A Protagonist Wants to Vomit Blood1In Chinese culture, it is an action that is caused by extreme frustration or anger
The holographic online game, Jiuzhou 2Another name for the nine provinces of ancient China. Source: Baidu, Wiktionary, was completely full on the first day of the public beta, and the company’s customer service line was also flooded, setting a record high for players calling customer service before officially logging into the game.
The reason was simple: almost eighty percent of the players, when setting their character ID, wanted to vomit blood.
Generally speaking, people that were stuck for ten minutes due to naming their character were stuck because it wasn’t possible to have duplicates of the same name, but the reason Jiuzhou was being complained about was not because of this issue, but that it had extremely strange requirements for players’ in-game names.
For example, a certain player was very excited to enter the game’s login screen, and named himself “Dugu Qiubai”. 3The name of an extremely strong fictional character appearing in novels by an author named Jin Yong.
The system prompted: You cannot use the name of a real person or famous virtual character.
This condition rejected a group of players who tried to submit “Li Xianhuan”, “Li Bai” or even “Li Jia**”. 4All well-known characters from martial-arts novels and well known historical figures. Not sure what the last one is since it was censored, but you get the gist.
Okay, just let it go, this was nothing. Other online games also had similar restrictions, Jiuzhou was just more strict.
The newcomers had never been stingy with their names, the pretentious ones named themselves “A Grain of Sand in the Sahara”, those pretending to be macho called themselves “Lonely Master”, some sweet girls were “Strawberry Bubbles”, and the undyingly committed were still submitting “Dugu Qiubai”.
The result was that everyone was splashed with a bucket of cold water.
System prompt: The game is a classic wuxia; please come up with a name that fits the background.
Everyone quit, those who had a bad temper began cursing, and one after another complaints were flooding the customer service line.
“I have named myself a dozen times, what kind of name will this fucking game finally approve of?”
So the game company added a patch that automatically solved doubts and helped players correct their in-game names after three hours.
System correction: “A Grain of Sand in the Sahara”, in ancient China there is no such place as the Sahara Desert, but the game supports players setting their ID as a nickname, so it is recommended that players name themselves “A Grain of Sand in the Desert”.
Fuck off, the literary flavor was all gone!
System correction: “Lonely Master”, as a newbie, you do not meet the requirements for this jianghu nickname, suggest another one.
Fuck off, what was the point of such a realistic game?!
System correction: “Strawberry Bubble” and the game’s classic wuxia background are contradictory to each other. Jiuzhou recognizes hundreds of surnames, and it can be changed to “Plum Bubble”. 5Strawberry Bubble is ‘Caomei Paopao’, vs Plum Bubble is ‘Mei PaoPao’.
Fuck off, is a name like this one of Fan Pao*’s eighteen relatives ah? 6Not sure, but I think this is a reference to Fan Paopao, a nickname for a cowardly teacher that during an emergency escaped before his students and received public ridicule.
…
So many people were cursing and spitting blood, while one of the protagonists of this story, Liang Shuang, was relatively special. He failed five or six times, casually flipped through a book of names, and figured out a very wuxia-like name.
“Xie Ziyi.”
“Sorry, that is the name of an NPC in the game and you can’t use it.”
“……” To find the definition of ‘cheating’, please refer to this interaction.
Liang Shuang began to have the urge to curse. If the helmet used for the holographic online game wasn’t too expensive, he would really leave. People were generally less awake when the sun was rising, and the next name was said completely without careful thought, off his tongue.
“Mr. Liang.”
“Sorry, the name belongs to an NPC from the game, you can’t use it.”
“……!!!”
This was unbearable! So Liang Shuang also joined the army of people who called customer service.
But because his patience and rationality was a little better than others, when it was his turn to call, and the call couldn’t go through, the busy tone in the microphone let Liang Shuang’s anger slightly extinguish. He set aside the phone, and continued to speechlessly scan anything with words. Fortunately, the ancient names textbook had been placed on the dormitory table. He casually flipped through some poetry.
“Mo Han.”
“Welcome to Jiuzhou, please put on the holographic game helmet. In half a minute you will automatically enter the game, and your body will be in a semi-sleep state, so please note your location. It is not recommended to play in public places. The countdown will now begin: 30, 29, …”