The Fantasy Entertainment Empire

In Gao Yixiang's plan, the game "Steam Ming Dynasty" will be a semi-open world.

The so-called 'semi-open' means that players can explore the entire game world, but there will be some restrictions.

After all, these are actually mainly for the sake of plot narrative.

This so-called semi-open style probably means that players can independently explore the game world, but this exploration has certain restrictions. After all, the purpose of this setting is still to serve the narrative.

"Steam Daming" is not like "Taiwu Painting Scroll 2". This game will have a very clear main line.

In order for players to fully experience this main storyline, it is bound not to design the entire world too freely like "Taiwu 2". When players can explore the entire world at will, their experience of the main story line will become very weak. That is a good thing for "Taiwu Painting Scroll 2", because the essence of its gameplay is to encourage players to fully explore every corner of the world.

But for "Steam Daming", that would be a disaster.

"Steam Daming" will have a clear main story, and the player's experience of this main story is the biggest source of experience for this game.

Just like "God of War", the main line of the story itself is also a huge charm.

Through this main storyline, the game will gradually present the appearance of the entire magically transformed Ming Dynasty that has entered the steam age to countless players.

According to the current setting, the background of the main story of this generation of "Steam Daming" will mainly revolve around the battle of Salhu.

In the first half, the main plot will take place in BJ City in the last years of Wanli. The protagonist is a Jinyiwei, equipped with a mechanical left hand shell, holding an Xiuchun knife, wearing a flying fish suit, with some magical mechanical functions loaded in the monocle eye, and a clear cultivation system.

The player manipulates the protagonist to obtain special abilities by collecting and making various new mechanical accessories; through self-cultivation, he can gain more power to master the machinery and become stronger. Practice plus machinery, these are the two key lines of character training in "Steam Daming".

In the whole process, through the main line and branch tasks, the "Second World" studio will show all players a BJ city in the steam age that was magically modified in the early seventeenth century.

The design and narration of the entire world view will be full. Gao Yixiang plans to show all players who are interested in a deeper understanding of this world what the dynasty they designed should look like.

From the life of common people, to what the ancient Chinese cities should look like under the concept of steam, how the rule of the dynasty is carried out...

Even Gao Yixiang studied the history of the Ming Dynasty in depth, and even invited special scholars as consultants, trying to create a truly credible steamy Ming Dynasty.

The background of the main storyline will start from BJ in 1618. In the first half of the game, the protagonist will not only become stronger, but also make some contributions, thus becoming a Jinyiwei Xiaoqi. Then, his merits were corrupted by ink, and he offended the upper officials in a rage. Because of the corruption of the officials in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, he was framed and sent to the front line. In February 1619, he participated in the Battle of Sarhu. Witnessed the defeat of the Ming court's army in Sarhu, and survived from the Shura Field.

At this point, the story is over. The whole plot arrangement is relatively complete, and at the same time, enough meaning is reserved, leaving room for the production of subsequent sequels.

Of course, whether there is a sequel or not depends on the actual performance of this work.

In fact, this game is also taking huge risks.

The investment in the entire game has reached 800 million RMB, which is also an investment of over 100 million US dollars. Although, compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars invested by game tycoons in the current global market, the investment in "Steam Daming" is not that scary, but there is no doubt that this is definitely a 3A-level investment.

Moreover, unlike the original "Taiwu Painted Scroll 2", the game "Steam Daming" has almost no references.

"Taiwu" still has a predecessor. Although the previous work is only a small independent game, it is still a million-selling work, which can barely be regarded as a certain amount of precipitation. In addition, the story told by this game is also a "martial arts". This is undoubtedly the largest audience in China. And even in foreign countries, there is such a ready-made concept as 'Kung Fu' that you can rely on.

Don't underestimate these. When promoting the game, these things can clearly express to all potential audiences what kind of game it is.

However, "Steam Daming" does not have this feature, or this feature is not strong enough.

'Steampunk'? This thing is not too popular. As for combining this thing with the concept of 'Da Ming', that's fresh enough, but it's very easy to confuse potential audiences—what is the combination of these two things?

No one could figure it out.

As for the promotion of foreign markets, concepts such as "steampunk ancient oriental country" can be used for publicity, but how much attention it can attract is not necessarily hopeful.

However, no matter what, since the project has been established, Fan Zhe has no intention of terminating the project because of these things.

What's more, compared to the original "Taiwu", "Steam Daming" is not without its own advantages. When "Taiwu" was first made, no one had ever heard of the name of Dimension Entertainment in the game circle, but now, their name has resounded throughout the circle.

The brand appeal of a game company is much higher than that of movies, TV series and other industries. Few people will watch this TV series or movie because of which company produced it. Even Disney and Warner, few people would be like this.

But in the game circle, it's different.

For example, the so-called "Blizzard produced must be a boutique", for example, after Naughty Dog Studio made the "Uncharted" series and "The Last of Us" series, it enjoyed a great reputation in the game circle. Their new work, No matter what you do, as long as you are doing something towards the 3A level, you will undoubtedly get a very natural attention.

Rockstar also has a meaning.

Relying on the huge reputation brought by "Taiwu Painting Scroll 2" that swept the world last year, although Dimension Entertainment is definitely not as good as those game giants in the game industry, when they release new works, they will definitely It has aroused a wide range of attention from game lovers.

As long as Dimension Entertainment announces the project, many people will take the initiative to pay attention to the "Steam Daming" project. Moreover, people who pay attention, no matter what the subject matter is, as long as they are not particularly disgusted, they will definitely try the game What is it like.

Obviously, this is absolutely good news for "Steam Ming Dynasty". When they are unable to attract the attention of a large number of potential users with promotional methods such as themes, there are other ways to make up for this, and that is an absolute good thing. And when potential players get in touch with the game, it is finally time to compare the quality of the game.

Of course, if the quality of "Steam Daming" is rubbish, then don't mention it.

Therefore, Gao Yixiang's work is very important.

With Dimensional Entertainment as the background, the Second World studio never had to worry about the visual problems of the work when it was working on "Steam Daming". The screen effect must be awesome.

Then, the most important thing that determines the quality of a work is the gameplay.

As for "Steam Great Ming", a very important part of the so-called "gameplay" is the main story.

In terms of game quality, Gao Yixiang is determined to use various methods to strengthen the narrative, even at the expense of giving up the mature open world model for Dimension Entertainment, in order to make the narrative more complete.

In this way, if there is no good main story, then all these efforts are all nonsense?

Gao Yixiang will never let this kind of thing happen.

'Second World' has set up its own story department, which is responsible for the improvement and design of the entire world view, and is also writing many main and branch stories.

As the general planner of the entire project and also the person in charge of the project, he has very strict requirements for these stories.

For those relatively short side stories, he was able to lower the requirements a little bit, but even so, among the side stories given by their worldview writing department, 75% of the stories were all rejected by him. It is not necessary to ask for deletion; the remaining 20% ​​of the stories that are really good enough to be passed must also be sent back for further revision and polishing.

He even treats these side stories with such a strict attitude, which shows how strict he will be on the main story.

In fact, among the more than 20 game planners and world view designers in the world view design team of 'Second World', most of their energy is actually devoted to writing the main story. They have been doing this since the project was established.

However, until now, they have not come up with anything that can satisfy Gao Yixiang and Fan Zhe.

During this period of time, they produced more than 50 story outlines and 16 written plot outlines, nine of which were killed, and the remaining seven were in the process of being frantically revised.

However, although it is still being revised, Gao Yixiang still feels dissatisfied with these seven main storylines.

If you encounter difficulties, of course you have to go to the boss.

Fan Zhe thought for a while after listening to what he said, and then proposed a plan: "We can choose to solicit essays. We offer high rewards to solicit excellent stories from outside, and we can even go to Lewen Group and the others for this matter. Go to cooperate, find some great writers from Qidian to write, and if you have enough money, there will be no problem.”

"But..." Gao Yixiang scratched his head and said, "Those are all Internet authors, and the stories they are good at writing don't seem to be consistent with what we want, right?"

"Having said that, you can try it." Fan Zhe said, "In your 'worldview design team', although there are some senior planners and some screenwriters who have been dealing with writing all the year round, but in comparison, those so-called Great God, all the writers who have fought their way out of the sea of ​​people are all writers. To be able to reach their level in an industry must have some skills of their own."

Fan Zhe paused, and continued: "We can give our requirements; we can greatly increase the amount of rewards, for example, it can reach tens of millions, as long as we can really provide us with a good story, that's fine."

"In addition, a competition system can even be introduced so that those authors who have made great achievements in online novels on historical themes can participate in the creation deeply."

"This must be a good thing..." Gao Yixiang said, "But the bonus of tens of millions is certainly attractive enough, but is it worth it?"

"What's the matter?" Fan Zhe said, "I think it is worth buying a good story with 10 million yuan. What's more, in this way, we also have a very good publicity gimmick. The value of this publicity may be It can be worth a lot.”

"Then...the so-called tens of millions of funds...we have a limited budget for this project, can it be counted as the additional investment of the head office?" Gao Yixiang rubbed his hands unconsciously when he said this.

"You really have such a small plan..." Fan Zhe shook his head, and said with a smile: "It's okay, this investment, even if it is used in the budget for copyright purchases, anyway, their copyright department holds a lot of money every year. A lot of budget is invested in the acquisition of copyrights, there is nowhere to spend the money, I only hate the good works on the market, and the works that can be bought are not enough."

"Hey, the boss is mighty!" After flattering, Gao Yixiang happily returned to his side.

Seeing his excited look, Sun Yilang asked with a smile, "The trouble is solved?"

"That's right." Gao Yixiang shared his story with Fan Zhe, and also talked about it with Sun Yilang.

"That's fine!" Sun Yilang said, "Our game really needs a good story."

"Yeah." Gao Yixiang nodded, and continued: "However, the work of our world view design team here still cannot be stopped. In addition to continuing to complete the structure and design of the entire world view, the main storyline must continue Write, if they can come up with a good enough main story, then there is no need to spend that much money."