Chapter 63: Finishing the Configuration
If there\'s one thing Alex knew about Fortnite, it\'s that the game managed to both draw a lot of love from fans, and was also great at attracting hate from players.
This was mainly due to the construction mechanics during battle.
As much as this was the game\'s differential, Alex knew that for novice players it was very counterintuitive to build instead of just shooting like in regular games, and over time, players who didn\'t adapt to building mechanics increasingly more complex ones began to frustrate more than have fun.
So Alex decided to take a more advanced approach to the game, leveraging some ideas he picked up from other games.
First, he would do Arena mode, which was the mode with building enabled, and he would also do a No-Building mode, which players obviously couldn\'t build, just shoot and make sure they had good aim.
This was something Fortnite did in its previous world that brought a lot of players frustrated with building back into the game.
Another thing that Alex would do is a Ranked system just like League of Legends, where there would be Rankings that went by Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, GrandMaster and Challenger.
This system would be a way to induce players\' brains to produce more dopamine when they see their rankings going up.
Behind the Ranked system, Alex would make an MMR system where players would have points that would speed up their rankings, and would pair players with other people who had the same level of gameplay.
To set this level of gameplay and the person\'s MMR, Alex had to spend 100,000 GP by purchasing software with an AI. too advanced not to cause players frustration.
Just like his previous world\'s Fortnite, Alex decided to add Bots into the game, but unlike his previous world, which the Bots were horrible, Alex intended these bots to be just a little worse than the MMR of that round, so even the worst player of the game could have fun and feel good about killing someone thinking it was someone else.
With his hand on his chin, Alex was thoughtful. "What attracted many players to the Hunger Games in Minecraft was the prizes, what can I give away in Fortnite?"
Alex was trying to think of several things, but he wanted something that matched the game.
He knew he couldn\'t give players weapons, as that would be too dangerous.
But after a while, Alex had an idea.
"I know that this game will be very popular among the military, probably the Challenger Rank will only be mastered by elite soldiers, while the other players won\'t have a chance to get something good, so I can make two reward levels!" Alex got excited as he started to code.
First he was developing a roll of bandages. These bandages, just like in the game, could heal any wound the person wore, but each bandage only healed the wound from one location, that is, if someone had an accident and someone else used this on their chest, the chest wounds would be healed, but the arms and legs would still be injured.
This reward was very useful for everyone, but very simple, so Alex decided to put that every player above Rank Gold would receive a bandage like this as a reward at the end of a season.
In addition to the bandage, Alex also made a commemorative cape that represented the rank of the person that she could use in the following season to flaunt, which just like in Minecraft, could also be sold for $220 if someone wanted to use this in the real world.
As for the reward for Rank Challenger players, Alex decided to make an improved version of the bandage, which was released much further down the line, but which Alex felt would fit as a good reward.
It was a green spray can with a "+" icon on the front, which the player could use during the game to restore wounds on the body, one can was enough to recover 150% of the player\'s maximum health, but Alex changed this to that in the real world this was enough to speed up the target\'s recovery from wounds, being enough to turn a dying person back into battle ready again.
Alex knew he couldn\'t block military personnel from playing Fortnite, so he decided to make something that would be useful to them, but also not be used as a weapon to kill.
With the rewards set up, Alex shifted his focus to setting up the build mode, what items could be collected, vehicles, vehicle mechanics, and other things he felt were important.
Fortunately, Alex didn\'t have to configure each Skin individually, as the System could use his memories to make skins much faster, since most skins didn\'t change game mechanics.
Only Reactive Skins had to be configured more carefully by him, but Alex didn\'t care.
In addition to the skins he planned to make, Alex also made the most attractive point of the trailer, the Iron Man Skin.
Obviously Alex wouldn\'t give this skin as a reward for people to redeem for the real world, he just made the Skin for an NPC he set to travel around the map.
Different from what the players thought, Iron Man would not be a villain in the game, but a "hero", that is, if someone killed another person, Iron Man would go towards her, and if he saw that person he would shoot.
The NPC wasn\'t invincible, but it would take a lot of effort to defeat.
If the players managed to destroy him, the armor would be destroyed and people would discover that it was empty and Tony was not wearing the armor.
However, they could receive the armor\'s boots, which allowed them to fly freely for 60 seconds.
"Tony will be furious that people will hunt him down just so they can fly like him." Alex thought excitedly.
He knew that the boots couldn\'t fly by themselves, and that there were many flaws with his idea in logical terms, but he didn\'t care, as this was just a game, the important thing was to attract players.
"It\'s not like he\'s going to find me anytime soon, right?" Alex chuckled to himself.