deceiving with CG—something almost every developer had done to some extent.

Before the live broadcast, Lu Ban also specially released a short hype video.

Zheng Li quickly came across this video on Weibo.

The video content was straightforward, showing players walking around, building, and planting in a town. It was less than a minute long, the kind you could watch several times over during a single subway ride.

Still, weren’t those graphics just a bit too realistic?

When Zheng Li played games, although he thought the graphics were good, he also had a thought: could it be that these visuals were a supplement from his own imagination, and that what he actually saw was slightly inferior, with his brain automatically correcting it to look so beautiful?

He was amazed when he saw the trailer.

Is this a game?

Is this really the graphics from within a game?

The light, the texture, the movement, are you sure it’s not live-action?

Zheng Li immediately scrolled down and saw that most people had similar thoughts as himself, which put his mind at ease.

The last time he saw such lifelike graphics was in a certain racing game, where he had thought for a moment that the production team had brought in real cars, and only on closer inspection could he detect the traces of CG.

But the texture of metal is incomparable to that of human skin; no matter how realistic the graphics are, they cannot be confused with reality.

So, Zheng Li thought that Lu Ban had definitely hired actors for the promotional video and dressed it up with his famed special effects to look like it was part of the game.

Even though some players posted on social media claiming it was real gameplay and uploaded photos of their own devices to prove it, the vast majority still believed it to be a hoax.

All the debate pointed toward the live stream; people were waiting for Lu Ban’s live stream, curious to see the actual quality of the game and whether it was as incredible as touted.

To see if it’s a mule or a horse, just take it out for a stroll.

Eight o’clock at night, prime time.

Zheng Li launched the official live-streaming room on Olden Day Video’s website.

The room was packed with people; he switched between several servers before finding one that wasn’t too laggy. Even so, the barrage of comments was so thick that he had to set up filters and blocks to even get a clear view of the screen—a level of activity comparable only to the national team making it to the World Cup.

The countdown ticked away on the screen, with some concept designs from Night Country slowly ramping up the anticipation.

Right at eight o’clock, the screen went dark, and the live stream began.

Zheng Li immediately blocked all the comments to prevent them from obscuring his view, causing the comment section on the right to scroll incessantly, like hundreds of people unicycling at the same time.

The first thing he saw was a forest.

The dark and mysterious forest, seemingly alive, instantly captured all of Zheng Li’s attention; he didn’t even notice that the frenzied scrolling of comments had halted the moment the image appeared.

Even though it was just an ordinary forest, it exuded an overwhelming sense of pressure like a tsunami about to crash over him. Zheng Li saw the comments refresh bit by bit next to it.

[Friendly reminder, you can breathe now.]

Upon seeing this, Zheng Li realized that he had actually forgotten to breathe!

He watched as the camera panned, entering into the forest.

Winding through the layered woods was a procession of people in cloth clothing, holding various weapons, looking cautious and serious.

Zheng Li quickly identified some of them as the players who had previously attested to their experience.

No matter how he looked, these were real people on screen.

Was Lu Ban intending to play a live-action movie in front of the entire world and trick the viewers?

Zheng Li was confused and continued to watch.