For a long time in the past, Xiu Xian can be said to be one of the favorite themes of Krypton gold skin swapping games together with themes such as Journey to the West and Three Kingdoms, which actually makes many players have a more negative impression of Xiu Xian's theme, equating it with low quality.
However, at the beginning of last year, the explosion of games such as "Ghost Valley Eight Wilds" and "One Thought Of Escape" can be said to have brought the theme of Xiu Xian, a domestic game "cliché", to the eyes of all players again with an interesting and high-quality image, and once again proved the national popularity and appeal of xiu xian theme in China.
Recently, the multiplayer online Xiuxian sandbox game "Too Desolate First Realm" developed by Optimus Interactive Entertainment (Ac Games) once again topped Steam's popularity and trend list, and also set off a wave of live broadcast fever on platforms such as Douyu, becoming one of the hits of the Xiuxian theme in the first half of 2022.
According to SteamDB, the game was launched on April 15, and by the time I finished writing, the number of people online at the same time was 24,900, and the highest number of online people once exceeded 33,000, which is already a pretty good result for indie games.
However, due to the fact that the game is still in the EA stage, there are various bugs, and after the launch of the service, it was also attacked by DDos, resulting in a server crash, and the evaluation of "Too Wild" on Steam was only "mixed", which received 59% of the praise from players.
When it comes to Optimus Interactive Entertainment, many people may have seen this company last time or in the news of tencent investment, last July, the information of the enterprise investigation showed that Chengdu Qianlong Interactive Entertainment added a shareholder "Guangxi Tencent Venture Capital Co., Ltd.", which holds 10% of the shares. At that time, according to public information, the team of Optimus Interactive Entertainment still had nearly 20 people, and the name of "The Beginning of the Wild" was still "Wild Zhiyi: Origins", and the publisher of the game also planned to be Yulika Studio.
But today, according to the official introduction, only 6 people participated in the production of the entire "Too Desolate Beginning", and the distributor was replaced by himself. Considering that the original team of more than 20 people is already stretched thin for 3D online game development, it is naturally impossible to open more than one project, GameLook can only say that in this context, it is very difficult for Optimus Interactive Entertainment to push the game online as much as possible.
Here's the promotional video for "The Beginning of the Wild":
Xiu Xian stitched the sandbox, something was wrong but just right
Although "Too Desolate Beginning" is priced at 68 yuan (currently discounted at 61 yuan), and there are two models of PVE and PVP, it is essentially not a buyout game, but an online game.
After completing the face pinch, players need to create their own Zongmen or join Zongmen, in the game, Zongmen is actually equivalent to a private server in Ark Survival Evolution. Since the game has no local saves, this means that when the player is kicked out of the server by the "suzerain", all the previous cultivation and resources are cleared, so for ordinary players, it is best to make three or five friends and build their own world together.
The PVP mode of "Tai Desolation Initial Realm" refers to the fact that the sect gates can attack each other, plunder resources, and is a season clearance mode, while in PVE, players only need to open secret realms, collect resources, and refine elixirs with the same door.
Here's a video of the game demo:
After officially establishing their own sect gate, although the player is a cultivator, he must also start from picking up garbage, build axes, stone pickaxes and other props to open up the wasteland, in addition to building the city and building of his own sect gate, as well as alchemy furnaces, refining furnaces and other necessary devices for cultivating immortals, he also needs to farm, hunt, cook, and maintain his basic survival.
However, "Too Desolate Beginning" is not a rough layer of Xiu Xian on the core of the game of sandbox survival, such as the most basic wilderness gameplay, players can transform into minotaurs regardless of gender, using immortals to mine, cut trees, hunt, improve efficiency and make a differentiated experience for the relatively boring collection process.
In addition, another system worth introducing is the game's secret realm, for the secret realm is also attached to the roguelike design, the level in the secret realm is randomly generated by the system, the treasure chest is scattered in the corner of the map, the player can get a random special Buff after each level, in order to cope with the battle of later levels, at the end of the secret realm, the player can get equipment, weapons and other rewards.
In fact, there are many similar sandbox survival elements in "The First Realm of the Wild", if it is not a reminder of Tsukiji, Jindan, etc., the pre-game experience is actually more inclined to games such as "Conan the Exile". The acquisition and upgrading of weapons, equipment, and magic weapons in the game are closely related to the construction system, and players need to pile up materials to upgrade buildings and devices, so as to refine more advanced elixirs to enhance their strength, so that they can challenge more advanced secrets.
This weakening of the Xiu Xian system and the integration of the construction of the survival system, although it may be a little out of the comfort zone for some of the old xiu xian players, but the actual experience is also enough to make people shine, this general bias to the single-player design for independent game teams is also easier to achieve than ordinary leisure online games rely on large multiplayer activities, roguelike and other elements to make the game experience also appear richer.
In particular, compared with the game's poor modeling, poor action mods, and no sense of blows, the advantages of gameplay are more prominent. To use the Steam player's "brick is not a corgi" comment is to describe it as "if you come in and play this game, rough is really rough, cutting air, bugs, jumping out, almost challenging the limits of the player's tolerance; but the xiu xian flavor is really strong, because it really does most of the concepts and stems of xiu xian novels into it." ”
It's not easy for indie developers
For "Too Desolate Beginning", some players call it the domestic light, and some players can't stand the game's bad server, poor modeling and various BUGs, bluntly saying that "even the mobile game is not as good, the cultivation is not like cultivation, the action is not like the action, the paper quality, do not waste money, even if it is domestic, it should be judged", but because the author observed some strange situations in the comment area of Steam and the player experience video, it also made the player's comments lose part of the reference role.
But in fact, it is not difficult to infer from the 38% praise on the first day of the game and the current 59% praise that although the reputation of the game's players is polarized, it is also gradually improving.
Like two early-morning releases, less than an hour apart, exactly the same comment
Compared with the deep water comment area, in fact, GameLook is more concerned about the production team of the game, that is, Optimus Interactive Entertainment, to know that an independent game team can get Tencent's investment before the game is launched is already the lucky one, from prosperity to "persistence is victory" in just one year, the special pair can also be regarded as a lot of solo team for several lifetimes.
According to the official post to the player after the game was launched, "A Letter to the Player: Written in the First Sleepless Night After the Launch", we may be able to get a brief glimpse of the experience of the team behind the game.
The community operation and game operation of "Too Desolate" posted in the Steam community that at the beginning of this year, the team was in financial emergency for various reasons, and all the staff began to reduce their salaries (I am afraid that this is also the time when the team began to reduce), and even due to financial constraints, the team has no way to buy a new graphics card, the whole team only has a GTX1080, the rest are 1050, 960 and the like, as for overtime, eating instant noodles is also a routine operation.
At the end of the essay, Optimus Interactive Entertainment also admitted that the current game is just a "version that we are willing to play and can play", "EA is online, not a best choice." But yeah, we want to try to make it better. ”
Although the whole article has a certain degree of suspicion of exaggeration and misery, but it does not prevent all those who have seen it from lamenting that "it is not easy to make independent games", Steam netizen "asjams" said, "I can see that they are selling miserably, but I also understand why they are so miserable", "Although it is not satisfactory at the beginning, this does not mean that they will not get better and better.".
Some players even said, "I have a 1080ti that I can borrow from you."
Although it is true that in recent years, many products under the banner of domestic games have disappointed in the quality of the game, but many players still choose to pay money and give the team their own tolerant expectations, GameLook can only say that the persistence of many independent gamers is worth it, and Optimus Mutual Entertainment can only live up to the confidence of players by repairing the problems existing in the game through follow-up efforts.
After all, judging from the game's current nearly 3,000 reviews, GameLook estimates that the sales of "Primeval Illusion" should also be about 100,000 sets, even if it costs 300,000 yuan to buy anti-DDOS solutions, the remaining funds are enough for the team to upgrade their equipment and recruit a few more people.
epilogue
As a classic theme, in a related article at the beginning of last year, GameLook emphasized that Xiu Xian games have entered a new stage. Nowadays, in independent games, seeing the integration of leisure and sandbox, survival and other gameplay also proves GameLook's judgment from the side, from this point of view, Optimus Interactive Entertainment and "The First Realm of the Wild" is undoubtedly successful.
But there are still many problems in the game, and the most basic point is that as some netizens said, independent games cannot survive by the patience and expectations of players. Although the author has the greatest sympathy for "The Beginning of the Wild" and Optimus Mutual Entertainment, the author still looks forward to the future domestic independent games in a more perfect form for players under the condition of conditions.
I don't know when to start, all walks of life are "future can be expected", the functions on the mobile phone conference can not be experienced for the first time, you need to wait for the future OTA push update; the first time the content in the game promo can not be experienced, you need to wait for the content update of the repeated jump tickets; the game content is not enough, or bugs fly all over the sky to pull EA as a fig leaf, or even rebuilt, three years and three years.
Today players have given patience and anticipation to one game, and the future will be presented in the form of another bad review of a similar game.
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GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
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