So as some of you probably know, there's a new MMORPG out called Swordsman. It goes through Arc, like Aion and Jade Dynasty and Perfect World and Star Trek online do, and I've recently signed up for beta. My beta key came in and I downloaded it and stuff and so this is my review of the game so far.
Review:
Swordsman
is a new martial arts MMORPG. It’s made by the same people who did Perfect
World and requires Arc to download and access, like Perfect World. It is
currently in beta-testing, and as a beta tester, these are my first
impressions.
Character Creation:
I was impressed with this. The hair
selection wasn’t big from what I saw, but I did find several that I liked and
had a hard time picking. The facial creation and modification was tricky, as
the pre-made features were never quite right (What game has good pre-made face features,
anyways?) and the sliders were a bit odd. The lips were hard to get right.
There is
no custom-color picker in this creation. You have pre-selected color squares to
click, meaning you can’t have green hair or blue or pink if you want. This is a
step up from PWI, but if they have unnatural colors too, it would be great. I
personally prefer natural colors, but some of them aren’t exactly what I want
and I know people who like odd colors.
There is
also no way to edit the body of your character. You choose a gender and you
have that body type. Meaning you can’t change the height or weight or breast
and waist size of your character. This takes away points in my book.
Overall:
It’s okay, but if you were to fuse it with PWI’s creator, it would be near perfect.
That said, it’s easy to make pretty characters.
Gameplay:
The first thing I thought when I
got into the game was, “Oh my god, this lag…” That didn’t change. The entire
game was laggy. I don’t know if that is normal in a beta or if it’s because there
were so many people online, but it was insane. It took a minimum of five
seconds for one attack to work (Assuming it worked at all) and hotkeys like “B”
for bag and “C” for Character did not work sometimes due to lag. I actually had
to stop playing after a while because of it.
As for questing, it’s confusing. I
know you click the NPC and talk to it, but then you have fifty million little
squares popping up on your screen and you have no idea what to do. There isn’t even a “Help” dialogue to explain
what something is and how it works!
Overall: Confusing and laggy. If
there were a “Help” dialogue box that would pop up, it would be easier. Also
unable to find out how to assign attribute points. There is also no build set
to help you. (I seriously screwed up my venomancer by putting a lot of
dexterity on her, and I suck at trying to figure out builds. I need endgame
stats or something to go by.)
Graphics and Game Design:
The game is drop dead gorgeous. I
haven’t had time to look at the detail of the game yet, but it looks amazing,
even with graphics turned all the way down. It seems like it has detail though,
because your clothes actually flutter in the wind and on your starting armor,
the coin shaped things on your waist bounce too. Like, individually.
Overall: Can’t tell for sure yet,
but it seems absolutely kick ass.
Community:
I have yet to assess the community.
There were a lot of people asking questions about the game in world chat (how
did they get to the required level so fast?!) and the alpha (pre-beta) players
seemed to be answering their questions, so it seems fine, but I don’t know for
sure.
Overall: Unable to tell for sure
yet, but it seems decent enough.
Also, after the beta, there will be
a complete wipe. Everything will be lost on your character. That’s crappy.
TOTAL OVERALL REVIEW:
Pretty, but super laggy, but it
seems pretty cool. Will have to keep playing to assess it further.
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