Chapter 308: COG Beta Test
Under the relentless pressure from Imperial Dynasty Interactive Entertainment, the beta test date for COG was pushed forward again, moved up to February 13th before the New Year.
A senior representative from GA stated that this was already a very risky decision, because COG was still not perfect. At least in the eyes of designer Raman Clive, advancing the internal test date was an extremely foolish move.
What was the point of testing a week early?
Raman Clive and GA really wanted to reject Imperial Dynasty’s proposal. They felt that a competing game from a Chinese company launching one or two weeks earlier wouldn’t make any real difference.
COG was targeting the global market. As for that Chinese company’s “League of Legends”? It would probably just make some noise within China’s own little corner.
But Imperial Dynasty was very firm in its stance, and GA couldn’t completely ignore the massive Chinese market, so they ultimately agreed to move the test date forward.
The reason they settled on the slightly awkward date of February 13th was because Chen Mo had already leaked word that there would be a special Valentine’s Day event on February 14th and throughout the following week.
This included limited Valentine’s Day skins, limited couple avatar frames, special match quests, and so on.
Obviously, Imperial Dynasty didn’t want to clash with “League of Legends” at such a critical juncture. After all, League’s Valentine’s Day event was well-prepared. For players, Valentine’s Day events only came once a year, and COG… playing it two days later wouldn’t matter.
If the test launched on February 14th, the relevant data would likely be crushed into an ugly mess.
Lin Chaoxu’s sharp intuition told him that Chen Mo was prepared. If they couldn’t come up with a countermeasure, the situation would become very dire.
Everything would depend on player feedback after COG’s launch.
…
On February 13th, COG began its internal test. Imperial Dynasty promoted it through various channels, even using some channel resources from the Divine Fantasy game platform.
Although whether COG would succeed was uncertain, the smooth promotion of “League of Legends” had boosted Lin Chaoxu’s confidence in this new game model. So, for the first time, he invested a large amount of channel resources into a game still in testing.
Although many original COG players were die-hard fans of Chen Mo, COG was still a game genre they enjoyed, so many chose to give it a try.
Moreover, under Imperial Dynasty’s promotion, many other players also flooded in, a large portion of whom had played “League of Legends.”
After all, among the games launching before the New Year, these two were the ones with the most prestige and buzz. It was impossible to avoid them.
COG’s beta version followed the core gameplay, numerical systems, and hero skills of the “Warcraft” map closely, with no major changes.
In Raman Clive’s view, his original designs for COG were quite solid. Especially among the core player base, COG’s art style and control scheme were key elements that made them love the game. Changing them rashly would mean abandoning these core players, which was very unwise.
The main differences between the beta version and the original map lay in the packaging and derivative gameplay.
COG hadn’t secured the copyrights for the relevant heroes, so all models had to be remade, and names were slightly adjusted to avoid legal risks.
After all, GA was a big company and was very afraid of being sued for money.
For example, the Death Knight was renamed the Dark Knight, the Dark Ranger was renamed the Shadow Ranger, the Keeper of the Grove was renamed the Elven Prophet, and so on.
For characters like the Paladin, only the model was changed, not the name, because the Paladin was a classic class in Western fantasy and wasn’t subject to copyright.
To old COG players, these changes felt a bit knockoff-ish, but it didn’t really matter. In Raman Clive’s view, this game wouldn’t be limited to players who had played “Warcraft.” The majority of players wouldn’t notice any dissonance with these models.
After all, it was a Western company. GA’s artists handled Western fantasy themes with ease, creating very authentic scenes and hero models, so the knockoff feeling wasn’t particularly strong.
As for map elements and hero skills, there were some minor tweaks but no major overhauls.
Additionally, there were derivative gameplay features and monetization models.
Similar to “League of Legends,” COG also included a friend system, matchmaking system, shop system, and so on. In terms of monetization, COG also made all heroes free and charged for skins. However, two aspects differed from “League of Legends”: card-based monetization and loot boxes.
COG introduced a unique card system, somewhat like an additional skill enhancement system. Each hero could equip a deck (containing 4 cards) to enhance their four abilities.
For instance, the Shadow Ranger’s Shadow Arrow dealt extra damage and summoned small skeletons when last-hitting minions. For Shadow Arrow, there were three different cards available: one increasing damage, one increasing skeleton health, and one increasing skeleton duration. Players could choose one to add to their deck.
According to Raman Clive’s idea, this card system was meant to add diversity to gameplay, allowing players to freely customize their preferred decks. Of course, it was also meant to increase revenue.
GA didn’t fully endorse a model relying solely on skin sales. After all, that model was too risky—whether players bought skins was completely unpredictable, making it hard to guarantee the game’s revenue.
Unless COG became a global hit, but in GA’s view, that idea was somewhat unrealistic.
GA’s suggestion was to either set a pay-to-play barrier or add a monetization system tied to stats. After much deliberation, Raman Clive chose the latter, because he felt that a pay-to-play barrier might lose him more players than a slight imbalance.
As for how cards and skins were obtained, it was very “Western-style”: loot boxes.
Unlike “League of Legends” loot boxes, everything in COG was obtained through loot boxes; nothing could be bought directly.
Players could earn gold coins through gameplay and purchase premium currency through top-ups. These two currencies opened different boxes. Gold coin boxes mainly yielded different cards and card fragments, while premium currency boxes mainly yielded skins and cards.
Of course, the rate at which players earned gold coins was strictly controlled, and the gold coins needed to open boxes increased each week. In the early stages, players definitely couldn’t obtain a full deck through gold coin boxes alone. To build a decent deck, they would inevitably need to top up.
Moreover, after topping up, what came out of the boxes depended on luck. Players might get cards for heroes they never played.
However, the loot box model was quite popular in the Western market, with successful games using it as a precedent, so GA and Raman Clive saw nothing wrong with it.