By Kieron Gillen on June 22nd, 2010 at 10:40 am.
Going through the lists of E3 games to see if there’s anything which I missed, and I hit on Heroes of the Three Kingdoms. It’s a PvP-focused free-to-play MMO… yeah, stop that now. It’s got a few things which make it more interesting. Its setting isn’t the trad fantasy one… but frankly, when your combat looks like it does, it may as well be. Secondly, it isn’t class based in a traditional way. It’s weapon based, with your role changing depending on what you choose to tool up with. Finally – and most RPS-interestingly – in the end game, after you’ve formed legions and conquered cities, leads to a large-scale board-game which apparently involves keeping your population happy and taxation and similar. The trailer below is mainly the fighting, but PCG grabbed a quick hand-phone shot of the map to give you an idea. If that interests you, you can try and sign up for the closed beta on the game’s site.
22/06/2010 at 11:44 Bhazor says:
So it’s a Dynasty Warriors game which turns into a Romance of the Three Kingdoms game? I could dig that.
Well except for the inevitable microtransactions and 100hour grind to get to the RotTK bits.
22/06/2010 at 12:04 MadMatty says:
true
22/06/2010 at 11:57 Malagate says:
Ohh, Three Kingdoms. As in that whole book/tv show/movie setting that is pretty much always popular in China. The only thing I’m surprised about is how long they took to make it into an MMO, wifey might be interested in it however.
22/06/2010 at 16:40 Thunderkor says:
ell it’s not exactly the first MMO set in the Three Kingdoms setting.
has been around a little while. There’s an english server as well as the chinese server, but I’m pretty sure the english server is also in Singapore, where the game is based. The combat is much more Dynasty Warriors than what was shown above. You fight hordes and hordes of enemies, I think in the tutorial alone there were over 100 enemies to be taken down in about 2 minutes. It’s fun in small doses, but the translations are bad and the game just has that bit of strangeness that says “I was not made for western audiences”. And I’m not sure if it’s a graphics glitch on my machine or what, but I actually don’t see any models for the NPC’s in town. I go to a spot where a big arrow is, then I get another window showing portraits of the NPCs available in that spot.
In another bit of oddity, it’s using the “hub and instances” model, but the instances are open. It has gender-locked classes and no customization to speak of, but the combat is unique among MMOs and makes for some fun carnage from time to time.
The other one that springs to mind is . This is in open beta now I think, and a seems a bit slow paced for me and very grindy. They do give you different soldiers to command, like pets, between 2 and 6 depending on your class. I found this one a bit boring. It’s not as rough around the edges as Warriors of the Three Kingdoms, but for me at least it wasn’t as fun either. I hear in the later levels there are ship-to-ship battles but I never even got far enough to get to any PVP so I wouldn’ t know.
What’s up with games that make you grind forever before you get to do anything fun? That never made sense to me.
Heroes looks like it’s worth a try, though as KG mentioned, other Perfect World games tend to fall well below the boredom threshold so we’ll see. For once I’d like to see a REALLY GOOD MMO come out with chinese mythology as a backdrop, preferably one with fast-paced martial arts combat.
22/06/2010 at 16:48 Thunderkor says:
Rassum sassum frassum!. Didn’t’ end my tags I guess. This is what I get for multitasking. The first game I talked about was Warriors of the Three Kingdoms, the second was Kingdom Heroes. Sorry about that. I fail.
Warriors of the 3 Kingdoms: http://www.w3ksea.com/
Kingdom Heroes: http://kingdomheroes.aeriagames.com/
Apparently turning a year older yesterday sent me into “incompetent old man with these new fangled computing devices” mode.
22/06/2010 at 12:44 Dominic White says:
I had a quick poke around this one a couple weeks back. The core combat is just far too traditionally MMO-ish for me. I’m sick of that stuff.
Right now my free-to-play game of choice is Cosmic Break:
http://www.cosmicbreak.com/
And now for three names that’ll mean nothing to most people on this blog: It’s like Virtual On + Custom Robo + Megaman Legends. And don’t be scared off by the characters on the site splash page – the vast majority of mechs (and you can build them from scratch out of whatever parts you collect) are of the stompy, shooty not-android sort.
The gameplay is pure shooter for the most part. There’s a lock-on element, but that’s actually based on weapon and range, and your shorts actually travel further than your maximum lock range.
It’s by a small indie Japanese studio, and they’re pretty awesome. The developers actually run radio events in the beta, and they’re far more fun than they have any right to be. Especially when they get drunk and start teaching their players (in broken english, obviously) how to swear properly in Japanese.
It also has the craziest character customization I’ve seen in pretty much any game. My latest abomination is a huge brawler type mech with a head that gives it the ability to pose/flex, but instead of legs it has a whole robot camel that has a built-in charge attack. Freak cavalry, ahoy!
22/06/2010 at 14:05 Jacques says:
I always liked the combat in the Dynasty Warriors games, but the combat in this game seems to be a little dull for my tastes.
22/06/2010 at 17:09 SirKicksalot says:
Hey, has anyone here seen Red Cliff? That was an awesome movie about this period…
22/06/2010 at 18:38 Thunderkor says:
They actually made a Red Cliff MMO as well, but I have not played it.
23/06/2010 at 03:38 pupsikaso says:
Is the video working for anyone? For me it just says “Your video will begin in 00:00″ and just stays there.