Game Development Giant

"Well, at that time we just built a local area network within the company, and what the players could do was just like this, and it was even far less than what we could do. There were dozens of PCs forming a relatively large network. It is still a huge LAN environment, but if the whole world is within this LAN, do you think how much of a sensation it can cause with the playability of the game "Age of Empires"?"

Jester said with a smile.

"call!"

After hearing what Jester said, Tamahideyoshiro let out a big breath. He now completely understood what Jester meant.

However, he was still a little curious in his heart. Can Sega really enable large-scale online games like LAN? According to his understanding of the current technologies and hardware, it may be possible in the United States, but it is unlikely in Japan.

Moreover, it is much easier to do this with a PC than with a game console.

Therefore, Tamahide Yoshiro also directly expressed his doubts.

"I have said before that the most likely way for them to accomplish this idea is through communication satellites, such as connecting telephone lines or directly using telephone lines."

Jester said simply, this is not a random guess, because this is something Sega has done in history.

However, Jester continued to add: "Although this method is very feasible, there are two most critical problems. One of them I have already mentioned before, that is because of charges or delays. The first question is whether players will accept it or not, and the second question is the price."

Having said this, Jester paused for a moment.

"Of course, I forgot one more thing, that is. If you want to do what I said before, it is impossible to rely on their MD console. It must be a next-generation console. Maybe, this news is about Sega's next A discussion meeting on the first-generation console development plan.”

After hearing Jester's explanation, Tamahideyoshiro nodded repeatedly.

"What about us?"

After nodding, Tamahide Yoshiro immediately asked how to deal with the problem on his side, while Jester simply waved his hand: "We don't need to do this, add this function to the host. In the future Within five or six years, I personally felt that the disadvantages outweighed the benefits, so there was no need for us to follow up, but there was one thing that Sega really reminded me of this time."

"whats the matter!"

Tamahide Yoshiro also said it involuntarily, almost without thinking.

"Battle Network."

Jester simply said two words and then fell silent, which made Tamahide Yoshiro puzzled. What exactly is this so-called Battle.net?

Tamahide Yoshiro asked, but Jester just shook his head and did not explain to him. This makes Tamahide Yoshiro even more strange, because he knows Jester's character. For Jester, if he knows. I definitely won’t keep silent about it.

"I haven't thought about what to do about this matter yet."

Jester explained lightly that he really had not thought about how to deal with this matter. It may not be accurate to say that it is handled. To be precise, he has not yet thought about what kind of battle network he wants to create.

In his memory, in the future world, in the field of PC games, there are two game platforms in the form of Battle.net that have the greatest influence.

One is of course Valve's Steam, which welcomes all comers, and the other is of course the world's first game battle network established by Blizzard - Blizzard Battle Network.

Judging from the future development of these two categories, the potential of steam is undoubtedly much greater. In the future, G Fat will rely on steam to keep the entire valve from doing its business, and valve will also grow into more and more games on the steam platform. A giant.

This is the power of a platform that doesn’t limit gaming.

And what about Blizzard’s Battle.net?

Only games from Blizzard can appear on Battle.net. This is very restrictive, but it also has a great advantage, that is, it can purify players' beliefs. Don't underestimate this, this is very important, especially It's for a game company.

In Jester's heart, he wanted to establish steam because steam's structure is large enough.

But now, with the current network conditions, it seems that it is too difficult to build such a platform.

Then, what about Battle.net?

Jester locked himself in a house, and even Claudia rushed outside. He was thinking about this problem seriously and carefully. If it is based on the current conditions, can it be done on Battle.net?

It is possible in the United States, Jester can confirm.

But it is only in the United States, and it can only be a PC. Not only because drembox2 did not take this into consideration when it was first designed, it is impossible to change it now. Even if an external device is developed, Jester seemed to be doing something unnecessary.

Because current home computers simply cannot use the network connection function.

Sega's attempt in the mid-1990s is enough to illustrate the problem. Moreover, using a home computer for network connection requires solving far more complicated problems than using a PC.

"It can be applied on a small scale first."

Pulling out a piece of white paper and spreading it on the table, Jester picked up a pen on the table and carefully wrote his thoughts on the paper. Large-scale network services for games are not that easy to implement. It can even be said that no company, except those government departments in the United States, has done it yet.

Therefore, it is necessary to apply it on a small scale and slowly accumulate experience.

Moreover, the current network situation is far inferior to that of later generations. Jester has previously tested the mod of "Quake" downloaded on the Internet, which is "Thor Arena", and the effect is still good.

However, to support Battle.net, it is not just about making a server and then putting games on it for players to download or store data.

There are countless known or unknown problems happening at any time.

As far as Jester knows, after "World of Warcraft" was launched in China, there was a very major problem with the servers in the southwest region. Because too much time passed, Jester also has some memories of what went wrong. Not sure, it seems to be some kind of rollback.

In short, this incident was so serious that Ninetowns personnel could not solve it at all.

In fact, even Blizzard's technical staff cannot solve it.

In the end, we invited IBM, HP, and Oracle, experts on server issues or database issues, to solve the problem. Now, although there are not many such server problem solvers, IBM and HP is still trustworthy. Of course, a company that solves database problems must also be included. Oracle has been established.

Thinking of this, Jester wrote the words Oracle on the white paper.

Thinking of Oracle, Jester couldn't help but think of Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, a dropout like Jester and Bill Gates.

To be precise, Larry Ellison is inferior to Jester and Bill Gates. At least Jester and Bill Gates are still students at prestigious schools, and they dropped out of school not because they were unable to complete their studies. , but because there are more important things that they need to do.

The reason why Larry Ellison dropped out of school was because he simply couldn't get a college degree.

The first thirty years of the founder of the world's largest software company second only to Microsoft can be said to have been an extremely unsuccessful thirty years. At the age of thirty-two, he still accomplished nothing.

How come nothing is accomplished?

For example, he went to three universities but never received a bachelor's degree. He changed to more than a dozen companies, and even his wife left him.

When I started my business, I only had $1,200 and couldn’t even afford to rent a garage.

But with such a start, in 1977, Larry Ellison founded Oracle with a few friends, and then he doubled the company's profits every year for twelve consecutive years.

Becoming the second largest software company in the world was also called one of the best and most profitable companies by the media, and he himself became the richest man in Silicon Valley. But only a few people know what a long life struggle he went through during this period. At the age of 32, he had nothing. When he became the richest man in Silicon Valley 20 years later, the outside world gave mixed reviews to this business wizard.

Jester recalled everything about Larry Ellison in his mind. For this man who was called the playboy of Silicon Valley, Jester still liked it when he was young, because before Jester traveled through time, When I was in school, my academic performance was not very good.

He once heard Larry Ellison's famous speech at Yale University called Why I Succeed.

During that speech, Larry Ellison had just come on stage, and he seemed a little extraordinary as soon as he opened his mouth. He looked at the Yale students sitting in the audience with a cold and arrogant expression. These students were far more outstanding than when he was the same age. Many top students have a look of disdain in their eyes.

Jester couldn't remember the previous words clearly, but there was one paragraph that Jester, who was still in the second grade of high school at the time, remembered very clearly. He even often regarded it as his motto and as his An excuse to escape reality and avoid poor grades.

Of course, when he got older, Jester himself felt a little embarrassed when he saw this experience. (To be continued...)