I really played "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game" for three days.
Saying this sentence makes people feel a little embarrassed. I thought about the source of this "shame" for a long time - in 2023, "mobile games" have long been a kind of mass entertainment that will not be subject to too much prejudice, and "MMORPGs" will sound a bit of a classical game genre.
But the combination of the two, "mobile game MMORPG", is often associated with "less decent" words such as forced social and Pay To Win.
As a product that is very out of line in terms of publicity, "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game" has been keen on cue friends and even its own products since its inception, and many slogans are as loud as the "breathing rivers and lakes" of Duanyou back then: restore IP, AI technology, exquisite graphics, single-machine experience, and also focus on a non-liver, non-krypton, and no selling value.
Before the open beta of the game, if someone told me that mobile MMOs can deliver on such promises, my thoughts would probably be like this:
But after playing for a few days, I found that the mobile game against the water and cold is like finally meeting netizens who have been chatting for a long time on social software, if you want to say that people take good photos, then everyone will definitely do some reasonable beautification of their photos; But ask if the packaging and propaganda is honest – it's really the same thing.
1
"MMORPGs can also be made into cyber cacti?"
This is my most unexpected impression of the mobile game against the water.
As we all know, cacti have excellent water retention adaptability, put on the windowsill to look good, easy to maintain, forget ten days and a half months will not have an accident. In the context of players in the past two years, "cyber cactus" is used to describe some games that do not have much "pressure to work", and they can be raised every day if they want to play, and they will not lose anything if they don't play, so that they will die without catching up with the version of cactus for a few days.
Of course, this word is generally used to refer to some two-dimensional games that compare Buddha. When it comes to MMORPGs, I probably think "what else can a mobile MMO do", but Counterwater does create a "not in a hurry" single-player experience for players in various ways.
For example, after coming to the big world scene after the newbie story at the beginning of the game, I will see a circle of players surrounding the plot NPC like a traditional MMO, and the familiar world channel and big speaker will flash on the UI.
But as long as you click the "story immersion mode" in the lower left corner, these "multiplayer" parts will all be blocked, only the most basic buttons and interactive functions remain, and even a bunch of common activity entrances and classic "red dots" of mobile games will be hidden, if the interactive UI can be hidden again, it is really similar to single-player games.
Mobile game MMO players often complain that "less event buttons are more difficult than X planned XX", which is really not easy
As long as players are willing, they can always experience the plot and explore the world, and they will not encounter common MMO social needs (forced) (forced) such as mandatory team tasks, and even the copy supports taking NPC teammates to brush together - I know FF14 has this function for a long time, but this is a domestic MMO mobile game.
And the reason why it is said to be the "cyber cactus" of the MMO industry is that this "no liver and no krypton" has also fulfilled its promise. No, Krypton is true. Click into the mall, it is true that only the appearance is sold, the part involving gameplay, and only the small payment of the pass.
No, it is a physical system like the second game, which limits the income of daily games to avoid "moving bricks". The game also adds a mechanism called "the same path", whether it is playing PVP competition or PVE content, in the end, everyone has the same income, and you can also brush off every day you don't want to do it, and replace it with a clock-in task that only takes a few minutes to solve.
The guidance also clearly distinguishes players with different preferences
Even if it is only the first few hours of play, from the perspective of paid guidance and retention design, the reverse water cold mobile game is completely anti-traditional mobile game MMO design - of course, it inevitably has a significant mobile game flavor in the copy and screen, but if you ignore the publicity history and manufacturer background, and only focus on the product itself, the experience of "Against the Water Cold Mobile Game" can be described as a "bucket".
2
"Bucket" refers to a large amount of fullness.
Regardless of how different players evaluate the presentation, "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game" does try to provide a single-player game-like main story experience.
For example, in the process of completing the main story, players are not "one road to the dark" like most MMOs, but there is a real selection branch, and the previous behavior will affect the subsequent plot choice.
In addition, the completion of scene exploration and the victory or defeat of the battle will also be linked to the direction of the plot. If you focus on the main line, do not go to the boss to find out the information, find some key props from other NPCs, there will only be one or two options left in many plot options later, corresponding to the protagonist's "stunned blue who doesn't care about anything" personality, which is also very reasonable.
After completing an entire chapter of the story, open the full story tree, and you will find that the story in the game is actually the same as a game like Detroit: Become a Man, showing a complex network structure.
In addition to the rich plot network, the previously hyped "Against the Water and Cold GPT" is also a real experience point.
Like NPCs with built-in AI, although they do not cover all characters, there are still a lot of them in the game. In my own case alone, I can encounter several stories that occur between NPCs in the city, such as "Blind Date Hunt", "Girlfriend Quarrel", and "Scumbag Cheating".
Depending on what the player enters in text or voice, AI NPCs will react differently, completely changing the choices they will make in this episode. Whether it is reconciled or turned against each other basically depends on how the player stirs up in it.
My Blood River character also ran into a blind date scam
The AI in the game is interesting, but there is also a lot of room for growth. At this stage, the IQ of AI in the game is still very limited, far from being comparable to mature large-language models. Sometimes NPCs don't understand what I'm saying at all and give a bull's head or a horse's mouth - but this already makes people feel that the AI is interesting when they join.
The content design of the open world exploration part can also allow players to play a more diverse game experience.
For example, small puzzles hidden all over the world are common designs in open-world games, and they can also be seen everywhere in "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game".
A lotus flower suddenly blooms on the stone of the pool, which needs to be smashed with stones on the shore; 5 neatly arranged wine altars on the side of the road, you can knock out a tune in order; Or there are several lotus leaves in the water inexplicably formed a circle, swimming inside to find a treasure chest.
Some occasional random "adventures" will also place the protagonist in a special scene similar to a temple or dungeon, and you can get a reward after completing the puzzle.
I know that the sense of déjà vu is a bit strong, but the official himself does not shy away
The puzzles of "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game" are designed to be very simple, and you can get answers with a little thought, and the game does not rely on the difficulty of solving puzzles to send fun, but on satisfying the player's curiosity. At the same time, the design of multiple elements in the combat system that are linked to each other can also be used in the decryption of the big world.
So although the puzzles are simple, the number of puzzles that can be encountered without walking a few steps is quite amazing, and the ingenious solutions also make these puzzles simple but not monotonous.
For example, use fire attribute moves to help children bake dry clothes
There are also many mini-games in the game that are nicknamed "4399" - such as "Mixed Rivers and Lakes" gameplay, which is a built-in word game. Players can randomly pick out a few attributes, choose a talent in life, and start spending their lives in the storyteller's story year by year. But just when I thought it was a game similar to the popular Life Restart Simulator a long time ago, it suddenly became a text adventure game.
I need to follow the attributes that I automatically simulated in the first 18 years old and choose how to spend my time and money every day. Whether to spend your body working, spending money on check-up spending, or wandering around for a day doing nothing. Depending on the choice, my attributes will change accordingly and I will encounter different adventures. Finally, under the influence of various attributes, living this lying text version of the life can be regarded as clearing a small game in the game.
If you see passers-by arguing on the street, you can also be used as a witness to help people clear their discord and experience the feeling of a detective.
Players need to listen to the dialogue between the two sides over and over again, and if they feel that there is a contradiction in any sentence, point it out and refute it. Through the flaws leaked after the NPC was refuted, further correct the content fabricated in his words, and finally help other NPCs who have been wronged find out the truth.
Although the cases are very small, the whole process is very complete, and it is quite interesting to come to such a section after strolling around and suddenly becoming a partner of justice.
This "and slow" is a clear tribute to games such as "Reverse Referee" and "Danganronp"
The reason why we say that the amount is full is that from repeatable quests and quests to one-time exploration content, there is everything in "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game", and I haven't had time to experience the manor and immortal cultivation gameplay. And the composition elements of these contents are quite mixed, and you can even see the traditional showmanship from P5 to Mario Odyssey, such as "100 floors if it is a man", or "from 3D to 2D".
In the previous test, some players ridiculed the anti-water cold mobile game as "bad news, stitching monster; Good news, all sewn". Whether such an evaluation is positive or derogatory may depend entirely on how the player sees it. At least I thought about Genesis more than once during the game: at first glance I thought "Huh? ", it's quite fun to play in, not to mention that Backwater Cold is an MMORPG.
3
How do you say MMORPG? This is a genre with a long history and widespread public recognition, but in recent years it can be called a decline.
The reason for the gradual decline of MMOs cannot be written in a single book. It can be said that with the changes of the times, many players have lost the ability and motivation to be able to "role-play", and players' needs for the "social" dimension of the game have also undergone major changes from ten years ago. From a commercial point of view, mobile game MMOs often have to bow to indicators such as numerical experience, payment model and activity, and are also destined to face huge content update pressure.
And "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game" talks about "making MMOs great again", which is of course a propaganda slogan in the first place.
But in how to paste this slogan, the mobile game against the water and cold has indeed carefully produced a large number of open world exploration and single-player main experience. In general, NetEase Thunderfire tries to get closer to two-dimensional mobile games in terms of making a paid model and content updates, while at the same time having traditional MMORPG fun options (social, teaming, gangs and quests...). The martial arts open world.
The MMORPGs that are still in operation in 2023 are usually divided into two types, one is WOW and FF14, needless to say; The other is that everyone understands that the official sells values directly, or uses 80% of the player's labor to serve 20% of the paying users.
At least as of the current situation, I think "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game" seems to sincerely want to run a third way.
For example, they want to earn money from three-dimensional advertisers in the game
Of course, regardless of these long-term goals, just in terms of open world design, "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game" is indeed enough in the mobile game MMOPRG track. For the open world to gain favor with players, the most important thing is to make the content rich and interesting. There are parts to explore, enough to support the player's curiosity that is always growing, so that the player does not enter the fatigue period too quickly, and then talk about something else.
After putting aside prejudice, who wouldn't want MMORPGs to really play some new tricks.