Chapter 232 - 94: Frequency and Online Lobby

Chapter 232: Chapter 94: Frequency and Online Lobby

"Imagine this: after players listen to our audio and enter the dream, they don’t immediately go into a specific game. Instead, they all land in this lobby. In the lobby, they can meet up with their real-life friends or team up with strangers. Once their party is formed, they can go through the small entrances in the lobby to enter individual built-in rooms or instances."

Shi Zuozhou traced a path with the tip of his pen from the large circle in the center, along one of the radiating lines, to the smaller circles surrounding it.

"This way, no matter how many rooms are running at the same time, on a fundamental, physical level, everyone is in the same Dream Net on the same spindle wave frequency. This avoids the crosstalk issue Wen Xiao was worried about. And in terms of experience, they can be in non-interfering, room-based, small-scale games, where each time they play is a complete, single-session experience."

As Yu Xian listened to Shi Zuozhou’s description, he was reminded of the hubs from game lobbies he’d played years ago.

It was like the QQ Game Lobby. Even though it had tons of small rooms, they were all part of the same application.

The concept was truly ingenious. It used a sort of spatial folding to link everything together, bypassing the limitation of having too few frequency channels.

"But, Old Shi," Yu Xian said, pointing to a large square on the sketch, "I have a question."

"With this kind of large-scale multiplayer model, what happens during the day when everyone wakes up and goes to class or work? What if there’s no one left in the lobby? Wouldn’t we still run into the ’progress wipe’ problem?"

"No one?" Hearing Yu Xian’s question, Shi Zuozhou didn’t look worried at all. Instead, a smug grin slowly spread across his face.

"That’s a good thing!"

Yu Xian blinked, waiting for him to explain.

"Because with this model, we don’t need to solve the ’progress wipe’ problem at all!" Shi Zuozhou said, excitedly pointing to the large circle in the center.

"Think about it. The game has two parts: the lobby and the instances, right? First off, the lobby itself doesn’t store any player progress. It’s just a social hub, a meeting point. So a wipe doesn’t affect it at all."

He then pointed to the surrounding small circles.

"And then the individual instances, the actual game content, we’ll still design them to be completed within the duration of a single night’s sleep. They’re meant to be finished in one go, so a wipe is irrelevant. This way, it makes no difference to the players whether their progress is wiped or not!"

Yu Xian gave Shi Zuozhou a genuine, heartfelt thumbs-up.

"My friend, you’re on another level. Truly, another level!"

Shi Zuozhou broke into a wide grin and tapped the table with his pen.

"You think that’s it?"

"There’s more?" Yu Xian was shocked. The idea he’d just described was already enough to make him see Shi Zuozhou in a completely new light.

"Think about what we were saying this morning. Why can’t we do hot-updates?" Shi Zuozhou asked, leaning back in his chair.

"It’s because as long as a single person is still in the dream and hasn’t logged out, the script is forced to run on its original version, right? You can’t add anything new."

A cunning glint appeared in his eyes.

"So, if there’s really no one left during the day... doesn’t that mean we have a perfect window when the server is empty? We can use that time to swap in a new blueprint script with new content and new maps."

Realization dawned on Yu Xian.

"I get it! It’s basically an offline update!"

"Exactly!" Shi Zuozhou said, pointing to the small circles on the paper.

"Today, the lobby has five instances. Tomorrow, during the daytime server reset, we add the sixth and seventh instances we’ve already written to the script. Then, when evening comes and the players enter the dream using the audio again..."

Shi Zuozhou’s smile was wild and feverish.

"...they’ll discover that we’ve released new game content! We’ll have seamlessly and opportunistically pushed out an update, just like that! HAHAHAHA!"

’Shi Zuozhou really is a genius when it comes to game design!’ Yu Xian thought with admiration.

Not enough frequencies? Just cram all the multiplayer rooms into a single one.

Progress wipes? Just turn the mandatory reset into a chance to push version updates.

With a single "lobby" concept, Shi Zuozhou had elegantly sidestepped two seemingly insurmountable problems.

"Old Shi, you’re really something else," Yu Xian said, his voice full of genuine admiration.

He looked at the "dandelion" on the sketchpad and started thinking through the next steps of the plan.

’Lobby, instances, offline updates...’

’It all sounded perfect, the logic was sound.’

But as his thoughts reached the "script update" step, his brow slowly began to furrow.

"Wait, Old Shi, something doesn’t seem right." Yu Xian reached for the pen and wrote two words in a blank space on the paper: "Old" and "New."

"You said that when no one’s online during the day, we can replace the blueprint script with a new version containing new content. But what about the multiplayer audio file the players already have? Some of them will definitely still be using the old version we released earlier, right?"

"Yeah, so what?" Shi Zuozhou nodded.

"Didn’t Brother Yi say this morning that the multiplayer connection takes priority over the blueprint? From what she said, I gathered that when the multiplayer connection is active, the script is ignored. Once the connection is made, the audio file’s only function is to initiate the ’Hijacked Spindle Wave.’ Hey, didn’t you guys test that yesterday?"

"The script portions were identical during yesterday’s test. Still, we can confirm it with another test," Yu Xian said, his expression growing more serious.

"That sounds like a good thing. Players wouldn’t need to download a new audio file every day, and we wouldn’t have to release a new one. However, if that’s true, it creates another, even more serious problem..."

"What problem?" Shi Zuozhou scratched his head.

"The ’code audit’ solution we discussed with Wen Xiao last night would be useless."

They had discussed it last night. To prevent the spread of audio files containing "malicious commands," Wen Xiao had suggested creating a parsing tool. It would decompile the fourth part of the audio file—the "blueprint script"—into plain text, letting everyone see the "list of ingredients" inside and avoid any traps.

"Let’s say a malicious developer first releases a clean, transparent, initial version of the audio file with no malicious commands. The intended victim uses the audit tool, sees that it’s clean, and listens to it without a second thought." Yu Xian paused, his voice turning grave.

"Then, during the day, when no one is online... the malicious developer secretly swaps the script with a different, new version—one loaded with malicious code."

The expression on Shi Zuozhou’s face slowly transformed.

"Because the hijacked frequency is the same, the old audio file can still send the victim into this Dream Net space. But the version they enter is no longer the safe one from the original script." Yu Xian looked at Shi Zuozhou, laying out the worst-case scenario.

"And if the scenery hasn’t changed, he’ll think he’s entering the same safe room he was in last night. But in reality, he’ll have been stealthily pulled into a contaminated dream trap."

"It’s impossible to guard against every angle. It looks like the cybersecurity battle on the Dream Net is going to be a huge deal..." Shi Zuozhou said, looking at Yu Xian in anguish.

"By your logic, a malicious developer wouldn’t even need to make a legitimate first version. Since the multiplayer connection takes priority, the content of their script could be total nonsense. They could write whatever sounds most appealing, just to lure people in..."

The classroom fell silent. Yu Xian put down his pen and leaned back in his chair.

After a long moment, Shi Zuozhou finally spoke, his voice subdued. His usual playful, joking energy was completely gone.

"So what do we do? Are we just handing them the weapons to use against people? It feels like we’ve opened Pandora’s Box and unleashed some kind of monster..."

Yu Xian didn’t have a ready answer. His mind was racing, trying to find a way out of this dilemma.

’If the frequency is the only key, how can we separate the ’old users’ from the ’new room’ without changing the frequency itself?’

’Or how can we ensure players get some kind of warning before they enter a contaminated room?’

He thought for a long time but was still completely stumped.

It involved too many underlying mechanics of the Dream Net that they hadn’t yet grasped. The two of them just speculating here were unlikely to come up with a solution.

"Let’s do this." Yu Xian looked up and checked the time on his phone.

"The two of us probably won’t come up with a good solution just by thinking about it. Let’s go over to the apartment tonight and get Wen Xiao to join us. We can put our heads together and see if we can figure something out. It’s also a good chance for us to run the multiplayer test today."