Whether it was private servers, single-player mode, or the official servers, they were all packed with excited players.
Without exception, everyone who had toured the buildings Lucas showcased on the demo server jumped straight into Minecraft with excitement, eager to build the creations in their own minds.
At Nebula Games' office, even though it was Spring Festival, Lucas had already told the team that some work during the holiday would be needed because of Minecraft's huge importance to the platform's future. Of course, it wouldn't be too much.
Mainly it was about handling various holiday content. Staff living in Magic City would stay on-site, while those from elsewhere could go home and work remotely.
The benefits were solid, and with the year-end bonus just handed out, plenty of people were happy to stay and work overtime.
In fact, so many volunteered that Lucas had to hold a lottery to decide, mainly because the overtime pay and benefits were so generous.
When Lucas walked out of his office, Anna rushed over with excitement, with Hector, Edward, and the others right beside her.
Everyone living in Magic City looked just as thrilled.
"Lucas! Sales have already passed 3 million! At this pace, we might even hit 4 million today!" Anna said excitedly.
The others, Hector included, were buzzing with energy too.
"Make sure to keep an eye on the servers, and spin up the backup ones if needed," Lucas nodded, reminding Hector and the others.
"Lucas, aren't you excited at all?" Anna looked at him in disbelief. Hector and the others were puzzled too.
First-day sales possibly hitting 4 million—that was a huge deal.
It was the kind of number that shook the entire gaming world.
Sure, Minecraft's price was much lower than most big-budget games, but those sales were very real.
It might even break 10 million within the first week.
"Don't forget, Minecraft preorders opened a month early, and this is only the beginning. There's no reason to get carried away yet. The overseas release hasn't even started," Lucas said calmly.
The earlier promo videos of Riverside Along the River and the Forbidden City had already done a great job of building hype.
Plus, Nebula Games' strong reputation helped push Minecraft's first-day sales together with preorders into this seemingly incredible number.
But Lucas knew this was still just the beginning.
Those videos only showed the game's potential. To really feel the fun and the magic of Minecraft, players needed to dive in and play for themselves. It was a game that grew better and better the longer you played.
For now, it was just a promising start. Even the workshop only had a few building mods Lucas uploaded himself.
At the same time, Lucas had already made rules to protect mod creators' rights.
For example, mod authors could choose whether others were allowed to edit their mods.
If Player A built a castle and Player B just made small changes and re-uploaded it as their own, that would be restricted.
When players uploaded a creation, they could set whether it could be remixed by others.
Lucas also set up a dedicated team to maintain the Minecraft community.
In his previous life, Minecraft's global popularity had a lot to do with its strong community, so this part couldn't be ignored.
After discussing the current situation with Hector and the others, Lucas returned to his office and opened Minecraft's admin panel to check the in-game data.
At that time, the official servers had three groups running.
Survival, Creative, and Showcase.
The Showcase servers were the ones filled with builds like Ancient Rome, the Forbidden City, and other landmarks, where players could freely walk around and explore.
The Survival servers could hold up to 2,000 people, and in this mode there were no strict rules—everything depended on how players developed on their own.
The game world was one giant map, randomly generated, and every player was placed at a random location.
Of course, each player would still have other players nearby.
After all, since this was multiplayer, if you had to wander alone for hours before meeting anyone, there would be no point in having a multiplayer mode at all.
So in most cases, players would run into others while gathering materials early on.
At that point, whether they chose to team up, fight each other, or just go their own way was completely up to them.
Lucas and Nebula Games wouldn't interfere at all.
Although the servers could hold up to 2,000 people, players would eventually come and go.
But in Lucas's plan, even if only one-tenth of the players stayed, it would still be enough to keep the server's ecosystem alive.
Besides these open servers, there were also special servers for players who preferred building and peaceful play.
On these servers, players couldn't attack each other, though monsters still existed.
To prevent griefing, players could set their houses so others couldn't break them. They also had a skill to save their builds at a certain point in time, basically like making a backup.
In Peaceful mode, this feature could be used without limits. In normal multiplayer, it came with a cooldown, and buildings weren't completely indestructible—different materials had different durability. If someone wanted to tear down a house, they needed specific tools, and the process would be slow.
No matter the mode, players could save their data as a file and transfer it into single-player Survival, though only in one direction.
In his past life, similar features had existed but only on private community servers. Lucas guessed some players would love these features while others might not.
But that didn't matter—Minecraft's core was freedom.
You couldn't really say which mode was the "true" way to play Minecraft.
Then there were the mini-games, but Lucas didn't plan to release those officially.
The idea was to let players take the lead later on.
Of course, Lucas had a backup plan—if necessary, he could always use a private account and pretend to be just another modder.
(End of The Chapter)
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