I am way on the fence with this game. I am really looking forward to the "Year of Sandboxes" and this is on my radar. However I keep reading so many give and take articles as well as some of the posts from the actual developers that talks about buying skill is legit.

What I would like clarification on is:

1) Is the skill system normally like Eve where it is time progression?

2) To what extreme can you buy skill? and at what price? Does this mean some newbie comes along plunks down $2k and all of a sudden they are a kung fu god?

3) What kind of prices are we talking about?

4) Everything is rental? for how long?

Bottom line is I don't mind paying for my entertainment, but I don't want to be nickled and dimed to death the way I keep hearing about the way this game is monetized. I read how on the Chinese servers they keep "adding new monetizing schemes" which basically obsolete any prior investments.

I am hoping unbiased responses on how it plays out.

Originally posted by Wighty

I am way on the fence with this game. I am really looking forward to the "Year of Sandboxes" and this is on my radar. However I keep reading so many give and take articles as well as some of the posts from the actual developers that talks about buying skill is legit.

What I would like clarification on is:

1) Is the skill system normally like Eve where it is time progression?

2) To what extreme can you buy skill? and at what price? Does this mean some newbie comes along plunks down $2k and all of a sudden they are a kung fu god?

3) What kind of prices are we talking about?

4) Everything is rental? for how long?

 

Bottom line is I don't mind paying for my entertainment, but I don't want to be nickled and dimed to death the way I keep hearing about the way this game is monetized. I read how on the Chinese servers they keep "adding new monetizing schemes" which basically obsolete any prior investments.

 

I am hoping unbiased responses on how it plays out.

I havent tried Eve so not sure how that goes. In regards to your question 1. You can pick a skill you want to train to run in the background so to speak. Meaning it slowly advances the skill to the next lvl while your playing, such as mining killing thieves , whatever. There is also the Practice mode way to advance a skill and this is simply you open up and spend money you have earned to buy the skill up. Yes you can use the slow way for part of the skills advancement then finish it off with the money method or visa versa.

For #2 the price seems to go up based on the lvl the skill is at. As far as somebody buying gold for the game with real world cash then they can maybe do that .. There is a conversion from the bought gold to the in game silver so I assume they could .. not sure on this.

Only been playing the game a couple days on the russian server so in regards to prices, I assume skill prices it takes like 2-3 thousand Wen.. the lowest currency in the game. Some of my skills are costing a Liang or two now already. So I dont imagine anyone spending money to make their toon top dog. Well not unless he just won the lottery.

Yes everthing is rental. the clothing the mounts etc.

Hope this helps in some way.. Btw I like the game. But then I like the crafting and such that goes along with the combat aspect of online games.

Originally posted by Wighty

I am way on the fence with this game. I am really looking forward to the "Year of Sandboxes" and this is on my radar. However I keep reading so many give and take articles as well as some of the posts from the actual developers that talks about buying skill is legit.

What I would like clarification on is:

1) Is the skill system normally like Eve where it is time progression?

2) To what extreme can you buy skill? and at what price? Does this mean some newbie comes along plunks down $2k and all of a sudden they are a kung fu god?

3) What kind of prices are we talking about?

4) Everything is rental? for how long?

 

Bottom line is I don't mind paying for my entertainment, but I don't want to be nickled and dimed to death the way I keep hearing about the way this game is monetized. I read how on the Chinese servers they keep "adding new monetizing schemes" which basically obsolete any prior investments.

 

I am hoping unbiased responses on how it plays out.

1. yes

2. yes you can max lvl in one day if you pay enough $$

3.not sure the prices on US server

Originally posted by Wighty

I am way on the fence with this game. I am really looking forward to the "Year of Sandboxes" and this is on my radar. However I keep reading so many give and take articles as well as some of the posts from the actual developers that talks about buying skill is legit.

What I would like clarification on is:

1) Is the skill system normally like Eve where it is time progression?

2) To what extreme can you buy skill? and at what price? Does this mean some newbie comes along plunks down $2k and all of a sudden they are a kung fu god?

3) What kind of prices are we talking about?

4) Everything is rental? for how long?

 

Bottom line is I don't mind paying for my entertainment, but I don't want to be nickled and dimed to death the way I keep hearing about the way this game is monetized. I read how on the Chinese servers they keep "adding new monetizing schemes" which basically obsolete any prior investments.

 

I am hoping unbiased responses on how it plays out.

1/ It's similar to EVE's ... but you can't queue up any skill training. Skills also require N cultivation points to complete, if you don't have enough cultivation points (or run out overnight) then the skill doesn't get fully trained until you earn more.

2/ You could buy gold, convert it to bound silver and buy certain skil books from other players (is there might be a limit on how much gold can be converted daily?) not that different to an EVE newb buying PLEX and getting himself a 100mill SP from the character bazaar.

3/ N/A

4/ I think most of the shop rental items are 3 and 30 days. Pretty sure that some crafted items (bags for ex.) have a duration as well. 

Originally posted by rpmcmurphy

Originally posted by Wighty

I am way on the fence with this game. I am really looking forward to the "Year of Sandboxes" and this is on my radar. However I keep reading so many give and take articles as well as some of the posts from the actual developers that talks about buying skill is legit.

What I would like clarification on is:

1) Is the skill system normally like Eve where it is time progression?

2) To what extreme can you buy skill? and at what price? Does this mean some newbie comes along plunks down $2k and all of a sudden they are a kung fu god?

3) What kind of prices are we talking about?

4) Everything is rental? for how long?

 

Bottom line is I don't mind paying for my entertainment, but I don't want to be nickled and dimed to death the way I keep hearing about the way this game is monetized. I read how on the Chinese servers they keep "adding new monetizing schemes" which basically obsolete any prior investments.

 

I am hoping unbiased responses on how it plays out.

1/ It's similar to EVE's ... but you can't queue up any skill training. Skills also require N cultivation points to complete, if you don't have enough cultivation points (or run out overnight) then the skill doesn't get fully trained until you earn more.

2/ You could buy gold, convert it to bound silver and buy certain skil books from other players (is there might be a limit on how much gold can be converted daily?) not that different to an EVE newb buying PLEX and getting himself a 100mill SP from the character bazaar.

3/ N/A

4/ I think most of the shop rental items are 3 and 30 days. Pretty sure that some crafted items (bags for ex.) have a duration as well. 

4.  To be clear, do you pay for rentals in the cash shop or can you buy permanent items?  If everything is a rental (mounts/ bags, equipment etc) then I'll be giving this one a miss. 

Originally posted by Scarfe

Originally posted by rpmcmurphy

Originally posted by Wighty

I am way on the fence with this game. I am really looking forward to the "Year of Sandboxes" and this is on my radar. However I keep reading so many give and take articles as well as some of the posts from the actual developers that talks about buying skill is legit.

What I would like clarification on is:

1) Is the skill system normally like Eve where it is time progression?

2) To what extreme can you buy skill? and at what price? Does this mean some newbie comes along plunks down $2k and all of a sudden they are a kung fu god?

3) What kind of prices are we talking about?

4) Everything is rental? for how long?

 

Bottom line is I don't mind paying for my entertainment, but I don't want to be nickled and dimed to death the way I keep hearing about the way this game is monetized. I read how on the Chinese servers they keep "adding new monetizing schemes" which basically obsolete any prior investments.

 

I am hoping unbiased responses on how it plays out.

1/ It's similar to EVE's ... but you can't queue up any skill training. Skills also require N cultivation points to complete, if you don't have enough cultivation points (or run out overnight) then the skill doesn't get fully trained until you earn more.

2/ You could buy gold, convert it to bound silver and buy certain skil books from other players (is there might be a limit on how much gold can be converted daily?) not that different to an EVE newb buying PLEX and getting himself a 100mill SP from the character bazaar.

3/ N/A

4/ I think most of the shop rental items are 3 and 30 days. Pretty sure that some crafted items (bags for ex.) have a duration as well. 

4.  To be clear, do you pay for rentals in the cash shop or can you buy permanent items?  If everything is a rental (mounts/ bags, equipment etc) then I'll be giving this one a miss. 

I am wondering this as well.  Is it rental with in game currency or real currency.  Do you need these things?  As a very casual player P2P works okay for me. . but not if the cost is based on real time.

1) Is the skill system normally like Eve where it is time progression?

Yes and no. Your skills will progress over time, but the time can increase or decrease depending on what you do.  Skill progression depends on the number of cultivation points you have. Cultivations points are converted from xp you gain from doing certain things (like escorting/robbing caravans etc.). If you have a lot of cultivation points you can speed up the time a skill will take by (a) doing team practice until you are fatigued, or (b) spending bound silver (up to a daily limit) or unbound silver (with no limit).

2) To what extreme can you buy skill? and at what price? Does this mean some newbie comes along plunks down $2k and all of a sudden they are a kung fu god?

You can spend real money to progress your skills, but only up to a point. If you don't actually do stuff in game then you won't have xp to turn into cultivation points. No cultivation points means no amount of real money will progress your skills, because you have nothing to progress them with.

Also the combat is quite skill based. So it's perfectly possible if you know how to fight that you will beat someone more powerful than you if they make mistakes. As a "Realized Potential" character I have beaten a few "Martial Intuition" and "Flow with Chi" characters who underestimated me.

3) What kind of prices are we talking about?

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to this as I have only played the NA beta a little and mostly the Russian beta.

4) Everything is rental? for how long?

It's really best to think as gear and bags as non-permanent as this is a key element of the crafting and player economy. Unlike other MMOs where being a tailor is a bit pointless because everyone wears looted gear, here you will have big business in making bags and clothes. Gear has durability which goes down as you get killed (and perhaps over time, not sure) and bags have a timer. The starter bags have 100 hours and crafted bags have 720 hours. As far as I can tell this is in-game time.

Items from the cash shop (cosmetic outfits) have a 30 day timer. Horses also have a timer, again the starter horse is 14 days and others seem to be 30 days. Horses are bought from NPC vendors.

Originally posted by Wighty

I am way on the fence with this game. I am really looking forward to the "Year of Sandboxes" and this is on my radar. However I keep reading so many give and take articles as well as some of the posts from the actual developers that talks about buying skill is legit.

What I would like clarification on is:

1) Is the skill system normally like Eve where it is time progression?

Yes it is all time based, but can psuh it it a bit more with silver.

2) To what extreme can you buy skill? and at what price? Does this mean some newbie comes along plunks down $2k and all of a sudden they are a kung fu god?

You could spend enough gold and buy all the skill books but there is a daily limit on the amount of silver that can be used to level skills. So no godlike in a day.  Some skills take a lot of time to train, so there's no worry about this.

3) What kind of prices are we talking about?

prices will vary just like any MMORPG depending on the in game economy.  So this question can't be answered until the game goes live and has been live.

4) Everything is rental? for how long?

 Only bags, horses, and cosmetic clothing are rentals.  The gear you buy to improve your character has durability and cannot be repaired.  So eventually you'll ahve to buy more gear from players.  It keeps the eceonmy going.

Bottom line is I don't mind paying for my entertainment, but I don't want to be nickled and dimed to death the way I keep hearing about the way this game is monetized. I read how on the Chinese servers they keep "adding new monetizing schemes" which basically obsolete any prior investments.

 

I am hoping unbiased responses on how it plays out.

There really isn't much to buy with real money in this game.  What they hope you do is instead buy gold to exchange for silver to bump up your skills each day. But if you're diligent you shouldn't have to spend a dime on the game.

There are no skills in the cash shop... Pure cosmetic. 

You have 2 permanant slots for bags. You buy 6-8-10 slot bags from players that deteriorate. Inventory is not for sale in the cash shop.

Originally posted by bcbully

There are no skills in the cash shop... Pure cosmetic. 

 

You have 2 permanant slots for bags. You buy 6-8-10 slot bags from players that deteriorate. Inventory is not for sale in the cash shop.

 

 

Can you fix them, if so how?  Do other players fix them,or is it a cash shop item?

If not do you have to repeatedly purchase/ make the same item?

And is the rate of decay related to time spent online?  If not then it is very disadvantageous to casuals like me. 

Is this the last of my questions? Yes. 

AFAIK you cannot repair nothing and the bags are valid for a set number of hours, unfortunately I don't know if it's time spent online or not. But they are easy to make if you are a tailor (or a craftsman) and they don't sell for much on the market.

I'd worry more about food actually

Originally posted by Scarfe

Can you fix them, if so how?  Do other players fix them,or is it a cash shop item?

If not do you have to repeatedly purchase/ make the same item?

And is the rate of decay related to time spent online?  If not then it is very disadvantageous to casuals like me. 

Is this the last of my questions? Yes. 

Yes you can fix items, but never back to 100/100 so in effect you can prolong an item's life by fixing it, but not permanently. It will ultimately reach 0/100 and you'll have to buy a new one.

In terms of repeatedly buying the same item, for bags this is true. I do believe the crafted bags last 30 days of online time, so once that is up you'll need to buy some more. This is good for the economy. For gear and weapons, this is a bit more complex because recipes drop randomly meaning not all crafters will be able to make the same stuff. Then, weapons can be quenched and gear can be embroidered and rubbed with poisons to add stats/defence so once the economy is a bit more mature there should be a reasonably wide range of things to buy from other players.

The game is very playable as a casual, just as long as you don't expect all action all of the time. It's not that kind of game ultimately.

Originally posted by Scarfe

Originally posted by bcbully

There are no skills in the cash shop... Pure cosmetic. 

 

You have 2 permanant slots for bags. You buy 6-8-10 slot bags from players that deteriorate. Inventory is not for sale in the cash shop.

 

 

Can you fix them, if so how?  Do other players fix them,or is it a cash shop item?

If not do you have to repeatedly purchase/ make the same item?

And is the rate of decay related to time spent online?  If not then it is very disadvantageous to casuals like me. 

Is this the last of my questions? Yes. 

Rate of decay has to do with being hit and dieing I believe not time spent on line. You will have to keep making bags or buying new ones from players, not from the cash shop that is not available from them. You will also have to keep buying food from players. However this keeps the economy going and you wont get hungry unless you are actively logged in I believe. You can easily pick up cook or tailor to take care of half of those needs and then sell goods to pay for the other half.

Thanks for the information. I think I may give it a try.

From what I understand you are pretty much married to the one character that you create and if you go beyond a certain point you must wait to delete it. Furthermore the deluxe benefit is only for the one character you create and if deleted from what I understand those benefits are forfeited.

This leaves me confused as to which art to choose, considering there are 8 to choose from.

I have always prefered melee DPS, rogues, DPS warrior types. In sandbox games I usually skill up melee arts first and foremost.

Can anyone give any recomendations or link to a website?

Originally posted by Wighty

Thanks for the information. I think I may give it a try.

 

From what I understand you are pretty much married to the one character that you create and if you go beyond a certain point you must wait to delete it. Furthermore the deluxe benefit is only for the one character you create and if deleted from what I understand those benefits are forfeited.

 

This leaves me confused as to which art to choose, considering there are 8 to choose from.

 

I have always prefered melee DPS, rogues, DPS warrior types. In sandbox games I usually skill up melee arts first and foremost.

Can anyone give any recomendations or link to a website?

Take a look at the links below to get an overview of the different schools and their skills.

Player made guide:
http://www.ageofwushu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1779


Official guide (if you click on the skill images, you can review videos of the skills in action):
http://www.ageofwushu.com/guide/view/4

Before deciding on a specific school, you are free to make numerous free accounts to try them all out.

Also note, you will be able to steal skills from other schools.

Originally posted by Wighty

Thanks for the information. I think I may give it a try.

 

From what I understand you are pretty much married to the one character that you create and if you go beyond a certain point you must wait to delete it. Furthermore the deluxe benefit is only for the one character you create and if deleted from what I understand those benefits are forfeited.

 

This leaves me confused as to which art to choose, considering there are 8 to choose from.

 

I have always prefered melee DPS, rogues, DPS warrior types. In sandbox games I usually skill up melee arts first and foremost.

Can anyone give any recomendations or link to a website?

Melee dps is pretty much going to be any and all

Wanderer Valley has some nice tricks including the ability to shut down your enemies skills down for a few second (they can still move but not much else)

Royal Guard are masters of controlling other peoples movement, they use chains and hooks to yank you around the battle field like a yoyo. They also have an AoE chain twirl that is rather annoying and a few hand to hand moves that I do not like being on the recieving end of.

Tangman- has some melee but this is the most rangish class in Wushu at the moment. Think ninja with poison and darts and you are not far off the mark. Can be the hardest to kill or the easiest to kill depending on if you can get close to them. If you want to be ranged and stand back in fights tangman does it best. They deal a lot of damage.

Emei- no idea, they seem to be able to heal and kick people around. All girls.

Wudang- One of the most pure power and considered in China to be OP, they have a lot of health moves that give them more health and several sword styles. I hear from the Wulin sites they get even more powerful with future upgrades, but as it stands I kick them around like a soccer ball. They can hide behind their guard like no one else.

Shaolin- Staves and kung fu, these guys are pvp nuts and spying on them is more of an invitation for a fight than any other school at the moment. They can keep you stunned and on the ground until you are dead if they are lucky and good. Slightly tanky as well. All dudes.

Beggers Sect- kind of like shaolin but less daze more hit you in the face with a stick.They have a palm based skill that if use correctly completely shuts me down, but rarely is it used correctly for whatever reason. (might be hard to time)

Scholars- Spin to win, they have an aoe move that can not be stopped, unfortunately they don't have much else to bring to the table with the sword. But the kicks they have are second to none and extremely powerful if you can pull it off in a fight.

later they will add option to make own perma fashion / from taht time almost no one buy fashions in chinese version

You can stay at 100% durability if You repair with tradeable currency, so best to wait till durability will be very low and then fix

later good mounts will be available from guild stable   whats now in NA and RU versions is only small % of chinese content which get big patches each few months

Ok so I dove in with both feet and purchased the Deluxe (for $20 you can't go wrong). I created my character and went through some game tutorial... 

Everything is fine until I picked a school. I chose Wudang as it seemed like a good fit. However, I am not sure if it is translation, ui, or if I am just a moron but I am very confused here and am hitting a wall.

I am not sure if I totally grasp the progression system... So every few minutes I accumulate cultivation points and if I go to my skills I can use cultivation points on them which takes several hours to advance. I see there are 2 other options Practice Martial arts and Team practice, but not sure where to go for team practice. I see it being spammed in school chat yet noone really reponds. 

This also leaves me confused as to which skills I should focus on being that I am a total newb and am suddenly flooded with choices.

I also hit a wall with my questline. I have to duel some evil tiger herald outside of a stronghold. I formed a team by myself and went to progress the dialogue but the person it is telling me I have to fight is not listed.

Again if anyone can help out or direct me to a guide (maybe specific to Wudang or questlines) I would greatly appreciate it!

Originally posted by Wighty

Ok so I dove in with both feet and purchased the Deluxe (for $20 you can't go wrong). I created my character and went through some game tutorial... 

 

Everything is fine until I picked a school. I chose Wudang as it seemed like a good fit. However, I am not sure if it is translation, ui, or if I am just a moron but I am very confused here and am hitting a wall.

 

I am not sure if I totally grasp the progression system... So every few minutes I accumulate cultivation points and if I go to my skills I can use cultivation points on them which takes several hours to advance. I see there are 2 other options Practice Martial arts and Team practice, but not sure where to go for team practice. I see it being spammed in school chat yet noone really reponds. 

This also leaves me confused as to which skills I should focus on being that I am a total newb and am suddenly flooded with choices.

 

I also hit a wall with my questline. I have to duel some evil tiger herald outside of a stronghold. I formed a team by myself and went to progress the dialogue but the person it is telling me I have to fight is not listed.

 

Again if anyone can help out or direct me to a guide (maybe specific to Wudang or questlines) I would greatly appreciate it!

Welcome to the crackhouse.

Ok as touched on above this game is similar to the EvE system but at the same time it's not. You get exp from doing various things. This will convert to cultivation points at a certain rate then those points convert to skills:

EXP----(optional booster items)-----Cultivation-----(Optional Bossters)------Skill

Internal Cultivation you will be using most often as the most EvE like skill system. The only downside is there are no skill queues so you need to be aware of the same and further the skill along manually.

Martial Arts is the "P2W" aspect where you pay money for training. You can pay both types of silver and after a few days you should have a decent amount of NPC silver. It's not that bad to pay to the max and get a few points. The Player Silver or silver converted from gold is where you can end up spening a lot of money because there is no limit. Contratry to what people say, you can't just pay and max everything out from day 1. You have to still have cultivation points and if there is no exp to convert, you won't have anything to use.

Team Practice is like DDR where you join with up to 10 people and do keystrokes in sucession. It sometimes takes very long to form a team but it is worth it because the exp gain is pretty massive compared to internal. Also helps for those that don't have or don't want to spend Player Silver on skills.

As far as what to level up, Your school internal skill(not city internal skill)  is at or near the top of the list. It isn't the end all be all though because it is mainly for HP and MP. If you keep all your skills at 1 you will still hit pretty weak, especially against other players. So finding the right balance is up to you and your preferences. 

As far as the School quests, not sure on that one.

For craftinhg and instances check some of the guides people posted here. They are very good in my opinion.