VKMR: Blade & Soul (release 19. Jan)

[Vibe]

Vibe ere to bring you another azn mmorpg!

Blade & Soul is a fantasy martial-arts massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in development by Korean game developer NCsoft and its Team Bloodlust division.
I'm a big fan of MMORPGs that don't have the usual WoW-like combat system - I usually tried to avoid azn mmos for many reasons, but this one really caught my attention. One could say it's like an improved version of TERA (another azn action MMORPG already released in EU/NA).

The game is not yet released in Korea (Open Beta currently). No NA/EU date yet.

Blade & Soul will contain eight playable classes, but only six of those eight have been revealed. Team Bloodlust has revealed the Assassin, Blade Master, Destroyer, Force Master, Summoner, and the Kung-Fu Master to us already. The remaining two have not been announced yet.

It also has different races but they are all human-like.

Some videos of it (all gameplay):
Gliding, flying
Class and combat details (cool video, showcase of each class and it's skills)
PvP system (explains how PvP works in this game)
Some mass faction PvP
More PvP (kung fu master vs force master)
Short PvP vid from Drakedog (old skool WoW players will know him)
Training system & stats
Faction & race background


Anyway I tested the game a bit (magic). It feels amazing. It plays, looks and feels much better than TERA for me. Graphics are impressive, the landscape looks good, the character attack animations are downright awesome.

The sprint/gliding system is fun to travel/mess around with.

Combat is like TERA - actiony, no target but feels faster overall. The stuff that's better than TERAs combat system is more direct interaction with players/mobs (you can grab  them and shit), you can move/run/jump while you attack, even with channeled skills (TERA locks you in place when you're doing combos), attacks have range so if you step out of range your and enemies attacks will miss so you can use this like a dodge/evade. Left click is for primary combo attack then special keys for special attacks. I tried the Blademaster class and it also had a block skill, which lasts for 2 sec but locks you in place - I think every other class has some similar skill too.

I didn't progress much but it didn't feel very grindy to me (mind you this is the Korean version still!).
I'll post more about it when I go further and test more classes.

Anyway, was really fun playing it and everyone who isn't too bothered by the AZN look should keep an eye out on this one.

Screen of my char in starter area (the pic is lower quality than how it looks in game):

(click to show/hide)

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We are playing on server HAO DISTRICT

[[ptx]]

weaboo

[Vibe]

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[SeQuel]

How is the leveling in the game? Is it grindy like all other Asian MMO's?

Also is it F2P or P2P?

[Vibe]

How is the leveling in the game? Is it grindy like all other Asian MMO's?

Also is it F2P or P2P?

I'm only level 3 or 4 but it doesn't feel grindy. For Korea it's going to have a subscription, for EU/NA it is not known yet. Most probably it will be NCSoft that takes it over for EU/NA so we can't be sure, they might even make it b2p or f2p. They might also change leveling speed and stuff so it's catered to the west more.

Also there is a main story quest you follow. Some quests are kill/collect x, some are a bit more interesting (in one I had to enter a camp, rescue someone then shoot a canon at a pirate boat).

[Spleen]

shamefur dispray

[Patoson]

If you want a MMO with a totally different combat system, try Age of Conan. It's my favourite.

[Vibe]

If you want a MMO with a totally different combat system, try Age of Conan. It's my favourite.

I played AoC quite a lot and it's combat system isn't "totally different"

[bilwit]

Looks really bad. Asian-made MMOs usually are though, but then again I think pretty much all MMOs are pretty bad.

I played AoC quite a lot and it's combat system isn't "totally different"

LOL seriously. It's the same as every other typical MMO combat except you have to press like 2 buttons instead of one before it casts. Now DC Universe Online's combat is "totally different." At it's prime (before being diluted and dumbed down for new players) it was as close to Mount & Blade action/reaction/feint you'll get in an MMO. Duels were every bit as intense and player-skill oriented as they are in M&B.

[Vibe]

LOL seriously. It's the same as every other typical MMO combat except you have to press like 2 buttons instead of one before it casts. Now DC Universe Online's combat is "totally different." At it's prime (before being diluted and dumbed down for new players) it was as close to Mount & Blade action/reaction/feint you'll get in an MMO. Duels were every bit as intense and player-skill oriented as they are in M&B.

That I agree, played DCUO when it released and really enjoyed PvP. All the block, blockbreaker, knockdown etc etc action was pretty cool. So they dumbed it down?

[bilwit]

That I agree, played DCUO when it released and really enjoyed PvP. All the block, blockbreaker, knockdown etc etc action was pretty cool. So they dumbed it down?

Yeah. I came back and played it for a couple months when it went F2P and the combat is a shadow of it's former self in terms of depth. You can't really "feint" or draw people into blocking anymore -- blocking and breakout (shift key) in general has been nerfed to hell, as they increased the time it takes for you to block which makes it super easy for people to read it and just use their block breaker. This makes it so that blocking isn't even worth it which encourages spamming and finally leads to who has the best DPS gear. On top of that, the new raid drops absolutely wreck the hell out of people without them, especially people in PvP gear (toughness isn't scaled accordingly at all). They added armor enhancements that give ridiculous amounts of precision (weapon damage) and are only obtained via rare raid drop and only people who spend real life money can craft them. Skill is completely thrown out the window and it's even more glaringly apparent in team fights. People just stack off-healing DPS and focus fire/spam everything to the ground with one guy constantly doing block breaker so there's virtually nothing you can do, even against a team of controllers who are supposed to inherently stomp healers (they can't out dps healers in dps mode and can't offset the heals because they can out heal the control buff, which by the way rarely even applies to the target).

They just came out with the new PvP-centered DLC but I doubt it's any good. Game is dead. It's always had serious inherent game design flaws (like the class balancing system -- complete bullshit and assumes that classes are evenly distributed between the population) and the only good thing it had going was the combat which is now defunct and really only shined in 2v2, legends arena (since it forces everyone to be DPS and you can't really focus fire, thus everything is as even as it gets and it's down to how good the players are at using their character).

[Gravoth_iii]

Looks real good, mostly because of that awesome flying/gliding system thingy  But spells and skills look real neat, too! Looking forward to playing this when released, dunno if im going to bother when its all korean though >_>

[Vibe]

Yeah no point bothering with the Korean version, best to just wait for the EU/NA version.

[Leshma]

I doubt there will be EU version any time soon. NA, probably.

[Vibe]

I doubt there will be EU version any time soon. NA, probably.

If it's NC Soft West publishing for western world then EU and NA should be coming out close to each other.