Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 481: 464: Conquering Europe!

Three Treasures Mountain was where Zheng He set up camp and rested during his voyages.

Historically, the development of Malacca and Manjiaci Country was driven by the Ming dynasty’s military presence and trade activities.

Historical records show that the Malacca Strait was bustling with thousands of ships and thriving businesses during that time!

The Ming dynasty’s maritime prohibition policy eventually weakened its control over the area, leading to almost complete loss of power.

However, when the war dragged into the middle stage and Daxia finally put out the domestic fires, the already independent Manjiaci Country and its people still chose to rejoin their mother country without hesitation – as a subordinate state.

After the Age of Great Voyages began, the powers from all sides continuously fought for control over the Malacca Strait.

The Dutch, Portuguese, and British took the stage one after another, and the war never completely ceased.

Everyone knew that controlling the Malacca Strait meant controlling the entire Southeast Asia.

Since the shipping route opened in the 4th century AD, the Malacca Strait had been a must-pass for east-west maritime trade for over a thousand years, making it an undeniable choke point.

The battle here lasted until the very last moment before the complete ceasefire!

Flying Fox’s “The Last Moment” is set against this backdrop.

Moreover, it features a rare dual protagonist mode –

One protagonist longs for the end of the war to return home and reunite with their family.

The other, a solider from Manjiaci Country and descendant of the refugees, seeks revenge after their entire squad was nearly wiped out due to betrayal.

Driven by fiery vengeance, the latter protagonist accepts nothing but the enemies’ blood in return for their consequences.

Just as the first protagonist receives a letter from home and the other finds a clue to their enemy, the peace agreement is nearing its conclusion…

The trailer’s story ends there.

Want to know the rest of the story?

Wait until the game is released on Friday and buy it to play!

A classic move to whet someone’s appetite.

However, the high-quality trailer – its characters, environment, atmosphere, and combat – successfully arouses players’ curiosity.

Top-notch quality and powerful nostalgia make Flying Fox’s popularity surpass NetDragon’s DLC promotion in one fell swoop.

Temporarily, it’s unparalleled.

Lincoln, of course, gets curious and plans to buy it when it comes out to play.

After joining the online discussion, Lincoln checked the time and didn’t help make “Battlefield” anymore. Instead, he went to [Virtual Chang’an] to find Xu Chun.

Lately, Lincoln’s training sessions have expanded beyond just cold weapon duels with Xu Chun; other experts have joined, giving him experience in a variety of weapon matchups.

Lincoln continued to lose badly, feeling as though he made no progress at all.

However, Xu Chun and the other experts all unanimously praised him for his rapid improvement.

Lincoln couldn’t determine if they genuinely thought he was improving quickly or if they were simply scheming together to deceive their unfortunate boss.

All he could do was follow Xu Chun’s arrangements and do whatever he was told.

He just hoped to complete this training plan quickly.

Meanwhile, everything is progressing smoothly.

The competitions[Card King]and[Mahjong God]are in full swing.

With these two major competitions, the average age of Cloud Dream users has increased by two years.

This is only the beginning of the preliminary selection; as the competition continues to expand into regular events, the increase in player average age is almost a certainty.

Additionally, a group of new “Card Game Anchors” has emerged.

Among them are young people like Cody, as well as overseas crossover professional players in their forties and fifties, who talk with a regional dialect – a true variety of talents.

During the [Trial Run], the Cloud Dream Live Streaming Platform doubled its anchor quota to 1,000 people in one fell swoop.

They also signed seven or eight rising “Card Game Anchors.”

By now, Leander’s live streaming team has started to take shape and is fully capable of handling the operation of the live streaming platform.

Lincoln also provided him with a group of robot super administrators to further alleviate their pressure.

Leander plans to end the [Trial Run] on Friday, fully open for registration, and officially push the Cloud Dream Live Streaming Platform into the market.

Otherwise, with the increasing popularity, not being able to generate revenue would be unbearable.

Lincoln has always entrusted professional tasks to professional people, so he naturally had no objection, agreeing with Leander’s plan.

Cloud Dream’s housekeeper, Quentina, successfully negotiated a new office building.

By raising the price by as much as 30% of the market rate, she managed to secure the office building.

The hiring process hadn’t even finished, and they had already begun a new round of large-scale recruitment.

Emphasis was on hiring people with expertise in “mapping,” “aerial surveying,” “urban planning,” and so on, trying to quickly build up a [Virtual City Building] team.

The creation of [Virtual Xiajing] could not be done without a large number of drone aerial surveys and 3D modeling.

In this regard, Cloud Dream already had a considerable amount of mature technology reserves. In the [Ancient Architecture Recording and Protection Foundation], there was extensive use of such technology in practical applications.

However, many ancient buildings were not in perfect condition – tilted, partially collapsed, faded, decayed, rebuilt, and poorly repaired… A variety of situations had arisen due to insufficient funding in different regions.

So simply relying on aerial surveys and modeling wasn’t enough. Experts had to be involved in the process, correcting and restoring the virtual ancient buildings modeled and reconstructed.

This not only required a sufficient amount of professional knowledge but also the investment of considerable effort and time.

But using this technology in Xiajing wouldn’t have so many issues.

Xiajing was an international metropolis, so where would there be any damaged or dilapidated buildings?

With one sweep of a drone, the virtual world could be directly reconstructed, and then they could build whatever they wanted like building blocks; there was no need for detailed repair and adjustment, and the construction efficiency was much higher than ancient buildings.

As for the inevitable issues with businesses and brand exposure?

That was easy!

After the city was built, they could simply draw a small team from the marketing department and go directly to ask for money.

Those willing to advertise would pay, and those unwilling would be replaced with someone who would – this was a minor issue.

After all, it wasn’t a completely one-to-one city, and many non-distinctive buildings would be removed anyway.

Lead by Jerome, the negotiation team completed preliminary negotiations with Australian and Russian partner companies on Thursday night.

With its irreplaceable core advantages, Cloud Dream was undoubtedly in a strong position during the negotiations.

Even though the partners this time were already outside of Daxia’s sphere of influence – Australia belonged to the European cultural circle, and Russia was technically part of the European cultural circle as well.

However, due to cultural and regional factors, both countries had less close ties with the core European nations and often found themselves in a wavering position.

These external factors did not affect the collaboration negotiations.

If there is a difference, the Russian partner company was more straightforward-

You don’t want to build a factory here?

Then don’t come!

You need a server center?

Easy, it’s all prepared for you.

The Australian partner company, on the other hand, had some extra ambition-

Come build a factory! We have complete industrial facilities, a mature market, top-class investment and business conditions – just come over, and I’ll take care of everything else for you.

I can even communicate with higher-ups for tax cuts and subsidies!

But no matter what they said, Cloud Dream’s response was just two words: “No.”

They tried to change the subject to servers, “Servers are so much trouble, use cloud servers! I can help you connect and make introductions, save time and money – just sign the agreement and start selling consoles and making money right away, not a single day wasted!”

Unfortunately, Jerome’s answer was still the same: “No.”

Cloud Dream didn’t lack money, so of course, they wanted to keep their servers and data in their own hands.

After going back and forth for two days, the other party begrudgingly accepted Cloud Dream’s terms.

The technical staff had already set out for Moscow and Sydney to inspect the server centers prepared by the partners in advance. If there were no issues, they would directly purchase them.

– Yes, in Australia, the server was chosen to be in Sydney, not the capital Canberra.

The key consideration was population. Compared to Canberra’s 400,000 population, Sydney’s whopping 5 million people had a clear advantage.

After all, the “political center” had no meaning to Cloud Dream – the “population center” was where the key value lies.

At the same time, these two countries had another more important value – they would serve as crucial stepping stones for Cloud Dream’s formal entry into the European sphere of influence.

Especially Russia, once the server was built and opened, the Mirage consoles in European countries would be able to connect, and even though there would still be a delay, it would undoubtedly be a significant improvement compared to before!

In particular, the completely unblocked and unobstructed network environment allowed for smoother gameplay, especially in games with a slower pace that didn’t require intensely fierce competition.

For European users, this was still a massive experience optimization.

In Mavis’ statistics, the number of Mirage consoles activated in European countries had already exceeded 800,000!

These were the accumulated users under circumstances where even logging in was difficult.

So once the server environment improved, there was no doubt that this number would grow rapidly!

European players, after enduring a few months of hardship, were finally going to usher in the springtime!

By the way, Mavis finally got a perfect springboard to enter the Internet of European countries without any hindrance, expanding her territory for enjoying the drama.

Of course, enjoying the drama and such was secondary – the key was to provide better game experiences for players, and they would certainly understand and even welcome it.

After all, who wouldn’t love Mavis!