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Most interesting MMORPG I've seen in a while, but rather obtuse...
geldonyetich
Member Posts: 1,340
Thanks to the unprecedented success that is World of Warcraft, we're up to our necks in "theme park" style MMORPGs. Even Ragnarok Online 2 looks to be copping World of Warcraft's look and central gameplay mechanic. That's a real blow for us MMORPG veterans who were around when the three major players in town were Ultima Online, Everquest, and Asheron's Call, because there was this concept of virtual world sandbox that we wanted to see from Ultima Online and somewhat in Asheron's Call that has been somewhat buried under people trying to ape WoW's success.
Fortunately, Age of Wushu shows us the alternative, a non-theme park game, a virtual world game where you can wander freely and do whatever without levels dictating where you can be. There's so few games of its type that this alone is a good start.
Now, Ultima Online was great, but it was also a complete an utter gankfest that was hemmorhaging players like mad until the developers threw in the towel and made a second non-PvP instance, and only nostalgia colored glasses as thick as hockey pucks can obscure the unbearable darkness that early Ultima Online's naive baby steps into a fledling young genre of an open-world graphical online RPG with open PvP.
Yet, there was this certain semblance of old school Ultima Online cool that many of us wanted to see, and some games have tried to bring that back: Darkfall Online, Shadowbane, and so on. For varying reasons, they have not gone over very well. I think one of the major problems with these attempts to open up the PVP have largely fallen flat because the developers just turned on the "kill other people" flag and just assumed everything would work out for the best... and, like an overoptimistic anarchist, it of course goes simply pear shaped and the sheep fled the premises leaving a bunch of bored wolves. (Shadowbane actually had a pretty good accountability system, pity about the technical issues - the servers were not stable enugh to handle huge conflicts, and I think that was its worst problem.)
But this is not about Open PvP, this is about the idea of a virtual sandbox world that tries to explore the potential of an online space in ways that were once interesting back in Ultima Online, and I think only Age Of Wushu and Fallen Earth have really done that, with player-driven economies meeting Open-PvP... and Fallen Earth's combat (the last time I played it, which was around release) is rather overly rudimentary (though I hear they've been working on it).
On top of that, only Age Of Wushu really has the balls to do what few open-PvP games do and actually hold players accountable, to the point where their characters do time in jail for being unapologetic gankers. When there's good enough of an accountability system in shape, even the "sheep" will be happy to play in an open-PvP world. In fact, I am one, so there you have it. I don't mind ganks, I just want some rhyme and reason to it and for people to not get away with griefing just 'cuz. In Age of Wushu, the end game is a nice organized school vrs school and guild vrs guild thing like many Eastern MMORPGs (e.g. Aion, Lineage), and that's where open-PvP belongs in this sheep's opinion (that, or organized PvP ladder events).
TL;DR: Basically, Age of Wushu is in a good position to be the best open-PvP sandbox game there is right now. I think the combat mechanic is actually quite interesting too, with quite a lot of variables involved and a balance of a sort.
It's a shame, then, that there's so many strange little issues with it.
- The localization company can't seem to keep their players from being hacked, passwords and all. Apparently nobody was available who knew how to secure their databases.
- The strange animation issue where several NPCs in the room will have the exact same animation playing on the exact same frame at all times, causing them to ripple back and forth distractingly as their motions are in complete mirror with eachother. Would it really have been that hard to code a randomizer on which frame the NPC's animation was on when it was called into the instance?
- The localization of the text is rather strange, much of the dialogue does not make much sense.
- The game has all these strange extra game mechanics in it that are boggling, and fit together very strangely. Like at some point the developers just kept tacking on features and slipping it into the GUI wherever. The help system is very sparse and suffers from much the same translation issues as the dialogue.
- I like deep gameplay, and this game probably has it, but you basically will be hitting your head against this strange barrier if you try to go it alone because even an experienced computer user won't make sense out of the in-game tutorial mechanic. You're better off finding someone to guide you.
So here's a game that has all these cool, sophisticated features, is more ambitious in its virtual world and PvP scope than 99.5% of its competition, and then it's brought down by this blinding lack of refinement in its presenation. I'm trying to get into Age of Wushu, but it's proving difficult for those reasons and others.
Comments
You didn't mention EVE. EVE does the sandbox thing quite well: crafting, economy, PVP, the works.
Anyway, I definitely agree with the issues you brought up. Especially on the cumbersome and tacked-on mechanics in AoW, and the crappy localization. I honestly think they used Google translate for their localization... seriously, it's bad.
If you've never tried EVE, I highly recommend it. Sounds like the type of game you'd enjoy!
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
Good catch about EVE, that game is really in a class of its own.
I played it. EVE was alright, but I felt there was not enough to do when I was behind the helm of a ship. Move somewhere. Click a button to activate modules. Wait. I think I'd need to play with 8 ships at once for EVE Online to feel like it has me do enough at once... and some people do! But I really don't want to subscribe to 8 different accounts.
That, and catching up to the big leagues is technically impossible, and the accountability system for ganking isn't quite good enough for my liking when people are doing stuff like suiciding frigates they don't care about to take down newbie mining trawlers.
These are somewhat common accusations about EVE Online, of course, and they're often debated. I can only speak for my own opinion.
Why, are they hiring? I could use the money.
But seriously, viral marketters won't write so much negative things about the game, and my previous posts, ect. Do a little more investigation before leveling those accusations, geez.
Nice post OP, hang i there. After awhile, it all makes sense. At that point you couldn't imagine anything else.
Once you start the high-end stuff, my goodness the game is so sweet. The polotics is beyond words. Things like trowing the headmaster of a school in jail before school war, then begining a slander campaign. All in an attept to win the vote and take control of a school, days later. Crazy stuff man.
This. I had read before going into Wushu, that you need about 15 hours to really sink into the game enough to start seeing it and understanding it. I would say that was about right for me. I have a friend that gets frustrated quickly and easily with complicated games, and I fully expected him to start getting all pissy and quit. To my surprise though, he had no trouble with the 'tutorial' and getting himself started. I explained a few things to him from time to time, but for the most part, he 'got it' pretty easily.
Not since SWG have I enjoyed a game so much. The economy needs to stabilize a bit more, but that will happen with time. Goldsellers and botrunners are a problem, but a few seconds to blacklist/report doesn't bother me.
Old SWGPRECU vets who still burn inside should really give this a shot. Give it time, and let it unfold....it's a VERY well done game, even with it's flaws.
It took me a little longer than 15 hours before this game finally "clicked" with me.
Its a shame more people don't have the patience to wade through all the crap that comes with getting started in this game and learning it, because underneath the garbage translations, horrible tutorials, and "crappy chinese MMO" veneer is one of the greatest MMOs out on the market today.
I wouldn't really recommend it to people who aren't fans of sandbox type MMO play. This game is more of a virtual world than a themepark ride, and I know plenty of folks who simply don't enjoy the virtual world type of games.