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Age of Wushu's latest class sect features 'fatal musicians'
Snail Games has introduced yet another new sect slated to appear in Age of Wushu's Tempest of Strife expansion. The latest class addition is called Peach Blossom Island, and it's an archetype skilled in both ranged and melee combat. "These masters of art combine elegant music notes with lethal crowd-control moves to excel in group battles," Snail explains on its website. "For centuries, Peach Blossom Island has been an idyllic retreat for martial art experts and hermetic musicians. They are here to escape worldly concerns, and to bide their time until their services are needed once again. Trespassers come at their own peril; to arrive at Peach Blossom Island unannounced is to meet a swift death at the hands of a true master." Click past the cut to see a preview video of the class in action.
The Daily Grind: What game do you plan to revisit?
Snail's recent sect announcements for its upcoming Age of Wushu expansion have rekindled my interest in the fantasy wuxia sandbox. I played it for a good bit at launch but ultimately left due to the steep learning curve, the horribad translation, and other demands on my time. I've often thought of returning to the game, though, as it hits a number of my sweet spots and is utterly unlike anything else in the MMO space. What about you, Massively readers? What's that one MMO you're always keeping tabs on and planning to revisit when you get the chance? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Here's Age of Wushu's new 'warrior maiden' sect
Snail has updated its Age of Wushu website with another new sect preview from the martial sandbox's upcoming Tempest of Strife expansion. Today's reveal is the Palace of Shifting Flowers, which boasts "a balanced set of skills featuring both melee and ranged attacks." The Palace is a group of female-only apostles that Snail calls a "zealous cadre of warrior maidens sworn to seek vengeance from the the men who wronged them." Click past the cut for the class preview trailer, and don't forget that AoW is now available on Steam.
Age of Wushu on Steam today
Wuxia sandbox Age of Wushu is coming to Steam today. Don't go trying to download it just yet, though, as the announcement page says that there's still a few hours to go before it unlocks. The official launch time is listed as 7:00 p.m. EDT in Snail's press release, which we've made available to you after the break. [Source: Snail Games press release]
Age of Wushu expansion to feature 'a proper healing class'
Age of Wushu's Tempest of Strife expansion is introducing "a proper healing class," according to the game's latest website update. Players walking the Golden Needle Sect path can bring back the dead, or at least the wounded, by using a skill set that "focuses on healing and defense [and that] works both in melee and from range." Snail Games has released a class teaser video which you can view after the break.
Here's the latest Age of Wushu expansion teaser
Age of Wushu's latest expansion is on the way, and Snail has updated its website with a lengthy blurb focused on Tempest of Strife's Xu Family Manor sect. Sects are basically the martial arts sandbox MMO's answer to traditional genre classes, and Xu Family characters boast heroic alignment, melee attacks, and a signature move called the Black Ink Ruler skill. AoW's Xu Family teaser video is embedded for your viewing pleasure just after the break.
Here's the Villa of Beasts sect from Age of Wushu's expansion
Earlier this week Snail announced Age of Wushu's Tempest of Strife expansion. Today the firm details the martial arts sandbox's Villa of Beasts sect, which boasts "some of the most diverse and powerful skills of any sect in the game." Villa of Beasts players will excel at bare-handed melee combat as well as the Dragon and Tiger Overlord Fist skill set. Further details are available at the AoW website. We've embedded the Villa of Beasts trailer after the break.
Age of Wushu's Tempest of Strife expansion announced for Spring
While many people are looking forward to better weather and sunshine come spring, Age of Wushu players will have thunderstorms, blizzards, and even sandstorms thanks to one of the new features in the upcoming Tempest of Strife expansion. In addition to immersive weather that can trigger mysterious events, this fourth expansion also includes six new sects to join. Players ready to cast off the shackles of their old masters can betray their school and sign up with one of the three sects open to all (Villa of Beasts, Xu Family Manor, and Golden Needle Sect) or one of the three that require a large reserve of talent first (Palace of Shifting Flowers, Peach Blossom Island, Rootless Clan). Want to forgo masters altogether? Become a vagrant! Additional expansion features include the ability to change your looks through a face-lift and the opportunity to personalize your equipment by inscribing unique names on each piece. Tempest of Strife is due out later this spring. [Source: Snail Games press release]
Save your Age of Wushu valuables in new Item Locker
Worried more about the cutpurses than the cutthroats in Age of Wushu? Then Snail Games has something to put your mind at ease: the Item Locker. Players now have a way to secure a certain number of valuables on their person so that they can't be lost or stolen during the course of gameplay. This Item Locker, accessible via the backpack, holds up to five items for free for non-Jianghu VIP players and 15 for the VIPs. Additional slots can also be purchased for 10 silver taels each. Items protected within the locker can still be equipped and used, but they cannot be traded, deleted, sold, or disassembled until the two-day cooldown timer expires. [Source: Snail Games press release]
The Art of Wushu: Finishing the job
Last episode, we talked about getting a bounty and the mindset of a career criminal. Unfortunately, this is the last Art of Wushu, but that doesn't mean we can't finish what we started. And that means talking about the art of killing good guys. Having a bounty means living on the edge. A lot of the time we take for granted the fact that we can walk around in Chengdu without too much fear. This is not true if you have a bounty. Every moment you spent logged in is spent on edge because a constable could jump you at any moment. You are constantly doing 360 degree camera spins looking around for trouble. You position yourself where you can easily run away, and you have escape plans in your head if things go bad. You worked really hard for your bounty, and you don't want to lose it because you lost focus for a moment. This kind of thrill is the most satisfying thing for me about Age of Wushu. When I get to log in, have that bright red star swirling around me and know that I need to be on the move immediately is the best feeling in the world for me.
The Art of Wushu: Getting yourself a bounty
We all know what side of the law I fight on in Age of Wushu: the bad guy side. However, there's a marked difference between being a professional criminal and an indiscriminate mass murderer. Being a criminal means that you need to be more discreet in which targets you kill. If I don't have a bounty, a kill that doesn't get me a bounty is pointless. Infamy is a resource, and if I ramp it up too much, I could be looking at jail time without even getting a bounty. Nothing is more frustrating than having to idle for hours in some out of the way place because my infamy shot up over 2000, but it's pretty easy to get there. Being selective in whom I kill helps prevent those kinds of mistakes.
The Art of Wushu: Hacking and account security
When people say they get hacked in online games, I always assume it's the user's fault. The one time I was ever hacked, I could trace it directly back to a situation where I knew my username/password was compromised and I used the same set anyway. Ever since then, I've used more secure logins and passwords, and I've never had an issue. Age of Wushu has come under fire recently for a large string of hacks, and I jumped to the same conclusion. These hacks always seem like a big deal to the people who get hacked, and Age of Wushu is the kind of game where people are incentivized to steal other peoples' stuff. It's natural that people would hack forums or other less secure places and use that information to get whatever accounts they could find. But I've started hearing rumors that people are getting hacked in spite of randomized passwords. One player told me of a friend who deliberately posted a valuable commodity in world chat, traded it to an alt, and logged in the original character later to find that the first character had lost all of her money. Is there something going on?
The Art of Wushu: Doing the time for doing crime
Bounties are the primary way that PK victims in Age of Wushu get to fight back against their assailants. If you murder someone, your victim can force you to spend time in jail and pay a constable for the service of putting you behind bars. Much as in EVE Online's original bounty system, there are a few kinks. Overall, it works reasonably well, but there is a disconnect between the intent of the system and how it actually works. As a career criminal, I feel that having a bounty and dealing with it is what separates professional killers from mass murderers.
The Art of Wushu: Tricks of the royal chains
Soul Chasing Claw is one of the most common and hated styles in Age of Wushu, and last week we went over many ways to counter it. However, on the flip side there are a lot of options for trickery. Like most ranged styles, Soul Chasing Claw is devastating as a switch to a melee style. Its main weaknesses are well-known, so cunning is needed against a skilled enemy. Fortunately, it has a lot of advantages. The chain pull is near-instantaneous, so you only need the right opening. It's technically possible to pull people out of the startup of moves like Submerge the Lotus, though it's kind of difficult in practice since the pull has a minimum range. It's a powerful tool, and we'll discuss a lot about getting the most out of it today.
The Art of Wushu: Chasing down Soul Chasing Claw
Soul Chasing Claw is the eponymous skill of Royal Guards and one of the most frustrating styles to counter for a new player. It's a nice, robust style with clear strengths and weaknesses, and it's one of my favorite styles in Age of Wushu even though I don't use it myself. Unfortunately, Soul Chasing Claw feels a bit unfair when it's used against you at first. It has long-range, high-damage combos that seem unstoppable, but for the most part it's smoke and mirrors. It's simply a set of tools that are useful rather than all-powerful. Most RGs that rely exclusively on this style are easy to beat for experts, but it is a useful addition to any external Yang martial artist's toolkit.
The Art of Wushu: Taking all comers with Shaolin boxing
Of all of the fighting styles in Age of Wushu, Shaolin Long Boxing is the one I hate the most. It has no counters or easy answers. In a close-combat fight, Long Boxing is unmatched. The only real option is to run away, and in the narrow confines of a duel arena, even that option is limited. However, I don't dislike Long Boxing because it's the best. There has to be a "best" style, though that can be obfuscated a bit with counters (which is the case for many other top-tier styles). The reason I hate it is that it has no counterplay. Even if you understand exactly what your opponent will do next with Long Boxing, there are only a tiny handful of style-specific answers if your opponent just follows a basic flowchart. Everyone else just loses. It's really that frustrating.
The Art of Wushu: Rewarding good and bad deeds
Last time, I mentioned that I might talk about the new school instances in Age of Wushu's Infinite Scrolls expansion, but the truth is that very little is known. I haven't done them (I'm guildless and I'm not really looking), and the guilds that have done them are very closed-mouthed about what is in the dungeons. I've heard they're pretty easy, if it's any condolence. However, I do have something more fun to talk about, and that's killing other people. You guys may have noticed, but I like PvP a lot. Infinite Scrolls released a new system called Big Jianghu that rewards people for open-world PvP. I have wanted more consequences for PKing for a long time, so I was really excited about this feature. Unfortunately, as with many things in the new expansion, I was bound to be disappointed.
The Art of Wushu: Thoughts on the winter expansion
We looked at a lot of the details of Age of Wushu's Ultimate Scrolls expansion last time, but we should also reflect a bit on the implications of the new changes. The Mt. Hua expansion was mostly positive, and I was very excited to see the new mentoring program and token systems. I'm not as hyped for Ultimate Scrolls. Whereas Mt. Hua added accessibility, a new battleground, and more fun things to do for everyone, Ultimate Scrolls is primarily an expansion for top players. There is very little to do in this expansion if you don't have leveled meridians and a maxed second or third internal skill. Even though I'm in the one percent, I don't think it's very fair to the majority of players who are not.
The Art of Wushu: Lifting the veil on the winter expansion
Some of you may have heard about new content coming to Age of Wushu in the winter in the form of the Ultimate Scrolls expansion. Although it contains some new content including the much-anticipated marriage system, Snail Games has released scant few details about new features. We went behind the scenes and asked the studio what we can expect in the winter expansion and what we can look forward to in the future. The developers were pretty open about what was coming soon, which -- like Mt. Hua -- is chock-full of new features.
The Art of Wushu: Harnessing demons to slay lovers
Demon Heart Chain Hand is one of the most likely choices for a player's first new martial art. Although many other styles in Age of Wushu are expensive or difficult to obtain, DHCH is relatively easy to farm. It also adds tons of extremely useful utility in the form of a ranged knock-towards, a PBAoE flight disable aura, and a silly self-exploding super move. It works very well in group combat, and proper use of the set can turn the tides of battle even if your internal skills are much weaker than those of your enemies. Even after you're a powerful master, you'll rely a lot on this set in many cases. It does many things (especially its ranged knock) that have very practical uses. As a dueling set, it's a bit on the weak side, but people tend to underestimate it for that reason too.
