At the end of the hallway in the community center was a large office modified from a conference room. The discussion behind the half-closed doors didn’t seem to stop; it looked quite busy inside.
Although the reorganization that happened a while ago affected most departments, this was the only department that hadn’t changed.
A board carved with words hung on the wall crookedly: <Godly Land Game Developing Department>
Right now, the makeshift office was jam-packed.
“The mission brief is completed. Old Zhang, are you done with the text?”
“Done. Wait one moment, I’ll send it to you.”
“Models Code C10087 to C10129 NPC have been completed. The rest would be here, and a total of 17 AI must be inputted manually, take a look…”
The conference room was separated into individual offices with boards. Fifty programmers with dark eyebags worked in front of the hologram computers and continued to refine the virtual reality MMORPG.
In front of a hologram computer, Du Yongkong scanned through the lines of code. As the director of the game, he didn’t need to personally type the code like the programmers – he only needed to audit the work of each team and direct game development.
The work sounded simple, but it wasn’t easy at all. The work of fifty people was audited by only him. It was easy to see the impact his workload had on him from the deep eyebags on his face.
But he didn’t mind the tiring work, or rather, he enjoyed it. He was just a chief engineer before the war and never acted as a game director. But life pulled a big prank on him as he finally got his dream position after the war.
He hadn’t shut his eyes for 24 hours already. After he audited the last line of code, he was planning to nap for a bit on the table, but he happened to see a surprising person.
With Jiang Chen at the door, Du Yongkong’s eyes lit up as he immediately got up to greet him.
After catching up for a bit, Jiang Chen finally got to business.
“Don’t be so nervous, I’m just here to take a look. Also, did you finish the server?”
“Already done.” Du Yongkong nodded. The humble programmer didn’t know how to flatter people, so he just kept smiling and smiling.
Although he looked a bit comical, Jiang Chen really liked simple people like this.
“Let me see.”
“No problem! Please follow me.” Du Yongkong bowed respectfully and led Jiang Chen to the adjacent junk room.
The condition of the junk room was typical of a programmer as there were unorganized paper boxes stacked together. Considering the tidiness of the room, Du Yongkong’s expression looked awkward as he scratched his head.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. Just let me see the prototype of the helmet.”
“Ah, okay, heh.” Du Yongkang laughed, rather embarrassed, as he began to dig through the boxes. He moved away a few boxes filled with papers before he managed to drag out the box that contained five virtual reality helmets.
Looking at the helmets in the box, Jiang Chen felt an inexplicable excitement.
If vessels and cannons were a source of romance for men, then virtual reality helmets were the source of romance all netizens longed for. Jiang Chen could say with confidence that for anyone who read web novels or played MMORPGs or single player games, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t dream of the ability to use a virtual reality helmet to write their own story in the world created by 0s and 1s.
“General?”
“You’re not a soldier, just call me boss.”
“Okay boss.” Du Yongkong laughed timidly as he scratched the back of his head. “Is this what you wanted?”
Jiang Chen took a helmet from the box as he carefully observed it in his hands.
It had a tainted crystal surface along with a bluish-black polyethylene shell, resembling an aerodynamic motorcycle helmet. At the back of the helmet was a “small tail” covered in scales, the length was close to neck length, and it could connect one’s neural network through microcircuits, interfering with the brain field.
It weighed around 1-2 kilograms, slightly heavier than a motorcycle helmet. But it didn’t matter since the helmet was activated when the user was in REM sleep mode. Therefore, not a lot of people would choose to play this game while standing up.
“How much molybdenum does one virtual reality helmet require?” Jiang Chen asked.
“Without accounting for improper production material waste, around 300 grams,” Du Yongkang said affirmatively.
“300 grams?” Jiang Chen fell into deep thought as he stroked his chin.
Therefore, one ton of molybdenum could produce at least 3000 virtual reality helmets. Once he solved the molybdenum mine problem, this could be produced on a large scale. Of course, there was no rush since before this could be launched officially, Jiang Chen planned to conduct an internal test with some volunteers in the modern world to optimize the game.
Since it was an MMORPG from a different era, the degree of cultural acceptance from the 21st century would differ from the 22nd century; he didn’t want to decrease the quality of the game because of lack of attention to cultural appropriateness.
“… To produce 100 prototypes, the logistics department took apart a chamber to gather enough molybdenum. Why would we not use the chamber as the platform in the game? Compared to this outdated technology, the more advanced chamber would be better in both performance and comfort.”
[What? Took apart a chamber?]
[That’s a big loss…] Jiang Chen cursed in his mind, but he didn’t show any of it on his face.
“Performance? Would playing the game with the helmet make the game lag?”
“It won’t lag. Lag won’t be displayed in the game with rather simple physics,” Du Yongkong said.
“Then it would be okay. This type of fantasy game doesn’t need to have a realistic physics model. Don’t take apart any more chambers though; I only need the one hundred helmets for now,” Jiang Chen said.
Du Yongkong nodded. Seeing that Jiang Chen wasn’t going to change his mind, he didn’t speak any more. He was only making a recommendation for his boss; there was no reason to argue with the boss over it.
“Then that’s all. I’ll get people to transport the server and the helmets in a bit. Also, I almost forgot, did you add security measures to the helmets?” Jiang Chen patted his own head and asked hastily.
“I did – the molybdenum gold dense lead barrier can prevent any scanning. Also, if anyone attempted to open the helmet, the internal security circuit would forcefully overload and destroy all the graphene circuits and chips inside the helmet. It would become a piece of junk…”
But would anyone really want this outdated technology? Du Yongkong muttered in his mind with skepticism.
Jiang Chen happily patted him on the shoulder. “Haha, good job. Go find Wang Qin in a bit. All the game developers will receive 50 crystals. This is the reward for your hard work!”
“Thank you Boss!” Du Yongkong was ecstatic.
50 crystals were equivalent to a NAC knight’s basic salary for a month.
He didn’t have any more doubts about the boss’ decision.
Who cares? As long as the boss was happy.