Chapter 1137: Happy the Dark Horse
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Having accepted an exclusive interview, Fang Rui naturally wouldn't call the reporters over and just mess with them. After making his jokes, he answered the questions seriously, from personal to team, and explained his reasons for changing classes.
In the following issue of the Esports Home, Chang Xian's exclusive interview naturally made the headlines. This exclusive interview with Fang Rui took the chance to introduce Team Happy's team structure and future plans after the actual interview. This thorough analysis even caught the attention of the pro scene. After reading it, many of the pros suddenly realized that Team Happy's current class combination had many possibilities to it.
Just considering Fang Rui's shocking addition, what class was Fang Rui's most familiar partner? A Brawler! Coincidentally, there happened to be a Brawler in Happy's line up as well. Even though Fang Rui had switched classes to a Qi Master, this didn't mean his familiarity with working with a Brawler would vanish.
Then, consider Fang Rui's class switch. The Qi Master had been Ye Xiu's most reliable ally when he had built Excellent Era's dynasty. After that, the Qi Master had consistently been a core class in Excellent Era's line up. Ye Xiu was very familiar with working with Qi Masters, and Su Mucheng wouldn't be alien to it either.
In addition, Team Excellent Era's ace had been a Battle Mage. Coincidentally, Happy also had one. It wasn't hard to imagine that Excellent Era's traditional strategies would all be realized once more in Happy.
After this analysis, everyone finally realized how agreeable Fang Rui's arrangement to transfer to Happy was, as well as how the arrival of a Qi Master would unite Happy. Now, Fang Rui and his Qi Master seemed like Happy's tactical core, connecting all the pro characters.
But even if he achieved such an effect, he still wasn't the core of Happy. Who was the core? Even an idiot would know it was Ye Xiu. And what class was Ye Xiu? Unspecialized! There was very little high end research done on this class, so no one was certain what role it played in the team competition. This was the foundation on which Happy was built, but it was also the most mysterious. Though Ye Xiu and Lord Grim had appeared quite early on, the people in the pro scene were simply curious. Who would have thought to start researching an unspecialized so soon?
But now, Ye Xiu really did return, bringing his unspecialized and a team that didn't seem weak at all.
If there was anyone that still looked down on Happy before, then they had to change their minds after Fang Rui's transfer. Ye Xiu, Su Mucheng, Fang Rui. This was a team with three All-Star level players. If this wasn't worthy of careful consideration, then what kind of team was?
Naturally, Happy's characters would be a little weaker, their facilities wouldn't be as well established, and their finances would also be a little tighter. However, no one dared underestimate them in a match. With three top players, no one would disregard them as a threat.
Grassroots?
A grassroots team with three All-Star level players? No one could continue calling them such. Were they a dark horse? Would Happy be a dark horse in this season? Just like last season's Heavenly Swords?
No… Not even Heavenly Swords was so dark. That was mostly blown out of proportion on purpose. The discussion that arose around them had garnered them more attention from the people. With more attention, there were also higher expectations. Their darkness had been from public opinion.
As for Happy? With three All-Stars, no one dared to say that they weren't a dark horse!
All the Glory-related forums, all the experts and noobs in the scene, even the pro scene, were discussing what sort of impact Happy might have on this season. Happy had suddenly become much more imposing in comparison to when they had fought in the Challenger League. All this came from Fang Rui's arrival, from Happy's daring in completing such a significant transfer.
This was an attitude, an attitude of the players and of the team.
An All-Star player held Happy in high regard and joined Happy.
Happy dared to spend this money on an All-Star character, an All-Star player.
Happy's goal was the championship title?
There weren't many people laughing now. A team with three All-Stars was a strong team in the eyes of normal players, a team that had a right to fight for the championships. Those who were rational were still considering Happy's flaws from different perspectives, but most people had gotten carried away by their excitement over Fang Rui's transfer.
Happy, champions!
There were people who really did dare yell this sort of slogan. Before now, even Seven Fields and the others, who had been loyal since they had met Ye Xiu in the tenth server, had been too embarrassed to face Happy's goal of winning the championships.
But now, any random Glory player could methodically explain how powerful Happy was to you.
With this transfer, Happy gained the spotlight once more. That was when the Glory game company and the Pro Alliance came knocking. They wanted to begin issuing Team Happy merchandise such as character models, Happy style accounts, etc.. The rights to the creation and sale of these products would given to a third party upon joining the Alliance, so they didn't have to worry about finding someone to work with. As for the profit, all teams would gain the same percentage of the revenue generated. There was little that the team actually had to do. They just had to provide their appearance and then do well in competitions, gain popularity and promote the sales of their merchandise.
In the preliminary plans of the Alliance and the game company, someone as popular as Su Mucheng wouldn't be missing. Even last season, when she had gone to the Challenger League with the rest of Excellent Era, merchandise regarding her and her Dancing Rain were still popular. Now that Dancing Rain had come to Happy with Su Mucheng, the two coming together as a package was a good thing for the merchandise company. For example, the hottest merchandise were character models with Dancing Rain's equipment as a Launcher and Su Mucheng's actual figure and appearance.
In comparison, Chu Yunxiu and Misty Rain were in an awkward situation. The player was a lady but the character was a guy, so they couldn't merge the two together. Thus, in the end, they could only sell Misty Rain's character model. As for the player model, those weren't as popular. Everyone preferred the epic appearance of the character model.
No one had noticed this situation at first, but by the time they did, teams like Team Misty Rain were rather depressed. With the high status gained by being in the pro scene and the mutual benefits gained along with the game company, asking to get the character's sex and appearance changed wouldn't do anything to the balance of the game. However, Misty Rain had been a guy for so long. Everyone was used to it already. If they suddenly changed his sex, then their fans probably wouldn't be able to accept that, so Misty Rain could only endure it. But this time, after acknowledging the strength of the twin sisters that Misty Rain had contracted, they decided that they would make sure to not make the same mistake and contacted the game company to change the sex of the two characters while they still had a little influence.
Since this change wasn't a gamechanger, the normal players didn't mind the pro scene having this special benefit. In their eyes, it was a good thing for them to align the sex of the character with the player, especially with two beautiful ladies playing two guys.
For Happy, Su Mucheng and Dancing Rain were good to go, then there was Tang Rou and Soft Mist. With her beauty and grace, she was perfect and the Alliance. The game company viewed her as a treasure, finding a talented team to create a model of Soft Mist with Tang Rou's appearance. Then, they just had to hope that Tang Rou would be able to play well and gain fame. After all, this was a competitive scene.
For Happy, they had wanted to create three different models and account cards. Su Mucheng and Tang Rou were good, now there was Ye Xiu, who was an entirely different problem.
Originally, their hopes for Ye Xiu were even higher than Su Mucheng and Tang Rou. This was a top tier expert that had hidden himself away for all these years. Now that he was willing to show himself, the Alliance and game company wanted to take this chance. But when it came to collecting the materials, the game company was close to crying.
Glory had been designed by them. This, naturally, included the equipment available, and Lord Grim's mix and match equipment could even cause the game company to be lost in wonder. What sort of talent did you have to have to manage to find such an ugly combination of equips! When designing the game, they naturally wouldn't make ugly equipment. The equipment would be perfect and beautiful or have some sort of uniqueness to it that left a lasting impression. However, why was Lord Grim's set so uncomfortable to look at? In that moment, the game company had a thought to cheat and modify Lord Grim's equipment design and make this mix and match a better sight to look at. But it was only a thought. This sort of change would have too big of an effect. Although the design didn't affect the stats and technically wasn't a game changer, if they made the equipment look good on Lord Grim, what would they do if the equipment looked terrible when someone else wore it?
In the end, it was Lord Grim's abnormal class choice that made his equipment diverge from the beauty of the game.
Experts had observed Lord Grim's current design for a long time, discussed it for a long time, but they all shook their heads in the end and admitted defeat.
The Alliance was depressed, the game company was depressed, but they refused to give up on thinking of a way to profit, coming up with another idea. They were going to make a commemorative version of One Autumn Leaf. Yes, that One Autumn Leaf, one with Ye Xiu's appearance. That would probably make up for many people's disappointment, right?
Would it really? Soon enough, someone voiced this doubt.
It wouldn't be hard to make this combination right now. Although One Autumn Leaf already belonged to Samsara, they just had to split some of the profits with Samsara and Happy. The problem was that One Autumn Leaf simply didn't have Ye Xiu's appearance, but the model was already very popular. The commemorative version would be simply adding in Ye Xiu's face.
Models were based primarily on the impressive designs of the characters. Adding in the player's appearance was just to show their love. The Excellent Era One Autumn Leaf had garnered a lot of buyers already and was just lacking Ye Xiu's face. Would adding his face really make any difference? After careful consideration, they hesitated. After all, as players of this competitive scene, their value never lay in their faces.
Why was this Ye Xiu always so troublesome!
The Pro Alliance and Glory game company felt like they were going to cry.