Chapter 776: This World Needs More Heroes

"Joker has stripped away all disguises, exposing the filth and malice of Gotham society to the world."

This was the headline of the news article published by the New York Daily News after the release of Joker.

The article praised Joker for its bold transformation within the superhero film genre, presenting an extremely excellent work to the audience in a more realistic and depth-oriented manner.

Perhaps it was not as exhilarating as other superhero films, but the lingering impact it brought was absolutely unique; even after half a month, it remained unforgettable.

Beyond that, Luo Quan's acting in the film became another peak in her career following her Oscar Best Actress win.

Achieving fame at a young age did not make her complacent; the fears people previously held—that she would go downhill because her life had been too smooth—had all proven to be groundless worries.

She proved with facts that her excellence did not stem solely from talent, but also included diligence and dedication in her creative work.

Of course, it would be even better if she could put a bit more effort into her creative frequency.

As long as she maintained the habit of staying home for a period after releasing a work, people would always worry that she had become lazy due to her success.

Luo Quan herself had said that laziness was a vice, but it seemed she could no longer kick the habit.

………………

Being famous in the New York Daily News was a good thing, and Luo Quan was originally happily reading how these writers were creatively praising her, only to find them cueing her laziness at the end.

Speaking of which, recent fan discourse had painted her as the embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Pride: She never collaborates with anyone outside of her friends and family, and any brand wanting to approach her is directly ignored.

Greed: When playing LoL or Dota 2, she turns into a hardcore "kill-stealer"; if she can destroy the base, she absolutely won't camp the fountain. She's all smiles when winning, but curses like a sailor when losing.

Wrath: She bans fans at the slightest disagreement, and there are a few days every month when she turns into a raging beast; anyone who dares to provoke her during that time is doomed.

Lust: Being so beautiful and openly making suggestive jokes during livestreams makes it hard for fans to handle.

Envy: She can't stand to see her peers succeed; every time she releases an album, it's time for other singers to be "executed."

Gluttony: Ever since she stopped trying to control her figure, her food intake during mukbangs has increased day by day, eating more than the average guy—what a little piggy!

Sloth: This needs no further elaboration; it is simply the greatest sin since Luo Quan's debut—lazy to an extreme, a lifelong homebody, refusing to leave the house unless absolutely necessary.

In summary, Luo Quan has gathered all seven deadly sins, making her truly heinous, and finally provoking a crusade from the righteous among her fans.

And Luo Quan's response to all this was to ban them all for a week.

Under such tyrannical rule, the fans were truly angry but dared not speak out.

Of course, all of the above were jokes from the fans, and bantering with Luo Quan had become one of the joys of interaction between her and her fans.

With Joker achieving both fame and fortune this time, the fans didn't urge her to release any new works for the second half of the year.

However, the less expectation there was, the more Luo Quan was able to bring surprises.

Because you never know when she might bring a surprise.

Ten days after Joker's release, the global box office exceeded 700 million USD, and the momentum showed no signs of slowing; experts analyzed that the total box office would likely exceed 1.5 billion USD.

Previously, the box office for Forrest Gump was 2.2 billion USD, the current box office champion of 2019.

Joker's subject matter was too heavy; although quite profound and highly critical, it sacrificed a lot of commercial appeal, so it was very normal that the final box office wouldn't surpass Forrest Gump.

However, a result of 1.5 billion USD was already quite good, and compared to its cost, Warner could be said to have made a killing this time.

And after staying home for ten days, Luo Quan secretly dropped a bombshell on her fans while livestreaming.

"This world needs more heroes!"

In the morning, a one-minute video appeared in Luo Quan's submissions.

Clicking on the video, the first thing that appeared was the Blizzard logo covered in frost cracks, followed by an icon.

This icon was a silver ring with an orange top, and inside the ring was an extended logo that looked like hands pressed together.

Not long after the icon appeared, a string of Chinese characters was highlighted below: Overwatch.

In the following forty-plus seconds, more than ten characters of different skin tones and costumes with distinct regional and national characteristics appeared.

There was an archer wearing Japanese samurai clothing with a dragon tattooed on their body.

There was a burly tomboy wearing a thick coat.

In addition, there was a Black man holding a speaker weapon, an Asian girl riding a cute mech, and a handsome middle-aged man dressed as a Western cowboy.

The elements were quite complete, and it was also very politically correct; almost no group was left out.

At first glance, the fans thought this was an animation trailer for a world unity project by Luo Quan.

It wasn't until Luo Quan started her livestream that the fans realized this was actually a trailer for a game currently in development.

"It is indeed a game, called Overwatch," Luo Quan said quite straightforwardly in response to the fans' excited questions.

"If you have any questions, ask them one by one; I can answer what I can."

Luo Quan didn't have the energy to organize a BlizzCon, so she just held a press conference right in the livestream room.

"What type of game is this? The modeling looks pretty good; the men are handsome and the women are beautiful too."

"Is it single-player or online?"

"Is it fun?"

………………

These were the questions the fans were most concerned about. Luo Quan summarized them and began to answer them one by one:

"First of all, this is a free-to-play first-person shooter, 6v6 fair competition, but it's not just a simple 'point and shoot' like CrossFire or CS: GO.

Each character has their own unique small skills and ultimate abilities, and these different skills determine their roles, namely tank, damage, and healer.

In addition, each character also has a talent system; in the game, every kill, assist, or strategic goal achieved earns talent points that can be used to upgrade."

"Holy crap, isn't this just an FPS version of League of Legends?"

"Sounds pretty interesting, I want to play."

"Just for the female characters in the trailer CG, I must participate in the closed beta!"

"Feels a bit like a 'Frankenstein' game, and a 'tracing master' like me probably won't be able to play it."

"Frankenstein my ass, isn't this kind of skill-based gunfight multiplayer battle the first of its kind?"

"Feels quite ahead of its time, as expected of you, Luo Bao."

………………

Because this type of game was indeed the first of its kind, the fans all showed a strong desire to play.

And here, Luo Quan had actually made some changes to the game.

The original Overwatch didn't have a talent system; whether a person played well or not depended entirely on their aim, but no matter how good one person's aim was, it was useless; to win the game, the other teammates had to be competent.

This made it difficult for skilled players to get a sense of achievement from crushing their opponents in the game.

In this regard, LoL did a very good job.

Getting kills, farming minions, and pushing towers all earned gold, and high gold converted into better equipment; once you got ahead, you could easily take on two or three.

In LoL, if you had a skill advantage, it was very simple to win the game; sometimes one "god" carrying four "noobs" could still rank up.

And often, games won under these circumstances brought even greater satisfaction.

So Luo Quan fully considered this point and added a talent system to Overwatch.

Talent points could be understood as gold coins, and each hero's talent selection became their equipment.

In the game, the more people a player killed, the more talent points they could earn, which then converted into combat power, creating a positive cycle.

And the variety of talents also meant that every hero's role was no longer singular.

A healer could be more than just a healer; they could also rely on talents to transition into dealing damage.

A damage dealer could also be more than just a "squishy" damage dealer; they could also stand at the front of the team to soak up damage and go on a rampage.

Of course, the more complex the game, the harder it meant balancing would be.

And whether players would buy into this was still unclear; everything would only be known after the game's closed beta.

"So what stage is the game at? When can we play it?"

This was the second important question raised in the chat.

"The folder has already been created," Luo Quan chuckled. "Actually, the modeling for some characters is already finished, and we are currently working on the modeling for the game maps.

Unlike League of Legends, Overwatch has many maps and many game modes, including payload, capture point, assault, and so on.

This game may not be as detailed in image quality as Final Fantasy, but its playability is absolutely not inferior. Moreover, because it is PvP, there is very little homogenized content, and every match is a new experience.

Currently, the development focus of Blizzard Studio is Overwatch; if nothing goes wrong, everyone will be able to see the closed beta version by the Spring Festival."

It was now early October, so it was four months until the New Year.

Compared to Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft, which took more than half a year to complete, Overwatch would be much faster.

But that was normal; after all, the scale was smaller. The first two games were easily over 100GB, while Overwatch was benchmarked against League of Legends, so the size probably wouldn't be too different.

If the game was too large, the configuration requirements would increase, and naturally, there would be fewer computers that could play it.

However, the fans were quite trusting of Blizzard Studio's Unreal Engine.

This was one of the best engines in the world—fast, well-optimized, and capable of adapting to both entry-level consoles and achieving cinema-level ultra-high graphics.

In summary, this game would be meeting everyone before long, and it would likely bring everyone a surprise.

"That's all the information I can reveal for now. Next, as development progresses, I will continue to release character images and game content; everyone can just wait patiently.

Also, don't ask anymore if this game will charge for heroes; like Dota 2, all heroes are free, and skins will cost money," Luo Quan told the fans basically everything that needed to be said.

"Then will skins add 10 attack points?"

At this moment, a joker suddenly asked, and the chat immediately became restless:

"Holy crap, Honor of Kings?"

"Haha, this is too classic, but 10 attack points really don't mean much for Honor of Kings; overall, it's still fair."

"Speaking of which, who will be operating Overwatch? It won't be Tencent again, right?"

"If it's not Tencent, who else could it be? With that massive social ecosystem, even a trash game can be made popular. (Not saying Overwatch is trash)"

"That's true, and Tencent is quite experienced in operating this type of game; League of Legends is an example, and now the tournaments are in full swing."

"Indeed, this can also fill the market gap; League of Legends handles 2.5D MOBA, and Overwatch handles 3D shooter MOBA."

"Since the game characters are based on real countries, I hope they can add a few more Chinese characters; the Monkey King, a sword immortal, or something like that would be great."

"Great minds think alike!"

………………

Judging from the fans' comments, although Tencent had a bad reputation in the country and many of the things they did were indeed criticized.

However, they were truly second to none in building an ecosystem; with the addition of a Tencent account, a game could easily extend from one person playing to pulling classmates and friends into the pit.

That was how Honor of Kings became popular in the first place.

There were actually several MOBA mobile games that were better than it at the time, but they were gradually eliminated because they lacked social features.

And Honor of Kings could easily pull classmates for duo queues, and over time, the number of users grew larger and larger.

By now, it had become the most profitable game in the world, with an annual income of over 40 billion, which was even more outrageous than the annual income of many large companies; one could imagine how strong its money-making ability was.

Whether Overwatch could achieve this, she wasn't sure; after all, the number of computers couldn't compare to mobile phones, and it couldn't be played anytime, anywhere like a phone.

But backed by Tencent, it could indeed save a lot of effort in promotion.

However, just taking it over like that wouldn't work.

Don't look at Overwatch as having the potential to be popular; Tencent might not necessarily let it become popular, even if the game's operating rights were in their hands.

Similar situations had happened before; for many games similar to League of Legends from abroad, Tencent would try every means to buy them, and then either not let players play them or keep them in closed beta forever.

The final result was that these games gradually all died out, and in the end, League of Legends remained the sole dominant force, with almost no competitors.

And once Overwatch came out, it would likely affect the status of League of Legends; whether Tencent would give it the same level of attention was unknown.

This was different from the previous Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft; one was the first domestic single-player game, and the other was the first prepaid online game in Tencent's hands, so no matter how popular they were, they wouldn't affect the other games they held.

But Overwatch was different; if this became popular, it would inevitably cause a loss of League of Legends players.

So Luo Quan felt that Tencent might not necessarily be so willing to operate Overwatch with dedication.

Even if the two sides had cooperated happily before, she was an outsider after all.

And capital, too, would absolutely not talk about feelings with her.

Therefore, she had been waiting for Zhou Yangwen's call to come through. ===== CHAPTER 777 =====