Chapter 107 - 100: Star Emperor Goes Free_2

"Maybe it’s because there’s a high percentage of players who are Fu in Star Emperor."

Zhong Shengwei explained with a smile, "For these Fu players, it’s really frustrating when there aren’t enough skins to buy, leaving them with nowhere to spend their money."

This is also why streamers of Star Emperor generally eat well, with gift income directly surpassing streamers from other games with similar popularity.

"Speaking of which!"

After finishing the arrangements for Star Emperor’s transition to free-to-play, Chen Ba added, "Once the game becomes free, all sorts of monsters and demons might emerge, so pay attention."

He isn’t worried about cheats.

No matter how strong a cheat script is, it’s just a pile of crap when it comes to Path to Immortality; strong hardware is what really matters.

Moreover, cheats are very unlikely, after all, chicken blood optimization, in some sense, is also an anti-cheating program.

Opening cheats in front of the system, are you out of your mind?

Besides cheats and scripts, behaviors like verbal abuse and boosting need focused attention.

"Boosting..."

Yang Dong and Lu just wanted to say it’s impossible—using graphics cards like 4090 or 4080 for boosting in Star Emperor?

If they’re using such high-end graphics cards, it’s not wrong to call them Fu, why would they care about the boosting fee?

But then they thought again.

The boosting industry doesn’t necessarily mean using one’s own computer. A Fu player might hire someone, using the equipment provided by the Fu player.

For example, a big streamer claiming to have a mermaid line often hires boosters to play games, living in their villa.

These things do exist.

And besides Path to Immortality, normal ranking and entertainment modes do not employ Extreme Sublimation, hence aren’t as demanding on configuration as Path to Immortality.

If a player is really skilled, then with a moderately high-end graphics card, they can basically take on boosting jobs.

"Completely eliminating it is impossible."

After a moment of thought, Yang Dong said, "Boosting can never be completely eradicated in any game, at any time."

"All we can do is create a mechanism, where if a player’s win rate suddenly spikes, they get switched to a different matchup queue."

Simply put.

If the matchmaking system thinks you’re boosting, you’ll be placed in a booster pool, letting small boosters face off against each other, eventually ending up with some supreme boosting.

Regular players might encounter small boosters, but after losing a few times, they’ll enter a more quality matchmaking pool, facing off against lower win-rate opponents to alleviate the frustration of meeting boosters.

"Alright!"

Chen Ba nodded.

Dong’s reasoning makes sense; boosting can’t be eradicated, checking IP addresses won’t work either.

For example, a college student living in a dorm might urgently need to use the bathroom and let a more skilled roommate play a round, then treat them to roast duck...

Does this count as "boosting"?

If so, how could the game officials detect this behavior?

Both the IP and computer are the same, with the game being online the whole time, detecting boosting behavior would be quite a miracle.

Thus, essentially, boosting cannot be completely eradicated; it can only be maximally discouraged and suppressed.

Think of different pools for matchmaking—having boosters against boosters is a great idea, it reminds Chen Ba of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

During PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ peak, cheats were rampant, and at that time the developer Blue Cave was just a small workshop, incapable of effectively managing the cheat problem.

Thus, Blue Cave created an "Immortal Robe".

Let cheats match with cheats, non-normal players match with non-normal players, ensuring a normal player’s gaming experience.

Of course, this is just hearsay.

Whether or not the "Immortal Robe" existed, Chen Ba believes it’s most likely true, otherwise, it wouldn’t have spread widely.

Yang Dong’s proposal is actually based on the "Immortal Robe", creating a "booster matchmaking pool". Anomalous players will enter this pool and face off with other boosters when their win rates are unusually high.

"But..."

Lu raised a doubt: if we set it up like this, wouldn’t the person suffering be the "account owner" themselves?

Since boosters will play a few games and then leave, it won’t be the booster suffering in the booster matchmaking pool, but rather the account owner who hired them.

"That’s exactly right!"

Chen Ba said with a smile, "Why does the boosting industry exist? Isn’t it created by these vain account owners?"

"Punishing the account owners and making them realize that hiring boosters will harm themselves is the effective way to eliminate game boosting."

The ranking system in Star Emperor has very nice rewards, with many meticulously designed skins and Source Stones, and avatar frames all obtained through rank awards.

Once the game becomes free, there will definitely be those who seek rewards out of vanity and resort to boosting.

Chen Ba wants to punish these players who are "submissive by day and aggressive by night", so they dare not find boosters to rank up, ensuring a fair and square ranking environment.

As for Path to Immortality...

That doesn’t matter; let them boost! If they have money to spend on boosting, why not buy a 4090 from Xianyu Digital?

Isn’t that better than boosting?

After discussing a series of issues about Star Emperor’s switch to free, Chen Ba also explained the compensation standards for old players.

Compensation will be uniformly distributed, as Star Emperor doesn’t have the concept of a Golden Edition or Deluxe Edition.

Any player who purchased the game can receive an exclusive title, exclusive skin, and 580 yuan worth of Source Stones once the game goes free.

It’s the old industry standard.

Similar compensation approaches have been used by many games transitioning from paid to free, like Eternal Damnation, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Bean Man, etc.

The only difference might be that Ba is more considerate than others, feeling that such "game virtual item" compensation isn’t quite enough.

Therefore, on top of virtual item compensation, Tianba Studio will also award a CD key for Living Under Someone’s Roof Simulator and a Xianyu Digital "spend 200 yuan to save 20 yuan" discount coupon.

The sincerity can be said to be maxed out.

In addition to a direct refund, this is the most reasonable compensation scheme Chen Ba could think of.

A refund is out of the question.

After all, players have played the game for so long; it’s unreasonable to refund just like that.

"It’s pretty good."

After discussing with Yang Dong and Lu, others also found this compensation scheme quite reasonable.

Everything that should be given is given.

Star Emperor’s free compensation is arguably more sincere than 99% of the competitors; if players are still unsatisfied, there’s nothing that can be done.

Thanks to Divine Grace Continent, Chen Ba could earn some money; otherwise, the compensation standards might not even reach half of the current ones.

"Then let’s go ahead with this plan!" Chen Ba decisively concluded.

"From this Friday onwards, Star Emperor will be free to play across all platforms, with several new servers added..."

Previously, due to a lack of funds, the Euro server, Asia server, etc., weren’t set up; now they can be created accordingly.

With money in Chen Ba’s pocket, he even plans to seize this opportunity to host an offline Star Emperor tournament.

Offline, not online!

Online tournaments have been held twice before with great success, but they lack the type of liveliness of offline events, and latency varies significantly across regions.

"If we’re organizing an offline event, maybe we could get sponsorship from Old Huang Su’s Mother and unlock Extreme Sublimation?" Lu excitedly said.

"Unlock Extreme Sublimation?"

Chen Ba heard and instantly agreed it would make sense.

For offline tournaments, equipment is provided by the official; with sponsorship from Old Huang and Su, the configuration would certainly be top-notch.

This way...

Extreme Sublimation could indeed be used!

"We could rent a venue, set up a big screen projection, and have several streaming rooms—the duels of masters after Extreme Sublimation would be visually stunning!"

Chen Ba found the idea increasingly cool the more he thought about it.

Everyone has heard about how top-notch Star Emperor’s Extreme Sublimation graphics are, but few have seen them in person.

If an offline tournament is organized, where masters from all over the world use 4090 or RX7900 to engage in fierce battles on the Path to Immortality, it would definitely be electrifying.

After all, this Venerable Great Emperor Extreme Sublimation, full firepower, is not something one can casually witness...