The light rain in Nanjing in November could not stop the enthusiasm of the players to rush to the scene wearing all kinds of Hanfu. NetEase held the "World IP Public Beta 6000-day Annual Conference" here on November 9. It's not accurate to say it's a launch, as it's also a player meetup. Being at the scene, I can especially feel the distinctive characteristics of the player base of the "Tianxia" IP. At the press conference, many players came in groups of threes and twos. Among them, the proportion of men and women is very high, and there are even many couples who come to the scene with children. Indeed, for a game with 6,000 days of open beta, such a long period of time is enough to run through the time period from the acquaintance of couple players to the time when the baby will play soy sauce. And when the classic main interface music of "The World II" sounded, and when the song of "Don't Ask the Future" sounded, the warm atmosphere of the players on the scene also reached a climax. How can old IPs remain evergreen and continue to attract players? Each team has its own answer. Just as the producer said almost every word at the press conference, "all for the players" may be the answer to this question from the "Under Heaven" team.

Serve players well: With the awareness of "being beaten", the IP of "Tianxia" is also famous in the entire history of Chinese online games. "World II" was not only an attempt by NetEase to break through itself that year, but also the first game with a national server that surpassed "World of Warcraft" in terms of the number of online users, and it was known as "Chinese Warcraft" that year. With the passage of time, such a classic IP will naturally iterate with the technological update and the development of the mobile platform, and after "Tianxia II", "Tianxia 3" and "Tianxia Mobile Game" have been launched one after another. Up to now, it presents a unique ecology of "three generations in the same house". Many old IPs of the same era as "Under Heaven" will continue to decrease the number of players over time. In order to maintain the popularity of the game, the common practice of old IPs is often to cut redundant product lines in order to gather a small number of players together and renew their lives. However, the "Under Heaven" IP did not do this, but chose to re-launch "The World II" on the basis of "The World 3" and "The World Mobile Game", and also announced a new engine iteration plan and the progress of "The World 4" at this press conference. Instead of shrinking, the product line is expanding, which is indeed a bit of a reversal of the way of others. With these questions, I interviewed the main planner of "The World II". What I'm curious about is that when the game's multiple product lines are advancing simultaneously, aren't the internal teams afraid of snatching players? In this regard, Guofeng's answer was quite unexpected. He first introduced me to the player base of the "Commonwealth" IP. The gamer profile of this group has not long since shifted from hardcore to casual as the outside world stereotypes of "veteran gamers". They still have their own pursuit of the content and quality of the game, and they are very sticky to the good gameplay content, and they will never let go of the bad content easily, and will directly protest to the production team. According to the original saying of the national style, it is "very fierce". The technical person in charge, Fei Yu, said half-jokingly at the scene: "The players who know me are already gearing up to beat me." It can be seen that "serving players well" is not just a phrase on the lips. If we want to put this sentence into practice, we must have the consciousness of "being beaten". The IP of "Under Heaven" did not choose to forcibly concentrate players into the same product, in fact, out of respect for players. Since the players have different attributes and different needs, the production team would rather take trouble and maintain multiple product lines, and is willing to create a "great wilderness world" with different focuses for different player groups. According to Guofeng, the player overlap between the various product lines of the "Under Heaven" IP is actually not high, and many players only stare at one game to play, and the stickiness is very high. It is precisely in order to take care of this group of highly sticky players that the IP of "Under Heaven" has chosen the strategy of making multiple product lines parallel. Of course, just because there aren't many players doesn't mean that players don't pay attention to what's going on in the product line next door. When a product line is launched with a more interesting gameplay or novel look, players from other product lines will shout "I want it too". In terms of efficiency, this leads to higher development costs for the team. Guofeng's answer to this is that in order to serve players well, the team is willing to bear such a cost increase. Of course, he also explained that although the IP of "Tianxia" has multiple product lines, the cooperation and communication between the teams are very close, and the technology sharing atmosphere formed ensures that their update efficiency is still very high. Perhaps it is precisely because of the spirit of sharing within the team that the multiple product lines of the IP of "Tianxia" can update the content in parallel. At this press conference, "Tianxia 3" not only launched practical functions such as appearance subscription system to reduce liver and burden, but also brought a new way to play the social square, so that players can hang up, chat, and socialize at will in the city, pet cats, swing, take a bath, fish, and even support players to open a martial arts hall as a shopkeeper in the future, etc., which is a kind of exploration of "martial arts party". The mobile game "Under Heaven" brings a new "Apocalypse" expansion, which not only remakes the scene of the main city of Jiuli, but also adds a weather system to make the game scene more vivid. In terms of gameplay, the game has launched a new four-person squad competitive gameplay and an AI burden reduction function for the first sect. Among them, AI disciples, although currently only open functions such as tasks and dialogues. However, the producer said that as long as there is positive feedback from players, it is not ruled out that this part of the content will continue to expand. In the future, it is not impossible for AI disciples to form interactions with each other and have memories. "World II" pays more attention to the needs of emotional players, and launches the "World II Classic Completion Plan" to respond to the expectations of old players by resetting classic dungeons, classic gameplay and classic appearance. At the press conference, the producer emphasized that the monthly card server of "Tianxia II" has been warmly welcomed by players since its launch. This also strengthened the confidence of the production team, determined not only to continue the story of "The World II", but also to make up for the story that had not been told. On this basis, the "Under Heaven" IP also disclosed the latest progress of the Kaitian plan, and carried out a comprehensive iteration of the engine iteration of the original product line, improving the image quality of the game to the level of the current mainstream MMO. And all of these updates are not distant pies, but will be available to players before the end of 2024. The efficiency of the production team can be seen here.

Clumsy and coincidental: No matter how many updates there are on the product side, after chatting with the producer, what makes me feel the most is that the IP of "Under Heaven" has a group of enviable players. When we asked what the "secret" of "Under Heaven" gathered such a group of hardcore players, the producer Guofeng's answer was very simple. He said they didn't have any secrets, they used the "stupid method" of the ancient Internet era: go among the players, sit in front of the players and listen to the players. Just like this Nanjing press conference, this is not only a press conference open to media and professional streamers, but also a player meeting. At the press conference, there were many interactive sessions with players, as well as face-to-face discussions with players. According to the introduction of the national style, activities like this have long become the norm that the IP of "Tianxia" has always adhered to. They will walk from city to city, face the players, give them benefits and listen to the players. And the opinions of players collected in this way are naturally first-hand information, which is the most able to guide the direction of game development. Obviously, under such an operation model, the player community of the "Tianxia" IP has gradually formed its own ecology. There is a greater sense of recognition among players and a greater sense of action. According to Guofeng, the old player group of "Under Heaven" actually shows a certain high level of education and knowledge. Because of this, they not only have requirements for gameplay, but also have their own aesthetic needs for the text language, world view shaping, and monster sophistication in the game. If the producers can't respond to their needs, or if there are gaps in the evidence, these players will be merciless in pointing them out. With such a group of players, there is definitely pressure. But for the production team, these players are also the biggest wealth of the IP of "Under Heaven". In order to give back to these players, the conference announced a new "National Producer Plan", which is expected to invest no less than 100 million yuan in promotion funds to encourage players to give opinions to the game, find bugs, and also include anchor incentives and video incentives and other aspects of interaction. At the same time, the IP linkage plan of the "Under Heaven" product line has also been put on the agenda, and the linkage with games such as "Minecraft", "Wilderness Action" and "Egg Boy Party" was announced in advance at the press conference, and the follow-up linkage is also in preparation. IP linkage is not only a kind of feedback to players, but also an opportunity for more new players to get in touch with the IP player group of "Tianxia".

EpilogueIn the MMO track, you can hear the saying of "endgame" every year. But the Terminator has not appeared for a long time, and it is often those familiar faces who are active in the market. It's not that newcomers don't work hard, but that those classic IPs often have two unique skills in their hands. For example, the unique skill of "Tianxia" is that it can always grasp the needs of players, always hear the real voice of players, and finally establish a solid expansion river for its game IP, leaving players well in their own games. This kind of unique skill seems to have no tricks, but the details determine success or failure, and it is difficult for novice teams to imitate it in place. With the launch of the engine update plan of the "Tianxia" IP, it is gradually catching up with the mainstream in terms of image quality and hardware, and more new generation players will also find this treasure land with a unique player ecology and be attracted by the unique temperament of the IP. Going along this line of thought, the IP of "Under Heaven" may really be able to fulfill the promise of "accompanying players until they are old".

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