sjar Chapter 225 Player's First Experience
Chapter 225 Player's First Experience
Nine o'clock in the morning, Los Angeles, Marcus's team training room.
Five team members were gathered around three computers. All three computers had black Star Shield USB drives plugged in, indicator lights were glowing blue, and the screens displayed the Starry Sky gaming platform interface.
"What the hell is platform level?" the skinny guy asked, pointing to "Lv.3" next to his ID.
"It's probably based on playtime and performance, like experience points. Higher levels might unlock some cosmetic items, like avatar borders or something." Li pushed up his glasses, studying the ranked leaderboard. "Seven of the top twenty are Korean IDs. Looks like their professional players started climbing the ranks right away."
Marcus sat in front of his computer, having just finished a 2v2 placement match and won. The results page showed his MMR had increased from 1500 to 1543.
"This scoring system is interesting," he said. "You get points for winning, but how many seem to depend on your opponent's skill level. In the last game, our opponent had a lower score, so we only got 15 points. In the game we won before, our opponent had a higher score, so we got 28 points."
"Look here," Li pointed to a newly released announcement in the platform's community section, "The official explanation is out. The ranked points system will adopt a modified version of the Elo rating system, taking into account individual performance scores (APM, operational efficiency, resource utilization, etc.). Winning streaks will provide additional bonuses. Each season will reset, and initial points will be awarded based on the previous season's performance."
"Season? How long?"
"The announcement says the first season will last three months. Rewards will be given out at the end of the season based on rankings, which may include exclusive avatars, in-game skins, and the like."
"Sounds good," said the player in the baseball cap. "It's much better than the old Battle.net ranking system that only looked at win rates. At least we know our exact points and how far we are from the next tier."
"The matchmaking is fast too," the skinny guy said. "I chose 1v1 and got matched in ten seconds."
"Because there aren't many people yet," Li said. "Once the user base grows, the matching accuracy should be even higher. This system will dynamically find opponents based on your real-time score, ensuring that both sides are of similar skill levels. Theoretically, your win rate will approach 50%."
"Does that mean I'll never be able to rank up?"
"As long as your skill level improves, your points will gradually increase, and the system will match you with stronger opponents."
Marcus stood up: "Stop researching, let's play practice matches. We can create custom rooms on the platform and invite friends. Let's try a 5v5 mirror match."
The team members returned to their seats, and Marcus created a room on the platform, set a password, and posted the room number in the team chat group. The other team members entered the room number and joined.
"Ready... Go!"
At 10:00 AM sharp, the number of users online simultaneously on the platform exceeded 10,000.
10:30 a.m., Seattle, Microsoft headquarters.
On Jim Olson's computer screen, three windows were open side by side: the official website of the PlanetStarCraft gaming platform (he had registered a test account), a list of real-time hot posts on the PlanetStarCraft forum, and an internal data briefing.
The briefing was sent by the market intelligence department half an hour ago, based on publicly available data and estimates from analyst telephone interviews:
Estimated data for the Starry Sky Games platform 6 hours after its launch:
- Registered users: 50,000
- StarShield USB flash drive sales: 25,000 units
- Platform client downloads: 80,000 times
- Total ranked matches: 12,000
The briefing concluded with a bolded comment: "User acceptance exceeded expectations. The ranked ladder system and social sharing features (integrated with Star Language) constitute a differentiated advantage. The hardware anti-cheat concept has initially gained acceptance from core players."
Jim closed the briefing and refreshed the forum.
The top trending post has become "[Rank Climbing] My Journey from 500 to 2000 MMR on the Star Platform, with Real-Time Match Updates!". The poster is a somewhat well-known player who is live-streaming his placement matches, updating screenshots and MMR changes after each game. The post has over 500 replies, with many urging for more updates.
Second most popular post: [Technical Analysis] A brief analysis of the Star Platform's matchmaking algorithm: Why do you always get matched with equally matched opponents?
Third hot post: [Real Test] The clean server really didn't crash! I played ten games and the experience was incredibly smooth!
Jim clicked on the third post. The poster had meticulously recorded the opponent IDs, races, and scores of his ten matches, and attached screenshots of the results for each match. Most of the replies below expressed envy or skepticism:
"You must be lucky, right? Only ten games."
"I played five games and encountered someone who seemed to be using map hacks, but I'm not sure."
"At least it's better than the old Battle.net, which is unplayable now."
"Is the StarShield USB drive really that amazing? Waiting for it to be cracked."
Jim closed the forum and opened the Starry Sky Games platform client. He logged in with a test account. The interface was no different from when he looked at it in the morning, but the scores of the top 100 players on the leaderboard had generally risen to over 1800 points. He noticed that there was a small speaker icon in the upper right corner of the platform, displaying "Starry Sky News (3)". He clicked on it.
A sidebar pops up, displaying three updates from "People You May Know":
"Player 'Light' has just defeated 'Dark' in a 1v1 ranked match, earning +24 points!"
Player 'MicroMaster' has achieved the 'Ten-Game Winning Streak' achievement!
Player 'StarQueen' shared his ranked ladder ranking: 87th!
Each post has "Like" and "Comment" buttons.
Jim stared at the "Starry Sky News" sidebar for about ten seconds. Then he closed the platform and picked up the internal phone.
"Sarah, come to my office for a moment."
Five minutes later, Sarah, the product manager for the game department, knocked on the door and came in.
"Did you see it?" Jim pointed to the screen.
"I saw it." Sarah sat down. "It was more successful than we expected. Especially the ranked ladder system and social sharing, which captured players' competitive spirit and desire to show off."
"Our platform solution needs to be implemented ahead of schedule," Jim said. "We can't wait for the grand framework of the 'Future Digital Entertainment Strategy' any longer. Let's release a game-specific solution first, with comparable features: ranked play, matchmaking, community, anti-cheat... Let's use a software solution to fill the gaps first."
"Budget and team?"
"I will request a special budget from Steve. You start assembling the core team today, drawing people from the Windows and DirectX groups. I want to see a prototype within a month."
Sarah jotted down in her notebook: "Scope of function?"
"Fundamentals: Game library management, automatic updates, friend system. Core: Ranked matchmaking system; the algorithm can be borrowed but must be different. Highlights: Deep integration with Windows system features, such as GameBar integration, performance monitoring, and one-click optimization. In addition, we are contacting game companies other than Blizzard, such as EA, Ubisoft, and id Software, to strive for exclusive or first-release partnerships."
"What about Blizzard..."
"They're now bound to the stars, so they won't be paying attention to us anytime soon. Look for other companies."
"clear."
After Sarah left, Jim reopened the briefing and stared at the last sentence: "The hardware anti-cheat concept has been initially recognized by core players."
He thought for a moment, then wrote a few words on a sticky note: "Hardware solution feasibility study (low-cost simplified version)?" and stuck it on the monitor bezel.