Carl glanced at the promotional data related to Oath on the real-world web page.
The game's current number of registered users had already exceeded eight million.
After launch, the number of concurrent players had also exceeded one million.
This could no longer be called merely popular. It was a massive, explosive, phenomenon-level game.
In Carl's view, Oath's successful launch was also normal.
After all, the players in this world had previously been playing those Journey-style games where people fought over resources in the wild, and you could not become stronger without spending money.
After finally getting a high-quality single-player open-world game that advertised no need to compete with other players for resources, and claimed that even without spending money, players could still have fun as long as they grinded, one had to remember that the players in this world had never eaten anything good. Now that a game that looked barely edible had finally appeared, of course they would all rush in and try it first.
As for how long this launch hype could last, that would depend on whether the later game operations acted like humans or not.
However, based on the money-first operating policy of the Headmaster from the pre-battle meeting Carl had attended,
Oath's game planners were most likely the kind who did not treat players like people.
But none of that had anything to do with Carl.
After the world of Oath was divided into millions of worldlines, with Carl's current power, there was no way he could monitor the movements of over a million players.
And it was not just Carl. The other five-star characters were the same.
The eight most popular five-star characters in the academy were definitely moving their main consciousnesses through millions of worldlines right now, their goal being to find the most influential players and raise those players' favorability toward them as much as possible.
For example, whales. They were definitely the first type of player all game characters wanted to please. It was like idols flattering their big sponsors, all for the sake of making those whales spend heavily.
Next were opinion leaders. Most of these players were game guide and review bloggers.
Some influential character strength review bloggers could even affect whether a game character's reputation was good or bad.
Lastly, there were top-tier skilled players. These were the players the game characters paid attention to purely for the sake of saving their hometowns.
They clearly understood that among the Saviors, there were some top-level experts whose strength, or rather their mechanical skill, was so high that they could fight a hundred alone.
Although Oath's official team had no interest in this type of skilled player, in the eyes of these game characters, they were still prime targets to win over.
Of course, Carl was also paying attention to these three types of players. But at the current stage, he definitely could not compete with those highly popular five-star characters.
So Carl focused most of his energy on searching for another type of player.
Hoarders and map-clearers.
When playing games, this type of player would not rush to push the main quests.
Instead, they would climb mountains, cross rivers, and run through the entire world, spending huge amounts of time and energy clearing every single reward from every corner of the map.
Only after collecting all the Contract Stone rewards in the current version would this type of player choose to advance the main story.
The reason Carl was looking for this type of player was not because he coveted the free Contract Stones they had hoarded, but because.
If this type of player was a pure hoarder and never pulled from the gacha, then there would be no problem.
But once they gave in to temptation and entered the gacha pool to pull, and their goal was to save enough resources first, pull the limited character they liked, and then continue the main story, then it would be completely over.
Grinding resources day and night, all for the sake of pulling a limited character.
Once those two factors combined, all it took was one simple off-rate pull.
The moment they realized that the resources they had worked hard for days to save had failed to get them the character they liked, the moment they realized all their effort had gone down the drain, that alone was enough to instantly shatter a player's entire gaming experience.
This was the first kind of heartbreak that players of gacha mobile games would experience, and often do.
Carl needed to find this kind of player whose heart had been shattered.
There were quite a few such players in Oath, and Carl easily found one named Mio.
She perfectly fit the traits of a hoarder and map-clearer. Now Carl just had to see whether her pulls would go off-rate after she finished saving resources.
Still, cursing someone else's pulls to go off-rate here was a little immoral.
Carl still wished that all players under heaven would never lose the rate-up and that every enhancement would roll the substats they wanted.
Mio was an extremely ordinary player.
With the real world's gaming helmet technology, as well as the support of the powerful Elysium world, players in this world had already experienced all sorts of immersive online games several years ago. And because the real-world network had already upgraded to 6G, no games needed to be downloaded. As long as there was internet, players could log in directly anytime, anywhere.
Although game technology and network technology had advanced, the gameplay of games themselves had stagnated for many years because of the Electronic Game Ban.
The victims were ordinary players like Mio. All the online games she had played before were dominated by whales from major guilds crushing one another.
Ordinary players like her could only carefully guard their own small patch of land.
But Oath was different.
"Is it really... just me as the only player? Is this a world that belongs completely to me?"
Mio stood at the gates of Elysium Academy, looking at the fountain in the academy's welcoming garden and the various gorgeous, dazzling decorations around it.
In the vast welcoming garden, there was only her alone. Only her, the player.
Mio could no longer remember how long it had been since she had logged into a game and not heard other players shouting all around her.
In a normal online game, the moment the server opened, this welcoming square would probably be packed to bursting, followed by all kinds of voices calling out for parties and selling equipment.
But in the world of Oath, there was only her. Every character in the game existed to serve her.
"This game is way too amazing. Sure enough, the forum reviews calling it a masterpiece weren't wrong at all!"
When Mio let out that sigh, Carl heard it through the monitors.
This is already a masterpiece? The good days are still ahead.
Just as Carl thought that, Oath's first launch performance struck him like a bolt from the blue.
"You are the rumored new student? I never expected our fated encounter to arrive one step early."
As the launch limited character, the first one to come greet the player was naturally the five-star limited Hasumi.
This knightly young lady wore her usual bright and handsome smile as she approached Mio, who was standing at the academy gates with a confused expression.
"It's the living Hasumi! Wife... ah, no! Hello!"
The instant Mio saw Hasumi, she lost control a little and rushed straight toward her.
It seemed she belonged to the type of player who excitedly watched all kinds of promotional material before launch.
Things like Oath's launch PV, the limited character's promotional PV, the gacha pool characters' illustrations and models, and constantly discussing the game with others on the forum.
Players who looked forward to launch this much would basically really like a certain character in the game, and swear that they would do everything possible to pull that character.
The character Mio was super into was naturally Hasumi, this knight princess who, despite being a beautiful girl character, radiated a prince-like brilliance and refreshing charm from head to toe.
Her ultimate goal in playing this game now was to pull Hasumi at any cost, fish her out of the gacha pool, and make her into her own wife!
(To be continued.)