Carl spent the entire day following Mio, as well as hoarder-type players like her who did not push the main story, observing their movents.
Mio's exploration experience was still quite interesting at first.
After completing the beginner tutorial for enrollnt, the newbie gift pack she received contained an alchemy item called a Treasure Detector.
This detector allowed players to locate treasure chests within a small range.
With the detector's function, plus the various small treasure chests scattered all over the map.
Mio spent the entire day imrsed in the intense joy of treasure hunting. Aside from ti spent eating and using the bathroom, her first day in the world of Oath was basically spent holding this detector and scanning across the entire map.
On top of that, Oath's official treasure chest count was quite generous. Basically, after walking one or two steps, she could find one or two treasure chests.
Watching the number of Contract Stones in her bag slowly rise from zero to one thousand, then two thousand, and feeling that number continue to grow, filled Mio's heart with several kinds of happiness.
First was the pleasure of gaining sothing every few steps. Second was the quiet joy of watching the resources in her little stockpile gradually pile up.
Unfortunately, Mio's happiness did not last long.
Because even though Oath's Version 1.0 map was so large that even Carl found it sowhat exaggerated, after Mio spent more than ten hours running all over the map for an entire day, there was still no ssage like, "Co back to explore the area ahead later."
But no matter what, the number of treasure chests was still limited.
As Mio scanned and found more and more treasure chests with the detector, the number of chests she could scan later began to decrease.
At first, Mio could scan two or three treasure chests every few steps. Two hours later, it took a long ti just to scan one treasure chest.
Until now... it was ten o'clock in the morning on the second day after Oath's launch.
Mm... after taking a short nap and logging back in, Mio continued today's pleasant treasure chest hunt.
But she quickly discovered a problem.
Carl followed Mio as she ran around the dormitory area of Elysium Academy for over half an hour. No matter how many tis she pressed the detector's scan button, it did not show any sign of treasure chests in the area.
Carl really wanted to say to this player lady.
You have walked this road almost three tis already. No matter how much you scan, treasure chests are not going to grow out of the ground!
"Judging by this, is she about to enter the second stage?"
Carl watched Mio's fingertips swipe through the air. It was obvious she was not adjusting any ga settings.
Other ga characters could not see the various floating nu panels players had in midair, but Carl could.
Mio first logged into several ga chat groups she had joined and asked her group friends what treasure chests were in the academy dormitory area.
Although so group mbers answered Mio with treasure chest locations, when she followed the locations they pointed out and checked, she discovered that she had already opened those chests.
Soon afterward, an enthusiastic group mber shared a guide blogger's video with her.
Carl glanced at the title of that video guide and could basically confirm it.
Mio was about to enter the second stage of playing this type of "pretending to be an open-world exploration ga."
That was watching ga guides to find treasure chests.
The title of this video was [Oath Treasure Chest Full Collection, Elysium Academy, Dormitory Area Treasure Chests/Puzzles/Oath Hearts Full Collection Guide].
"There are already guide bloggers making videos this quickly? Simple and easy to copy, just follow along the whole way... mm."
Mio hesitated slightly when she clicked into the video.
Carl knew what she was hesitating about. Once she watched this kind of guide video, the fun of exploring Oath would be instantly destroyed.
Because finding treasure chests step by step by following a guide video was no longer playing a ga at all. It was purely chanical labor.
The surprise and sense of achievent from finding treasure chests by herself would disappear completely.
Mio was very conflicted right now, so conflicted that she even asked the mbers of her own team.
"Do you think I should watch a guide to find treasure chests?"
When Mio asked this question to the ga characters in her team, she realized she was being a bit silly.
The other two ga characters besides Carl looked at each other, completely unable to understand what the player was asking.
Carl sighed softly. After following her for almost an entire day, he still decided to express his opinion.
"Watch the guide. The process of searching for treasure chests itself is already a boring, repetitive task."
"And the chests you spend so much effort finding only give fixed scraps of rewards. There is no surprise, and it is not fun either."
"There is no exploration fun to speak of. There is no need to torture yourself."
Carl did not intend to hide from players the fact that he was a ta character.
A ta character referred to a ga character who knew the player was a real person in reality, not a virtual character role-playing in the ga, and could perform actions that interacted with the player in reality.
"No exploration fun at all? But I think the process of finding treasure chests is pretty fun."
Although Mio found it strange that Carl would say sothing so outrageous, she still answered subconsciously.
That is because you have never experienced anything better. Also, the early treasure chests are easier to find, and the rewards are densely packed and stimulating.
Carl did not say the latter sentence out loud. Seeing that Mio wanted to ask him more, he directly started pretending to be an NPC.
No matter what Mio asked, he stopped answering.
Because with so things, it was useless for Carl to persuade her with words. Only by experiencing it herself could Mio realize, under the underlying logic of Oath being a pay-to-win ga, just how boring and hard to swallow its so-called open-world gaplay would beco.
(To be continued.)
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