Text/Thomas's Skull

01

The moment he saw the first exposure of PV in "Wilderness Origin", Grape Jun was really in a trance. I really didn't expect that Tencent's Northern Lights A1 Studio, which doesn't have a strong sense of existence, could actually make something at this level.

To put it simply, Wild Origins is a SOC (Open World Survival Building) mobile game built with UE4. It shapes a world of primitive tribes and AI mechanical beasts, and at the same time, on the basis of SOC, it introduces more action-oriented core battles, and mechanical-themed pets to assist in building and combat gameplay.

Judging from the first exposed video just released today, this theme is similar to Sony's "Horizon: Dawn of Zero" series. However, after the release of the PV, many partners, including Sony PlayStation, have interacted with "Wild Origins", which should dispel some people's doubts.

This is not the first time Tencent has landed on the SOC track. But on Wild Origins, you'd be hard-pressed to find obvious path dependence, and it exudes a "bold" flavor that is rare in Tencent.

The framework of Wild Origins is not your usual F2P survival MMO, and it is not the same as Horizon, Valhalla, and Palu. During the two-and-a-half-hour offline trial, I felt the flow experience of analogous buyout games. Maybe it's not perfect, but it does create something of its own.

In 2019, I had a chat with Ren Zhiguo, the producer of "Wild Origins" and the head of Northern Lights A1 Studio. He joined Tencent in 2009 and has worked on MMOs such as "Legend of Xuanyuan" and "Snow Eagle Lord", and is a well-known project management expert. But if I said at the time that they were good at creating, bold enough, and able to make it to the forefront of the industry, I didn't believe it at all......

In addition to this trial, while chatting, Ren Zhiguo also showed me 5 different versions of their videos. Compared with the PV that was first exposed in the past few years, from quality to creativity, it doesn't look like the handiwork of the same team. What has happened in the past 5 years? I'm curious.

02

In 2020, Ren Zhiguo felt that it was time for the Northern Lights A1 Studio, which had been an MMORPG for more than ten years, to change its taste. He pulled a core team to do UE4 technical pre-research while doing trial and error.

Ren Zhiguo said that the market is not the same now as it was 10 years ago. "10 years ago, whatever products were made to fill the gaps in the industry, they could be successful. Now you can't do anything to succeed...... "So how can you fight your way out?" He thought of a simple method, before making a decision, first ask himself 10 whys, and ask himself that he is powerless to refute.

"Why did you choose this track? Why should others play the game of this track? They are playing the game so well now, why should they come to play your game, your theme? You say you have high fighting quality, but where is the height? ”

After repeatedly torturing themselves for 6 months and killing several demos, they finally targeted the SOC: the organic users of this vertical category have increased significantly, indicating that users like it very much.

"What's more, we like it too." Ren Zhiguo added, "In addition to shooting and driving, what else does our team like? Fishing, hiking, camping...... Right? It's true. ”

This time, the new demo finally makes everyone feel looking forward to it, but what theme should you choose, or in layman's terms, what kind of monster should you fight? Everyone made another difficulty.

The most common choice, of course, is to fight zombies, or to make the monsters of the previous Xianxia martial arts into it. But after scanning all kinds of zombie videos on Youtube, the team decided to rule out the option of homogenization, be bold, and make a choice that "should not be outdated or even more popular in 3-4 years": how about engaging in sci-fi?

On the occasion of the 2019 Spring Festival, "The Wandering Earth" was born, which greatly increased the confidence of the core team members who originally liked science fiction. Ren Zhiguo also predicts that young users in the future will be more receptive to differentiated sci-fi themes.

As a result, members such as Zhumei and Worldview Architect once again conducted many rounds of discussions and deductions with Ren Zhiguo. When the main beauty showed the first mechanical boss, the gorilla-like "Haruman", on the screen, everyone was excited: "It's so cool! ”

In this way, "Wilderness Origin" finally positioned "what monster to fight" as fighting mechanical beasts.

So how exactly should it be fought? At that time, most of the popular survival mobile games on the market were FPS, and there was no difference. So they decided to be bold again, change to a completely different direction, focus on cold weapon battles, and use real combat as the main selling point of the game.

In this way, "Wilderness Origins" has determined three top-level designs, namely vertical tracks, differentiated themes, and high-quality battles. At the more specific system level, they aimed at a pain point: the popular survival game on the market, the framework is more like an MMO, and the essence is "pseudo-SOC", which will be liver and krypton when playing. In response to this problem, the team established the concept of light social, light value, and light payment. Under their traction and grinding for 8 months, "Wild Origins" finally has its first prototype.

At this point, I asked Ren Zhiguo, how do you have the courage and confidence to build such a complex product after doing so many traditional projects? And why does the boss believe that you can do it?

Ren Zhiguo told me that to do a project, of course, you have to convince the boss and the team, but the most important thing is to convince yourself first.

"I set a requirement for myself, call for slow decision-making, fast execution. Like I said, ask yourself at least 10 whys before syncing them to your team. If the decision is made too quickly, a team of one or two hundred people will inevitably lead to a waste of costs; However, decisions that have already been made must be quickly verified and implemented. ”

In addition, Ren Zhiguo has a little trick: before making each version, launch 10 artists, spend nearly 1 month to make a video of what you want, and synchronize it to everyone. "It looks like a lie, but it actually sets a benchmark for the team. You may not believe the PPT, but you will believe the video. As long as it takes 2 months to make the video into a version, everyone will convince you. ”

Of course, the boss didn't believe that they could make such a complex product on the first day. But because of each milestone, they were able to deliver 100% of their promises, and gradually the boss believed it. "Your credit is like a credit card, if you default once, people won't believe it anymore."

Here's a piece of trivia: As a producer with a background in project management, Ren Zhiguo's projects have never been delayed. He should be quite convincing when he says this.

03

When I started experiencing Wild Origins, a question echoed in my head: "Is this really made by Tencent?" "Because it's not really a formula-based product.

The worldview of Wild Origins is a story of destruction and rebirth. Judging from the PV, it is likely that the AI system has taken over the world order and caused humanity to fall into a cycle again and again. And the variety of mechanical beasts makes this world full of the charm of primitive and technological contrasts.

Sound familiar? But after 10 minutes of play, you will feel the uniqueness of the game, and its experience is closer to a buyout SOC. You'll have to learn how to gather materials, build bases, craft equipment, deal with existential crises, explore the world, and only when you enter the main city and buy items will you see other players. This ensures an immersive experience and makes it less susceptible to anxiety about numerical and social pressures.

From the initial experience, the game also retains the realism and freedom of SOC, which is quite different from mobile games of the same type. Eating food can reduce hunger and increase the maximum amount of health; Houses are built that require load-bearing beams; Standing under a tree on a rainy day will be struck by lightning; Falling trees and rolling will cause damage; It is possible to dig pits, build horses and traps; You can also feed food, lure monsters to attack trees, and cut down trees in disguise...... A lot of details are remarkable.

"I'm on fire! I'm so hot! ”

But unlike a single-player SOC, the game is driven by more than just missions, external survival pressures, materials to collect, and tech trees to climb. On the one hand, bosses of different levels are scattered in different areas, encouraging you to explore the world and improve your combat power. On the other hand, the process of fighting bosses is also quite fun.

"Wild Origins" provides a variety of weapons such as one-handed swords, two-handed swords, shields, spears, bows and arrows, sledgehammers, wooden sticks, etc., supporting rolling, jumping, shield reversal, backstabbing, charging and other operations, each weapon also has its own attack trajectory, forward and backward swing, attack distance and elemental attributes. I saw a lot of friends who tried the game, and they all chose the combination of shield + spear - this should be a wheelchair for newcomers. ‍

‍

In addition, players will also gain combat skills with different attributes and effects when exploring the world and overcoming bosses. They also give the game an extra drive.

For example, in the early stage, Grape King found a small puzzle near the base, and after solving it, I entered the hidden basement and obtained a rare and cool drag-and-slash skill with a big sword. This skill has a long forward swing, but it does a lot of damage. I deliberately forged a great sword for it by searching for materials all over the world. It helped me take out a lot of bosses, and of course, killed me a few times with the front swing.

However, the team told me that they don't force players to delve into combat, but rather decouple combat and build as much as possible. Players only need to complete the basic process of another line, and they can focus on what they like better.

At the same time, the game supports 10 people to settle together, and can also accommodate 3 visitors on top of that. At the same time, because boss battles are not easy, using different weapons to fight bosses has also become an important social driver. Whether it's solo or multiplayer, players should be able to have fun.

At this point, "Wilderness Origins" is already a SOC with a good foundation and certain characteristics. However, it also has an inherent flaw.

Ren Zhiguo said that they have always believed that as long as they make fun games, paying is the least thing to worry about. Although the light social and light values maintain the fun of the gameplay loop, its core combat gameplay threshold is not low, DAU is inevitably limited, and there are not many scenes that users can show off. If you only rely on selling appearances, everyone in the studio is afraid that they will have to drink the northwest wind.

After thinking about it, the team decided to join a pet growth line. Let it play some role without affecting the rest of the gameplay loop. It's just a bit difficult to make it attractive without being too obtrusive.

Until the beginning of this year, everyone saw the popular model that swept the world: "Phantom Beast Palu".

At first, the team was hesitant to fully embrace Palu – a product choice that is also a good one. But after experimenting and thinking for more than 1 month, Ren Zhiguo thinks that it is wrong: "Origin of the Wilderness" has its own flavor, and it is easy to rub himself into the ditch by temporarily rubbing hot spots to change direction. In the end, instead of changing their gameplay loop, they incorporated some of the pet's system design:

As players explore the world and complete quests, they will be rewarded with Maca Eggs, which are mechanical beasts, mostly monsters that they face on a daily basis, and their name is derived from its English name "mechanimal".

While exploring and fighting, the player can summon a maca as an aid, and can ride a maca at the same time; There are also many macas that are dedicated to construction, which can automate the operation of the base and improve the efficiency of resource output. In addition, the game is also ready to design an exclusive strategy gameplay for independent maca to achieve "electronic fighting crickets".

But unlike Palu the Beast, Wild Origins doesn't have the freedom to capture Maca — there's already too much of an experience on the market, and it breaks the original target feedback loop. And Maca's impact on combat is not as exaggerated as "Phantom Beast Palu", they appear more as a supporting role in the main line of survival construction.

Ren Zhiguo said that from the perspective of experience, Maca has lowered the threshold for cold weapon battles, enriched combat strategies, and expanded potential users; At the same time, it relieves the repetitive work required by the SOC, and provides players with the motivation to collect horizontally rather than vertically. At present, they are still discussing the commercialization strategy of maca, but it definitely gives the team the confidence to continue to insist on light values and light payments.

When Maca can hold back the aggro, the player can output comfortably

Seeing this, you should have some idea of Wild Origins. It incorporates the design of many games, but it also boldly, even deliberately, breaks away from similar games and builds something of its own. Although many details still need to be optimized, its current version has a relatively self-consistent structure and is of excellent quality, and it should already be able to support dozens or even hundreds of hours of flow experience.

As for the more specific details and qualities of the game, I won't go into them here. "Wilderness Origins" has first exposed the actual video today, and you can directly see how it is on the Internet.

04

Ren Zhiguo said that he has been at Tencent for 15 years, and before that, he had always worked on games as projects. Now that he has been working on Wild Origins for a few years, thinking about differentiation and deducing design, he finally feels that he understands a little bit more about games.

In 2017, he served as a producer for the first time to develop "The Legend of Xuanyuan", and the turnover reached more than one billion in just half a year, and his confidence swelled. But the subsequent products failed to replicate the height of the previous one, so he began to reflect on how much of his success came from himself.

"I will say to myself repeatedly: Ren Zhiguo, don't float. The company has given such a good platform, we should take advantage of the opportunity, stop engaging in those seemingly foolproof routines, but should be bold and make a game that I really like and can really stay. ”

Such an idea supported them to withstand the difficulties of developing "Wild Origins". As a veteran team, the Northern Lights A1 has encountered many problems that exceed expectations. For example, in the previous version, although the game completed the basic framework, the combat quality was far from reaching the first-line level. 3C, Monsters, Characters, Action...... There are gaps in every aspect.

"After watching that version, the boss probably thinks that the game looks like that, and that it can make a little money. I took a first-line masterpiece and said we were ready to do it. The boss took one look and said you can do 80%......"

I've worked on a lot of big projects, and the first step for producers to improve quality is to replace the team. But Ren Zhiguo said that at least one-third of his colleagues who have worked with him for more than five years now. There are even core members who have a 15-year relationship with him.

On the one hand, he will give full play to the old skills of project management, lead everyone to benchmark first-line products, break down milestones, improve little by little, and slowly build confidence: "I tell you that we don't have big IP, and we don't have the most resources, and if we want to innovate, we must do more and see more and break through ourselves." ”

On the other hand, in order to keep up with everyone's knowledge, he has to write a small essay of several thousand words every few weeks to share his current judgment on the product. "Employees write more weekly reports to leaders, but leaders write fewer weekly reports to employees. After reading it, everyone will think that you are quite serious: he is an uncle, and he is so passionate, should I be more passionate? ”

Ren Zhiguo said that now that the industry is running out of traffic, there are not a few projects that have come up with strange tricks to attract users. But they want to be "bold and small, wise and round." Because only by being bold, thoughtful, and taking every step of the way can you have a chance to stand out.

And it turns out that this team, which has always been low-key and once underestimated by most people, has finally polished works that far exceed their past standards.

After today's world premiere, "Wild Origins" is about to start its first official test, and in the future, they will continue to polish the quality and solve the problem of long-term content consumption. Ren Zhiguo said that they had good luck before, and hoped that they could continue to make the right decisions in the future. But if a seemingly ordinary team can be reborn in only 3 years, then their courage may deserve better luck.

As I write this article, I often think of a detail. After experiencing the game at Tencent, I couldn't help but sigh with Ren Zhiguo: "Why didn't you think you had this strength before?" He smiled, "Now you're going to get to know our team again." ”

This article is from Xinzhi self-media and does not represent the views and positions of Business Xinzhi.If there is any suspicion of infringement, please contact the administrator of the Business News Platform.Contact: system@shangyexinzhi.com