I am currently playing Age of Wushu on Red Phoenix server. Started around their official launch time April 10.
It is very different from most MMOs I have played in the past.
It is very PvP centric game, therefore some might like it for that, some might pass it up because of that.
Even in the dungeons, some bosses will summon 3 random players (who volunteered against your party for their own gain :D) as assassins to mess up your fight against the boss, you have to fight as a party of 6 against both the boss and the 3 anonymous players. Again some might hate it, some might like it.
There is no active group healer, much like GW2, there are a few self healing skills, and some passive group HOTs. So when fighting in dungeons, dodging one-hit moves from the boss is very important.
There are 8 schools somewhat like classes or professions in the game, but you can steal skill scripts from other schools and learn their skills, this is a daily PvP event Monday-Friday. You can go to other school during event time to steal scripts and try to make it out alive. This way, you can learn other schools' skills to a certain level, although not to the same level as the school students. But still can be useful.
On weekends, there are school wars, somewhat like the WvWvW in GW2, except it turn one school's map into battle field, not using a separate map like GW2 WvWvW, a school can declare war on the other and fight it out for a hour and half or so.
There are also funny things like, when players log off, their character become an NPC, but you can tell from the name they are offline players. Some players would kidnap these offline players for trade-able silver. While as some other players might sign up to be constables to catch the kidnappers or players who have bounties on them. Again lots of PvP potential here.
Crafting system is actually quite deep I think, all the best items are crafted by players, the top tier items need materials drop from dungeons, and the recipes also drop from dungeons. The auction house system could be a pain though, since you need to physically sit there and setup stall to sell stuff. You can rent system shops by weeks to sell stuff while you are offline, but that cost trade-able silver which mostly come from buying gold from the game company, some what like GW2 situation where you buy gold from ANet.
There were complains about skills feel clunky, there are two reasons I think:
1. you can bind the parry to keys other than right mouse key, so that you can use right mouse key for camera control.
2. there is 1.5 seconds global cool-down between skills, this is because in this game, you need to read the animation of the skill that other players are performing to choose the best skills to counter it. If you are new to the game, you might not know all the skill animations, but over time you gets pretty good at it if you practice. Therefore the fighting itself can be a pretty deep side of the game as well.
It has lots things that feel weird compare to the MMOs we are accustomed to, like the cash shop sell stuff that expire after 30 days, although most of the cash shop items are fashion only, not essential to game play. I never bought any of those. The complain I have is I bought mount from the shop that is slightly faster than you can get from NPC, but it expires in 30 days also.
All in all I am enjoying the game. If some of the family are interested, you can contact with me on Red Phoenix, my in game name is soldenal.
» Edited on: 2013-05-13 01:53:43
