Chen Mo added some more information on World of Azeroth.
“Moonglade: One of the most unique places in Kalimdor. The forest is untouched by corruption and maintains its initial purity and serenity, much different from other locations in Kalimdor. Moonglade is a safezone as damaging to forest or creating confrontation will be met by the wrath of the druids. Moonglade is often the location where the Alliance and Horde hold their meetings for treaties. The tauren often visit Moonglade to learn the way of the druids from the elves.
It didn’t take long after the update was posted for discussion among the fans to start.
“Oh man, I didn’t think I’d live to see this. Chen Mo posted an update!”
“The previous post forgot to add: So far!”
“You think you’d get away with posting dozens of words to keep us occupied? Why don’t you learn from the web novel writers who post tens of thousands of words everyday!”
“This just isn’t enough!!!!!!!”
“Hey, are you not updating this because you’ve made enough money?”
“When are you recreating Azeroth! Don’t think you can satisfy us using a card game like I Am MT!”
“I’m gonna send him another razor blade, anyone with me?”
“Previous poster +1!”
“+2!”
Chen Mo let out a faint smile and closed the website, after commenting anonymously.
As per usual, Chen Mo opened “National Geographic Azeroth” to check for new posts.
“Hmm? A new artist[1]? Quite popular too.”
Chen Mo noticed that there were a few recent threads that reached eight pages. The threat was titled :”Long Story creator[1]: Orgrimmar’s orphan.”
Chen Mo clicked on the thread and was met with a fanfic from the perspective of Orgrimmar’s orphan, going through his growth and adventures as a Horde warrior.
Of course, the latter was what Chen Mo guessed, as the story wasn’t even at twenty thousand words so the story wasn’t too developed.
However, Chen Mo could tell that the author had a thing or two in writing. When the Chinese write western fantasy there would normally be two extremes, too locatised, or using english bastardization for everything. This novel had none of the problems.
Moreover, the story was logical and the progression of the plot was well written. There were points that were left to be discovered down the line, and the foundation of the story seemed well established.
No wonder it was so popular. The quality of this was much better than similar works that seemed to be done by highschoolers.
“This guy’s pretty good,” exclaimed Chen Mo.
In reality, Chen Mo also had the same thought when starting World of Azeroth. There was too much content in Azeroth, and if he was working alone, making a VR version of World of Warcraft might take a few years. It would wear him down super thin just writing quests and dialogue.
Which is why Chen Mo wanted to make National Geographic Azeroth this early on, to gather the people who are interested in this lore, as the more talented artists and writers would be useful in the future.
Otherwise it would be difficult and time consuming to hire someone that would meet his requirements.
Just like in the previous world, the existence of I Am MT depended heavily on NGA.
But Chen Mo didn’t expect to pick one up so quickly.
Chen Mo looked up the details of the author using their Thunderbolt Gaming game pass information, and got ahold of their phone number as they have it tied to their account.
Chen Mo gave the author a call.
After a few moments, the person picked up, “Hello?”
Upon hearing it was a guy, Chen Mo was slightly disappointed.
“Hello, I’m Chen Mo, the designer of I Am MT.”
The person on the other side of the phone was shocked, exclaiming, “Huh? Chen Mo? Really? Are you that Chen Mo? You’re not a scammer right?”
Chen Mo replied, “I’m probably not famous enough to have people pretending to be me right… I’m the real Chen Mo, what’s your name?”
“Oh, I’m Zheng Hongxi or you can call me by my pen name, Phantom Light.”
Chen Mo replied, “… They’re both quite difficult to remember.”
Zheng Hongxi was speechless.
Chen Mo asked, “Well, do you have a job right now?”
Zheng Hongxi said, “Nope, I just quit my job, and am currently looking for one. Since I don’t have much to do, and the World of Azeroth seemed quite interesting. So I wrote a bunch of stuff out of boredom.”
Chen Mo said, “Hmm, are you interested in working in the Imperial Capital?”
Zheng Hongxi asked, “Huh? Can I work in Thunderbolt Entertainment?”
Chen Mo said, “Yep, I’m quite interested in your work. How about this, where are you living right now?”
“Uhh, Magic City.”
“Alright, I’ll pay for your tickets for the train as well as your accommodation. Would you like to come over to the Imperial Capital, and we’ll talk more in person. And if you could, bring along your past works too,” said Chen Mo
Zhen Hongxi replied, “Sure! Well, I’ll be packing then, be there in two days!”
Chen Mo nodded, “Sure, I’ll send you an address, just head right this way when you get here.”
After ending the call, Chen Mo sent the address of the experience store to Zheng Hongxi.
“If this guy works out, all that’s left is someone to deal with number balancing.”
After releasing I Am MT, Chen Mo now had a stable source of income, and had the capital to make a larger scaled game.
However, Chen Mo’s current goal was still to grow his playerbase. When the player base is sufficiently big, his first large scale game could be released with less problems.
During this time, Chen Mo still needed to hire two employees, one in charge of story writing, the other for balancing.
Of course Chen Mo could do all of it, but it would be too time consuming. Moreover, there are many repetitive jobs in these areas, and it wasn’t too fulfilling to do those things again and again.
There was no way Chen Mo would attempt larger scale games before hiring reliable writers and balancers. It could take ages without them, not to mention it would be a hassle juggling between all the aspects as well as the potential for poor quality.
In Chen Mo’s eyes, Zheng Hongxi had a good foundation, and would have good potential with some training.
At this moment, Chen Mo’s phone rang.
Chen Mo was speechless. What was going on, there have been so many phone calls recently. He couldn’t help but feel uneasy.
Chen Mo proceeded to pick up the phone, “Hello?”
“Hello, Is this Mr. Chen Mo?” replied a voice of a woman
“Yes, who is this?” replied Chen Mo.
The woman replied, “I’m Han Lu, a journalist from Tianji.com’s gaming channel. I’d like to arrange an interview, would you be interested?”
Chen Mo was shocked, “Huh? Interview?”
Han Lu replied, “Yep, our editor in chief thinks that I Am MT was quite successful and is quite topical. Which is why we would like to have an interview. It wouldn’t take up too much time, an hour or two at most. I’d like to talk about the thought process during the designing phase of the game.”
Chen Mo replied after a few moments of thinking. “Sure, no problem.��
Han Lu said, “Alright, are you free tomorrow morning? I planned to meet you in your experience store.”
“I’m free.”
Han Lu replied, “Sure, then we’ll meet tomorrow morning then. Be there or be square!”
After hanging up, Chen Mo was in shock.
An interview? Have I become someone with that much clout?
TL note:[1] The word used here was doujin, which means self-published works (but in english is commonly used to refer to H-manga)