The loser, on the other hand, will truly have nothing.
The most ruthless players can even plunder all the resources of a city after conquering it, occupy the mines, seize the population, kill all the prisoners, and burn the city down... turning the loser into an almost eternal scar on the map.
In this type of game, there are only three ways to acquire resources:
First, occupy and develop your own mines, but always be on guard against greedy enemies who may attack, raid, plunder, assassinate, or even besiege you in groups.
Second, use war to sustain war, constantly attacking other players' cities and plundering their resources, then strengthening yourself to continue the war:
Third, spending money on in-game purchases.
The Dragon Slayer Studio is extremely familiar with the pay-to-win system.
Industry insiders often refer to their chief designer as the "God of Wealth," and the entire studio is renowned for its paid design services.
They have a knack for robbing... no, tricking players into spending money... no, encouraging players to spend money.
This time, the store targeting wealthy players is probably the most straightforward and simple one ever.
It costs 648 yuan for a chance to draw ten generals, with no guaranteed reward.
It costs 648 RMB for a chance to draw ten treasures, including weapons, armor, mounts, siege weapons, and special items. There is no pity system.
Yes, there's no guaranteed minimum, no bonuses, no consolation prizes, no points or similar rewards, not even a discount :)
For some wealthy people, receiving those discounts is tantamount to being looked down upon.
They don't really care about the price, they only care about saving face.
Buying things is about spending money. I buy expensive things because they're expensive enough. Are you looking down on me by offering discounts?!
Also, one Alliance Token costs 8848 and allows five players to form an alliance. Upgrading an alliance requires more Alliance Tokens: 1 for level 1, 2 for level 2, 4 for level 3, and so on...
A single resource pack costs 888 yuan and provides one unit, the value of which depends on the player's average acquisition rate.
In other words, even wealthy players don't have a shortcut when they first enter the market. They either have to mine or spend a huge amount of money to buy a little bit of resources first and then slowly invest in it.
For example, a veteran player might have 1,000 ores after mining for ten days.
A wealthy new player also wanted to catch up with him, but he had just arrived at the level 1 mine and had only mined 10 for him.
Then he would need to buy 100 gift packs, each containing 10 minerals, for a total of 88,800 yuan.
If he's willing to grind for a day and already has 100 mines, then he only needs to buy 10 big gift packs, which will cost 8880 yuan.
However, this gives veteran players an extra day to develop their characters.
What if this veteran player also bought 10 big gift packs and got 10,000 ore?
Fake nouveau riche would say: mmp
A true tycoon would simply say: "Heh, interesting."
The super-rich might say: "Come on, let's have an arms race! Seriously, I've participated in all of those, what's this?"
By the way, this game has a total of 16 basic resources.
Iron ore is just one of the easier resources to obtain. The truly rare resources vary from province to province, such as oil.
In addition to basic resources, there are also scarce special resources.
For example, a certain place is rich in diamonds, or a certain sea area is suitable for hunting whales to obtain whale oil...
These factors can easily trigger bloodshed and violence among players.
God of Wealth: If you're going to spend money, don't forget to spend on all twenty-odd resources at once! After you've spent all that, then you can think about recruiting troops, hiring generals, items, and alliances, right? :)
It can be said that in the world of "Iron Horse and Ice River", problems cannot be solved by passive development.
We have to engage in an arms race whether we want it or not.
Otherwise, if we continue to be poor and weak, we will only become a fat sheep that everyone can bully, and sooner or later we will be skinned alive and drained of our marrow.
Even if players honestly and diligently farm at home, they may still be suddenly invaded and lose even the farmland and mines they have worked so hard to develop over the years.
Competition and grabbing are the main themes of this game.
Therefore, everyone who came out of the meeting was sweating bullets.
However, Xia Cheng remained enthusiastic. He even thought, "This concept is really exciting; it's exactly the kind of war feeling we're looking for. I think this game might not have a large audience, but its profitability is definitely promising."
Because people at his level have never experienced failure since childhood, competing is just a game to them.
He found the experience of fighting with all his might to win a prize to be very interesting, and he felt that spending a little pocket money was totally worth it for this exciting experience.
But for ordinary people who are used to social injustice, all they know is to do their best to avoid competing with the powerful and wealthy—they were never the target paying users of "Iron Horse and Ice River" from the beginning, but they are an indispensable part of the game.
This is yet another design that clearly impressed other designers.
Based on the experience of charging for "Against the Heavens," free-to-play or low-spending players are essentially playing the game while paying players are stepping on their feet.
One hundred such ordinary players can support the sense of accomplishment of a wealthy paying player.
But they will keep leaving, and sooner or later they will leave until they can no longer afford to support the wealthy.
In the end, the wealthy players no longer felt a sense of accomplishment, felt it was "boring," and thus left.
Such a design was groundbreaking at the time, opening the door to a new world and instantly boosting the paid subscription rate across the entire industry.