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Age of Wushu/Wulin 9yin

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
Well, with the upcoming expansion i thought we could discuss this game.

Introduction
Basically is a semi open world (There are exits in big maps to go to a map nearby) sandbox based on the age of wuxia (chinesse martial heroes), it has a strong emphasis on player aligment (basically good/ evil/chaotic all based on your action in game) and and as far as i know is based on a series of books.
The player asumes the role of one of said martial artists, picking a storyline (Which will be the main quest that will introduce you to the game). This game features no classes and no level based content (some instances do require a minimum passive level tho), it also introduces the idea of offline players (which sadly failed in implementation but is a thing thats being adressed in expansion after expansion.
The game is full pvp, with safe zones being limited to small areas in maps, those safe zones dont work for either criminals, bountied characters or pvp attackers tho.

Game features over 30k npcs, every single one with an aligment, a name and a social status. You can gain standing with those npcs in a variety of ways, positive or negative. Even being close to one or walking by one can modify their attitude towards you. Become relevant enough to the world and some characters in it will react to you. You will get asked by them to do quests, sometimes even small chores, they will maybe send gifts to you, or give them to you in person. And behind that theres an extremely complex system that gauges just whose attention you can get by what you are wearing, your own aligment, your title, etc.

Character system

The character system is unique, there are no classes and every character starts out the same, every character can learn every skill in the game. But soon you are confronted with your first decision, you have to pick a school, or decide to train on your own, whatever you pick will become part of your identity and the main way you will progress tru the game.
The latests updates of the game have also added the option to betray your school and join a new one, at the cost of lossing everything youve learned from said school (which can be everything, nothing or something in between depending on the player)

Skills come in several types, first you have the passive internal skills, of which you can only have 1 active at the time, which will provide you with base attributes such as str, dex, con, spirit and breath your max hp and and energy reserve, your basic defense against non physical skills and the amount of punishment you can guard against. They are also aligned to either yin (feminine side), yang (masculine side) or taichi (balance of both). And gear is tied to this, because the gear needs to be the same as the inner for its attribute bonuses to have any effect.

hsz4MTu.png

Then you have active skills (based on cooldowns of 1.5 sec between skills and each skill has its own separate cooldown), active skills are categorized under martial styles, each martial style has a set number of unique skills that no other martial style in the game has, every set in the game being completely different and easily recognizable from the rest. The basic gameplay is modeled after rock paper and scissors, every set has what they call overts, feints and a parry. overts beat feints, feints beat parry, parry beats overt. Overts come in two kinds, either lock move or AoE. Game also features a rage mechanic, rage points are won by hitting someone thats not guarding, getting hit, or guarding a hit. some skills, usually the strongest move in the style, will consume rage. Guarding will not only generate extra rage, it will proc the styles parry effect, reduce damage by half and prevent most over skills effects.

The third kind of skills are the flying skills, you can dash on the ground or the air, double or triple jump, walk on water or run up walls, move faster than the wind, etc. These are limited by a fly points pool, which slows regeneration the lower your points go, so keeping them high while keeping yourself mobile becomes a game on its own.

Game features over 800 skills and over 100 skillsets, and each skillset has a different flavor, most skills (around 90%) have unique animations. Each skillset has its own theme and flavor and can be considered a separate "class". you can use a different skillset if with a 7 second cooldown between skills of different skillstets.

Itemization
Everything in this game comes in 6 qualities, woog, iron, copper, silver, gold and jade. Higher qualities have hidden bonuses in the case of skills, or set bonuses and higher stats in the case of gear. Gear can either be looted from enemies or crafted by players, the one that is looted from enemies is capped at silver, thus garbage by current game standards, plus crafted gear usually has special skills attached. Gold and jade can also be gotten from tournaments, arenas or from participating in school events, but these are fairly specialized and not as good as the crafted ones.
aow_kidnap05.jpg


Character Progression

Wushu doesnt have a normal mmo progression, first you have skills, almost every skill in the game can be leveled, this is time based, but before going over details with that ill explain cultivation.

Cultivation is the process of turning gained exp into cultivation points used to level up skills, you can get up to 999 experience points at the time, these experience points can come from 5 different sources depending on where you got it from, they are turned at the pace of around 10k cultivation points per hour, costing around 60 experience points, making running out of experience a hard endeavor if you are an active player.

These cultivation points are spent in turn at around the same pace, 10k points per hour on a given chosen skill. and cultivation required can range from measly 500 cultivation points to millions of points required. Both the process of converting experience and spending cultivation points can be accelerated in game by different means.

The game expects you to procure skills to level up by diferent means, usually in a coherent way. for example increasing your school skills requires you to do favors for you school. Getting other school skills means that you have to go yourself to the other schools and steal them from them during a daily event, killing other players for it if you must, while defending yourself from the members of said school. Different sets use different weapons.
131120083229363797.jpg

For more exotic skills both passive and active you need to do other activities, these skills are extremely rare and hard to come by as a rule, but also often very powerful, or at the very least often offer an utility you wont find withing your own school.

Finally you can either leave your school temporarily or permanently to join a faction and learn powerful skills, your aligment, gender and even your school assosiation may play a role on your ability to get into these factions.

Grind?

The game has many systems in place to prevent grind, it rewards players that do many different things, but it also rewards perserverance, it expects the player to keep doing activities during months to give them great rewards, even if only a few minutes a day. In my opinion this is the best aproach to an mmo, while not always preventing a burnout it does take a while to get there.

P2W

Jianghu is a place where money talks, while you can get everything in the game by playing, you can convert your money to the games currency. The rates are p. retarded tho, and anything of value demands astronomical sums of money, thus few people can afford it.
That said the publisher does sell exclusive sets, that while not the most powerful, can grant a more flexibility to your character. One of mi primary sets is actually from the cash shop, i own like 10 of those, but all were bought from other players with ingame money for cheap.The rest of the monetization is vanity shit and a bit of convenience, like horses the faster ones are gotten in the game tho) or items to change gear/cash shop sets aligment.

Final thoughts
This was prompted by the new expansion coming to the game, which as many features as it carries for the players to see, its not even the tip of the iceberg, most changes are to the code and the internal structure of the game, and it is massive in scope.
More info
This post just covers the bare minimum of whats in the game, and ive even left out some of the very basics because im a lazy fuck.

To close this rant, Age of Wushu is not a game you can just play casually, but this is the reason i like it, its a mmo that demands more from the player, while maybe not in terms of time investment, it does in commitment to keep playing to get anywhere. The rewards for doing are far more meaningful than anything ive seen in any other mmo tho, and that in itself makes it one of the very few where its worth playing and sticking around.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,816
Location
Italy
it's still too korean.
hours spent just walking and backtracking through wastelands totally devoid of any sign of life, even mobs. mind numbing repetitive in every one of its activities. lots of things work in misterious ways, aren't explained at all or have no noticeable effect. p2w, p2w everywhere, sometimes it's even worse and becomes "pay to progress" (tradeskills, i'm looking at you).
pvp can be cool tho. *can*. most of the time you just encounter a random whale and are crushed within seconds.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
it's still too korean.

its not korean tho.

hours spent just walking and backtracking through wastelands totally devoid of any sign of life,
Unless you went to the desert ruins for no good reason i dont see how this is possible. and i dont understand why you would need to talk, or backtrack at all, considering you can teleport to any map once every 10 minutes. Unless you were doing default quests, but those are short and never seen again past a certain very early point.

even mobs.
Mobs? if you mean npcs that you can attack, they are usually there to be there, killing them for no purpose is useless in every way i can imagine.

mind numbing repetitive in every one of its activities.
Well, considering you either do timed challenges or do events (most of which are team based or full on pvp) i dont see how this can be boring, or repetitive seeing that the amount of times you can do it a day is usually capped at 1 per day.

lots of things work in misterious ways, aren't explained at all or have no noticeable effect.
This is good, experiment, grow and learn, knowledge is the most valuable comodity in wushu.

p2w, p2w everywhere
Most of the active population doesnt pay, around half of that only pays for vip, a very small minority actually pays, incidentally that small minority also pays the vip of a large amount of players in exchange for ingame currency or items.

sometimes it's even worse and becomes "pay to progress" (tradeskills, i'm looking at you).
Life skills are not paid in any way, only divination, and its largely useless. I use my non vip alts to do most of my life skill bussiness.

pvp can be cool tho. *can*. most of the time you just encounter a random whale and are crushed within seconds.
I can crush most "whales" rather easily. It only takes time to get on the level, maybe weeks, maybe months, but the journey to being the strongest is pretty fun. Also im fairly certain that even with the strongest character in the game on your hands you still wouldnt be able to beat any seasoned player.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
even mobs.
Mobs? if you mean npcs that you can attack, they are usually there to be there, killing them for no purpose is useless in every way i can imagine.
So there's no pve. That would have been my question.
Well, you got your standard instances, the biggest twist is that some bosses bring players to help them, dark souls like. because of the depth of the combat system, youll often have to fight bosses a certain way, using timing to goose away, block powerful attacks, etc. You are never really required to use a particular martial style, but there are some that are especially geared towards pve, by either keeping you out of harms way, draining hp, making your defenses stronger, etc. what those sets have in common is a very high damage potential and that they are only actually good on fairly stationary targets like most pve enemies are, but usually any decent player wont get caught by them.

PvE was shit back when the game opened, but its come a very long way, now a lot of it is enjoyable.

You also have factions that offer you timed challenges and reward you with stuff that cant be gotten anywhere else, like the means to increase the max cultivation level of some of the martial styles from the jianghu (those not gotten in schools). or manuals to increase your mastery on a certain weapon. factions are the content geared mostly toward players that play a lot but cant afford to pay much, as the rewards are either rare but easy to sell for good money, or character bound and a very important part of character development. The last patch did turn it into a huge grind of sorts. while it is still capped on attempts per week and only one of the 7 (each round may take up to an hour, so 7 hours a week if you are really slow) rounds you are given gives awesome rewards, maxing a single weapon mastery can take months, so perseverance is really whats important.

The new world content adds territories to explore, where you can get ambushed by others players (only if they are your enemies tho, and for that you must have killed them before, at least once), but and tons of quests with a lot of branching, new free skillsets (i think its around 9) and the content there is mostly solo, you go and explore until you get ambushed by an npc, then fight it, said npc will have a lot of properties and will have player mobility (the IA for those isnt bad, its almost like pvping a bad player).

Other than that you have world bosses, creatures that the entire server competes to eliminate, usually rival guilds will kill eachother endlessly until the boss is dead. These bosses drop fragments for the most powerful skillsets and passive internal skills in the game.

You can also do some enemy npc hunting in the old world and will get ambushed by hero npcs, like i described before, the difference is that these are much easier. And finally you have the heart of the demon, a mode that you can enter by killing, getting killed, or simply playing the game. its a small timed challenge in which you can invite 2 players to fight 3 clones plus a very tough boss, the rewards are good.


There are other stuff but its less important, and i feel i went on a rant.
 

subotaiy

Cipher
Joined
Aug 8, 2012
Messages
522
Location
Romania
Last time i tried this, it had a horrible translation in english. Did they improve that?
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
What's this about "Offline Players"? Is this game something that's going to require a massive level of insomnia to avoid being horribly killed in? I remember back in games like Tradewars where SLEEP IS DEATH.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
Last time i tried this, it had a horrible translation in english. Did they improve that?
A lot of it yes, not the dialogues and cinematics, but they are understandable and a bit B movie charming tbh. Its largely unnecesary tho, players can guide you tru the content if you ever need it, and quests that need it have autopathing.

All of it is irrelevant tho, newer content has better translation and its almost in its entirety what you will be dealing with.

What's this about "Offline Players"? Is this game something that's going to require a massive level of insomnia to avoid being horribly killed in? I remember back in games like Tradewars where SLEEP IS DEATH.
Na, you log out, 8 hours after that your character starts to roam the world as just another npc, he can be kidnaped and sold as a slave, or get a job, or simply be. Before the system was exploited into oblivion you could get ingame money, now you only get some experience, cultivation and a hp/mp free refill (which can be nice if you save it for an emergency, tho ive never have. Its mostly used to kidnap offline players, as selling them to other npcs as slaves leaves you with good money.

There is a companion system which allows you to form a partnership with an offline player, then you can summon him when the other player is offline, currently it has some issues that will be hopefully fixed with the expansion patch. having a companion grants you access to unique interactive emotes and a skillset of the highest quality that can be used at any time, but that has a couple extra skills for when you have your companion out, i dont personally think its very good, but it looks really cool and being jade quality means it has highly buffed accuracy and critical rate.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Na, you log out, 8 hours after that your character starts to roam the world as just another npc, he can be kidnaped and sold as a slave, or get a job, or simply be. Before the system was exploited into oblivion you could get ingame money, now you only get some experience, cultivation and a hp/mp free refill (which can be nice if you save it for an emergency, tho ive never have. Its mostly used to kidnap offline players, as selling them to other npcs as slaves leaves you with good money.
Being kidnapped and sold as a slave sounds unpleasant. So I take it you can't go missing for more than 8 hours?
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
Na, you log out, 8 hours after that your character starts to roam the world as just another npc, he can be kidnaped and sold as a slave, or get a job, or simply be. Before the system was exploited into oblivion you could get ingame money, now you only get some experience, cultivation and a hp/mp free refill (which can be nice if you save it for an emergency, tho ive never have. Its mostly used to kidnap offline players, as selling them to other npcs as slaves leaves you with good money.
Being kidnapped and sold as a slave sounds unpleasant. So I take it you can't go missing for more than 8 hours?
Well, youll just log back in and youll be at the place they sold you, with a slave debuff that really doesnt do anything. People can pay bound money (which is worthless for the most part) to release you, but that only gives them of shift in aligment towards good.

Tbh its a cool idea, but it was exploited as hell, so it got neutered, sadly.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
I can't imagine any outcome in which the ability to abuse players who are offline would NOT be exploited to hell, really...unless this a game meant for 24/7 play, like those time-based web wargames.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
Actually it was the other way around, the exploit consisted in having several offline players working, then logging in and getting the money they earned working. Gold sellers had hundreds of those accounts just making money for them.

I guess i should explain the economy of the game for that. In wushu there are two currencies, the unnoficial coins, used by poor people to trade among themselves, and the much more valuable imperial silver coins, the first type is bound and only used to trade with npcs, not worth much. The second kind is the official currency and can only be gotten by either offline work (this got deactivated), kidnaping, by buying it from snail, or by opening cards gotten from daily quests. A lot of money sinks are in the game to keep the value of silver from dropping, and they have worked very well for the most part, silver is worth about as much as it did a month after the game opened.

My biggest source of income has been just trading around, using my life skills to craft and trade stuff, and in harder times just speculating with the market (im a bad person, i know). Also on harder times i have sold my silver for shekels, and made quite a bit of money.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Actually it was the other way around, the exploit consisted in having several offline players working, then logging in and getting the money they earned working. Gold sellers had hundreds of those accounts just making money for them.
Oh, they were letting players earn money while NOT playing the game, without having to establish much in the way of infrastructure they had to defend to keep that revenue stream? Yeah, that's a mistake there. Is that why the system has since been reduced to the ability to bash offline players for money?
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
Actually it was the other way around, the exploit consisted in having several offline players working, then logging in and getting the money they earned working. Gold sellers had hundreds of those accounts just making money for them.
Oh, they were letting players earn money while NOT playing the game, without having to establish much in the way of infrastructure they had to defend to keep that revenue stream? Yeah, that's a mistake there. Is that why the system has since been reduced to the ability to bash offline players for money?
Aye, in theory is a good idea, your online persona lives a world of adventures in the jianghu, your offline persona leads a normal life. Sounds good on paper, but most good ideas on paper tend to get demolished in an online environment.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
I dunno. It doesn't sound like a good idea on paper, either. At least, not to me, as a veteran of online-things. There was just no way this could not go horrifyingly wrong in some way.
 

Stokowski

Arcane
Joined
Nov 23, 2011
Messages
4,580
Location
Gehenna
This had some good ideas. But the implementation was shitty beyond belief for a professional product (including basic mistakes on server vs client processing). As a result, it's perpetually engulfed in bots and hackers. Avoid.
 

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