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Choose My Adventure: The once and future Swordsman
For the last three weeks, I've been whipping and kicking every bad guy I can find in Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman in the hopes of understanding this peculiar wuxia MMORPG. My Choose My Adventure experience thus far has been mixed; I've enjoyed Swordsman's theme and setting, but its mechanics and hard-to-follow narrative have made the experience a touch less manageable. Swordsman from 1-30 seems at best like an extended tutorial and at worst like a game that plays itself. That's not just my opinion. All of the feedback I can find on the game seems to point in one direction: Swordsman's early levels aren't the main attraction. The real Swordsman exists in PvP (unlocked at level 30), guild quests (unlocked at level 35), and instances (unlocked at 15 -- not bad). Last week's combat discipline discovery at 25 further cemented the idea that Swordsman is a game designed to reward players who stick through the initial grind. I didn't have much time to play this last week, but I did get a chance to sit down with PWE product manager Gabrielle Heiland to talk about Swordsman's first expansion, the future of the game, and how Perfect World feels about the game's current "wait and see" design.
Swordsman slashes its way into open beta on July 3rd
Perfect World Entertainment has just announced that its martial arts-flavored Swordsman MMO will enter open beta on July 3rd, bringing to an end the closed beta that began on June 17th. Special $60 hero packs were announced yesterday. To coincide with the announcement, Swordsman Product Manager Gabrielle Heiland has narrated a new dev walkthrough video highlighting the game's story, guilds, PvP, and combat mechanics and visuals. Enjoy the vid below!
