It was late at night, a time when the internet was most active.
On USA's largest video-sharing website, a VR master with the ID "Dr. Dixy Normous" posted a brand-new video. The moment subscribers received push notifications, the video's views, bullet comments, and comment count began to skyrocket at a visible pace, its popularity curve as steep as a rocket launching into space.
The video opened with Robert's familiar face.
"Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Dixy Normous," Robert greeted the audience as usual, his voice carrying a hint of imperceptible fatigue, but more so, excitement.
The screen was immediately flooded with dense bullet comments.
"Caught you! Caught you! Bobby, you finally appeared!"
"Missing person returns!"
"Good heavens, I thought you'd been abducted by aliens."
Robert continued, "I know everyone must be curious where I've been all day, neither updating videos nor speaking in the group. The reason is simple—I was completely immersed in a game, the one that's been causing a storm online recently, with a promotional video that looks like a movie. Yes, it's Warhammer 40k."
He changed the subject, getting to the point, his tone becoming serious.
"First, I want to say that this game's development team has an almost pathological obsession with 'realism.'"
"As soon as I entered the game, before I even understood what was happening, the foul air of the Lower Hive made my eyes water and nose run; I finally got into a troop transport, and the bumpy ride made me so disoriented I felt like I was going to throw up my bile; when I got to the battlefield, all my weapons and ammunition had to be scavenged from piles of corpses; in the stew served by logistics, I even found a piece of someone's uniform.
The most outrageous thing is that you have to find a safe place to log off in this game, otherwise, while you're sleeping, you might actually be ambushed by something!"
His complaints made the bullet comments lively.
"Hahahaha, daring to not wear a gas mask in the Lower Hive, I salute you as a true man!"
"As an iron-willed warrior of the Imperium, if you get thrown off a vehicle, you can climb back on yourself."
"LOL, woke up after sleeping to find myself gnawed to pieces by mutated rats in the Lower Hive."
But at the same time, different voices appeared.
"Wait, is this game really that hardcore? It sounds too off-putting."
"It feels less like playing a game and more like suffering…"
As if anticipating the audience's reaction, Dr. Dixy Normous's expression became serious. He said to the camera, "But I also noticed that the development team isn't trying to deliberately torment players with so-called 'realism,' nor are they simply piling up environmental assets to create superficial realism.
Their realism is a realism with internal logic. And this realism brings an unparalleled sense of immersion. I can say with great certainty that there is no game on the market right now that can compare in this regard."
He began to give examples.
"For instance, after one battle, I and several other closed beta players spontaneously dragged the bodies of fallen Astra Militarum Soldiers to a relatively intact spot for placement. Because of this small gesture, we could clearly feel that the other NPC soldiers in the camp became friendlier and more respectful towards us.
When the Commissar returned later, he didn't punish us for leaving our posts without permission. He just told us to return to our positions immediately, and even softened his tone, telling us to ensure our own survival before worrying about the dead. You know, before this, whenever we violated any tactical regulations, the Commissar would communicate directly with shouts and pistol backhands."
"Another example: the death penalty in this game is very severe, clearing all your faction merits and resetting your relationship network in the eyes of NPCs. And the one who carries out this penalty of clearing faction merits is your superior officer.
So, this means… if the player himself becomes a superior officer, as long as this player officer is willing to reinstate you, then theoretically, you don't have to worry about job resets and merit clearance caused by death at all!"
This revelation instantly set the bullet comments ablaze.
"Holy cow, that awesome?!"
"Learned how to exploit a bug after only one day? 666, it's really you, Bobby!"
"Hey, how can you call it a bug? Anything that benefits players is called a feature!"
Dr. Dixy Normous looked at the camera, showing a "you all know" smile, and continued, "At the same time, I also want to praise this game's development team. Their attitude is truly excellent. After this closed beta ended, we weren't immediately kicked off the server.
Instead, we were invited to a special space for a direct, face-to-face communication session with the official game dev! The game dev very seriously asked us if there were any areas that needed changes in this closed beta, and for our questions, he answered almost every one. And for things that couldn't be done temporarily, he was also very straightforward."
"For example, you don't have to worry that the method I mentioned earlier to circumvent the death penalty will be 'harmonized' by the officials. Because this method was precisely what I asked about and received an answer to during my face-to-face meeting with the game dev. The game dev personally endorsed the rationality of this behavior.
Clearly, while the development team pursues realism, they also don't restrict players, but instead give players a very high degree of freedom. They have absolute confidence in the self-consistency of the world's logic they created, believing that no matter how we skip classes or look for bugs, it won't lead to the collapse of the game's progression."
The bullet comments boiled over again.
"Holy moly, this official team is a bit awesome, they've opened up the pattern !"
"I've never seen an official team that encourages players to use bugs… I mean, to use game features."
"Now that you say that, I absolutely have to wait for the open beta and go into their game to look for bugs!"
As the video gradually neared its end, Dr. Dixy Normous's smile faded, and he delivered his final summary.
"Although this experience was only a short day outside the game and just three days within the game, I believe this closed beta was complete and successful."
"The development team clearly has no intention of making this game a mainstream game, at least at this stage, I haven't seen any such intention. Their target player group is very clear and simple: hardcore players who have a lot of free time and are willing to spend a lot of energy to study and immerse themselves. As for whether such an approach is good or bad, different people have different opinions. But at least in my opinion, such an approach is not necessarily bad."
The final shot lingered on Dr. Dixy Normous's sincere gaze, while the bullet comments were engaged in their final discussions.
"Hardcore game… so how do they plan to recoup their costs?"
"Hardcore is good! It should be like this! It's no fun at all to let a bunch of low-quality individuals into the game."
"What a pity, I'm a working person with too little time, it seems I won't be able to get into it…"
The video ended, the screen went black. But the storm of public opinion it stirred up had only just begun. This video was like a depth charge dropped into a calm lake; its shockwave quickly broke through the limitations of a single video platform and began to spread to every corner of the entire internet.