Swordsman Closed Beta
They just opened closed-beta for Swordsman last night. For those of us who have been awaiting the game because a persistent bug keeps a LOT of us from being able to download Age of Wushu, this is exciting.
The thing you have to bear in mind is that this is a game designed for the Chinese market. The source material is the 1967 novel Xiao ao jiang hu, which is hugely popular in China and has been adapted to various media over the years. Bearing this in mind, they've designed this game with the Chinese market in mind.
Which means it has some of the features common to Chinese games that may strike the Western mind (like my own) as a bit off. First off, the UI is driving me nuts. Now, it should be said that at the very beginning of the game, it offers you a menu to choose what kind of control you're using. Not having any sort of joystick, I chose the keyboard option. But it's kind of janky. When I go "back", I want to turn around, but instead I'm essentially moonwalking. To target an enemy, you have to aim your cursor at them and left-click. This is terribly awkward when you're getting swarmed, and hard to remember when you're so used to pounding away at the Tab key. I haven't seen yet whether I can change my hotkeys or anything, I'll check later.
You also have to bear in mind that this game abides by the Chinese gaming aesthetic. The HUD reminds me vaguely of Everquest, in that a lot of the options aren't really visible or straightforward. And the story isn't really progressed through dialogue, which is curt, corny, and reminds me a LOT of early Legend of Zelda. The map is also very much in the Chinese aesthetic--simplified, with huge text.
There are some things I love about this game. The character customisation is unbelievably flexible, although it's not obvious unless you click the Advanced menu. Those who appreciate Cryptic's character customisation (minus the bugs) will feel right at home. What's weird, though, is that your customisation doesn't affect your character portrait. In the character-creation menu, you have a set of eight standard portraits to choose from. This struck me as odd, especially given that the range of these portraits is very narrow compared to what you can do with the tailor. The set design of this game is gorgeous, and I'm eager to explore it more.
If you're looking to get your Age of Wushu fix through this game, this will not do. But if you're comfortable with Chinese-style games, want to engage in a famous-but-not-to-you IP, and want to explore a beautiful gaming world, this will work for you.
Closed beta is only running for two weeks, so I'm not sure how much player feedback is going to influence the game. On the one hand, as I said before, this game is clearly designed for the Chinese market, so I don't think there are going to be any big changes to Westernise it. On the other hand, the folks I saw in chat seemed to be native English speakers; however, it's likely that they are already accustomed to this gaming aesthetic.
My beta characters are named Zhuangzhi, Xinhuang, and Gudai. But all beta characters will be wiped on launch.
I'll play around with the game a little more for now, but at the moment I'm really sunk into SW:TOR, so we'll see how involved I get.
The thing you have to bear in mind is that this is a game designed for the Chinese market. The source material is the 1967 novel Xiao ao jiang hu, which is hugely popular in China and has been adapted to various media over the years. Bearing this in mind, they've designed this game with the Chinese market in mind.
Which means it has some of the features common to Chinese games that may strike the Western mind (like my own) as a bit off. First off, the UI is driving me nuts. Now, it should be said that at the very beginning of the game, it offers you a menu to choose what kind of control you're using. Not having any sort of joystick, I chose the keyboard option. But it's kind of janky. When I go "back", I want to turn around, but instead I'm essentially moonwalking. To target an enemy, you have to aim your cursor at them and left-click. This is terribly awkward when you're getting swarmed, and hard to remember when you're so used to pounding away at the Tab key. I haven't seen yet whether I can change my hotkeys or anything, I'll check later.
You also have to bear in mind that this game abides by the Chinese gaming aesthetic. The HUD reminds me vaguely of Everquest, in that a lot of the options aren't really visible or straightforward. And the story isn't really progressed through dialogue, which is curt, corny, and reminds me a LOT of early Legend of Zelda. The map is also very much in the Chinese aesthetic--simplified, with huge text.
There are some things I love about this game. The character customisation is unbelievably flexible, although it's not obvious unless you click the Advanced menu. Those who appreciate Cryptic's character customisation (minus the bugs) will feel right at home. What's weird, though, is that your customisation doesn't affect your character portrait. In the character-creation menu, you have a set of eight standard portraits to choose from. This struck me as odd, especially given that the range of these portraits is very narrow compared to what you can do with the tailor. The set design of this game is gorgeous, and I'm eager to explore it more.
If you're looking to get your Age of Wushu fix through this game, this will not do. But if you're comfortable with Chinese-style games, want to engage in a famous-but-not-to-you IP, and want to explore a beautiful gaming world, this will work for you.
Closed beta is only running for two weeks, so I'm not sure how much player feedback is going to influence the game. On the one hand, as I said before, this game is clearly designed for the Chinese market, so I don't think there are going to be any big changes to Westernise it. On the other hand, the folks I saw in chat seemed to be native English speakers; however, it's likely that they are already accustomed to this gaming aesthetic.
My beta characters are named Zhuangzhi, Xinhuang, and Gudai. But all beta characters will be wiped on launch.
I'll play around with the game a little more for now, but at the moment I'm really sunk into SW:TOR, so we'll see how involved I get.
