Age of Wushu

[Nonentity]

http://www.ageofwushu.com/

So, before knowing anything about this game, it appeared like every other Korean MMO, however, this is a non-level-based sandbox MMO (made in China) with Open PVP and factions.

This game is CRAZY.

It's completely systems heavy and the UI is completely overwhelming until you wrap your head around how it works, but it has guild vs guild, faction vs faction, a notoriety system for criminals, really crazy mobility skills, active blocking, and other rad things.

It's currently steeped in Engrish as the translation is pretty thrown out there, but the game itself has some of the weirdest and most interesting systems that have come along in a while.

The game will be free to play - you can download the game from the site and play for 10 hours in the beta, and if you decide to pick it up for 20 bucks, you get two months of VIP time when the actual game comes out.

[schild]

This sounds like what happens when the designers are just like "man, fuckit, do whatever you want."

[Nonentity]

When you are offline, your character exists in the world as an NPC to make you money or do whatever. As a player, you can kidnap other offline players and sell them for money. You're FFA attackable by anyone with no penalty when you are carrying a kidnap victim.

[Nightblade]

When you are offline, your character exists in the world as an NPC to make you money or do whatever. As a player, you can kidnap other offline players and sell them for money. You're FFA attackable by anyone with no penalty when you are carrying a kidnap victim.

This game had a huge stand over at NYCC but I dismissed it as yet another grinder MMO, reading this I might have to actually try it.

[MediumHigh]

Sounds like my idea of a perma-death world where your character is still "active" after you log off.

[proudft]

As a player, you can kidnap other offline players and sell them for money.

Lawl - hilariously awesome.  Also, appears to be Chinese, not Korean.  Signed up/downloading now, and crossing my fingers I can use the Chinese-language client. 

[Xuri]

lol - I never thought I'd see that (kidnap other players) outside player-run UO shards.

[Mrbloodworth]

I.... Ok then, interesting. Hows the combat?

[Lantyssa]

So, what happens if you're kidnapped and log back in?

[Falconeer]

"Cultivation", POTENTIAL cultivation, nutrition, levels of experience, conversion rate... my mind is blown. This might officially be too much. Also, 1 hour per day is evil.

This is the "tutorial"...

[Threash]

Yeah the tutorial made absolutely no sense but i am ready to karate some motherfuckers in the face.

[Nonentity]

Yeah, the experience system UI is overly complicated, but it ends up being pretty simple.

1 Experience = 1000 Cultivation Points. That is not converted immediately though, every 100 seconds a flat amount of cultivation points are converted. You can buy and craft items that increase that conversion rate by a percentage. If you're not a VIP member, 300 of those points for every 1000 goes into the 'potential' pool that you can pay real life money to convert into cultivation (it's relatively cheap).

Once you have a healthy pool of Cultivation points, you spend that to increase your individual skills. You can spend cultivation in one of three ways: Internal Cultivation (happens passively, if you're a VIP member this also occurs offline Eve style), Martial Arts Practice (you can spend either NPC bucks or Player bucks to raise your skills faster up to a cap), or Team Martial Arts Practice, where you can get in a group of up to 10 people and take turns doing a group DDR style thing to pool cultivation points into a skill at an insane rate, but you're limited by Fatigue on how much you can do this per day.

Each school has an 'interal' skill that is the closest thing to a level that you should be raising first, as that skill needs to get to level 10 before you can learn all three weapon styles for your chosen school.

[Threash]

I.... Ok then, interesting. Hows the combat?

Basically, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

[Nonentity]

This game has UI overload. There are still multiple pieces of the UI that I have yet to decode, like the Lore interface, or the whole 'relationships' screen.

The friends list is a full-screen GUI with pictures of your friends characters, and your 'affection' points towards them. You can also add people to an 'enemies' list? I don't know. It's nuts.

[Mrbloodworth]

I.... Ok then, interesting. Hows the combat?

Basically, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

TAB Target affair?

[Threash]

As far as i can tell yes, i haven't had a chance to karate anyone yet.  Combat works on a rock paper scissors system of hits blocks and feints.

[Mrbloodworth]

Meh..

[Falconeer]

Wow. The combat could easily be the slowest and stiffest I've ever seen in a MMORPG since EverQuest (the first). What a bummer.

[Nonentity]

Wow. The combat could easily be the slowest and stiffest I've ever seen in a MMORPG since EverQuest (the first). What a bummer.

Have you picked a faction yet? Pre-faction, the combat isn't anything at all. Once you get your first weapon set from joining a faction (took me like 15 minutes tops to get there), it gets a little bit better. That, and the flying skill ability to do air dashes you get after completing the first chapter of your personal story.

[Ghambit]

When you are offline, your character exists in the world as an NPC to make you money or do whatever. As a player, you can kidnap other offline players and sell them for money. You're FFA attackable by anyone with no penalty when you are carrying a kidnap victim.

Downloading.

[Falconeer]

Yes, I got into the all female faction, Eimi I think is the name. I like everything about this game except the combat. I even like the rock-paper-scissor mechanic, and the fact that there seems to be a bazillion of skills, and styles, and schools, and life activities (I'm a painter now), and lore, and PvP, and meta-everything. When I realized schools can steal relics from each other (even though I have no idea how) I was squeeling. Seriously, I might get lost in this game and never come back and die happy. It's just the combat. It's almost turn-based but doesn't have the elegance of a turn based. Maybe it's just that I need more skills or a different school, but when I realized that when you hit an ability the character automatically positions (warps) herself in front of the enemy in order to perform the animation, regardless of where it was a second before, I realized there was something really wrong with it. I mean, how does it even deal with fights that are not 1 vs 1?

[Nonentity]

Yes, I got into the all female faction, Eimi I think is the name. I like everything about this game except the combat. I even like the rock-paper-scissor mechanic, and the fact that there seems to be a bazillion of skills, and styles, and schools, and life activities (I'm a painter now), and lore, and PvP, and meta-everything. When I realized schools can steal relics from each other (even though I have no idea how) I was squeeling. Seriously, I might get lost in this game and never come back and die happy. It's just the combat. It's almost turn-based but doesn't have the elegance of a turn based. Maybe it's just that I need more skills or a different school, but when I realized that when you hit an ability the character automatically positions (warps) herself in front of the enemy in order to perform the animation, regardless of where it was a second before, I realized there was something really wrong with it. I mean, how does it even deal with fights that are not 1 vs 1?

Not sure - I've only had some 1 on 1 fights where I was murdering Goon kidnappers.

This seems to be okay though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsRxzfXLIZs

They certainly want to push everyone towards group events. Pushing N ingame brings up the 'missions' task, which is pretty much where everything important is happening: spy tasks, open world stuff, school specific stuff, guild functions, instances, etc.

Quests seem to only be there just to have them, they don't really do much for you other than make you a little bit of PvE cash.

[Threash]

I think i got the cultivation thing down but i am still incredibly lost about almost everything.  So far I've done about 95% running 5% fighting, but i didn't think the fighting was particularly bad.  Also, fuck you it's Wu-tang not Wudang.

[Falconeer]

Something I absolutely adore:. The Discipline meter that functions as a moral indicator of your actions in relation to your faction. Some things give you Discipline points and if you get over 100 your faction punishes you. As an Emei, not only I have to behave and help people and never commit crimes and all that stuff, but I am not supposed to flirt or wear "inappropriate" clothing. This is not just lore. The game punishes you if you do that.

[Threash]

I hope there is a slut school.

[Nonentity]

I think i got the cultivation thing down but i am still incredibly lost about almost everything.  So far I've done about 95% running 5% fighting, but i didn't think the fighting was particularly bad.  Also, fuck you it's Wu-tang not Wudang.

Best feature in the game: Left-click the green name in a quest text and you will auto-path there. Like, across pretty long distances, too.

And the slut school is probably Wanderer's Valley. They're the most evil of the evil factions. The only thing you can get discipline points for is attacking other WV members - that's it. Run around naked, kidnap, kill everyone - they're cool with it.

[Threash]

What do i do about food? my nutrition was lose, i went to a chef but it didn't sell any actual food only crafting stuff.

[Nonentity]

Look for a Grocer on the map - they should be able to sell you some starter food to get around with.

The map has really good sorting features, just filter out the vendors and left-click on him to auto-path there.

Another point of note: you need a Grocer to sell you the knockout powder for kidnapping. I haven't found a reason to not buy the highest quality powder, since you make all your money back and then some from selling people.

[Rendakor]

Looks interesting, downloading now. Do you get 10 hours total with a limit of 1 hour/day, or is it 10 free hours then 1 hour/day?

[Threash]

10 hours total +1 each day, when i got on for the first time it told me i had 11 hours left.

[Zetleft]

Interesting enough to start installing it now. 

[SurfD]

How big is the client?  I am on a bit of a download budget at my current residence, and dont want to get burned downloading a 20gig install if I want to try this thing out.  (main reason I had to give up testing Firefall was every time they patched the client, I had to re-download almost the entire 6 gigs worth of it :/ )

[Rendakor]

It's 7.2 gigs.

[Ghambit]

This Offline Mode stuff is pure genius.  You can even be a bandit and screw with PC's/NPCs while you're not even ingame.  This is assuming this actually happens ingame and isnt just some hunter-gatherer meta.  Can anyone verify?  I mean, do I actually tranform into a raiding NPC while offline?

[tmp]

Also, 1 hour per day is evil.

Wait, what? 1 hour of play per day and your character can be kidnapped at any point when you are logged off?