Thoughts on Age of Wushu

Well, first impressions, at least. It’s a pretty game that’s ambitious, reminiscent of EVE, and has some spots that are strangely lacking. But, it’s a free-to-play, so can’t complain too much.

Getting the game downloaded and started was a little tricky. I had a corrupt .cab file and had to redownload it. Two of the game servers were full and the other two were busy. Character creation was a little sparse, but I didn’t cringe at awful modeling like I did for The Secret World. Then trying to enter a name. Please choose a good name? WTF does that mean? Is the name taken? Is it violating something? It’s not 1337-kiddie, so I don’t see what the problem is with it. Huh, the forums guess that it doesn’t like spaces. Well, that’s nice. Add a dash and there, we’re good to go.

Graphics and ambiance are lovely. The cities feel alive, strangely more so than GW2. That might be because of the offline player characters becoming NPCs that go about doing mundane daily things. The details on the architecture is something to sit and look at for a while. Wuxia China is captured well here. The music is worth playing the game alone.

I haven’t done much in the way of combat. I was consumed by the professions and crafting. Did manage to get into the Beggar’s Sect. Yeah, I’m playing a Wuxia Chinese variant of Az. He plays music and begs for money. Busking is an offline job, too! Plus, he has his pretty ponytail.

Food is a little important here. Your character does get hungry. Problem is finding food. There are taverns and tea shops and inns where NPCs are stuffing face. But can I buy anything? Nope! Crappiest service ever, I tell ya. Even if you go to a grocery store, the food you buy there isn’t edible. They’re task items, whatever that means. I’m guessing that you have to either take up the cook profession or buy food from other players. That’s a little problematic. Players take one kind of currency, while NPCs take another. It looks like food can grant temporary buffs and I’m fine with having to make that or buy it from other players. But straight up nutrition and nutrition only? Why is that nowhere to be found among all the restaurants?

Still, intriguing game and I’m enjoying the open sandbox feel to it. I’ll probably have more to say when I actually start digging deeper into the game.

 


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