Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
[Review] Age of Wushu: Potentially Great
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Age of Wushu made a big splash on the MMO scene not too long ago. We have been faithfully playing AoW and reporting on it. Now ready to offer our official review, we hope you'll stop by the comments after reading to let us know what you think of the game.
I started this game confused and, in many ways, I still am. As was mentioned in my review in progress, I was lucky enough to have a walkthrough/question-and-answer session with some of the folks at Snail Games. And while their assistance certainly cleared up some of my questions, it wasn’t enough to make the game the fluid experience it should be, and I’m ending my tenure in the game exactly as I began it: Lacking Understanding.
Read more of Lisa Jonte's Age of Wushu: Potentially Great.
)
Comments
A pretty fair review. The biggest issues that AoW has, IMHO, is it's localization and Snail itself. The game might be big in Asia, but that was the originally intended market. If Snail wants the game to be big in the West, then they need to adapt to Western ideas of business such as permanent cash shop items and at the very minimum, meeting the customers halfway who have had their accounts hacked.
Other than that, the game itself is fun. Sure it has issues, but all games do.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
I haven't played the game. Call me shallow but the lack of polish on the character selection and before keep me from this one.
You are missing a few things. First is that your schools skills don't matter at all for your "Lacking understanding" Rank. The only skill that matters for that is your school's internal skill, which you cultivate passively and you get when you first choose your school in the first conversation with the school master. Once you get to rank 5 on that your lacking understanding changes.
Next thing is the group practice is soloable, however you get greater benefit by having more people in the group doing it with you.
My conclusion: In today's games in general you should do a little bit of reading before playing so that you know what you are doing when you get in there, because it is true that today's games often do not offer good enough tutorials to help you understand EVERYTHING you need to know. For example, AoW teaches you to cultivate skills, but it never tells you that the internal skill is what increases your "Rank." Enjoy the game cause it really is a good one when you understand it.
A pretty fair and balanced review imho. AoW is a great and wonderful game with some pretty rough, ugly spots that keep demanding your attention.
Personally I looked beyond those spots for months because I had so much fun exploring all the innovative and unorthodox features, but eventually they got to me.
Timed events (which is especially f*cked up when you love in the EU) and rent-only items are the biggest downers for me, but the insane gold spam, the borked economy and the sloppy localization are also disturbing in the long run.
Still, the game is awesome and I hope these issues get ironed out eventually so that it can flourish for real. I won't hold my breath though since Snail is Aow's worst enemy. A good Western publisher had been so much better for this game - gameplay-wise it has the potential to compete with EVE, but not when it's being run like this.
Somewhat fair, but the reviewer is still shockingly ignorant given the amount of time she's written about the game.
Yes, the translation is sub-par so that lack of polish is justified. However, to admit you were stuck on your school quests for ages really speaks more to you as a gamer. Keep in mind, hundreds of players figured it out in a matter of hours in CBT2 and that was with translations that were even worse.
This game appeals to the old school gamer, where things are often simply not explained. The reviewer simply isn't in that category, which speaks more to her quality as a gamer. I just can't view this review as legitimate, but I realize that I'm a dying breed and in a niche category of gamer.
And all of those things are things that an "old school gamer" can't easily stomach.
What Almareth said. If you got stuck on this game I'd hate to see your rage at games that really don't hold your hand. Yes, the translation is bad, but its all comprehendable if you put some effort into it. Giving a game a lower score because you have to figure it out isn't very objective.
I'll also add that overall I think your score is pretty fair, although its a shame to see a smaller game get rated more harshly than all these big budget games that you score so high. I wonder why that is...
GWII, SWTOR to name a couple that really have no longevity and very little innovation when you look past the gimmicks used to make box sales in a crusade of marketting. AoW offers interconnected game systems that make you feel like you're playing in world rather than a bunch of mini-games.
I guess some gamers want their entertainment to be more like watching TV. Personally, I'd rather be more engaged,
This review seems to be written by someone who has little to no understanding of the game. This review also misses pointing out HUGE flaws, that are definately noticed by every player within the first hour. This review was done poorly, and should be stricken from the record.
No you are completely right. The game probably deserves a 5/10.
That's a half truth. VIP is critical for a new player, less so for a veteran with millions of cultivation. One of the top Shaolins in the game dropped VIP for more than a month. He probably won't go back to it.
Also if you feel like you need to purchase unbound from Snail, you aren't very good at working with dynamic markets. It's not for everyone, as I said earlier.
As for the comment about people wanting their games to be like TV - AMEN BROTHER. While having difficulty increased due to borked translations (and there are some serious doozies - 3rd inner quests, anyone?) it's one of the joys in the game to work with the community to figure out how things work. It gives a reasl sense of accomplishment.
Bots/gold sellers are a massive problem as are Snail's extremely aggressive "slash and burn" tactics, but they seem motivated to end it.
No mention of the Pay to Win running rampant, economy, monitary systems, pvp aspects, guild vs guild aspects, events, or hell... even the collection of different forms & styles (which is the true forucs of the game).
From someone who really played AoW for a long while, this review reads like it's from someone who played it for about 2-3 days. Never joined a guild, and never really got into the meat of the game.
I agree with the 7 score, but for MUCH different reasons. Honestly a better review can be found here, not to toot my own horn. And that was written months ago.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5530649#5530649
I have a very hard time reconciling how simple I found the game to figure out - big picture wise with how many people who can't seem to to figure out the first few quests.
I seriously doubt you are an old-school gamer in any sense of the word. Even with the warts I still enjoy this game higher than any game I've seen since WoW (which I have to tip my hat to, even though I don't particularly like it).
Rating wise, I think a 7-8 is fair - but her comments on the gameplay are patently ridiculous.
I wanted to like the game but after a week of playing the free to play option I gave up. Not being able to communicate with your school unless you pay or achieve a specific "level" if you're f2p really takes the social out of the game. I understand this is to combat gold spammers...punishing people who may want to check the game out for free before plopping money down on it is not the best way to combat gold spam.
What made me decide to quit was that apparently you need a different type of money to buy from player shops. My poor character ran out of food and was going to eventually starve so I found a player selling steamed rice balls only to find I didn't have the money to buy them. Looked everywhere for a NPC vendor that sells food and couldn't find any.
I'm not sure how f2p is a viable option for an enjoyable experience so I moved on. I'm not ready to pay money on the game...may check it out again down the road.
Nothing in life is free if you want the best experience, F2P is only free if you are happy being the gimp.
That doesn't excus charging 10 bucks for cloths that last only 30 days or even expire. I don't mind VIP (i even have it), but i do wish they included the 1 cash shop item for VIPs and or make the cloth perma. The game already lacks a lot of character customization. Anyways, even though I enjoy the game, to me it seems snail wants to make as much profit as quickly because it is afraid the game might not have a lot of longevity, or mass market appeal.
Seriously 9 bucks for clohes that last only 30 days.Here are the main problems of the game, which will sink it in a short time.
-LAG. The game is twitch combat. Lag effectively ends the enjoyment of the game right here.
-SNAIL GAME. The company is very shady. Just read the official forums for whatever scheme they are trying to pull today.
-TRANSLATIONS. The game is beyond bad when it comes to translating it into English. Anyone who says the following is full of garbage.
"This game is a nod to older MMOs where things were not explained. That is what makes this game great".
Please....just stop. You can make things as difficult or as easy to understand, the actual translation is the problem here.
Nothing in life is free if you want the best experience, F2P is only free if you are happy being the gimp.
I don't even say that is wrong, but it AT LEAST deserved mention in the review, as it is a rather glaring flaw. And legitimate to point out: it is almost impossible to advance your toon as a "free player" unless you buy currency. Period. Thus, you either need to pay for the VIP sub, or pay for currency, there is no real way to play for free and get anywhere. And LOL @ comparing this game to EvE. No, just no.The amount of ignorance surrounding this game is just baffling.
koboldfodder highlighted the real problems.
also the review by ragz45 is simply way better than this.
Yeah, I'd honestly have to say this review is pretty inaccurate.
Did you do school war, Escort, forbidden instance, kidnap successfully, steal script, patrol for spies, etc.
Did you explore the gossip quests and get random encounters?
You mention this game has so much more social than other mmo's and you only gave it a 7? 85% of the game is social... grouping with people and killen others, instances, and what not. School chat, guild chat, it's both there for help and conversation.
Innovation... how many games have events like steal script, robbery of escorts, and even putting real players as "killers" in instances to stop a group of other players from successfully killing a boss.
This game has so much depth and this review feels like only 2-3 hours were put in to the game.
Im glad that not only I think those AoW reviews lacklaster at best. She never even tried to write about PvP which is major focus of AoW. And 7 in innovative and social categories? Name me a single MMORPG since EVE Online that is more innovative and social.
Games have become way to easy. Not just MMO's but every genre. Not because the core gamer (you know...REAL gamers) wanted it but because publishers wanted to earn as much as possible and the mainstream gamer gets clue less what to do and doesn't wanna figure out that if you stand in a hallway, with a door infront you and no where else to go to, that you need to enter that door. The mainstream gamer demands you make a giant arrow pointing the way for you to that door so they know they need to go there. This is not me as old school gamer being a blinded fanboy of a genre. This is me as a REAL gamer beign against the fact that games have to point out what to do and became super easy or the mainstream gamer freaks out, and that more and more mainstream gamers become game journalists who then begin to punish games for being to hard.
And with games becoming to easy they also became a lot shorter. Look at shooters, 4 - 6 hours is the standard these days on the hardest difficulty (where 10 years ago this was normal difficulty). I read reviews saying "its a lenghty game with 7 hours for the singleplayer campaign". 7 hours long? 10 years ago i read reviews about shooters "with 10 hours its on the short side". But the mainstream gamer needs to be pleased, needs to get to feel awesome and they feel that way if they can beat the game. So games become short and easy.
WoW vanilla you had to read your quest to know where to go. And part of the charm was going online to websites with maps helping you out where to go too if you got really stuck. Or ask in the general chat and have people help you out instead of calling you a noob. Few years later Activision takes charge over Blizzard and bam the game gets made mainstream friendly. Who needs to read quests when its all pointed out on your map and a arrow guiding you to your destination. Even the difficulty became a lot more easy. Area's you had to move careful when alone suddenly became a breeze to slash your way trough. Enemies who where hard to beat suddenly didn't do as much damage as they used too. Later they tried to make the game harder again but the damage had been done, most core players had left WoW already.
The lack of willing to explore a game is a bad thing. Thats not us being blinded fanboys. Its us gamers, who played games before it became the cool thing to do, hating that you don't experience a game anymore these days, you don't play the games anymore these days, you just press a few buttons and go from one objective to another while the game holds your hand the whole ride. It doesn't even let go eventually, nope. Sure there are some exceptions and some go very far in being hard as heck, but games in general became a dumb down product of what they used to be. Being stuck isn't bad, it means you have to find out how to get passed it, something gamers of this generation don't seem to understand including reviewers. "Oh im stuck, i tried it two times now and still no solution, game must be bugged or really cruel this is to hard". Go try mega man, that was a hard game. Go play old adventure games to create some thinking experience instead of everything being spelled out for you. As kid i got stuck so often and only then i used help if i had been stuck for hours at the same part and i was 12 or so, so why can't 18 year old gamers of these days do the same hm? Why do they need a constant help even in FPS games where a 12 year old, barely english understanding (im not native english) could play Police Quest, Space Quest, etc etc with only a guide when he got absolutely stuck for hours in a row and having a blast keep trying different things.