chsdbacks Chapter 450 Saturation Bombardment
Chapter 450 Saturation Bombardment
The Frankfurt server will officially launch its public beta test in the middle of next month.
Lu Ran arrived at the company an hour earlier than usual that morning, and was already sitting in the office before seven o'clock.
Three monitoring panels were displayed on the computer screen: one showed the real-time load curve of the Frankfurt server, another showed the sum of the number of concurrent online users in major European countries, and the third showed the data flow monitoring of the TUTU international version backend.
The three people were in the office, each staring at their own screen, and no one spoke except for the occasional click of the keyboard.
At 9:00 AM sharp, or 3:00 AM local time in Europe, the server opened for registration and login on time.
This time was calculated repeatedly by the operations department. The peak online time for European players is between 7 pm and 11 pm. There are the fewest people when the server is first opened, which is just right for testing whether there are any problems with the basic login and matchmaking process.
The real test will come when Europe reaches its evening rush hour in the afternoon.
The data was normal for the first two hours after the opening. The number of online users started from zero and slowly climbed up. The speed was not fast, and the curve was as smooth as a straight line rising at a constant speed.
The login success rate is 99.9%, the average matching wait time is less than 10 seconds, and the latency on the local Frankfurt server is controlled within 15 milliseconds.
Lu Ran stared at the curve for half an hour, but there were no abnormal fluctuations. He leaned back in his chair, picked up his teacup, and took a sip.
The turning point came at 5 p.m., which was 11 a.m. local time in Europe, as players began to leave school and take their lunch break from the office.
The curve, which had been rising gently, suddenly became steeper within minutes, swinging straight up from a 30-degree angle to a 60-degree angle.
It took less than ten minutes for the number of online users to jump from 80,000 to 150,000, and less than fifteen minutes for them to jump from 150,000 to 250,000.
Within 30 minutes, the number of online users nearly tripled, and the load curve surged from the green zone into the orange zone, still about 20% away from the red warning line.
The operations team in Frankfurt sent a message saying that the server's CPU utilization was approaching 75%, memory usage was 70%, and network bandwidth consumption was continuing to rise.
Lu Ran replied that monitoring would continue and that adding a server was not necessary for the time being.
He stared at the orange curve for another fifteen minutes and noticed that its rate of ascent was slowing down, eventually stabilizing around 280,000 and no longer surging upwards.
The data was better than he had expected.
The peak concurrent online users on the first day of the European server reached 280,000. This may not seem like much in the Chinese market, but for a newly launched overseas game, it's a pretty good start in the European market.
Lu Ran turned off the monitoring panel and sent a message to Zhou Mingzhe: "First-day peak of 280,000. It's a sure thing."
Zhou Mingzhe only replied with two words: "I saw it."
The data continued to rise over the next few days, not in an explosive leap, but steadily increasing a little each day.
The peak number was 280,000 on the first day, 320,000 on the second day, 370,000 on the third day, and it exceeded 450,000 on the sixth day.
The growth curve has not shown any obvious signs of slowing down, which means that the retention rate and referral rate of European players are very high, new users are constantly pouring in, and old users have not left.
What truly convinced Lu Ran that his European server was secured was the reaction on social media.
He saw some data in the backend of TUTU International Edition: the number of discussion posts about "League of Legends" in Europe had increased nearly tenfold in just one week.
One of the posts by a British player was featured on the homepage. The post was titled "I've been playing this game for three days, what am I missing?" and it received hundreds of replies, all from players from various countries sharing their experiences of getting into the game.
A Frenchman commented that he used to only play football games, but a friend dragged him into playing one game and he couldn't stop. He played six games on the first day, twelve games on the second day, and only stopped on the third day when his wife unplugged his computer.
A German player said that this game is much smoother than the old MOBA they've been playing for years. The graphics aren't top-notch, but the optimization is good, and it can even run on an old computer from a few years ago.
Another Swede said the matchmaking system was very fair. He played more than 20 games and didn't encounter any particularly lopsided matches. Every game was a win, and he didn't feel frustrated when he lost.
A large number of game clip videos have started appearing in the game section of TUTU International Edition.
Someone compiled a highlight reel of the Sword Saint's pentakill, set it to fast-paced background music, and it garnered over 500,000 views in a single day.
The comments section was filled with a mix of "das ist krass" and "this is insane," with German and English messages alternating, creating a very lively scene.
Looking at the data, Lu Ran knew that the chessboard was now alive after the first piece was placed. The next step was to strike while the iron was hot and place the remaining pieces on the board.
At the regular meeting that Friday, he made a direct decision to have Lao Wang and Zhao Yiming accelerate the deployment of the European versions of "Minecraft" and "CrossFire" and strive to launch them all within a month.
Old Wang immediately took out his phone and checked his schedule, saying that the localization work for Minecraft was 90% complete, and all that remained was the final text proofreading and the adaptation and adjustment of some Chinese-style mods, which could be done within half a month.
CrossFire is a bit more complicated because it involves optimizing the latency compensation algorithm and adapting the map, but Zhao Yiming said that if he works overtime, he can finish it before the end of the month.
Lu Ran immediately approved double overtime pay.
Old Wang and Zhao Yiming exchanged a glance and didn't mention any more difficulties.
Within a month, all three of their main products entered the European market—a feat unprecedented in the history of Chinese games going global. Most companies cautiously launch one product at a time to test the waters before deciding whether to increase their investment.
Lu Ran didn't plan to take that route. The window of opportunity to explore the market was only a few months. By the time competitors reacted and followed suit, it would be too late to replenish supplies.
What he wanted was a saturation attack.
Three products, three categories, covering all the mainstream game genres that European players can accept at once.
If you like MOBA games, play League of Legends; if you like sandbox building games, play Minecraft; if you like shooting games, play CrossFire.
Players may move between different product categories, but they will always stay within the product matrix of Tutu Technology and will not go to other companies.
At the regular meeting next Monday, Lu Ran also brought up an idea that surprised even himself.
While browsing European gaming forums these past few days, he noticed a phenomenon: European players mentioned racing games surprisingly frequently when discussing game genres.
Whether it's a German forum, a French forum, or a British forum, whenever someone posts a question like "What are some fun games to recommend lately?", someone will almost always reply with "It would be great if there were some good racing games."
He wrote down this requirement.
He browsed through the system library and found a casual racing game that had been running for many years in his previous life.
The graphics don't strive for realism, opting instead for a cartoonish style. The controls are simple and easy to learn, and the item system adds unpredictability to the races. Both the cars and characters offer the fun of collecting and developing them.
This game was popular in the Asian market before it was ported to Europe and America and achieved good results. European players have a high acceptance of this type of casual racing game.
When Lu Ran brought up this idea at the meeting, Zhou Mingzhe's first reaction was: "You want to jump from FPS to racing? Isn't that a bit too big of a leap?"
Lu Ran's career isn't that big; it's all about making games, just on a different track.
Moreover, this game is much less technically challenging than CrossFire, has a simpler server architecture, and will have a shorter development cycle than any previous product.
Zhao Yiming chimed in, saying that he had written a demo of a small racing game in his spare time before, and he still had the code structure. If needed, he could take something ready-made and modify it.
Lu Ran said, "Then it's up to you." Zhao Yiming looked down at the dense code on the three monitors in front of him and the whiteboards behind them filled with task progress. He was silent for two seconds, then silently took a sip of his now-cold coffee and did not refuse.
After the meeting, Lu Ran returned to his office, turned on his computer, and glanced at the data for the European region.
The peak concurrent online users of League of Legends have stabilized at over 500,000. Minecraft Europe Edition will be released in two weeks. CrossFire will be released a little later, but all of them should be available by the end of September.
By then, the three products will form a triangular alliance in the European market, mutually attracting and supporting each other. Even if other Chinese game companies want to follow suit and go global, it will be difficult for them to replicate a product matrix of the same scale in the short term.
He turned off the data panel, leaned back in his chair, and stared blankly at the ceiling for a while.
Then he picked up his phone and sent Shen Yuege a message: "What do you want to eat today? I'll buy it after get off work."
Shen Yuege replied instantly: "I'll eat whatever you buy. Don't buy too much, the fridge won't have enough room."
He replied with an "okay," put his phone on the table, stood up, and walked to the window.
Autumn has arrived in Shanghai outside the window; the sun is no longer so harsh, and the light has become gentler.
A few students in school uniforms rode past on bicycles downstairs, their baskets filled with newly bought snacks, chatting and laughing as they turned into the residential area.
He calculated the timeline. Once all three European products were launched, the global finals could officially begin at the end of the year.
By then, Chen Mo should have a clearer stance; what's meant to happen will happen.
Each year is different from the last.
This year is better than last year, and next year should be even better than this year.
Thinking this way, he felt that although there were many miscellaneous things to do this year, every step he took was on time and not in vain.
He packed up his things to leave work. As he went downstairs, he passed by the technical department. Zhao Yiming had already drawn a crooked sketch of a go-kart on his whiteboard, with a line of text next to it: "Drifting feel first, props second, art third."
Lu Ran thought for a moment, walked over, picked up a pen, circled the third art grade, and pointed to the second.
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