For a long time, china's MMO market has basically had two major categories, one is martial arts, and the other is xianxia. Strictly speaking, Xian Xia is also part of the martial arts derivative.
As a unique culture in the Chinese cultural circle, Wuxia has continued to nourish China's cultural and creative industry for many years, and in the field of games alone, countless classic IPs with unique value have been born. Among them, the number of supporters and the degree of influence are long, and there are few right-handers who are out of the Western Mountains.
On December 29, 2021, the martial arts MMO mobile game "Sword Man World 3" developed by Xishanju Games was launched on all platforms without deleting files, and under the momentum of more than 6 million reservations on the whole network, "Sword Man World 3" topped the App Store free list on the first day of its launch, and successively won a series of achievements such as the best-selling list TOP9, Apple Today recommendation, and hardcore alliance superstar products.
At a time when the MMO category is no longer absolutely dominant and the market competition is becoming increasingly hot, the success of "Sword Man World 3" has undoubtedly injected a shot in the arm to the martial arts theme and the MMO market. But what people did not expect is that like the swordman love IP that has been beautiful after 25 years, the story of the swordsman world series has been continuing.
Guard the rivers and lakes in memory, and tell the classic martial arts in a new language
Swordman Love Affair originated in 1997, is China's first batch of martial arts IP, but also the birth of China's first original martial arts online game, its history spans the single machine, terminal game, mobile game multiple eras, is a rare treasure in the history of Chinese games, for the industry and players to contribute a large number of high-quality products and innovations.
After the transformation of Xishanju to develop online games, "Sword Man Love Online Edition" and "Sword Man Love Online Edition 2" have been great success, and in 2005, Xi Shan Ju opened the development of the next generation of sword man love series products, and "Sword Man World" terminal tour is one of them. In 2008, the first self-developed 2.5D engine in the opening of the first generation of "Sword Man World" end game opened, and in the case of the general capacity of 2D games at that time, the "Sword Man World" closed beta client was close to 2G, setting another industry record.
As the third of the trilogy of the Swordsman Love Series, the story of "Sword Man World" inherits the "Sword Man Love Online Edition", focusing on the children's love and homeland feelings of the jianghu characters, reflecting the background of the era of Song Jin fierce battles, and is loved by countless players. The highest number of simultaneous online users is close to 500,000, reaching the level of super first-line. In Southeast Asia, "Sword Man World" also achieved eye-catching results, with 14 million registers in Vietnam, which was the highest-paid end game in Vietnam from 2010 to 2013.
In addition to the art, music and story of the extreme, to create an orthodox martial arts game atmosphere, in terms of gameplay, "Sword Man World" breakthrough provides a differentiated experience of the battlefield of 10,000 people, as well as the social system refined into the family, in addition and subtraction has achieved a good balance, becoming the coordinate system of reference for many subsequent martial arts games.
And Xishanju "Sword Man World 3" mobile game this time, also in the forefront of the industry. The game takes the cutting-edge development process as the benchmark, enables a variety of "black technology" to improve the quality of the game, including a real-time weather system that alternates day and night, rain and snow, a super 3,000-meter visual distance that can overlook the landscape and water towers at a glance, a face pinching system with more than 100 kinds of parameters at will, and a meticulous world interactive content such as piano music, hot springs, treasure digging, water, land and air mounts, etc.
In a sense, "Sword Man World 3" really does it and step into the two rivers of classics and innovation at the same time. On the one hand, the game abandons the fancy function to return to PK, wild monster snatching, and resolutely draws a line to the exaggerated winds such as blind and large wings, allowing players to relive the orthodox classic jianghu in their memories. On the other hand, the team takes the user experience as the center, integrates innovations such as PBR high-precision models and original royal carving light gong, and gives new life to the classics.
Royal Eagle Flight
Players familiar with martial arts may know that the "martial arts" we know today is actually not a long history, and its spiritual core is created by the "new school of martial arts literature" represented by Liang Yusheng, Jin Yong and Gu Long. Unlike the "old school martial arts", the most important feature of the "new school of martial arts" is the active absorption of new things, and the emphasis from "wu" to "xia", which tends to emphasize the connection between personal fate and the fate of the homeland.
Yes, the vitality of "Wuxia" is rooted in "New", which is why the upcoming update of the sect "Hidden Sword" is so important to "Sword Man World 3". For "Sword Man World 3", the Tibetan sword is a bridge connecting the sword man love IP classic and the innovation of "Sword Man World 3", and doing a good job in the Tibetan Sword Sect can "Sword Man World 3" keep up with the trend of the times.
Break through the boundaries and shine with new technologies
In an interview, producer Xiao Langge once proposed that the expansion of new content is indispensable. At the same time, Xishanju also knows that the content that players really crave is not much. However, in the field of MMOs, it is not uncommon for a product planning, art, and program to suffer for months of content, and players will experience it in 10 minutes.
The consistent solution of "Sword Man World" is that each faction in the game has its own unique mechanisms, such as the sword qi of Wudang and the arrow of Bai Lu, and this practice is also continued in "Sword Man World 3".
In the new expansion pack launched on February 23, Sword Man World 3 brings players a new sect of hidden swords, as well as new plots, new gameplay, new scenes and new body types, as well as free door and shape system. Among them, the light sword and epee double sword gameplay obviously adheres to the team's consistent design ideas, which not only brings a new mechanism for switching weapons at will, but also creates more experience space and possibilities for the gameplay experience.
Sword Man World 3 New Gate Sect Hidden Sword
The Hidden Sword is the sixth gate sect in the jianghu of Sword Man World 3, and the first dual-weapon sect. The so-called "hidden sword", as the name suggests, is to hide the sword in the sword, holding a light sword, carrying a heavy sword, the light sword is flexible and elegant to use, and the heavy sword is wide open, strong and powerful, allowing the player to switch back and forth in two completely different styles.
In fact, although the "Hidden Sword Villa" was first from Gu Long's "Amorous Swordsman Ruthless Sword", it was not introduced too much in the book, and another master, Jin Yong, did not mention this sect. Most of the public's understanding of the Hidden Sword Villa actually comes from the Swordsman series of games.
In 2001, sword lovers: Legend of the Moon Shadow first launched the Hidden Sword Villa. Then in the "Sword Man World", the Tibetan sword sect has appeared, from the cloud town to find the dragon fifth master, you can teleport from him into the Hidden Sword Mountain Villa, the middle of several huge sculptures are very eye-catching, including Gan General, Mo Xie, Ou Zhizi, Ouyang Chengxin and other predecessors are all ranked, they are the founders of the sect, unfortunately, in that old work, the Hidden Sword Mountain Villa is not an optional sect, only as a mission location.
And the most well-known is definitely the hidden sword of "Sword Net 3", "Sword Net 3" will take the hidden sword to a new height, deeply loved by players. As early as 2011, Jinshan once filmed a TV series related to swordsmanship, called "Sword Man Love Of Hidden Sword Villa", which is enough to see the status of Hidden Sword in the entire Sword Man Love series. To this day, the Tibetan sword is highly mature in both the setting and the martial arts moves, as a family of sword casting, the disciples of the Tibetan sword are mostly gold stonemasons, studying the way of casting swords, and the weapons used are also light and heavy swords.
IP culture is constantly iteratively developing, of course, how familiar genres bring new ideas to players has always been the old difficulty faced by many classic MMO mobile games. For Sword Man World 3, it seems that there is no problem, in the game, the development team has created an open, free, and vivid jianghu, four large body types, six types of appearances, hundreds of parameters of the highly personalized face pinch system, allowing each player to incarnate a different image, giving the jianghu world a vibrant life.
The ultra-long-range visual range of 3,000 meters brings a cross-era gaming experience, and the real-time weather system not only has four seasons to change, but also the interaction between people includes different dimensions such as cooperative confrontation and companionship.
The most commendable thing is the distinctive family mechanism of the "Sword Man World" series, a large number of gameplay in the game is designed around the family, and the family that is smaller than the gang and larger than the lone wolf not only finds a delicate balance between comfortable social interaction, but also creates a unique warmth.
There is also a face-to-face transaction, a new expansion pack updated hero system, so that players in every corner of the "Sword Man World 3" game, can feel that they are part of this world, but also let the entire jianghu are full of real fireworks, giving a more three-dimensional sense of immersion. The settings not only deepen the connection between players and players, but also forge a bond between players and the game, which ensures that World of Swordsmen 3 can always have a place in the player's life, and even if it leaves for a while, it will eventually return because of new content or an atmosphere that is difficult to give up.
Such a free and unique experience means that any new genre and new gameplay will produce exponential chemistry and bring players endless freshness.
In GameLook's view, the new expansion pack "Sword Man World 3" completes the common expectations of many MMO products, not only to make a game, but also to make players can become another virtual world of their own, but compared to the larger and complete, "Sword Man World 3" is more on the unique temperature of the jianghu. The reason is that GameLook believes that adhering to the concept of "classic martial arts in the new era" is the ladder on which "Sword Man World 3" relies for success.
Progress with the times, everything is based on the player's appeal
In the past, the biggest challenge of MMO products was that the importance of social systems led to a high desire for user scale, and a large number of users meant that the demand continued to refine, forcing MMOs to continuously introduce various functions to meet the needs of different types of players, and ultimately making MMO products more and more bloated. The core gameplay of the whole game is not prominent enough, there is content, but there is no core gameplay.
The problems faced by MMO are not unique in the world, and Final Fantasy 14 producer Naoki Yoshida has said that not wanting to deal with social networking in the game and the high threshold for getting started is the main pain point for players not to enter the pit MMO. Admittedly, more and more MMO products are trying to attract users by adding a large number of casual gameplay, and then seeking to use the game's own charm to transform casual players into hardcore MMO fans.
But obviously, the gameplay integration is not the goal of "Sword Man World 3" that wants to create a "classic martial arts of the new era", which means that Xishanju will have to take a more difficult path: using micro-innovation to achieve a fresh experience that is close to or even beyond radical innovation.
In the face of this problem, first of all, the "Sword Man World 3" team established the premise of the research and development idea of "classic martial arts in the new era", emphasizing the promotion of traditional Chinese culture and classic martial arts culture, and innovating without losing the core charm of martial arts MMOs. Specifically, on the one hand, it increases the absolute depth of the content through each unique genre, and on the other hand, it provides the width of the content created by casual gameplay.
Coupled with the high circulation economy system of face-to-face transactions, players of different consumption levels can get their due benefits, and the team strives to ensure that every player can find their own comfort zone in Sword Man World 3. Based on the needs of players, treat players well, and constantly keep up with the pulse of the times, perhaps this is the reason why the Sword man love series IP has lasted for 25 years, and the classic sword man series can still grow against the trend.
With the development of categories, the migration of the market, and the changes of the times, players' expectations for MMOs are also changing, just like the transformation of the new martial arts to the martial arts culture, the transformation of "Sword Man World 3" is obvious to all. Not only is the in-game graphics more exquisite and the gameplay more diverse, but the case of players outside the game knowing and falling in love with each other also shows that the martial arts game shown in "Sword Man World 3" is not only a martial arts, but also a more important companion.
Of course, all martial arts works, whether novels, movies, games, or games, inevitably answer the ultimate question: What is martial arts? Mozi said "both love, non-attack", Li Bai said "ten steps to kill a person, a thousand miles do not stay", Jin Yong said "the great hero, for the country and the people"
GameLook privately believes that the essence of martial arts is pure freedom, which is the embodiment of the unique concept of nature of the unity of heaven and man. Born free, but not out of chains. Through the surface of art involution, gameplay innovation, and technological upgrading, the desire and pursuit of players for the "free" core of martial arts is the root of the evergreen wuxia IP. This is also the foundation of the Swordsman World since its birth in 2008, which has been loved by players and has become a major backbone of Xishanju and even the classic martial arts culture.
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GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
Global vision / depth is material