Today, we met with Eron Garcia and Angela Canary of ChangYou to discuss their upcoming MMO title “Blade Wars”. It was first released in China in 2007 and is going into open beta for North America on June 24th. The game is free to play and though at first glance it seemed reminiscent of “Guild Wars”, it has some truly interesting features to it. There are three playable factions within the game: The Immortals, The Abyssals, and The Humans. Depending on which faction you choose, there are different accessible classes. This part is pretty textbook MMO format—the combat system, however, is where we start to see some pretty unique dynamics.
First off, ChangYou used motion capture from Chinese champion Liu Hailong as a framework for most of the kung-fu animations in the game. In addition to simply looking cool, these attack abilities can be plugged into any number of combo sets the player wishes. These combo sets are created similarly to macros to trigger a string of attacks in sequence, and can also be switched out situationally. This leaves the player open to use their judgement and preference in playstyle to customize their mode of enemy encounter to maximize math/tactics. This can get pretty involved, since there are many attacks which incrementally do more damage upon repeated application, as well as knockbacks, weapon throws, rushes, debuffs, et cetera—so planning your combo string requires weighing a bounty of options.
There is another notable feature to their combat system—in these combo chains, it is possible to land up to 99 hits on a target by successfully aligning one combo set after another. Damage scales upward as more hits land, so there are damage bonuses upon predetermined numbers in the attack line. Actually getting these attacks to stagger might not be so easy though, especially in the context of PvP—and the devs enthusiastically told us that there is a huge focus on PvP in this game.
Some gamers enjoy a game that they can easily play solo. Although this is certainly possible in “Blade Wars”, grouping is strongly encouraged both to complete certain quests and engage in the PvP content of the game. There is actually an experience boost to players who choose to group as opposed to the the XP penalty that most current MMO games opt for. Another benefit to partying is for protection—as I mentioned, PvP is a prominent fixture in this game. Arena duels and open world PvP are tracked/rewarded with a ranking system; but in the vein of “Grand Theft Auto” and “Red Dead Redemption”, there is also a fame/morality factor. Killing people who are set at peaceful towards your faction decreases your morality points. When these points reach zero, the player is unable to enter any city and is exiled to a zone where they must wait or do quests to replenish these morality points.
Along this community vein, the endgame consists of in-game events (daily, semi-daily, weekly), instancing, and guild battles. Think “Guild Wars”—guilds themselves can level up with the inclusion of more players and battle successes. Guilds can create/attack each other’s strongholds and buildings, and even level up guild beasts. It is also possible to take another guild’s stronghold goods upon victory.
Aside from the subjects I touched on, the game also includes more commonly seen features—a crafting system, purchasable item shop (though we were informed that everything available in the item shop is also attainable in-game, and high-end crafted goods were only able to be found in-game). There is also a “Guitar Hero”-esque minigame where players can get/play instruments and follow musical cues on screen, even in “bands”, in exchange for experience and items.
All in all, I was quite impressed with “Blade Wars”. It feels like the game has a good direction and is doing a lot of things right. My only criticism would be that the graphics seem a little weak in comparison to other free-to-play MMO games (it is a stylized mix of 2D and 3D presented in an isometric viewpoint). They were certainly not an eyesore, but I personally never was much of a fan of the “Diablo”-type camera angles. In regards to the content and combat system however, I am quite excited to play this once it is available in the U.S. and believe MMO lovers will enjoy it as well.
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