Chapter 114: The Ultimate Tentacle Monster!
The overseas distribution manager of Meteorite Technology coughed awkwardly and said, "Well, Mr. Chen Mo, you might not be entirely clear on how overseas distribution works. Let me explain a bit..."
Chen Mo waved his hand. "No need to explain. I have a good understanding of your work, and I also know that Meteorite Technology is one of the top three overseas distribution companies in the country, especially with deep roots in the European and American gaming markets and a thorough understanding of what players there like."
The Meteorite Technology representative was a bit surprised. Clearly, Chen Mo wasn't some clueless fool who would just make outrageous demands without knowing anything.
Chen Mo shifted the conversation and continued, "But it's precisely for this reason that I believe you'll accept my proposal."
The Meteorite Technology representative was taken aback.
Chen Mo went on, "Because you have a very clear grasp of what European and American players like and a deep understanding of the overseas market, you should be even more aware of the immense potential of *Warcraft*."
"Let me put it this way: *Warcraft* might be even more popular overseas than it is domestically. This game is aimed at the entire world. It will eventually replace *Legion Conquest* and become the most popular RTS game globally, bar none."
"I believe you can see this clearly, so I won't explain too much. If you don't accept these terms, that's fine. There are other domestic overseas distribution companies."
"Even if no domestic company takes it, there are overseas companies that will. Whether you want to pass up this chance to make easy money is entirely up to you."
The Meteorite Technology representative fell silent.
Chen Mo's meaning was crystal clear. He was far too confident in *Warcraft* to be swayed by haggling or tricks.
Chen Mo's attitude was resolute: take it or leave it. If they didn't, plenty of other companies were lining up.
After a moment of silence, the Meteorite Technology representative said, "Alright, Mr. Chen Mo, I understand your point. But I can't make a decision on this right away. I need to hold a small meeting to discuss it."
Chen Mo nodded. "Fine, I'll give you two days. But let me emphasize: I won't accept any bargaining. I hope you can convey that to everyone in the meeting."
...
After seeing off the overseas distribution representative, Chen Mo went back to playing ranked matches.
The *Warcraft* forums were flooded with new posts every day, covering everything from strategy analysis and match reports to data breakdowns and feedback suggestions.
Chen Mo had Su Jinyu regularly monitor the forums, mainly to collect player feedback and keep track of popular tactics. Every so often, she would compile a brief report for everyone to review.
Qian Kun was responsible for numerical adjustments. Of course, with the main framework already set, most tweaks involved adjusting values after the decimal point, changes so minor that players wouldn't even notice them.
Still, Chen Mo had Qian Kun regularly optimize the data, balancing the combat stats of each race and unit. Once finalized, they would be compiled into patch notes and released to the players.
As for Zheng Hongxi, his job was to update the entries in the Azeroth universe daily, mainly fleshing out the background story based on the simple terms Chen Mo provided and doing secondary creative work.
With all the tasks delegated, Chen Mo ended up being the most idle person, spending his days playing ranked matches.
The players on the ladder were suffering. They had never experienced anything like this.
Whenever Chen Mo wanted to end a match quickly, no one could hold out for more than 20 minutes. Even when he occasionally felt like messing around with strategies like "random expansion" or "ice and fire," his opponents rarely lasted beyond 30 minutes.
Eventually, Chen Mo got so bored that he almost wanted to just set his rank score to 4000. But he thought better of it. After all, the top players on the ladder were constantly monitoring the data. If some unknown player suddenly appeared with an abnormal win record, it would be like exposing himself.
Fortunately, Chen Mo had added extra points for consecutive wins. He roughly calculated that in about a day, he could reach 3500 points and start facing the real experts.
...
Chen Mo found it boring to crush noobs, but the noobs themselves were having a terrible time.
Many players were happily playing ranked matches, enjoying themselves, when suddenly they ran into a freak who liked playing random races.
At first, they thought they were facing an easy win, but within five minutes, they started questioning their life choices.
Getting harassed to the point of collapse by the Orc Blademaster.
Getting killed over and over by the Undead's three heroes.
Getting humiliated by the Human's tower rush at their own base.
The most infuriating was a Human player who had his peasant seduced by the Night Elf's Dark Ranger, who then built a Human Altar. He ended up getting trapped at his own base by the Human Archmage and Blood Mage, suffering through an "ice and fire" combo...
While having their worldview shattered, countless addicted young gamers managed to kick their gaming habits during this period.
The worst part was, when these players complained on the forums, they realized they weren't alone. Many others had similar experiences, from the 1000-point fish pond to the 3000-point mid-to-high-tier matches—victims everywhere!
And the opponent was always the same person: a random race player with the ID "Silent."
This player lived up to his name. He was very quiet, never saying anything beyond a "gg" at the end of a match. Even if opponents asked questions, he never responded, making some wonder if he was some newly developed AI from a big company...
Soon, posts about "the random god Silent" started popping up on the forums, and "guessing who Silent really is" became a hot topic every day.
"I actually ran into that Silent today! Damn it, I didn't believe it before—how could a 3000-point player not last 25 minutes? But after today, I realize it's really impossible!"
"I got crushed by his Undead."
"Same here, I got crushed by his Human."
"Damn, how does this guy know every race? He's at a 3000-point level with all of them? What kind of monster is this?"
"Hey, he's not at a 3000-point level with all races—he can crush 3000-point players with any race. That's a completely different thing..."
"Do you think there might be four different people behind that ID? Four pros messing with us?"
"Ha, do you think pros have that much free time? Four people pretending to be one? What a wild theory."
Opinions varied, and no one could agree.
Moreover, many replays of matches against Silent were shared on the forums, drawing crowds of spectators.
The conclusion from the spectators was: This guy isn't human!
The *Warcraft* game Chen Mo created didn't have a built-in APM tracker, but some enthusiastic players and tech-savvy folks developed plugins to measure it.
APM stands for Actions Per Minute (including keyboard and mouse inputs). The higher the APM, the faster the player's hands, giving them an advantage in RTS games.
Generally, a high-level player could handle *Warcraft* well with an effective APM of around 140, meaning 140 meaningful clicks and keystrokes per minute, without pointless repetition.
For professional players, the requirement was even higher. An average APM of around 200 was considered decent, while top-tier players could reach 300 or more.
In this world, even a pro like Kaiser had an APM of around 200, which was already top-notch.
So, what was Silent's APM?
In his highest match, his average APM reached 466!
In *Warcraft*, there were bound to be many wasted actions, but generally, an APM of 200 was more than enough.
Yet Silent hit 466, with very few wasted actions—almost all were meaningful!
It was safe to say that this was approaching the limit of human hand speed.
After the APM data came out, more people started believing Silent was an AI, and this random god earned a new nickname: The Ultimate Tentacle Monster!