So, the very first Closed Beta phase for Snail Game’s Age of Wulin started at 2pm (GMT+8) earlier in the afternoon. Being the very first batch of public gamers flooding the server, we are always bound to be the guinea pigs, and it came true with a less than enjoyable start. Players were disconnecting, stuck in one of the area with no NPC and more. It didn’t help that Snail Game was still selling tons of CBT keys over at the event area. Well, enough of ranting, let’s get started!
Character creation in Age of Wulin is pretty standard. Starting out, players will have to choose from 6 different storyline. Each will have different quests, outcomes and story paths for the players. Only the first is available for CBT1. The customizations are pretty self-explanatory, but it is the naming part which intrigued me. There are 100 surnames for players to choose from, after that players will type in the given name (Chinese only, no English). I am wondering how will they do it for the English and other foreign servers.
As there is no character level system in the game, characters’ stats come into the focus. There are a few special stats, for example Stamina and Hunger. When using life skills, Stamina points are consumed. The higher the Hunger stats via consuming food, the faster Stamina regenerates. The other new stats are about defense against fighting stances, defense against critical damage etc. Additional stats can be found on some of the costumes as well.
Next will be entering the newbie town. As you can see, there are simply too many players, with quest NPCs doing the disappearing act as well. Taking a walk to the wilderness nearby, I actually fell to my death… Just a reminder, Age of Wulin looks much better in-game, I have no idea why the video quality is lowered once uploaded onto YouTube…
Since entering one of the quest room is out of question as a bug and the latency caused the NPC to be spirited away, I decided to take a footage of the town. It is a middle-sized town, neither too big nor small. You would have realized by now, there is actually no auto-path in Age of Wulin, something I am definitely used to in Chinese MMOs. Clicking on the NPC names at the quest bar will only open up the map and show you their locations, which I ain’t really comfortable with.
If you noticed, NPCs have a semi-circle meter when mousing over them. Running into them will cause them to startle and move back, followed by some harsh words. This will be the basis of the NPC interaction system, where high affinity with them will lead players to exclusive quests and rewards. Random mobs will also spawn in the town, with alerts telling players and asking everyone to hunt them down.
With the main quest line getting stuck and no combat quests, I decided to go learn one of the 15 life skills available – accessory making. The interesting part is that players may challenge the Accessory Trainer to a game of Bejeweled… Which I won after a shaky start. I am guessing each Life Skill trainer will probably have a mini-game for players to challenge.
Once again, due to the main quest getting bugged, it is hard for almost all the players to progress and choose 1 of the 4 open clans (Shaolin, Wudang, Er Mei and Tang Clan) to enter. I guess I will stop here for today. Tomorrow, I hope I the quest is fixed and I can touch more on life/ gathering skills (there is something which will piss players off) and of course, combat.
