On July 14th, Riot, an American indie game developer and publisher, officially opened the first beta of their in-development game, League of Legends.

With the popularity of the game concept of MOBA, more and more MOBA online games on the PC platform have begun to emerge in the past year.

Long before the release of "Eternal War", many games began to think about the disadvantages of the "Rota" mode, and while "Warcraft War 3" as a carrier made it spread quickly, it was also limited by the eyes. None of the design elements can escape the rules of Warcraft 3 itself, and while the version is constantly being iterated, Rota itself has become a source of creative divergence, and if it were put into a separate client, what might it end up looking like?

Some of them started to do it, thinking and doing it, and some of them were still thinking, waiting for someone to verify the results of their thinking.

It wasn't until March last year that the launch of "Eternal War" directly told them the answer, and it seemed to be the ultimate answer.

How should this genre be done, how high is it likely to reach, and how will it affect the gaming market landscape.

The answer to all the questions, "The Eternal War" spent more than a year to tell them clearly.

What these people are thinking about now is how to subdivide the differentiated market on the basis of "Eternal War", avoid this behemoth as much as possible in this field, and divide it into one acre and three points of land.

Among these pursuers, the one at the forefront is from Chris? Launched earlier this year by Taylor and his gas Poered Games (acquired by argaming in 2013 and the same company behind World of Tanks), the talented producer of Sweep of Armies, Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander was lost in this whole new territory.

"Demigods" also attracted a lot of attention after its launch, not only because of the game and the producers themselves, but also because its opponent was the seemingly invincible "Eternal War". But in the end, it became the first corpse at the foot of "Eternal War", because of its poor number of heroes, chaotic troop dispatch patterns, and no technical and tactical combat rules, it fell as quickly as a meteor across the sky.

Perhaps as a pioneer, none of these shortcomings are intolerable, but Eternal War has set the bar there, and every game that comes out will inevitably be compared in all directions

After the start of the large-scale no-deletion test in April, the number of daily active players has dropped to 1,000.

It is the first, and predictably it will not be the last.

In March, Riot announced the League of Legends project and said it would begin internal testing in the near future.

At the beginning of April, another "Newworth Heroes" (later called "Super God Heroes" in the national server) developed by S2 Games in the United States also revealed that it will meet players at the end of this year or early next year;

In South Korea, Neocat's Chaos Online has intermittently revealed some development content, and has begun to promote it on a small scale to arouse the appetite of players and media. China has also started working on their first product, Sky Wing, since last year with the formation of a new game company, Celestial Wing.

These projects all use "The Eternal War" as an important or even the main reference, and strive to break through on this basis.

Gamespot spoke to the Riot team for the first time, and their first question was, "Are you ...... in development?" Influenced by ONE? ”

Founder and owner Mark (nicknamed Tedamir internally) said: "Of course, ONE and Fsioa are names that cannot be avoided when it comes to MOBA development, and in fact our internal employees are loyal players of ONE. However, developing League of Legends was something we decided a long time ago, and our company was already established in '06 and decided to make this game. ”

[Tedamir] didn't finish his words, so as not to appear disrespectful, Xia Qingyu, the founder of the herring fish network, was still studying in school at that time.

Gamespot: "So, what do you think is special about League of Legends compared to ONE? ”

[Tedamir]: "Of course, that's what we've been thinking about for the last year. Because ONE's success is so dazzling, you know, it's perfect in almost every aspect, and if we imitate it, there's no way to beat it. So we had to come up with something different, like we also went for a 'grass' mechanic, which was completely different from the vision mechanics of ONE and Rota, and we focused more on simple and straightforward teamwork and the final outcome of the fight, which we put a lot of effort into that. ”

Gamespot: "Do you think there's room for further improvement in ONE?" ”

[Tedamir] hurriedly shook his hand: "No, I didn't say that...... I mean something different, something that might give players a whole new feel, and we hope they enjoy it. ”

The media is so insidious......

And the other founder, Brandon (nicknamed Ruiz within the company...... ) admitted to Gamespot reporters recent rumors that Riot was linked to the name of Tenghua, another Chinese company outside of the herring network.

In fact, last year, Riot conducted a round of financing of $8 million, and Tenghua was one of them, and obtained the agency rights of the future "League of Legends" in Chinese mainland. And now, some media have begun to reveal that Tenghua is preparing to acquire 100% of the shares of Riot Company, making it its own wholly-owned subsidiary.

Of course, this is not just a matter between the two companies, as Riot itself has a stake in two VC firms, Benchmark Capital and Firstmark Capital. Tenghua now has a 22 percent stake in Riot, which they spent $6 million on last year.

But this year, with the expansion of the MOBA genre market, the surge in the number of players, and the improvement of the completion of "League of Legends" itself, it can be tested for players, and the quality of the product has been further polished, and the company has appreciated.

In May, Tenghua made its first offer of $38 million to acquire 70% of the shares owned by the founding team of Riot, which is equivalent to doubling the company's valuation in a year.

But this price was quickly rejected after being discussed within Riot, and it was clear that they were more optimistic about the company's prospects.

In June, Tenghua's second offer was directly increased to $45 million, and this time the fist hesitated.

The acquisition of Riot is not only to win the "League of Legends" project, but also to pave the way for Tenghua's globalization strategy and further penetrate into the field of e-sports.

"Yes, we have received an official offer from Tenghua, I can only say that it is a very sincere figure, and we are still discussing it internally." [Ritz] said so.

Gamespot: "Sounds like a high probability? ”

[Ruiz]: "If there is any further information, we will let you know as soon as possible. ”

Gamespot: "Tenghua is Fisoa's main competitor in China, and it seems that they want to extend the battlefield beyond Chinese mainland to the world. ”

As a professional game journalist, I must know that China's game field is developing rapidly, and it is likely to surpass the United States to become the world's largest independent game market within a few years. ）…… There is also some research on its representative game companies. Not to mention Time magazine's Everhart, a journalist who visits a number of Chinese companies and writes about them.

[Ruiz] shook his head and shrugged, "Hey, that's not something we can speculate on. However, competition will always exist and should exist, only in this way can we have multiple angles to explore, learn and share experiences, and bring better things to players. ”

Gamespot: "Thank you for your time, what can you expect from the first beta of League of Legends?" ”

[Ruiz]: "Thank you, and I hope you will be as lenient as possible with ONE, which has been in operation for 16 months, and we have only met players for the first time......"

……

……

At this time, it has been two weeks since the Huangpu Municipal Public Security Bureau received a report from the Qingyu Network and officially filed the case, during this time, according to the internal statistics of the Qingyu Network, about 350,000 players have been affected by this OH script, and the accounts suspected of having opened the OH script are difficult to identify due to technical reasons, and in most cases can only be analyzed through player reports, and after investing a lot of manpower in statistics, the number is probably more than 3000...... The spread speed is not fast, and it also causes a certain degree of damage to the game environment.

These accounts are being manually checked, compared with past records, and then entered the game blacklist, which is also a big project.

On the forum and Weibo, some players also began to notice some inhuman operations encountered in their games, at first I thought it was the big guy's trumpet, but after encountering it a few more times, it was basically obvious that it was abnormal, and it was almost impossible to make mistakes, Tracy couldn't do it.

There are some video makers who have also purchased OH scripts to use like Xiao Hei...... Of course, it's with a small one, and there are still a lot of skins on the large one, how dare you...... Then I made a video and uploaded it to expose this freshly baked plug-in, and @ Qingyu Network, hoping that the official will pay attention to it and solve it as soon as possible.

At present, the popular UP master "Eternal Battlefield Field Worker" in the domestic "Eternal War" video field also produced a video, which quickly exceeded 5 million views on many video websites on the whole network, which also made the popularity of this OH script quickly spread among players.

"At first, I met some teammates and opponents in the game who were very skilled, ah...... Most of them are opponents...... A friend told me that "Eternal War" has a plug-in, and there is a new auxiliary program called 'OH'. 'Oh' is its abbreviation.,The full name is.,Come and read it with me.,ONE Fuck ah no.,It's ONE Hack.,Note that the 'a' pronunciation of this Hack is a front vowel?,That's the standard.。 ”

"At first, I didn't believe it, but after encountering it a few more times, I found that the frequency of these fairy-like people was still a bit high, and then I went through a secret visit, betrayed my dignity and abandoned my faith, infiltrated the plug-in group, bought a pill and started taking medicine myself...... After using it, I realized that this kind of plug-in is really awesome. They use it like that, and so do I, this guy, whoever uses it knows. ”

"Automatic replenishment, one-click combos, multi-skill moves, automatic harassment of the opponent's heroes with small skills, and a variety of hero customization functions, that group of sellers are really honest and honest, honest management, and there is. I'm going to show you how these so-called scripted cheats work in the game, and I'll also show you how to tell if your opponent is using them in the game. At the same time, I also hope that the official Qingyu Network can see this video and take effective measures as soon as possible to prevent the further spread of plug-ins. ”

"I want to say it again, consciously resist plug-ins, green the game environment, start with you and me!"

Although there is a suspicion of hype, it is also a popular science category, a video that spreads positive energy, and most players only remembered what the system announcement that was poked out in the game client half a month ago referred to.

They have always known the efficiency and determination of the herring fish network to deal with cheats, and it also benefits from the good and harmonious relationship between this company and players for a long time, so there is nothing to criticize the poor handling below, let alone any frustration with the game, just hope that the official can quickly take the plan.

Public opinion has not been tilted in the direction of the company's disadvantage for the time being, and the marketing department of Qingyu has not taken some public relations measures, but only issued an announcement through the official website to convey the determination of players to crack down on game cheating.

That announcement didn't seem to deter these developers and agencies, but it was also unfounded, and a thousand announcements were not even as deterrent as a single Thunderbolt operation.

The last time Xia Qingyu expressed her opinion was on Weibo, and she now has more than 1.2 million followers on Weibo, more than three times that of Ye Shenxi's 400,000...... Since E3 came back, the number of fans of the two has ushered in a crazy rise, especially Xia Qingyu's.

No way, who told her to be more active than the other.

She posted a Weibo post that didn't name names: "Warnings aren't useful, are they? ”

The tone is light and breezy, and the picture is more harmonious, with a picture of the latest yawning of dumplings in the summer of 2009. In fact, on Weibo, there are also some fans of dumplings.

Dumpling fans are satisfied.

Xia Qingyu then instructed Xiao Hei to speed up their actions and improve their efficiency.

Within two weeks, the criminal security team of Qingyu Network worked closely with the public security department, responded quickly, and quickly figured out the organizational type, sales channels and technical sources of the plug-in team, and locked up the four main suspects as soon as possible.

Through the unremitting efforts of information collection, analysis and judgment, the conclusive evidence of the criminal suspect's illegal production and operation of a plug-in script program named "ONE Hack" was obtained, and a corresponding arrest plan was formulated to carry out the arrest operation.

On July 15, Xiao Hei and two other male colleagues from the operation and maintenance department flew to Guancheng with police officers from the Huangpu Public Security Bureau and arrested four suspects on the spot in a residential building.

Two of them, Chen and Zhao, learned programming by themselves, intercepted server packets, and worked hard to study algorithms, develop script functions and continuously improve and update them...... They also have a dedicated testing team to test feedback on the usage experience to help them with optimization.

The other two, Hua and Zhang (that is, the demon king that Xiao Hei talked about before), are responsible for recruiting agents and conducting sales. Not only that, the two also keep pace with the times, actively expand the e-commerce business, open sales stores in Dibao and Dengdang.com, and also control an agent sales group of more than 200 people.

When they were arrested, the four of them had just ordered takeout and were ready to eat, and it could be seen that they had indeed made some money by selling plug-ins, and the four of them ordered six meats, two vegetables and two soups, which can be described as luxurious. While discussing the strategic policy of expanding business, a group of neatly uniformed public security officers broke into the door and almost scared out of anorexia.

The police also seized the crime server, laptops and desktop computers at the scene, a total of 7 laptops, mobile phones, computer hard disks, U disks and a number of other crime tools, the content of the computer can basically show the criminal process of this team, in addition to "Eternal War", there are other MMORPG plug-in programs A total of 7 sets of source code, including "Dungeon Warriors" and "Beyond the Line of Fire", as well as "Maplestory", "Warcraft" and "Perfect Realm" and so on...... Some of them are independently developed, some are obtained from others, and some are purely agents.

Among them"OH" is the most expensive, after all, scarcity is expensive, first of all, the strong server of "Eternal War" eliminates the possibility of most plug-ins, and other game cheating users have a number of different brands of plug-ins to choose from, and this is basically a very rare competitor, and at the same time, the blue fish network has a strong crackdown on plug-ins, and the risk is relatively high. Secondly, it is also because this game is the most popular and has the largest number of players.

Xiao Hei looked at the computer, and then asked, "Who is the demon king?" ”

Zhang nodded dejectedly and looked at Xiao Hei inexplicably.

"I'm Blackie, the one you're talking to these days."

Mr. Xia confessed that he wanted to reveal his identity in front of the suspect on the spot, and then describe the scene to her when he went back.

"Ah...... What a girl......" The Demon King's eyes widened, but his pupils were shrinking, and then he shook his head bitterly and sighed: "Beautiful woman...... I can't believe it......"

The three people who were squatting in the other corner with their heads in their hands also looked up at him, and there was a little hatred in the decadence.

"Be honest!" The public security officer shouted.

……

Subsequently, the four were criminally detained, and during the interrogation, they confessed to their crimes, and also confessed to other minor suspects in the sales network.

According to Article 286 of the Criminal Law, they may face up to five years in prison for the crime of destroying computer information systems.

The four met in March this year, and they were all gamers, and then hit it off and formed a team. Two people are responsible for development, two people are responsible for operation, and in just four months, through the sale of several plug-in programs, the profit exceeded 1.5 million, and the amount of crime was huge.

In mid-June this year, Chen and Zhao jointly developed "ONE Hack" and began to sell, and then through the previously established sales network and customer resources, so far, "OH" has been sold to more than 4,000 accounts, and on average, more than 130 sets will be sold every day, which is quite good.

On the game "Eternal War" alone, they earned more than 800,000 yuan in just one month, and the speed of accumulating wealth is very fast, but the karmic retribution is also very fast.

From the start of sales to the eventual arrest, only one month later, OH has just begun to spread...... This kind of efficiency has never been encountered by the predecessors of the peers who were caught in before.

At the same time as the four-person team was arrested, Xia Qingyu asked the team to issue an announcement that the "plug-in team was arrested", not only on Qingyu's own official website, but also to various news media.

The news describes the process of Qingyu Network's Thunder Operation cooperating with the public security organs to arrest criminal suspects, and reaffirms that Qingyu Network has a zero-tolerance attitude towards external plug-ins, whether it is opening an account, or a plug-in production and marketing team.

also posted another post on her own Weibo: "Do you still want to try? ”

The picture is still a dumpling, a photo of a very provocative feeling of squinting.