9Dragons: Dev Journal: Skills of Martial Artists

Dana

Ken Johnston pens a new developer journal that examines the skills of martial artists in the upcoming MMO 9Dragons from Acclaim.

While you read this, I want you to use your imagination and create a picture in your mind. A vision of a distant land, many, many years ago. See in your mind's eye ancient China, some time during the Ming Dynasty. See yourself, a poor young peasant, struggling down the dusty street of a small village. You do not have even a single coin to call your own. Still, you may not have money, but you do have great dreams. You have dreams of glory and wealth. You have dreams of standing up for yourself against the village bullies who terrorise you. But how? An old friend told you that by learning the skills of Kung Fu you could grasp these dreams. But who will teach you? How will you learn? This is the starting point of your journey in the game 9Dragons. You do not need to use your imagination any longer because your story will unfold in front of you. The skills of Kung Fu are there to be learned. You can change the course of your destiny in ancient China with the decisions you make.

The whole article is here.

Squishyderpy

Hi,

I've been following this game developpement as best as I could, and I'm quite intriged by the animation showed... are they taken from real role play, and the game is like those, or are they just "made up" to make us drool?

An example would be archlord, what you see on video is not the game at all... the game itself is pretty poor on graphics, sounds, moves, animations, no gender choice, or customisation as such.. etc...

9dragons seems to be quite... different from any other games I saw so far, and the videos makes it look like, moves/attack/defence have to be done quite... quickly (so the Mxo type of combat engine is not really an option here), and from the amount of possible skills/etc, I can't picutre a "point and click" to select an attack either, which would leave only a keyboard/joypad combination... if anyone has played it before (alpha etc...) and are allowed to answer this question, would you mind mailing me on mmorpg?

(yes I know I'm part of the winner of the beta keys... BUT I'm way too impatient.. or let's say I just don't want to be too disapointed by the game when I see it like I have been by so many games recently... )

jopy

What PvP is offered ?

Game looks fantastic though

Squishyderpy

Well I got the beta key... and obviously can't disclose what I've seen :-P

On a personal opinion, I'm a bit disapointed with the fights/engines... the graphics do look ok though...

Haven't had much time to give it my full attention yet, and I only managed to get to the 2nd level in like 20 minutes or so...

Like it was said in an article, some skills have to be trained after they get learned... which is quite a nice thing (Although I think the training is quite... mmm.. easy... ).

dstar.

While this is all great to read, there are 3 questions I ask before I even consider playing or buying any RPG.  I couldn't find much on the site itself, just cenematics  and nothing else.  Now I know this article isn't a review of sorts but rather a specific topic. These still linger over my head everytime I see this game mentioned.

1.  Is this game a grind?
2.  Is the gameplay/fighting fast paced?  (Not a stand and attack game)
3.  What kind of PvP does it offer?

Squishyderpy

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Originally posted by dstar.
While this is all great to read, there are 3 questions I ask before I even consider playing or buying any RPG.  I couldn't find much on the site itself, just cenematics  and nothing else.

1.  Is this game a grind?
2.  Is the gameplay/righting fast paced?  (Not a stand and attack game)
3.  What kind of PvP does it offer?

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1- unfortunately, most rpg's nowadays are xp grinding type of games (appart a few like eve-online where it's more time based than xp based).I can't picture a storyline only mmorpg that would work, but then again, I have a pretty poor imagination past 7pm :-P
2- I'm not sure the NDA allows me to give details on this, and due to the fact the server is only up a few hours, and on american time, I haven't had a chance to play much yet.
3- same as above.

Although if we're lucky, one of the game dev. might be looking around this thread and be willing to answer the questions, or give the beta testers the authorisation to answer question 2 and 3.

Alternatively, register for the beta, the download is only one cd, and the updates were pretty fast after the download, not a big risk to take

I'm not even sure any beta tester could answer your questions yet, as I only saw low levels so far (would make sence as not many people have been around for long I think ).

So far, and this is only my personal opinion, I'm a bit disapointed by the combat engine/technique used... (so not saying anything about how it works, or what other games are using similar ... ways).

As said above, unless a dev. or community manager decides to answer you, your only option would be to see the beta by yourself I'm afraid...

othercents

This is definitely a different approach to MMORPGs. Personally I am already hooked on the story line than anything else. I want to know more about the struggle between the clans and less about "winning" the game.

Other

Squishyderpy

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Originally posted by othercents

This is definitely a different approach to MMORPGs. Personally I am already hooked on the story line than anything else. I want to know more about the struggle between the clans and less about "winning" the game.
Other

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Yup... Can't wait for some quests to be released )

mightyfc

just got back to reality from playing to lvl 29 , what can i say ? alot :P hehe but im not gonna however i can say that it has tons of potential, and the fight system/skill system is awesome once you hit opening chi 1 cant say what happens there i guess hehe

 

obviously theres lotsa stuff left for the devs to do, but its coming along nicely

 

this is definately something to keep yer eyes on

 

well im off to play some more /tease on

Squishyderpy

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Originally posted by mightyfc

just got back to reality from playing to lvl 29 , what can i say ? alot :P hehe but im not gonna however i can say that it has tons of potential, and the fight system/skill system is awesome once you hit opening chi 1 cant say what happens there i guess hehe
 
obviously theres lotsa stuff left for the devs to do, but its coming along nicely
 
this is definately something to keep yer eyes on
 
well im off to play some more /tease on

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Oh Wait until you get to revolving chakra 9!!! things get REAAAALLLLL good then ^_^.

I mak Jet li cry :-P