Chapter 140: Chapter 139: Gameplay and Side Quests
Chen Mo’s once fuzzy memory became clear after using the Memory Playback Potion.
Tale of Wuxia was basically an updated version of Wulin Legend with no changes made to the story line other than a few minor corrections.
Chen Mo listed out every key item in both storylines in order to combine the both to get the most complete story.
Now that Chen Mo’s story writing level was maxed out in the first level, he believes that he can objectively improve on the story after making a few changes.
The main gist of the story was very clear, starting from entering Luoyang, Xiaoyao valley, Hangzhou City, Chengdu City, then the invasions of the cults. This progression was interspersed with a few side quests and backtracking back to Xiaoyao valley.
This timeline was pretty easy to recreate following the main gist, but that was all he needed as Zheng Hongxi will fill in the rest.
There were many paths in Tale of Wuxia, namely Eastern Depot, Beggars’ Sect, Wulin League Leader (Good), Wulin League Overtake (Evil), all leading to different endings.
The main character could become the leader of the Wulin League, but could also go into the path of killing all friends and relatives and overtake the Wulin League. They could also be a carefree head of the league, or become a judge or ranger. These were all choices the player could make.
Other than these endings, there were endings where the main character finds love, and even one specifically when they woo a specific girl.
Yes, you can find love in this game, you can give gifts, accept gifts, complete special quests, to eventually woo the girl.
Of course, there was also a harem ending.
Zheng Hongxi had plenty on his plate with this many endings.
Chen Mo also had to deal with drafts for characters scenes, combat system, live skills, and item system too.
Wulin Legend had more than one hundred and eighty characters, and most of these characters had unique looks, Wugong, or personalities.
Chen Who would give them a name and a rough sketch, then finished by Su Jinyu. The character design and background story will be finished by Zheng Hongxi.
Life skills including hunting, fishing, mining, and foraging. Each life skill had their own minigame and their own equipment system.
For example, there would be a chance of getting snake galls when hunting snakes, and a chance of getting the bear paw or bear gall when hunting bears. Some of the equipment could be sold for money, and others could be used for buffs, for example, eating snake galls can increase the player’s energy by one.
These life skills will have an effect on the player’s combat abilities. For example, ores from mining could be crafted into weapons, improving the player’s combat abilities.
The combat system also required a similar amount of effort.
Tales of Wuxia had a chess-like combat system similar to that of Heroes of Might and Magic. The player can move and attack once each round and have different areas, damage, and effects.
For example, the first stance of Dugu Nine Swords ignores their target’s defence, and could deal huge damage when combined with Aotian Sword and the weapons master talent. They could even solo the battlefield when combined with effects like multislash.
There were many other things that affect combat abilities other than Wugong such as cleaving, multihit, multi slash, items, and special buffs/debuffs making the combat extremely rich.
There were even different types of Wugong such as energy, fists, kicking, claws, swords, knives, dual wielding, staffs, short staffs, Guqin, and concealed weapons. They would have different attack ranges, area of effect, strength, and different effects. It included all well known weapons and fit well with how Wugong were set.
Of course, Chen Mo made some amendments to some of the flaws Wulin Legend had.
First was the art, in particular the art level was constantly increasing in remakes from Tales of Wuxia to Tale of Wuxia:The Pre-Sequel, but overall it wasn’t the game’s strong point.
Chen Mo wanted to oversee the entire artwork and character model process to ensure the models, animations, and scenes were the best they could be. He even planned to improve the special effects during combat to at least match the levels of the parallel world.
Second was the difficulty curve. He could include a few hints during certain events. For example, when the player gets stuck in a puzzle section for too long, NPCs would give some hints or allow players to train more, allowing players to complete the game without specific strategies.
Furthermore, Chen Mo gave the game two types of combat systems. First was turn based combat just like the original, the other being a fake RTS combat like Soul Hunters allowing players to control a character during combat, repositioning them or casting spells.
Moreover, Chen Mo improved on the inspect ability, allowing players to check their rating, strength, or combinations of their Wugong, essentially viewing how good their strategy was. When the player’s inspect ability wasn’t high enough, they could take the skill scroll to their master for inspection, allowing players to easily differentiate between strong and weak Wugong.
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The entire combat system would be managed by Qian Kun. Chen Mo gave these abilities a quick overview as Qian Kun wouldn’t know things like Dugu Nine Swords and cleaving.
Moreover, Chen Mo would also give a quick overview of the locations of the enemies and the level designer of Qian Kun.
Other systems such as t.i.tles, recruiting warriors, relationship with NPCs, and wooing girls would be done by Su Jinyu.
Su Jinyu, Zheng Hongxi, and Qian Kun were getting better and better at their jobs after making Warcraft. They now had no problems understanding what Chen Mo was looking for from his design concepts, making the development go smoothly without any communication problem.
Warcraft could be described as a key obstacle, and once his a.s.sistants overcame it, they were able to work on games much more efficiently.
Su Jinyu was completing the character artwork in the experience store.
The main character was called Dongfang Weiming in Wulin Legend, but the players could freely change their name and looks in Tales of Wuxia.
Wen Lingwei was also helping with colouring.
“Goldfish, why are there so many avatars? The only thing different is their expression, they basically all look the same,” questioned Wen Lingwei.
Su Jinyu nodded, “Yeah, it’s to give the players choice.”
Wen Lingwei was confused, “What does that do?”
Su Jinyu explained after a pause, “It’s probably to allow players to customise their characters and allow them to match their looks with their personality. The personality of the character isn’t set, so the players can play as the protagonist or antagonist.”
“Oh,” Wen Lingwei nodded, “That sounds like there’s a lot of content, like a visual novel.”
“Yeah, this game takes some inspiration from that. But the difference is still huge, and there is much more content in this game than visual novels.” said Su Jinyu.
Wen Lingwei was worried, “This seems like a game I could play. But will there be no problems stuffing all these different playstyles into one game? It feels like it’s going to be a game that has no place.”
“It’s hard to tell, who knows before the game is complete. But I think we should trust the manager, he must know what’s up,” a.s.sured Su Jinyu.