Thomas sighed, completely unaware that he had interacted with the chairman of Jiangnan Group all day.
After successfully using his passport to start a machine, Thomas finally got his wish and played on a smooth Chinese server, then started a game within the server.
"If you can last 30 minutes against me, you win!" Thomas thought triumphantly before the match began.
Twenty-eight minutes later, the red human base exploded. It didn't exceed 30 minutes, but Thomas looked somewhat dazed because it was his own base that exploded.
Thomas melancholically took out a cigarette and lit it.
Thomas never expected to be dominated by an ordinary Chinese player. He was a renowned expert ranked in the top 500 on the American server!
Furthermore, he had entered the ranked matches. His account had been created two to three months ago, but since he couldn't play PvP in the US, his ranked matches were still in the beginner stage.
To be matched with such an absolute master right at the start, was that fair?
Or were all Chinese players such masters?
Of course, James didn't know that at the same time he lost the match, a young player in Henan Province stood up from his internet cafe chair.
"This game is quite fun! I'll play this game from now on!" The player stretched, then used his ID card to log off. The ID read Li Xiaofeng.
Fortunately, the terrible experience was temporary. Except for the first game, Thomas could basically dominate in subsequent matches.
Thomas's rank continuously improved. By 3:00 AM, he had reached the Nascent Soul stage.
As a product of oo, all of oo's games followed the immortal cultivation terms for ranking.
Starting from the lowest stage, Qi Refining, it continued upwards.
These stages were Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Enlightenment, Core Formation, Golden Core, Infant Transformation, Nascent Soul, Soul Departure, Spirit Division, Nascent Soul, Body Integration, Tribulation Transcendence, Mahayana, Ascension, Earth Immortal, and Heavenly Immortal. xxs.
Some might think these stages are too many, for example, the future LoL only has Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, Grandmaster, and the Strongest Challenger.
But in reality, the number of ranks is less than LoL's, because in LoL's ranks, each tier has 5 different sub-levels. However, in Warcraft III, one rank is one rank, with no sub-levels in between, so the actual number of ranks is fewer.
However, it is rumored that there are positions above these, which have not yet been opened.
Currently, the highest open rank is Heavenly Immortal, with only 100 positions for Heavenly Immortals on the entire Chinese server. To compete for this title, these high-ranked players are almost breaking their heads.
At the same time, many players have deduced from the various immortal cultivation ranks that oo's future ranking system should also follow the same pattern, which caused many people to explode.
Because oo's ranking system has been launched for over half a year, the highest current level is only Golden Core, not even Nascent Soul, which is too grindy.
It is worth mentioning that many people later discovered that these cultivation ranks were exactly the same as the immortal cultivation ranks from the popular online novel "Immortal Journey," which was trending in China.
As a result, many people claimed that oo must have plagiarized "Immortal Journey." Then, the author of "Immortal Journey" himself stated in his novel that the reason he decided to write this novel was because he saw oo's cultivation ranking settings, which gave him a surge of inspiration and he couldn't stop, eventually leading to "Immortal Journey."
He claimed that at most he had only enriched the oo ranking settings and added some new cultivation rank settings, so he copied oo, not the other way around.
Ahem, back to the main topic. Thomas's skill is indeed quite strong. He played from 6 PM to 3 AM, and in 9 hours, he went from Qi Refining to Nascent Soul, which is a very fast progression.
Of course, this is also related to Thomas's account playing ranked matches for the first time. Although Warcraft III's ranked matches do not have a "placement match" setting, those who specialize in ranked play understand that a brand new account can obtain points far exceeding normal circumstances in the first 10 matches, almost equivalent to 5 times the normal amount.
So, as long as they keep winning, they can quickly reach high ranks.
The reason for this setting is actually for genuine new players. In the first 10 ranked matches, the system will automatically match players who are one or two ranks higher. If they can still achieve a winning streak, it indicates that the newcomer's skill is very high, and there is a high possibility that a master is creating an alternate account to play in the lower ranks.
To avoid new players having a terrible gaming experience, the system will quickly promote these master accounts to match with other masters, preventing them from staying in the lower ranks and harming new players.
Such a ranking strategy is very necessary, and Thomas feels this deeply. The American Battle.net does not have this setting, so when Thomas was a beginner, he was often abused by players pretending to be beginners. If Thomas didn't truly love the game, he would have given up long ago.
This is also the case for Huang He. Huang He was also a loyal Dota player back then, but he only played with classmates and friends and never played serious matchmaking.
Only later, when League of Legends and Dota 2 were released one after another, did Huang He start playing Dota 2, due to his sentimentality. However, he was constantly being defeated. Even a player like Huang He, who had experienced the baptism of old Dota, suffered ten consecutive losses at the start and lost the courage to even open the game again.
The early hidden MMR rules for League of Legends were quite good. Huang He could play at least 10 games and win 5, which instantly changed his gaming experience, making Huang He a loyal League of Legends player.
Therefore, the ranking system of Warcraft III was also conceived by Boss Huang He.
However, even with this system, it is difficult to escape some obsessive players who want to stomp on beginners, as they can simply lose the first 10 games intentionally. Therefore, in the lower ranks, there is still a mix of a small number of masters and a large number of newcomers.
However, after Thomas reached the Nascent Soul stage, he clearly felt the difficulty. There were many master players in the Nascent Soul stage, and Thomas found it very challenging. From entering the Nascent Soul stage at 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM, Thomas played 7 games, but he won fewer than he lost, and almost fell out of the Nascent Soul stage.
This made Thomas's face change drastically. He was a top 500 ranked player on the American server, but his skill in the Chinese server was only at the Nascent Soul stage.
Thomas had also researched the Chinese ranking system and read many studies on the Chinese server rankings in forums. He mentioned the fixed 100 spots for Heavenly Immortals.
For Earth Immortals, the estimated spots are around 500, for Ascension around 1000, for Mahayana around 2000, and for Tribulation Transcendence around 5000, and for Body Integration around 10,000.
The number of players in the Nascent Soul stage is uncertain because there are too many. The players in the preceding stages combined already reach an astonishing 18,600 people.
This means that Thomas, a top 500 ranked player on the American server, is actually only around the 20,000th position on the Chinese server.
"Is the skill level of players in our country so different from that of Chinese players?" Thomas felt a chill in his heart. He quickly consoled himself, thinking that he had taken a day-long flight and then played for more than ten consecutive hours, resulting in his poor condition.
As long as he went back, slept well, and recovered his energy, he would be able to break through the Nascent Soul stage and become at least a Mahayana level expert.
With this thought, a wave of sleepiness hit him, so he logged off and returned to his hotel to sleep. He slept until around 4:00 PM. After washing up, he remembered that Huang He had specifically told him there was a competition today, and it was a rare offline competition. If Thomas hadn't missed the registration deadline, he would have signed up as well.
Then Thomas took a simple shower, didn't even blow-dry his hair, and rushed to a Shanghai Olympic Stadium.
Although the first stop of the National Championship was held in a small Seg Plaza, as the popularity of Warcraft III grew across the country and the number of players signing up for the championship increased, the venues required for the competitions became larger and larger. Finally, Jiangnan Group generously rented the entire stadium to host the national sub-station championships.
In terms of scale, the competition was already comparable to any normal sports event.
Even the United States couldn't compare to this. So, when Thomas arrived at the competition venue and saw an e-sports competition of Warcraft III being held in the center of a huge stadium, his whole body was filled with excitement.
"My god, how can there be such a great competition in the world? Why was such a competition founded by Chinese people!!" Thomas wailed, then took out his digital camera and started taking pictures of the competition venue.
Because nearly 4,000 players registered for the Shanghai station championship, even after passing the preliminary rounds held in internet cafes, the main competition segment was still very long, requiring a full three days.
Today was only the first day, but Thomas saw many top masters whose control over units, troops, and economy was almost to the extent he could imagine, without even a second of wasted operation.
"Hellow," suddenly, English interrupted Thomas's filming. He turned his head and saw a media reporter holding a microphone wanting to interview him. Behind the reporter were two cameramen.
Thomas noticed that on both cameras, the letters CCTV were clearly marked.