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This stupid game...
zombiegirl
beating the drum of the lifelessin a dry wasteland Veteran
I'm not being flippant about life here, I'm talking about an actual MMORPG I've started playing called The Age of Wushu. Important stuff: It's currently in the Beta stage and free to play. The official launch is April 10, which I'm not entirely sure what that means... But I think it will remain free to play, I hope anyways.
As the name suggests, it's all Chinese influenced. Originally I was enticed because it seems to draw so heavily from Buddhism, so I thought it might be interesting.
Unsurprisingly, I've found my expectations were a bit high. Don't ask me why I was expecting more, but of course it just has a sprinkling of misunderstood Buddhist terms. For example, to heal, you sit down and "meditate" (not even half lotus posture, criss-cross applesauce, as they say.) A lot of the attacks are Buddha-this and Lotus-that. When you "level-up" it says something like, "You are enlightened! +1" Which made me laugh quite a bit.
My first disappointment came from the fact that, as a female, I couldn't join the Shaolin school. (Which makes sense historically, I admit.) But to their credit, they balance it with an all female school called the Emei. The other schools one can join are: Wudang, Tangman, Wanderer's Valley, Royal Guards, Beggar's Sect, and Scholars.
Which brings me to maybe the most interesting thing about this game... Since I've never seen an option like that in a game before, I thought, why not become a Beggar? It was partially prompted by that big discussion we had about giving to the homeless on here recently. I thought maybe I could use a bit of humility, lol. And boy do I... Being a beggar is frustrating. For days I was literally so broke I was starving (you need to eat a lot of food to survive in this game), but nobody would give me money. When a player rejects your pleas, they insult you and kick you in the face! Lol!
So here's me getting faceplanted after someone rejects me:
As a side note, I have it on the lowest level graphic setting, in case anyone is feeling unimpressed, lol.
There are a few other interesting features. Instead of being like most mmorpgs where you gain experience from killing things, this game operates on time alone. You can delegate which skills you would like to improve and it's basically just a countdown... you can go about your life doing whatever you want, even sitting and meditating while you rack up exp.
You can also practice Tai Chi to increase your rate of experience. It involves just hitting the right buttons at the right time, but your character does actually go through some real Tai Chi sets, which I thought was sort of cool. Apparently all of the martial arts moves in this game were developed from real martial artists doing the whole CG mapping thing.
Also, you can jump! And actually, at some point you can even fly (haven't learned that skill yet). I don't know why, I just hate it when you can't jump in mmorpgs. It makes me feel so limited.
So, a little slice of life in the game: Eventually I determined that being a Beggar wasn't really going to pay the bills so I decided to get a job as well and make my own freakin food. So now I'm also a farmer (so I can grow the wheat/rice/whatever ingredients I need to cook) and a cook so I can make my own food. All of these choices involve a certain amount of time and effort put in to progress. Getting exp as a cook actually involves battling the Chef master in a game that's a lot like Bejeweled. You can also become a blacksmith, painter, musician, fortune teller, and a few other things I haven't explored yet. In order to get money in the game, you either have to be a primo beggar, get a job, or become a criminal and kidnap people for ransom.
So, am I recommending the game? I don't really know. I find it half fun and half really irritating. As I was writing this, someone came up and KILLED ME while I was meditating, so I added that jerk onto my Enemy list. One day she'll get it... She totally chased me through town and I couldn't even run away fast enough.
Sad life of a low level beggar in an mmorpg...
If anyone DOES decide to play though, add me as a friend! I'm SuckMyLeft1 (don't ask).
Age of Wushu Official Site
As the name suggests, it's all Chinese influenced. Originally I was enticed because it seems to draw so heavily from Buddhism, so I thought it might be interesting.
Unsurprisingly, I've found my expectations were a bit high. Don't ask me why I was expecting more, but of course it just has a sprinkling of misunderstood Buddhist terms. For example, to heal, you sit down and "meditate" (not even half lotus posture, criss-cross applesauce, as they say.) A lot of the attacks are Buddha-this and Lotus-that. When you "level-up" it says something like, "You are enlightened! +1" Which made me laugh quite a bit.
My first disappointment came from the fact that, as a female, I couldn't join the Shaolin school. (Which makes sense historically, I admit.) But to their credit, they balance it with an all female school called the Emei. The other schools one can join are: Wudang, Tangman, Wanderer's Valley, Royal Guards, Beggar's Sect, and Scholars.
Which brings me to maybe the most interesting thing about this game... Since I've never seen an option like that in a game before, I thought, why not become a Beggar? It was partially prompted by that big discussion we had about giving to the homeless on here recently. I thought maybe I could use a bit of humility, lol. And boy do I... Being a beggar is frustrating. For days I was literally so broke I was starving (you need to eat a lot of food to survive in this game), but nobody would give me money. When a player rejects your pleas, they insult you and kick you in the face! Lol!
So here's me getting faceplanted after someone rejects me:
As a side note, I have it on the lowest level graphic setting, in case anyone is feeling unimpressed, lol.
There are a few other interesting features. Instead of being like most mmorpgs where you gain experience from killing things, this game operates on time alone. You can delegate which skills you would like to improve and it's basically just a countdown... you can go about your life doing whatever you want, even sitting and meditating while you rack up exp.
You can also practice Tai Chi to increase your rate of experience. It involves just hitting the right buttons at the right time, but your character does actually go through some real Tai Chi sets, which I thought was sort of cool. Apparently all of the martial arts moves in this game were developed from real martial artists doing the whole CG mapping thing.
Also, you can jump! And actually, at some point you can even fly (haven't learned that skill yet). I don't know why, I just hate it when you can't jump in mmorpgs. It makes me feel so limited.
So, a little slice of life in the game: Eventually I determined that being a Beggar wasn't really going to pay the bills so I decided to get a job as well and make my own freakin food. So now I'm also a farmer (so I can grow the wheat/rice/whatever ingredients I need to cook) and a cook so I can make my own food. All of these choices involve a certain amount of time and effort put in to progress. Getting exp as a cook actually involves battling the Chef master in a game that's a lot like Bejeweled. You can also become a blacksmith, painter, musician, fortune teller, and a few other things I haven't explored yet. In order to get money in the game, you either have to be a primo beggar, get a job, or become a criminal and kidnap people for ransom.
So, am I recommending the game? I don't really know. I find it half fun and half really irritating. As I was writing this, someone came up and KILLED ME while I was meditating, so I added that jerk onto my Enemy list. One day she'll get it... She totally chased me through town and I couldn't even run away fast enough.
Sad life of a low level beggar in an mmorpg...If anyone DOES decide to play though, add me as a friend! I'm SuckMyLeft1 (don't ask).
Age of Wushu Official Site
2
Comments
I've never played a mmorg. I remember diablo 2 exiting a town and an assassin (both the class and the action) had set tons of traps like lightning traps and they killed me haha. Fable 3 you can play mini-games like making pies for gold.
I am suspecting that you will be able to buy xp and weapons will be how they make money???
I can see the bots giving messages of gold farming for you. And they are probably charging real money.
Sacred 2 had a great community. Strangers would give you gold and items they didn't need anymore and smith you good weapons. That was the nicest community I have ever seen. It was an action role playing game with a multi-player closed server (so you can't cheat with mods).
Just FYI, it will remain free to play when it is released. During beta testing, only some people get access to it, and they are supposed to report any bugs they find and such so they can be sorted before the game is wide-released/officially released. It will be released in a hard copy retail version on April 10th, which will have bonus features and other things unavailable to the people who only play the free version, that's most of what they are talking about with the release.
What I'm really waiting for is the MMORPG for Elder Scrolls. I will probably lose many, many hours of my life to that game, lol. Of course, it might royally suck compared to the non-online versions, only time will tell.
I love the elderscrolls... may your feet walk on warm sands
Side note: if anyone wants to dl it and check it out, I won't be on until later tonight if I have any energy left over from my real job, lol. LOL, perfect.
I'm aware of how ridiculous this statement is, btw, lol. But once someone kills you, it gives you an option to add them to your Enemy list and I thought, why not? Might as well remember who the jerks in the game are...