April 18-21, 2022N. THE GAME NetEase Game Developer Summit (hereinafter referred to as the "Summit") was held online.
At the value exploration and sharing meeting on the fourth day, Hu Xiaonan, brand manager of NetEase's Thunder Fire Marketing Department, brought "Forever Forever Golden Wuji: The Integrated Output of Traditional Chinese Culture". In terms of both the inside and outside of the game, we explored the way of exporting traditional Chinese culture with games as the carrier.
The following is a sharing draft of the mobile game, in order to improve the reading experience, the content has been deleted:
Hello everyone, I am Hu Xiaonan, brand manager from NetEase Thunder Fire Marketing Department, and I am honored to participate in the 2022 NetEase Game Developer Summit. Today, my sharing is mainly to talk to you about some groping and experimentation in the field of traditional culture since the launch of "Forever Destroyed".
First, show what Forever Will Ever Has Achieved since its global beta in August last year. We waded through the water for the domestic buyout game and stepped on the first step.
I am also very happy that after we went online, we can hear many peers more firmly do terminal games and do IP voices. These achievements, on the one hand, can reflect our commercial success, on the other hand, it means that "Forever Destroyed" as a domestic game with a strong oriental aesthetic color has gone out, entered the international vision, and become a window for the export of Chinese culture.
01
Golden Bird, Broadsword, Straight Ball: Intuitively understand the linkage point of convergence
In recent years, from the perspective of the industry, the level of game products engaged in traditional culture has gradually "rolled up". Many products are being done, there are cultural and Cultural Linkage, Intangible Cultural Heritage Linkage, and the integration of Hanfu culture, Quyi culture, porcelain culture and so on in the game. There is also no shortage of very amazing cases of going out of the circle, achieving double success in commercial revenue and user reputation.
We will find more and more that in fact, traditional culture is not only a public welfare for game products, but also more of an opportunity and a treasure. When we want to develop new content and inject new vitality into the game, we can always look back at the golden mountain of traditional culture. What are the good things that fit our tone and can be used.
I believe that your peers usually have a lot of resources on hand from suppliers, and there are many names. For example, 5A-level tourist attractions, national non-hereditary inheritors, Chinese time-honored brands and so on. However, our development resources and promotion resources are limited.
So how to choose a partner that fits the tone? And how to find a combination point to do the landing? Here we can share with you our groping process.
Although today's theme is "Eternal Destruction" Jin Wuji, it is a very complete traditional culture development project. But in the beginning, how to do this line of traditional culture, we did not have such a systematic idea, and there was no such thing as jinwuji.
Before the JinWuji, we made some scattered attempts, but in fact, the initial idea was very simple and direct. We ask, what would it be if an animal were used to represent Forever? It's easy to think of JinWu and Dragon.
If an object were to be used to represent Forever Destroyed, the mask might first come to mind. From this emoji, it can be seen that the mask of Ning Hongye has become a symbol of eternal destruction, and it is worn that it is the immortal mask that the robbers and the heroes of the Cave Continent are fighting for.
If you use a plant to represent eternal doom, it is easy to think of the other side of the flower, which is called the soul flower in the game. And using a weapon to represent eternal doom, it may be a broadsword or a sword, and many people will have different answers.
The first cooperation we talked about in the literature and blog was achieved in such a simple idea.
Why is it said that Jin Wu and Dragon are animals that can represent Eternal Destruction? Because in the game's worldview, behind all the disputes is the dispute of the ancient gods. The anode true god Jin Wu and the cathode true god candle nine yin fight, which is the beginning of the story of Juguzhou.
And when it comes to Jinwu, we think of the Sun God Bird. Speaking of the sun god bird, you will think of Chengdu's urban image logo "sun god bird". Its original form is from a national treasure- cultural relic, the gold ornament of the sun god bird, excavated from the Jinsha site in Chengdu.
We have Jinwu, and the Jinsha site has the Sun God Bird, so there is a point of convergence in the worldview. And the treasure of the town hall, the sun god bird, can be used as an iconic appearance, so it has reached a linkage with the other party.
After refining the feathers of the divine bird and the elements of the sun, the Shu embroidery elements of the ancient Shu kingdom were added to make a linkage skin for the new hero Wu Dust. And the sun god bird gold ornament is restored to the game, and the player can wear this national treasure-level cultural relic behind his back as a back ornament.
So how to establish the relationship between the new hero Dustless and the Sun God Bird? We used paper puppet animation and paper-cut stop-motion animation to create a promotional material that was independent of the game's plot.
This video is about Wu Chen seeing the mysterious mural of the Hermit people on the stone wall on the stone wall about Jin Wu in the cave, and he controls the Sun God Bird Totem into the world in the painting. Then he met Jin Wu in the painting and fought with him in the illusion.
It can be seen that this is all made of paper-cutting, Jinwu is a paper-cutting process, and dust-free is also a paper puppet made of paper-cutting. This duel may have been just a dream in the illusion for Wu Chen, but after waking up from the dream, he transformed into Jin Wu's costume in a cloud of flames. The script is simple and the message is straightforward.
We also made a cultural relics science video, and the narrator is Jin Wu's nemesis, the owner of the Candle Nine Yin Power", "Ning Red Night". You can see that Kunlun Xuannu Ning Red Night usually does not talk much, and now she is full of happiness and explains the history, culture and archaeological knowledge to the player. This is a very lightweight, low-cost piece of material.
The second linkage of the literature and blog class we talked about is the same idea. A major feature of Forever End may be cold weapon melee combat. Then we went to find resources related to ancient weapons, so we found the Pingyao Wentaofang Ancient Weapons Museum.
At the beginning, the idea was to find some ancient weapons, restore them and put them into the game as skins for weapons, so I found the Wentaofang Ancient Weapons Museum. Later, it was found that the curator Liu Wentao, the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage forging technology, was good at weapon forging and ancient weapon restoration, and could just engage in a linkage that came and went.
What comes and goes? That is, there is both take-ism and send-ism. Put the physical object into the virtual, take the treasures of the museum collection to scan and model it into the game; turn the virtual into an entity, and send the popular weapons in the game to be forged, carved, and reproduced into an entity.
We have selected one of the museum's town treasures: the horse's head knife. Restore it to the game, made an out-of-print commemorative dagger skin, as a reward for global sales exceeding 600w, free to give to full-service players as a souvenir.
In fact, there is an interesting episode when it comes to this matter, we put the website of the museum in the game, so that players can go to the museum to see a variety of ancient weapons after playing the game, and appreciate the historical weapon culture of the mainland.
It doesn't matter, players flocked to it, and the official website of the Pingyao Ancient Weapons Museum was directly squeezed. Many players also feel very speechless, in the official blog comment area to send a screenshot to ask us, how can the museum also be fried ah?
I brought the horse's head knife, so what weapon was sent? We chose the biggest one: the Wolf Lord Broadsword. Let the museum curator use the traditional process of smelting and forging in ancient methods to reproduce it.
The reproduction of the wolf lord is indeed a big project, and we sent a shooting team to Pingyao to record the forging process with the shooting. In the middle, it was very unfortunate to catch up with the heavy rain in Shanxi in early October last year. The foundry workshop was flooded, the water and electricity were cut off, and the production progress was stagnant.
The entire construction period lasted more than two months, and the later stages of the documentary were not released until late December. Can we take a look and see how the Wolf Lord was forged?
This wolf owner is really very big, remembering that when the wolf lord sent to the company, this courier was placed in the large area, and the little brother told us to go and get it, no one went, and it really couldn't be moved. The box nailed up by the wooden plank alone is more than two meters high, and inside is a large broadsword made of pure steel and pure iron, which is really not fun.
Later, no one dared to take it for a long time, and then the courier brother of the post office issued an ultimatum, saying "This is too occupied!" You must take it away today" We have only sent two strong laborers to carry the wolf lord back. Got a bracket and placed it horizontally in the studio, hoping to suppress all bugs.
02
Informal, martial, connotative: deep understanding of linkage fits
The two linkages mentioned above were actually negotiated in the first month of the launch of "Eternal Destruction". At this stage, our thinking is very simple, and the cultural fits we are looking for are very specific things.
Of course, this line of thinking is not wrong or bad. But if you just focus on what elements in the game, and find something to link, you may lack some deep, spiritual insight. Therefore, it is still necessary to broaden the horizon, not only to find the point of convergence of the surface, but also to explore the point of convergence of the spiritual temperament.
So what is the spiritual temperament of "Eternal Destruction"? In the early days of promotion, we felt that this kernel was free and unrestrained. Therefore, emphasis will be placed on the degree of freedom that never ends, such as the flying of the zipline, the full interaction of the map, the ability to climb trees, hanging on the wall, and so on.
At this time, we came up with the idea that I was free of restraints, and later, we hoped to further break through the appearance and emphasize a deeper spiritual core, so we raised this question again.
Here, you may as well ask everyone, when you think of "Eternal Destruction", what do you think? Is it a "vibrator"? At the beginning of October last year, our marketing team went out to conduct a visit to an Internet café in seven cities across the country.
In addition to collecting the player's most intuitive play feedback face-to-face, I also want to know what kind of spiritual temperament it has in the eyes of players? The following are the player hot words we collected in the Internet café survey.
How do these words sum up a common point, it seems to be a fight, kill and kill. We feel that the word "wu" is the most able to arouse the above associations, and it is the most reminiscent of martial arts, competitions, fights, wins and losses, and so on.
Therefore, later, the second half of the sentence was added to "I am free of restraint": "I am free of restraint, and the martial arts are infinite."
Why talk about this "martial"? In fact, this brings us to a more abstract reflection on traditional Chinese culture, and when we read modern Chinese history, we will know that the process of learning the West in modern China is divided into three layer-by-layer stages of learning artifacts, learning systems, and learning ideas.
The most shallow is the foreign affairs movement, which is to learn artifacts, learn shipbuilding, and build cannons; the deepest level is the new cultural movement, learning ideological culture.
Therefore, when it comes to traditional Chinese culture, we tend to think of very specific things, such as calligraphy, painting, embroidery, seal carving, and so on. But these are actually the level of artifacts.
And what is particularly consistent with "Eternal Destruction" on the spiritual level of traditional Chinese culture? We feel that the "martial spirit" must be counted as one.
Some people may say that China is Confucian culture and not martial, especially Confucian and easy-going. In fact, this is not the case, take Confucius, he is a person with infinite strength. He taught his students six arts, that is, six subjects--ritual, music, shooting, imperial, calligraphy, and mathematics," of which "shooting" and "imperial" are all skills related to war.
Sima Qian wrote the Chronicle of History, which was dedicated to the Rangers and Assassins. Why? Because he admired these people very much. And Li Bai's writing of "Chivalrous Travel" is also full of pride, which makes people very happy to read. Therefore, Chinese is talking about martial arts and having martial souls.
Why is wuxia culture very popular in China? In fact, this also reflects a martial feeling of Chinese. After confirming such a spiritual temperament, what kind of linkage or cooperation do you think we can engage in?
Looking for martial arts novels, martial arts movies, or working with martial arts schools? Looking for a Shaolin Temple? Or can you think of any personal name? After thinking about it, we finally chose - Bruce Lee.
In December, we announced Bruce Lee Linkage at the annual press conference of "Forever Doom", which is our linkage promotional film.
There are many reasons to choose Bruce Lee. First of all, he can uncompromisingly represent the word "Wu" and can also represent China. He is a true Chinese martial artist and a monument to Chinese martial arts. In addition, his influence overseas is also very strong, and many foreigners admire him.
As a globally released game, Eternal Doom must take into account the factor of international recognition, so on the whole, Bruce Lee is the best choice.
This is our linkage poster and slogan, which is a major feature of the game Forever. "Immortality" is not only the immortality of the immortal mask, but also the immortality of martial arts and the immortality of Chinese civilization.
Why is Bruce Lee a representative of Chinese culture? I believe that everyone may have seen a very famous interview with him, talking about "water". He said that a good martial artist is like water, and water can flow quietly or violently.
In fact, this central idea is what Lao Tzu called "shangshan rushui", and his martial arts concept comes from the inheritance of Chinese culture. And this point can fully represent Chinese martial arts, so we use Bruce Lee as a spokesperson for the martial spirit of "Eternal Destruction".
Bruce Lee's linkage is very deep, and it is by no means the end of the game to let the player put on the yellow tights. In the game, we also worked hard to interpret the cut boxing, and specially made a new weapon for this linkage - the double cut stick.
This is actually a deep integration of Bruce Lee's martial arts temperament into the player's combat experience, and the double stick is a very special weapon in "Forever Destroyed". It has both rigid and soft characteristics, and has a special movement performance.
In the game, the double stick moves are designed with reference to Bruce Lee's own actions, and we also invited Mr. Wen Junshan, the third generation of Bruce Lee, to do motion capture for the game moves to ensure the accuracy of the double stick action and convey his style as much as possible.
The linkage also lived up to expectations and set off a heated discussion among overseas players, and the Bruce Lee promo of "Forever Doom" reached more than 200w views on Youtube. The comments section turned into a large idol meet-up.
Another Thai blogger was very excited about this linkage, and spontaneously uploaded a reaction video with full program effects, which was well received.
As mentioned earlier, the artifact level and ideological level of Chinese culture, the golden sand linkage and the ancient weapon linkage can be counted as the artifact level, and the Bruce Lee linkage is the ideological and spiritual level. But in fact, the two are not clearly distinguished.
The next example to be talked about is that in the event of coincidence, it has been upgraded from the artifact level to a spiritual traditional cultural project.
This artifact is armor. Last November, we launched a new hero, Yue Shan, and after the character CG was released, he was dressed in battle armor and wearing a strong and strong suit. Players have said that the handsome fried, goosebumps are up.
His image of this armor is particularly popular with players, so we want to work the armor culture, and want to make a set of armor fashion based on the Tang Dynasty Mingguang armor. So I found the top armor team in China - the alchemy hall.
Teacher Wen Chenhua is a famous Tang and Song Dynasty armor restoration teacher in China, and also the designer of the armor of "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an". Inviting him to come is to do for us the academic examination and physical restoration of the Tang Dynasty Ming Guang armor.
This is the Yongwu Sword Fighting Conference held at the December conference, and the national style armor catwalk was done together with the top armor team Refining Armor Hall.
Artifacts are armor, but what is spirit? It is the feeling of home and country. In fact, this is also the idea that we gradually collide with in the exchange. At that time, the teachers of the armor hall were invited to the company to talk about the ideas of armor design, and they carried some armor objects and literature. Discuss with our planners and artists in person about armor styles, materials, archeological prototypes, and more.
According to the Tang Dynasty Mingguang armor, it is impossible to avoid Dunhuang. Therefore, when it came to going to the Mogao Grottoes to collect wind, teacher Wen Chenhua said of a person, the first general of the late Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yichao.
Zhang Yichao may not be familiar with this person, and so are we. But after learning his story, we were all particularly touched. After the Tang Anshi Rebellion, Hexi fell into the hands of Tubo, and the Baixing people of Hexi were not happy. In order to maintain the unity of the country, Zhang Yichao poured out his family property and formed a rebel army. Not for the purpose of fame and fortune, he paid Hexi for three years of hard work and returned to the territory of the Tang Dynasty.
Everyone knows that Hanfu is the right side, the Han people's clothes are tied to the right, and the hundred years of left clothes are the suffering of the frontier people for nearly a hundred years. It was precisely because Zhang Yichao was loyal and courageous, and fought alone and bloodily, that the remnants of Hexi finally got rid of the fiery life of the fallen and could wear back the clothes of the Tang Dynasty.
At first we just wanted to design a piece of armor, there was nothing particularly elevated. But after listening to Zhang Yichao's story, we feel that such a hero should let more people know that traditional Chinese culture should not only pass on things, but also pass on the spirit.
The spirit of the hero spans thousands of years is also very touching, if there is no hero, then the bright light armor is just a piece of armor, and the armor worn only on the hero's body can be bright and dazzling.
In this way, from the artifacts, deep into the spirit; from the armor culture, deep into the feelings of home and country. In the end, we decided to upgrade the original bright light armor restoration plan to "Zhang Yichao Image Restoration Project". Do everything we can to promote this national hero to the masses.
We and the armor refining team went deep into Dunhuang to collect styles, referred to a large number of academic documents, historical books and excavated cultural relics, and strived to restore zhang Yichao's image of wearing mingguang armor as much as possible. Similarly, Zhang Yichao's great feats will also be introduced in the game, so that the majority of players can see the most vivid face of this lonely and courageous national hero through the Bright Light Armor. People's memories are the vitality of heroes.
After a series of explorations of traditional Chinese culture, we launched the Jin Wuji. It is positioned as a long-term traditional Chinese culture development project. The series of contents of inheriting, integrating and carrying forward traditional culture that are to be carried out at present and in the future are unified into this vein and named "Jin Wuji".
Jinwu is the ancient god of "Eternal Destruction", but also the image of the symbolic origin in Chinese culture, we gave the project this name, which means to use the name of Jinwu to open an era of integration with traditional culture.
After that, I also sorted out the content in three directions for Jin Wuji's planning:
First, rigorous examination of evidence, ingenuity to restore the elements of traditional Chinese culture. This is to restore all kinds of content with Chinese elements in the game through solid research and advanced technical means, and interpret traditional Chinese crafts and cultural heritage at a high level.
Second, linkage publicity to enhance the awareness of traditional Chinese culture. We will link up with well-known cultural IP, including museums, places of interest and monuments, etc., combined with the new season, new heroes, new weapons and other major nodes of the series of joint publicity. Invest large resources and show the treasures and spiritual temperament of Chinese culture to players around the world with loud quantities.
Third, public welfare actions, using creativity and technology, to help carry out cultural relics publicity and protection. We are not limited to the dissemination of game content, but also put ourselves in the shoes of cultural dissemination and site protection.
The above three directions are not only our action plan, but also the mission of Jin Wuji.
Finally, I would like to say that games, a medium carrier, have sound, pictures, and a sense of interactive experience. In terms of cultural display, the advantages are very obvious. As game practitioners, we have a cultural mission on our shoulders. We have creativity, technology, and excellent art that can provide players with a sense of immersion and substitution.
If we can make some efforts to make academic evidence solid, and combine ornamentation and playability, the silent traditional culture buried deep in museums, sites, scenic spots and cultural relics and monuments will no longer be mysterious and distant, obscure and high threshold.
Golden Wu Lingkong, a dream of a thousand years; tracing from it, full of dazzling; traditional Chinese culture, like a torch like light, you and I are fire seeds. The nation's is the world's, and my generation's obligation is incumbent upon us.
Thank you, that's all I have to say.