Chapter 104.1: More NPCs, Richer Gameplay Styles

After the order was issued, these survivors quickly demolished their shacks and headed to the brick factory in the northwest.

Although that was where they came from, and now they needed to go back, no one had any complaints about the administrator's arrangement.

It was already a lucky thing to be able to come out of the marauder's underground cell alive, not to mention being able to be clothed and given food.

Ample Time and Old White, who were measuring the land near the brick kiln, stopped what they were doing when they saw the group of people and walked up to the administrator to ask, "Dear administrator, who are they..."

Chu Guang replied without hesitation, "These people are the survivors who were saved by us. In order to repay us, they are willing to help with our construction."

The faces of Ample Time and Old White lit up with joy. They had just been worried about not having enough people because other players all went to do novice tasks. The new laborers could be said to solve their urgent needs.

"Then... How much do we need to pay them?"

Actually, he didn’t think of getting the players to pay them at all.

However, since the players actively requested it...

Chu Guang thought about it for a moment and said after considering the realism of the game, "One silver coin per person per day. I will deduct this expenditure directly from your account. You only need to ensure that they will not be hungry or freeze to death."

"In addition, pay attention to construction safety. I don't want to see the reduction of workers due to poor working conditions. This will not only affect our regional reputation, but also delay production."

"If there are casualties, one hundred silver coins will be deducted as compensation."

This compensation would of course not be paid to the NPC. It is just a constraint for players.

Moreover, those native people would not be interested in these pieces of metal. For them, they would rather receive a piece of meat than such a gadget with no recycling value.

While speaking, Chu Guang sent the pre-edited task to Old White through his VM.

Although it was a bit far from the outpost, it would not affect the point-to-point information transmission between the two VM devices.

After triggering the task of hiring NPC workers, Bull and Horse Brick Factory would automatically spend 23 silver coins from the account every day as salary for their employees.

Compared to players' wages of at least ten silver coins a day, hiring those NPCs to do work could be said to be very cheap.

Ample Time and Old White immediately agreed happily after a simple calculation.

Of course, in order to prevent these players from abusing those natives, Chu Guang immediately added another condition.

"The minimum food standard per person per day is half a kilogram of green wheat. Of course, this is only the minimum nutritional standard. If you want them to work harder, you can buy more meat and fish, or even go to the city to get some game for them."

We can feed the NPCs!

Holy shit.

This game not only has a management element but also a growth simulation element.

Ample Time and Old White's eyes lit up, and they said confidently, "Don't worry, Administrator, we will definitely not mistreat them!"

"Yes! Even if I am hungry, I won't make them hungry!"

Emmm...

No need to be so exaggerated.

Eating too much is actually not good for work.

Xia Yan

...Wasn’t there such an example in the outpost?

Well... Chu Guang decided to remain silent in the end.

Exploration was also part of the fun of a game.

Those players would naturally find a suitable path, and he only needed to provide a general direction. Manipulating everyone's life was neither realistic nor necessary.

...

23 survivors settled down in the brick factory, changing their identities from refugees to brick-makers at the outpost.

They set up the camp quickly, and it took less than an hour for them to rebuild the shacks they made in front of the south gate.

Although it looked a bit crude, there was still no problem with sheltering them from wind and rain.

For survivors on the wasteland, it was almost a must-have talent to quickly build a shelter that could withstand wind and rain.

In that aspect, players weren’t as good as them.

Even Garbage, who claimed to be "Garbage", has never picked up rubbish in reality. At most, he often went downstairs to dump his trash.

Watching those survivors build shacks, Chu Guang found Zhao Rat and a survivor from outside Clearspring City, gave them a dedicated VM for an NPC, and appointed them as the foreman, responsible for communication with players.

If other survivors had any opinions, they could report to the player as soon as possible. In special circumstances, they could use the mission system to ask the player for help.

However, the task rewards of different NPCs were restricted by different levels, and they could not freely give money to players.

That was similar to other MMORPG games.

The limit set by Chu Guang for the two foremen was up to two silver coins, which could only be released every 72 hours. The lowest level was five copper coins which could be given every 24 hours.

If there were any difficulties in their lives, such as a leak in the shed, and fuel was needed, they could issue the lowest mission to the players. If someone was sick, or someone was injured, they could use the highest level of reward to release the task so that it would be accepted quickly.

Of course, Chu Guang did not tell these NPCs about the name of the mission system and its true meaning, but only abstractly told them how to use these functions cautiously and seek reasonable help from those omnipotent players in blue coats.

Like other NPCs, every time they posted a mission and talked to players, they would leave a record in the VM.

Chu Guang would let Luca come over at intervals, collect the data with VM, bring it back to the outpost for archiving, and review the data with the assistance of AI.

Only by using those data would Chu Guang be able to easily grasp the exchanges and interactions between the players and the native survivors of the wasteland. He would also be able to easily check if those NPCs released some tasks inconsistent with their own personality and identity.

If they really did anything like that, Chu Guang would deal with such bugs as soon as possible.

"There will definitely be loopholes in the newly implemented rules. Fortunately, there are only a few people in the testing stage, so I can try to find those mistakes and correct them in time."

Looking at the backs of the people who slowly walked away, Chu Guang stroked his chin and mumbled to himself, "...When the game reaches the beta testing phase, a relatively complete NPC and player interaction system should be formed."

Mhm.

As expected of me!

With everything arranged perfectly, Chu Guang left contentedly.

...

Six o'clock in the evening on the wasteland...

After Old White went offline, he immediately went to the forum to create a new post.

"Breaking news! Breaking news! The Bull and Horse Brick Factory will officially open tomorrow! We are giving you a 10% discount! What are the players who want to build a house waiting for? Hurry up and place an order!"

It was six o’clock in the morning in the real world, and generally, other forums would have no one online at that time. The official website of Wasteland Online was the exact opposite. Usually, that was when they had the most active members.

Generally, other forums would have no users online at this time, but the official website of Wasteland Online was just the opposite. Usually, it had the most people online at this time.

Tomato Eggs: What is your daily production capacity?

Old White: Not much, not much. At present, there is no problem with a daily production of one or two thousand bricks. We will probably achieve a daily production of tens of thousands by the end of the month! (Smiley face)

Tomato Eggs: Awesome!!!

Lightning Professor: I want one ton!

Gale: Our bricks are not sold by the ton. The specifications and sizes are fixed. They are sold in blocks. One hundred standard bricks will cost one silver coin.

Night Ten: Mate, why are you wasting time talking to Professor Yang? He doesn't even have the qualification to enter the game yet. (?° ?? ?°)

This_lord_is_arrogant_what_can_you_do: Lmao, a hundred bricks for one silver coin? Did you even do the math? Building a house will need at least hundreds of millions of bricks. Just the two-story small house near my house uses five hundred million bricks, let alone other places. It would cost one million silver coins to build a house in the game? I heard that you guys only make single-digit silver coins for a task. Haha, this game is really realistic.

Irene: Big brother, do you live near the Forbidden City? Then do you have to buy entry tickets when you go back? (?° ?? ?°)

Sword Execution: Hahaha, actually, the Forbidden City did not use that many bricks, only eighty million or so. However, the bricks they use are much larger.

Irene: I was just joking. (?° ?? ?°)

The wall area of a room with an inner area of ??2.5x2m and 3 meters high is at most 27 square meters. If you wish to build an 18cm thick wall, you will need 96 bricks, so 2600 bricks should be more than enough.

Even if most players chose to build a bigger house together, the average would not exceed 5000 bricks.

100 bricks a silver coin, 50 silver coins per house, the price was still very reasonable.

In the later stage, the demand for bricks may increase, which may increase the brick price as well, but the range of increase and decrease would be limited to within 100%. Unless the NPC warehouse in charge of prices adjusted the benchmark value, it would increase to two silver coins at most.

After all, if it was a little bit more expensive, everyone would be building their homes with wood. If that really happened, no one would bother making bricks...