It is not a long social account post, but rather a simple announcement.
"After the holiday, the PixelPioneers Game Convention will be held at the Sports Exhibition Hall. At the same time, the latest news about PixelPioneers Games will be brought to everyone. The first official competitions for 'Yu-Gi-Oh!' and 'Warcraft' will also be held at the Carnival. Please pay attention to the official website of PixelPioneers Games."
As soon as the news spread, the players were startled. PixelPioneers Games was going to host a convention? The players who heard the news froze for a moment.
It was not unusual for game companies to host conventions. The top three game companies, such as Gemtechs, Moondustries, and Essence, would not be mentioned. Even second-tier game companies such as Ansoft held their own game conventions every year.
But at first glance, hearing that PixelPioneers Games was also going to host a game convention still gave people an unbelievable feeling. After all, PixelPioneers Games had only been established for a relatively short period of time compared with those major game companies.
However, after all the players carefully thought about the lineup of games developed by PixelPioneers, they suddenly felt that this was actually a matter of course. "Resident Evil," "Metal Gear," "The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim," plus the recently released "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and "Warcraft," as well as the "Assassin's Creed" that everyone had only heard about but had never actually seen, none of PixelPioneers Games' titles were simple.
In addition to the smaller games released by PixelPioneers in the past, such as "Binding of Isaac," "Octopath Traveler," and "Outlast," it could be said that PixelPioneers Games had more than enough foundation and influence to host a carnival of its own.
But what interested players even more was what kind of news PixelPioneers Games would bring to everyone, so countless people began discussing it online.
"Are there any brothers teaming up!?"
"The first PixelPioneers Games Convention! You have to take a day off for this!"
"I'm a little afraid of how crazy this is going to get. This is the first PixelPioneers Games convention, so the ticket price shouldn't be inflated into the heavens, right?"
"If the tickets are too expensive, I feel like I can only watch the livestream from home."
"So what everyone is most concerned about should be whether PixelPioneers Games will make any major announcements, right? Could it be the new game 'Assassin's Creed'?"
"Don't even mention it. PixelPioneers Games only knows how to draw blueprints. The news about 'Assassin's Creed' clearly came out first, but the finished game 'Warcraft' ended up being released first."
"Although the quality of 'Warcraft' is beyond question, I really can't play RTS games. I understand all kinds of details, but when it comes to actually controlling the game, my hands just can't keep up."
Players were discussing the news that PixelPioneers Games was about to host a convention on major forums and communities, while Moondustries and Ansoft were also beginning to promote their new games.
PixelPioneers Games had announced its convention. Even if it planned to announce a new game, it would still take some time to warm up the promotion and build anticipation before the release date.
Obviously, neither company was going to directly clash with PixelPioneers Games in October. By then, "Warcraft" would also have been online for quite some time, and its popularity would gradually settle down. In October, the real battlefield would be between Moondustries and Ansoft.
The players, meanwhile, were paying even more attention to the PixelPioneers Game Convention and the announcements that would be made there. The game industry was more concerned about the upcoming 3A matchup between Moondustries and Ansoft.
John was working with the team on the map editor for "Warcraft." Compared with PixelPioneers' previous games, the reason "Warcraft" had seen its popularity drop so quickly was mainly because the RTS genre was simply too difficult for most players to get into.
Some players often recommended their favorite games to others, saying that as long as they played for an hour or two and learned the basics, they would eventually understand the game and experience its fun.
But this overlooked one important thing. Other people might not be able to get into the game at all or perhaps they simply were not interested. RTS games were one such genre. Even if a follow-up esports event was launched, the development of the genre would still be limited.
First of all, RTS games were not as visually exciting to watch as FPS games. Secondly, the difficulty of getting started was also greater than that of FPS games.
A viewer watching an FPS match could easily understand what was happening on the screen. A player could fire one or two shots, and with a little luck, they might even get one or two kills. But with an RTS game, if your tactical skills and operational ability were not good enough, no matter how lucky you were, there was very little you could do.
Therefore, if "Warcraft" was going to become popular on a large scale, John had decided to place his main focus on the map editor. For several official maps, John had already completed the corresponding game modes and numerical values, including the material library that came with the map editor.
"How much of the map development has been completed?" John asked Koch, who was part of the project team.
"The maps have all been completed. The model assets have also been completed. The remaining work is mainly map bug testing," Koch said to John.
None of these contents had been produced directly by him. They had been outsourced. After all, these RPG maps were not technically difficult for their team. Everything was based on the mechanisms already provided by "Warcraft" itself. Whether it was adding map codes, importing models, or creating events, all of it could be accomplished through the map editor.
Regarding the maps in "Warcraft," John had not prepared to make too many of them. The main purpose of releasing these maps alongside the map editor was to let players understand what kinds of maps the editor could actually create.
Among them, 2 were regarded as competitive games. They provided two different choices for different types of players, while their basic gameplay was similar.
Three lanes.
Five players versus five players.
Each player chose a hero, earned money, purchased soldiers and equipment, upgraded their character, and ultimately destroyed the opponent's base to achieve victory.
Another was similar to a traditional RPG. Players took on the role of a hero, triggered the storyline, fought monsters, upgraded their character, obtained equipment, cleared various instances, and finally defeated the last BOSS.
The same was true for the fourth, except that its gameplay changed from actively pushing forward and attacking to defending a stronghold.
As for "Yu-Gi-Oh!," it naturally took advantage of the popularity of its own IP. However, this was not really about simply borrowing the IP for attention. Its main gameplay was not card battles at all. Instead, it was a tower-defense game.
Players could obtain monsters, Magic Cards, and Trap Cards from "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and use them to stop waves of monsters from attacking.
Although the content and gameplay elements were relatively simple, they could be combined into a variety of different playstyles.
The design and development of the maps themselves had no major problems, the real key was the management of the map MOD community. That was a relatively important factor.
As for whether map creators should receive rewards and what kind of rewards they should receive, John had discussed the matter extensively with Armani. The current idea was to follow the approach used in "Resident Evil Resistance."
For some excellent maps, the creators could receive corresponding jewelry or item appearances. The PixelPioneers Games department would also provide some assistance to MOD creators. Of course, these rewards could not be allowed to affect the actual value of the game.
Of course, PixelPioneers Games also needed a dedicated community review system for "Warcraft." For example, there were some tricks players could use in certain games, such as entering a code to obtain hidden characters or entering an equipment code to unlock special content. These kinds of operations would not be permitted here as the goal was to give players a relatively pure gaming environment.
As long as the creators produced a genuinely good map, they could attract players. And PixelPioneers Games would naturally find ways to help those creators generate revenue; even if the players did not spend money on their maps, PixelPioneers Games could still provide financial support to the creators.
But if someone wanted to play tricks outside of this framework, such as adding groups to sell hidden characters, sending players codes, or forcing players to bind a map to their account, then PixelPioneers Games would have only one answer: Sorry, you do not make maps here.