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[General Article] Age of Wushu: Launch Day Impressions
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Age of Wushu launched with great fanfare yesterday and we were there from minute one. We've prepared our launch day impressions on our way to an official review in the near future. Check out what we thought and then tell us about your experiences in the comments.
Every time I review a new game, I create two characters. I create one serious character, following the themes and lore of the game, and a secondary character named: Expendable Bob. (The first helps me get into the lore, and the second makes it easier to take risks I might not otherwise take with a serious character.) Having gone through the beta with the very seriously named Xingjua, I begin the launch with Expendable Bo. (Alas, the naming function doesn’t allow for that final “b”.) So come along with me and my Expendable friend as we spend the next few weeks discovering all that the newly launched Age of Wushu has to offer.
Read more of Lisa Jonte's Age of Wushu: Launch Day Impressions.
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Comments
When i saw the term "Cultivation" i thought wtf is going on,who ported this game to NA?
We are not talking about cultivating crops...geesh.
Anyhow since nothing seemed in order,i clicked it and somehow ended up at a cash shop.I assume the trick is to lure players in for awhile,then once hooked they will need to spend money or not have enough cultivation points.
Then a second thing turned me off,a whole mess of nameplates,like your typical f2p Asian game,it just looked messy with players all standing on the npc's making it tough to click them.
Then they use another idea i realized from f2p games and that is auto movement and i don't like it.Ruins the idea of any exploration or immersion and definitely not realistic.Devs are making games lazier and lazier,soon people can go make a sandwich and the game plays itself.
Oh ya i look for key binding and really inside of the options menu is VERY little of anything,definitely a simple f2p title with no effort put into it.Buildings are just shells,again no effort.
The graphics are typical of Asian games,they look identical to Silkroad,even the characters/models look identical.
If i had to choose and go back ,i would definitely choose SRO over this game in a heartbeat.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You hit it on the nail,EXACTLY how i ffelt,i just worded my review differently lol.
I think shows the reaon why every game from Asia needs to be ported properly to the North American players.
However i thouroughly enjoyed FFXI a Japanese game,it gave me no ill feelings,the UI worked perfect for me,the combat was perfectly paced,timers were done well so as to not make it an arcade button masher.
I guess the fact is that you see browser or F2p and you know you are going to get a cheap product and i doubt it will ever change.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
think i have seen a couple of your youtube videos when i was learning the game:) i gave the game a pretty good shot in beta.. did 3 differn't schools, got all the weapon sets unlocked for those schools, got my 2nd internal skills on all.. did spying, did kidnapping, did pvp, did a school war, did script stealing, did crafting, did farming, fishing ect.. just overall did not find anything in the game that grabbed me. I was in a fine guild and everything as well.. Combat didn't grab me even after getting used to it.. the tasks after awhile just got boring for me.. i dunno just very dissapointed.. i love martial arts and the overall theme of the game and really looking for a good less themeparky game but this just didn't do it for me at all
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Downloaded last night , trying to research what school to go with , as planning on going VIP status and want to have that decided before I start playing.
The fact that many have related it to EVE like in depth and difficulty makes me want to play it even more.
Theres no way the ADD gimme gimme now and make it easy crowd will stick around in this one and that's a good thing to me in the long run.
yeah, too many people want their hands held til end game where they'll just do the same thing.
AoW isn't a true sandbox, so there's still crafting/gathering/instances to do to progress your character, but at the same time you can just spend your days being a criminal, completely up to you.
anyway, I think I'll be playing AoW for a good while. I just hope they release battlegrounds soon.
You know, I understand where your coming from Wenababy. Here is my thoughts on this and much resembles my reasoning on Eve as well. I am a married man, a father and often have to work long hours. I don't have the time and patience I once had to put into an MMO to try to figure out whats going on. If a game launches with a learning curve and does not take into consideration the market its launching in, then I think that is a bad move on the companies part. I enjoy games with learning curves, otherwise I would never had played Everquest for over 10 years.
I am glad you enjoy this game Wenababy, however please take into consideration the times and what else is being offered. I can list numerous F2P games that are also fun, do not have much of a learning curve and have been cultivated specifically for a more modern MMO market.
P.S. I really do enjoy the base concept of this game and what they wanted to do with it. Like I said above, I think this just needed to be bundled together more efficiently then the way it was.
(mod edit)
Do your research, study the game before you putting your BS here. UI is perfectly fine, it doesn't take long for an average player to figure out basic things.
I think there is a difference between research and having to just try something out. I have researched games before and I know that sometimes when I am actually playing it can come off differently. As an example, I saw Age of Conans combat and thought to myself ... wow that looks soo cool. After playing the game for about 30 hours it started to get annoying. The point is that you should not assume that research will answer everything there is, especially on a game like AOW that does things differently.
For someone that has played AoW "quite a bit" in CB....I find this impressions to be somewhat lacking.
I don't know what it is but I find MMORPG's coverage of AoW to be exceedingly poor - particularly compared to other MMO sites. I'm a long time member of this website and I started my online gaming mostly through this website. I certainly hope to see these articles recapture some of the quality, humor, and sheer knowledge that I enjoyed so much in the past....
As a result I don't have near the gaming time I had when I played EQ at launch , but ill still prefer a more open , large learning curve game during what gaming time I have.
There's still a market for those of us who do prefer these types of games.
All games shouldn't have to cater to everyone .
The timing of your skills seems a bit awkward and I can't seem to block fast enough most of the time, compared to Tera's lancer the right click to block just seems very delayed, like you lagging badly but nothing else lags.
Also, admitedly it is a very complex game and the translation isn't very good. when reading quest text, that isn't so bad, honestly it makes the text read like a native chinese speaker that is learning english with words out of place and used incorrectly. In an odd way it is almost realistic. But when applied to the tutorial guides it can leave you rather confused about how things actually work. Cultivation for example is not explained very well either in the menues or in the tutorial on it. You need to go to the forums and read someones guide to really understand it. Combine that with the general complexity of the game and you have a bit of a hurdle to get past.
But so far those are my only two complaints. So far the game has been a lot of fun. It is refreshing to finally be back in a game that has more sandbox to it. If you are wanting to be lead through the game then this one will leave you feeling lost rather quickly despite of the auto-pathing feature. And the auto-pathing really isn't that bad. It is simply a feature of Asian games. Kinda of the idea that you tell your character what you want to do rather than how to do it, at least when your out of combat. This convenience is more than made up for in the way that you need to watch your opponent in pvp to know how to counter their moves and the way that your life skills are basically minigames. Fighting and life skills are the game, not hunting down a particular NPC in town.
Also, the graphics are fine. The character models are ok. They are strangely limited in some respects, cant change height or hair color, the later is understandable though considering this is Ming dynasty China. And yet, you have a good bit of control over the shape of the face though sliders that adjust the eyes, lips, nose and so on. Further, The visual aesthetics of the environment are wonderful. The world is truly beautiful in a very realistic way with mountains, clouds, forests and so on. And the architecture is also wonderful and accurate. In fact they modeled much of it from still standing structures from that time period. If you are not going to get a chance to visit mainland China in your life time then at least play for a few days just to visit, virtually.
Finally, for those who have ever taken lessons in a Chinese martial art such as Tai Chi or a type of Kung Fu, you are likely to be impressed with the accuracy of the animations. Of course this isn't about historic Wushu as much as Legendary Wushu and Wuxia, so like the movies things are exagerated and over the top but the basic moves are correct, at least as far as I have noticed and remember from the kung fu lessons I took a decade ago.
Give the game a try. give it a few days to get past the complexity. you may be surprised. but be aware that it is open pvp so it may still not be for you.
All die, so die well.
I don't believe you actually played the game. Please educate us what typical Asian grinder in this game? and How many hours you have put in this game?
This game pretty much revolves around PVP, so if you are not into PVP or just not good at PVP it will not last long for you. You will be ganked by players with more skill and it will happen a lot. You will not be ganked by anyone lower level, they will be trying to get whatever they are doing done without getting ganked themselves.
While there are no levels, there is an inner level everything is based off on and this is how people will decide whether or not to gank you.
PVE in this game is bad. Real bad. It reminds me of early SWG where enemy mobs all looked alike, were just standing around in certain spots, and just all around bad AI. That is ok, because this is not a PVE game. It has PVE stuff to do, but if you are looking for a PVE MMO don't even bother with this game. You cannot play this game without PVPing. It is integral to every aspect of the game.
This is not a Western game. It is a Chinese port and there are sever problems with the langauge barrier. The only way to get around this is by playing. You will make dumb decisions because of the bad translation and you will just have to live with it. Your first two weeks or so will be figuring things out.
This is not EVE Online where things are massively complex because of design. Things are massively complex in this game because of translation. Once you figure it out, it is actually pretty easy. It will take a long time though, more so than most MMOs. If you are patience, you might like this game. If you have no patience, do not even try to download this game.
There are three things in this game that will likely kill it. The first is the horrible translation. MMO players are not what they were 10 years ago. This is not the game for players without patience.
The second thing is the lag. There is lag, it is probably is a little better now than in Beta but there is lag. This is a game that requires your PVP skills to be split second in terms of timing. If you are off by a second, you lose, simple as that. I don't know if the lag problem is fixable simply because the PVP combat is twitch and that is a core part of the game.
The third part is the company Snail Games. They have gotten a pretty bad reputation throughout the Beta and have earned every bit of it. I normally try to give a company a bit of leeway, but this was the first time giant red flags popped up. This is not a reputable gaming company, be very wary ESPECIALLY (and I cannot stress this enough) when dealing with the payment process/credit card purchases. I would avise you get some sort of pre paid game card and go from there, and even they you are going to be scratching your head about their payment options.
Personally, those things end the game for me. I could maybe stomach one of those but when you lump everything together....stay away.
As far as the grind, yes there is a massive grind in this game but it is a Time Grind and you really do not even have to be at your keyboard. You will not be grinding monsters for EXP. Monsters do not give EXP. Your basic quests in this game give like 1 or 2 EXP points. Doing the PVP stuff gives like 200 or so. I spent the majority of my time Spying on other schools players who are offline (but still online in the game). Gain the EXP, and that "cultivates" into points that you spend BUT that takes practice. So you practice, or team practice for the best conversion rate and you choose which skill to spend it in.
You can acquire every combat skill in the game, and there are a ton of skills to get and level. All of that takes time, a whole lot of time. You can choose to spend money in the cash shop to speed up your time but you do not have to. Eventually you will get there because whether or not you are converting EXP rate at the highest rate possible (and there are a few in game tricks/buffs to help you out) or the lowest rate...you are still converting.
So you can, technically, play this game entirely for free and never spend a dime. Heck, if you know what you are doing you might be able to achieve great tings and never spend a dime. Chance are, you are going to dop a few bucks and "subscribe" which is not really a subscription the way Western players think of it. You are just buying a month of higher EXP rate/cultivation plus some other things to help you level.
What I mean is that once you fully flesh out your character the way you want to, you probably will not spend any money on this game....but again, that will take a looooooong time, especially if you are going for a lot of skills and tradeskills.
There are some nice PVP ideas in this game, a few of them are the same that are in other Asian MMOs like ArcheAge. The difference is that I think Trion is a real company. Something tells me that Snail Games is, uh, very shaky in the moral department....heh.
So, huge time grindy game even if you know what you want and how to accomplish it before hand.....cash shop to buy items (that are also on a timer) or purchase monthly VIP access....big time problem with translation, ethics of Snail Games and in game lag.
You obviously don't allow for any other opinion other than your own. Be quiet if you can't be respectful. Offer counter-arguments on why the game is fun and stop attacking people and calling them liars.
P.S. If I don't like a game at the start, I don't consider it worthy of any more time investment. It's great that you think it does, but that is you and not me or him, but ours is no less valid of a reason.
I agree, I don't think this one played the game at all. The cash shop has almost nothing in it. it is almost pityable. Literally all it has are costumes, mounts and books that will increase the output of your lifeskills for a certain number of days. That is it. There really is nothing else right now.
And how does a game have any grind when there are no levels? What exactly were you grinding? You get pretty close to nothing for killing mobs outside of town. You don't even consistantly get experience for killing things. Once in a great while you will get a random exp point. Thats right, 1. and only if you are lucky. And even if you decide to "grind" daily spy quests or such for exp, you can only convert that exp into cultivation so fast. So really I have no idea what you are talking about when you say typical grinder. It may not be what you want to do but there is nothing typical about it.
All die, so die well.
the goldselling is over the top - can't read chat from actual players as it scrolls off the screen so fast as the next huge gold seller advert comes on - and it that goldseller is local you get this huge chat bubble like a giant banner in the middle of the screen
don't think blacklisting works but it may be because there are so many of them it just doesn't seem to
totally lost and i have no idea what i actually accomplished in the game last night - other than the noob school stuff is over
would definitely uninstall if a friend of mine wasn't trying to persevere, so will go along for the ride for a bit yet - who knows, maybe something will sink in
I saw some of the fanfare for Age Of Wushu so I decided to give it a try.
My first impression was absolute dissapointment. It has a very cheap buggy unfinished feel to it. Graphically it looks like it pre-dates games like Aion. I'm not just talking about the engine, I mean the UI, and how messy everything looks on screen.
On entering the game the very first thing you will notice is rampant gold selling and all types of chat bubble spam. You will also notice upsells to all types of cash shop stuff to do stuff for stuff that is terribly explained.
The simplelest of places are instanced. The first dojo you go to in the game is instanced.
I feel like the game is completely dated and terrible, and all the people who were on MMORPG selling it as some great thing are either, delusional, being facetious, or work for Snail Games.
I'm just being honest, and this is all my opinion. Age of Wushu is one of the first games I actually uninstalled from my HD, and I'm not a jaded mmorpg guy who has "seen it all".
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i agree.. i also was considering starting a new character and trying an "evil" school(since all 3 i played were good) on one of the new servers but come to find I cannot transfer my VIP to another server.. i understand 1 character per account but really doesn't make sense to me that I cannot delete my character and create and brand new one on a new server and not get the VIP i payed for on my character
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
i liked the idea of the game and wanted to be good but in the end i totally agree with you
When I read typical mmorpgs, what I translate it as is "games that are more fun than AoW". Honestly, I'm not scared away by the game being different, I'm scared away by it not even attempting to draw me in early on. Like I and others have said many times, a lot of players don't want to go through what amounts to a lengthy tutorial to get to the "good part". If that's what you mean by spoiled, sure. I can list several games that were more fun in the first 20 minutes than AoW was in the first few hours. Call me impatient I guess, but it also had a lot to do with the Chinese theme (just not a fan of it, nothing against it) and the stiff, awkward cutscenes.
Well said. AOW is not for close minded people.