September 5th, Wednesday.
Yu Fei sat at his workstation, having just planned the modifications needed to support Meng Chang’s promotional strategy and handed them over to the designers.
Strictly speaking, Meng Chang’s requirements weren’t particularly difficult, just a bit troublesome and time-consuming, and somewhat puzzling.
Yu Fei didn’t ask too many questions, simply dividing the entire DLC into four parts and handing it over to the designers under him.
After arranging the work, Yu Fei received a message from Hu Xianbin.
“Should be arriving in Jingzhou around 3 PM today. I’ll come directly to the company first to hand over the work. Thanks for your help during this time!”
Seeing this message, Yu Fei’s spirits lifted.
Great! Hu Xianbin had finally returned from his travels!
Unfortunately, if he had returned two or three days earlier, Meng Chang’s tasks could have been handed directly to Hu Xianbin, without Yu Fei having to worry about them.
The timing wasn’t ideal.
But as the saying goes, a monk for a day strikes the bell for a day. This amount of work wasn’t a major issue.
Completing one final task before handing over work would be a perfect ending to his “cross-industry experience”!
Yu Fei leaned back in his chair and stretched lazily. With no immediate work to handle, he felt completely relaxed, just waiting for the handover.
Counting on his fingers, Hu Xianbin’s group had been traveling for a bit less than a month, only about 27 or 28 days.
There wasn’t a particularly strict requirement for the exact number of days spent traveling; it wasn’t necessary to stay away for exactly thirty days, just approximately four weeks.
Clearly, Hu Xianbin and Huang Sibo felt that the heat had died down, and it was about time to return to work, their hearts set on coming back.
Yu Fei was also hoping that Hu Xianbin would return soon so that after handing over the work, he could go back to being a web novelist.
He had been conceptualizing his new book for a long time. The world-building, basic settings, and outline had been refined many times, and now he was extremely eager to start creating and introduce his new work to readers.
After his subordinate designers all reported no issues, Yu Fei made the final decision and released the update announcement.
The first part of “Eternal Cycle” would be updated this Saturday.
At the same time, the announcement would also clearly explain the entire update process, notifying players in advance.
Having done all this, Yu Fei cleared all traces of his usage from the computer. It would be the same when he left as it was when he arrived.
“Finally, the month-long substitution is over!” Yu Fei let out a long breath.
Min Jingchao came over and said, “Evening plans are set. We’ll eat at Mingfu Family Feast, as a thank you from Hu Xianbin. He’ll treat us.”
Yu Fei was surprised: “Can’t we expense it?”
Min Jingchao chuckled: “Expensing lacks sincerity! We should make him pay for it!”
…
3 PM.
Huang Sibo and Hu Xianbin exited the airport and found Little Sun, who was responsible for picking them up.
“Please get in, you two.” Little Sun was very attentive, helping with their luggage.
Huang Sibo and Hu Xianbin sat comfortably in the car, browsing their phones while reflecting.
“It’s surprising that Little Sun came to pick us up today. Are all the other drivers busy? It gives the illusion that our treatment has improved.”
Everyone knew that Little Sun was Mr. Pei’s exclusive driver, who usually prioritized driving Mr. Pei. Airport pickup tasks for others were typically assigned to other drivers.
This time Little Sun had come to pick them up, which surprised both Hu Xianbin and Huang Sibo.
But they didn’t think too much about it; perhaps Mr. Pei didn’t need the car today.
The two leaned comfortably in their seats, each taking out their phones and starting to browse the internet.
Although they had been traveling for a month, they weren’t really tired now.
Because they had been traveling domestically, eating and staying well, visiting attractions that weren’t too physically demanding, and spending the last two days resting at the hotel before returning, their physical energy had fully recovered.
After a month’s vacation, they were now eager to get back to work.
Huang Sibo was still thinking about the filming of “The Successor.” He knew the crew had already gone to the US, and he planned to rest for two days after arriving in Jingzhou, prepare well, then book a flight to fly over.
As for Hu Xianbin, he was still concerned about the development situation of “Eternal Cycle.”
While browsing, Hu Xianbin suddenly exclaimed, “Huh?”
“‘Eternal Cycle’ released an update announcement? Isn’t this way too early?”
He remembered clearly that the development cycle for “Eternal Cycle” was scheduled to complete by the end of this month, and that was only if things went smoothly.
How could they be issuing an update announcement at the beginning of the month?
Could they really have accelerated the progress that much?
Hu Xianbin quickly clicked in to check the details of the announcement.
The announcement clearly stated several points.
First, the “Eternal Cycle” DLC update would use a phased update approach, with four separate updates for one-third of the game’s scenes and monster resources, plus the game’s combat system and plot modification portions.
The four update times were set for the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th at 2 PM, all Fridays.
Second, this DLC would use a pre-order system, requiring players who paid in full in advance to download the corresponding update content at the specified times.
The DLC price wasn’t expensive, just 28 yuan.
Players could also choose not to pre-order and instead purchase the complete DLC content after the final update on the 28th.
Finally, it was especially noted that after the “Eternal Cycle” DLC was fully updated on the 28th, players could freely purchase “Eternal Cycle” but could no longer freely purchase “Turn Back To Shore.”
To buy “Turn Back To Shore,” players would first need to purchase “Eternal Cycle.”
Hu Xianbin frowned slightly.
As the designer of “Eternal Cycle,” he naturally knew everything about the game and understood that certain elements in the announcement were specifically requested by Mr. Pei.
For instance, after “Eternal Cycle” was fully updated, “Turn Back To Shore” couldn’t be purchased freely—this was specifically instructed by Mr. Pei.
But there were still some elements that confused and bewildered him, such as this pre-order and phased update approach, which he couldn’t make sense of.
If even Hu Xianbin felt confused, the players online were even more so.
He casually browsed through online comments and found that players were equally perplexed and confused.
Of course, there was also a bit of excitement, mainly due to the release date being much earlier than expected.
“Damn! Am I seeing this right? We can play ‘Eternal Cycle’ this Friday??”
“This is way too fast. According to official disclosures, didn’t they just start formal development last month? I thought it would take at least four or five months to develop, what does this three-month reverse delay mean?”
“Happiness came too suddenly! Other games always get delayed by two or three months, but Tenda does the opposite, reversing the delay by two or three months! We can play it earlier!”
“Read carefully, it’s a pre-sale with batch updates; only a quarter of the game content will be updated this Friday.”
“A quarter is fine too! You don’t know how bored I’ve been waiting without ‘Eternal Cycle’ to play!”
“Updating a portion of content each week is great! This way I can play a bit each week, complete the game in a month—perfect timing! No need to rush through the game progress like before.”
“Update quickly, update quickly! I can’t wait to suffer!”
These players were clearly very excited.
They had been waiting for “Eternal Cycle” for a long time. News about this DLC had broken as early as June, and everyone knew that Yu Fei, the original author, would personally participate in the game’s development. Loyal players of “Turn Back To Shore” were all very much looking forward to it.
A game they thought they wouldn’t be able to play for at least half a year could now be played in just two or three days—what an exciting thing!
But amid the excitement, many players also expressed concerns.
“Although it’s nice to be able to play the DLC earlier, isn’t the timeframe too rushed? At most, this DLC’s development time is only two months. Can the quality of the game meet standards?”
“Don’t you trust Tenda?”
“It’s not about trust or distrust; the key is that Tenda can’t violate natural laws. The larger the game’s volume, the longer the development time needed. This time can’t be arbitrarily compressed!”
“I also don’t think this is necessarily good news. Does this mean our expectations for ‘Eternal Cycle’ were too high? This might just be a small DLC update, not the super-large update we had expected, comparable to the original game’s process and duration.”
“You can tell from the price too. The original ‘Turn Back To Shore’ costs 128 yuan, while the DLC is only 28 yuan, indicating that this DLC’s volume is probably only a quarter of the original, or even less!”
“At most, they’ve just made a new large scene…”
“But wait, what about the martial god mentioned in the original work? What about entering the Avici Hell to become the first Prison Keeper? If all these plot points are to be expressed, the volume shouldn’t be smaller than ‘Turn Back To Shore’.”
“I understand pre-ordering, but why can’t we buy ‘Turn Back To Shore’ separately after ‘Eternal Cycle’ is updated, while we can buy ‘Eternal Cycle’ separately? Who’s the main game and who’s the DLC?”
“What if I don’t want to play ‘Eternal Cycle’ and only want to play ‘Turn Back To Shore’?”
“Come on, are there still people who haven’t bought ‘Turn Back To Shore’?”
“If you don’t want to play ‘Eternal Cycle,’ just hurry up and buy ‘Turn Back To Shore’ before the end of the month.”
“Actually, you can just think of it in reverse: you can treat ‘Eternal Cycle’ as the main game, costing only 28 yuan, and you have to buy the main game to buy the DLC, ‘Turn Back To Shore,’ at 128 yuan. Getting the main game for just 28 yuan is an absolute steal, isn’t it?”
“Damn, logical genius, I’m convinced!”
Clearly, the players were all completely baffled, not understanding the purpose of such an arrangement.
Wasn’t this just the difference between “three in the morning, four in the evening” and “four in the morning, three in the evening”?
Whether it was splitting the DLC into four updates or reversing the positions of the main game and DLC, it all seemed redundant and unclear in purpose.
What was even more concerning was that the development time was too short. Although the price was cheap, the game content would definitely be correspondingly reduced.
Having initially expected a large-scale DLC with the same volume as the main game, ending up with just minor tweaks would be too disappointing.