Blade & Soul

Coming to the West.

It's an action-MMO inspired by House Of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Big hit in the East. Official English site.

Ah, so it's finally coming out. Last I heard it was mired in all sorts of problems but it's good to see the thing finally making it through. It's probably one of the best looking MMORP Gs out there and it's the first I saw which had purely action-based combat in an open world. It's definitely the only one with kung-fu style air-running, which is a plus (not sure if Age of Wushu has it as well though).

Not sure whether this game or TERA did the whole child race thing earlier (Neither is the first, though) and I prefer B&S's implementation with both genders (and significantly more conservative costumes) than TERA's females-only version. That they can't become heavy axe-users like in TERA is another bonus because Elin Berzerkers having some weird advantages was very odd to me.

I find the game's extremely Korean aesthetic quite appealing as most Korean MM Os (i.e. most MM Os period) tend to adopt Chinese, Japanese or Western fantasy art styles despite their country of origin.

edited 13th Sep '12 1:37:23 PM by Recon5

I know that Vindictus came out before Tera.

Really old PVP video to hype this a bit.

The main thing that caught my attention back then was just how much movement there is in this game. At least a few classes can superjump and glide at will and aerial combos are more widely used than I've seen in most MM Os. This is also one of the few MM Os where grappling is actually grappling- a hard disable with a proper ground pound animation.

Of course, that was the version of several years ago. I'm not sure if they've 'streamlined' anything since then.

Also, graphical fidelity and polygon counts seem to be even higher than in Tera despite this game being revealed earlier.

EDIT with much newer video.

zxcv hotkeys make me extremely happy because they just feel more natural than number hotkeys. Good on the devs for picking this up!

edited 14th Sep '12 5:43:17 PM by Recon5

Looks very interesting. A bit heavy on the fanservice, but that's hardly new. Digging the combat. No chance of it being F 2 P, right?

Ten bucks says the grind and quests are very korean and it flops like Aion.

edited 14th Sep '12 6:55:46 PM by Midgetsnowman

As far as I know there are leveling brick walls as in most Korean MM Os. However, it also seems to be a bit more popular than Aion. It was a multiple award winner in Korea some time back.

Why oh why does korean grinding and 20 Bear Asses still exist?

Easy way to set up a rewardable task for the player. It's either TBA or Fed Ex/Scavenger Hunt and the latter two don't have combat to make them interesting.

I notice that Korean MM Os tend to strive for fresh or less-utilized gameplay mechanics but slap them onto formulaic stories and quest formulas, while Western MM Os try to spice up the lore and questing experience without adding much to conventional MMO mechanics. I wonder why this difference exists.

edited 14th Sep '12 8:12:49 PM by Recon5

Wow, 4 years. Sorry about the necro lol But it's finally launching today in Western markets.

edited 18th Jan '16 9:19:07 PM by AnotherGuy