Comments on: Blade & Soul: Not Mount & Blade

By: vigevano

vigevano — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:53:38 +0000

ryan: source please?

By: A coin

A coin — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 07:38:17 +0000

Well darn, now I’m curious. Anyone have any information if the game mechanics will actually be interesting? I wouldn’t mind seeing an MMO that doesn’t have the utterly stale gameplay of “click monster, watch dull attack animations”, especially a pretty one.

By: Al3xand3r

Al3xand3r — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:06:34 +0000

Isn’t every MMO like that until you start hitting end game content (or, I imagine, the biggest toughest bosses in Monster Hunter) which is when the absolute best possible gear is desired? I mean, I imagine Monster Hunter wouldn’t make people play for the hundreds of hours they do (or pay a subscription for the online games) if there really was no grind involved, I’m sure there is rare gear you have to kill monsters many times to get the materials for, as usual…

It’s also not quite a MMO is it? All of it is instanced aside from the lobby area, no? Much like Phantasy Star Online? I don’t think this kind of interaction is possible for a full MMORPG, perhaps that’s the reason this NCSoft title doesn’t show scenes with many players either, maybe all of it is instance and lobby based too. It does look good and fun though, almost like a cross between a beat em up and prince of persia (in the later parts of the vid) plus a party.

I’m not trying to devalue the game, I do think it’s an amazing series though I’ve yet to play it, and I do wonder why not more games like that are being made considering how popular they are when they do get made (perhaps it all started with Phantasy Star Online). Maybe Capcom themselves will expand on it if Monster Hunter 3 is popular for online gaming and bring us more franschises with a hint of this formula… Or maybe other companies jealous of their success will… Let’s hope so because the online gaming field is quite restricted, you only get a hanfdul of different game styles… RTS, FPS, MMORPG, etc.

By: Dominic White

Dominic White — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:37:10 +0000

@Al3xand3r – Perhaps I’m not in the majority here, but I’ve always considered ‘grind’ to be the pointless treadmill drudgery required to get you from one bit of content to the next. My experience with Monster Hunter is that the required equipment to survive comes pretty much along with progress through the missions, but there’s always the option of farming particular targets to get very specialized gear.

Especially if you’re playing with a full party, you really don’t need the absolute best-level equipment, so you can get by without any grind. And if you ARE repeating fights, then it’s still fun anyway, as pretty much every fight is unpredictable and difficult.

It’s a world apart from most MMOs.

By: Valentin Galea

Valentin Galea — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:02:49 +0000

ncSoft’s attention to upskirts is unmatched!

By: Al3xand3r

Al3xand3r — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:59:21 +0000

@Dominic
No grinding? I thought the majority of Monster Hunter games is about hunting monsters to get materials for better gear which will allow you to defeat bigger monsters, with some of the tougher bosses requiring uber rare stuff to even give you a chance of survival for more than a few seconds. I don’t see how people could be playing this game for hundreds of hours if no grinding is involved, surely it would get boring once you have defeated a few of the bigger monsters a few times, if there was no sense of progress with the materials and new gear you get out of that hunting and killing.

Not that I mind any of this, I almost bought the last PSP game but now I’m waiting for the Wii Monster Hunter 3 to dive into this series, since it will include the online multi player the PSP titles lacked. It also seems to have a slight graphical upgrade over Monster Hunter Frontier since that one looks to have the PS2 games’ assets rather than be a complete remake for the PC platform, while most of the assets in 3 are brand new and it will include underwater hunting, the need for torches when hunting in dark areas, much improved AI and a more simulated ecosystem and other sweet features :)

By: Julian Montebartholemieau, Esquire

Julian Montebartholemieau, Esquire — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:29:39 +0000

Gentlemen, I herewith petition to retitle the game “Boob and Soul.”

By: Stromko

Stromko — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:53:21 +0000

Ryan: Wow, so they just wasted about 7 minutes of our time, aside from showing what nice chachas they can draw. Yep, this’s looking right on track to not change my feelings about Korean MMOs.

By: Kareem

Kareem — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:26:21 +0000

While the skeptiglands are overwhelmed reading about who’s designing the game, I can’t help but feel that their take on MMO combat seems rather fresh. Hopefully the dressing around that won’t be made of pure grind.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:41:36 +0000

Just an FYI, that trailer it has been confirmed was ingame, but the animations were all done by an animation team, none of that action is actual ingame, just ingame graphics with staged actions. :-/

By: Marcin

Marcin — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:37:40 +0000

If that wallrunning and leaping tall cliffs and buildings is in the game, I just might give it a shot. But I suspect that’s pure cutscene territory … in which case full warning flag mode is on.

By: Half Broken Glass

Half Broken Glass — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:19:06 +0000

Yes, it looks fantastic, but who cares? It will still be about killing one thousand red frogs for a +1. The only difference between this and Ragnarok Online(Which I like to use as an MMORPG benchmark) is that the attack animation lasts longer.