Text/Liang Zi

There are few masterpieces that have done such a good job of secrecy as "Glory of Kings". In the past two years, although they have opened several closed betas, no matter whether it is official, or Tieba, Station B, game-related pictures and videos are rare. No one knows what the game is really like right now. Of course, that also includes Grape King.

Since today, 3 years ago, the first video of "Glory of Kings World" was officially released, there have only been 8 videos in total. Six of them are actual videos. The same number of videos were released at the same time as "Black Myth: Wukong". But compared with the 10-minute actual video of the Black Myth, "The Glory of Kings World" seems a little stingy. The longest video of the 6 real machines is only 6 minutes and 44 seconds.

This also makes the reputation of this game on the Internet has been in a polarized state, on the one hand, players who don't believe that this is a real demonstration of the real machine, thinking that this is a pie project; On the one hand, there are players who have participated in the closed beta or core IP fans who have high expectations for the game.

Obviously, the former is much larger in number and volume than the latter. However, the project team of the world of kings does not seem to be in a hurry about this, there is no official response, no KOL to help them stand on the platform, and no longer demo content of the actual machine. There are usually two possibilities for Tencent's games: the existing things are really not enough to see, so they can only choose to be passive and silent; Or out of the consideration of anticipation management and the rhythm of publicity, choose to take the initiative to be silent.

On October 26, after participating in the trial of "Glory of Kings World", it is certain that the possibility of "passive silence" is not too great. Don't worry, I'm not going to start blowing about how good the game is, but after more than two hours of experience, there are some objective facts that can be confirmed: for example, on the 4080 machine, you can almost see a higher quality game picture and smoothness than the video; For example, it is not a kryptonite MMO dressed in an open-world skin, it is indeed an open-world RPG that does not take shortcuts, does not take shortcuts, and is real.

We should now be able to try to describe what the game looks like now. It's just that players, KOLs, and media participating in the trial need to sign a confidentiality agreement on the spot, and put the mobile phone in a sealed bag before entering. So we can't bring out any screenshots or screen recordings. You can only share some of the game's pros and cons with memories.

01

Before playing, I had a certain expectation of the size of the map in the world of kings. Last year, I watched the trial experience of the UP main smart barricade, and it took him 27 minutes to run from the spawn point to the Tower of Babel.

"Glory of Kings World" currently shows nine major areas, and this experience only opens some scenes in the Zhulu area.

This time, when I experienced the content of "The Biography of Zhaojun", I also deliberately wandered around the map for a while (there were no quests collected in the demo version). Even though I didn't walk for 30 minutes, I was able to feel the "bigness" of the map. Even because I went too far, I found the map easter egg task by mistake. In the end, I was kindly reminded by the staff to take the wrong road, and then I went back to the main line.

Of course, the size of the map is not a criterion for the quality of a game, and the most attractive thing about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is definitely not the large map itself, but based on the fascinating exploration and puzzle-solving gameplay on the vast map, Elden Ring has risen to the throne with its huge content volume and amazing content diversity.

As for "Glory of Kings World", it has at least spread out a big pie, and the final success or failure depends on what ingredients are spread on this cake.

02

The tempering system can be called the most unique setting in the game. Each player can learn the tempering of various heroes by traveling around the world, and can choose any two sets of tempering during the battle and switch freely. This means that every player can use dual characters and have dual health bars during battle. This is also the very core combat mechanism of "Glory of Kings World", with the tempering switch, which greatly enhances the richness of the battle.

For example, I focused on Dongfang Yao and Hua Mulan this time. Dongfang Yao's 3 skills in the king return to dust, have the effect of returning to the position 2 seconds ago. In the 3D scene of the world of kings, the sense of action substitution is stronger, so that Yao, who has double displacement in the world of kings, is more mobile and lighter, and it is easy to play gorgeous combos after skillful operation. Mulan's switching combat posture also has a sense of substitution. And when using the ultimate, you can switch tempering to achieve Yao and Mulan's floating combos. This is where the World of Kings really shines in battle.

Not only that, but while it retains the restoration of basic skills, it also makes corresponding magic changes to the skills of many heroes.

For example, Garo's skill is only increased in damage in Glory of Kings, but the attack speed remains the same, and there will be a more obvious bonus to the effect of random arrows in the world of kings;

There is also a support hero Sun Bin, the original skill is to hit the enemy will attach a bomb to his body, 3 seconds later, to cause explosion damage, in the world of kings to add a mechanism to this skill is that the higher the damage caused during the bomb possession, the greater the damage when exploding. This has improved the combat experience of different heroes.

If you are a Honor of Kings player, I believe you will feel a different kind of refreshment when you experience these familiar skill combos. And the process of choosing which two characters to temper will definitely be a great fun of this game. These roles, which belong exclusively to the king's IP, may really have an impact on its target audience.

Another point worth mentioning is the feel of the action and the feedback on the hits. When I watched the videos of the past World of Kings before, I had one concern that was the same as many players, that is, the game's feedback was insufficient.

In the past action games, it was easier for players to have a good impression of "hitting with a sense of blows", which usually had a "heavy feeling". In the world of kings, because the game as a whole is based on the worldview background of oriental fantasy, the character settings and skill design are not "heavy", and more attention is paid to fast combos and lightness. Therefore, the blow performance in the video naturally cannot have the same sense of blow as "Monster Hunter" and "Nioh".

However, when it comes to the actual experience, in general, I felt more than I expected. Because during the whole battle, whether it is a slight pause when the monster is hit, or the action performance of the player when it is hit, there is feedback, and the sound performance is relatively uniform. And its degree of freedom runs throughout, for example, when the hero jumps, it can also cast skills, and if you pick a monster into the air, you can achieve aerial combos. It's completely different from watching a video.

However, the battle was not without its problems. The biggest problem comes from the fact that the feel and combat feedback of ranged heroes such as Jia Luo, Meng Lu, Sun Bin, and Wang Zhaojun are obviously not as good as those of Yao and Mulan. The sense of attack of weapons is prominent and intuitive, but the sense of attack feedback of bows, guns, and magic is much weaker.

There are about a dozen heroes in the tempering in "Glory of Kings World", and "Glory of Kings" has 114 heroes so far, of which most are ranged heroes. What can be seen with the naked eye is that the content space that can be filled in the future king world is huge, and there is almost no problem with the richness of content. The difficulty lies in how to make most of these heroes also get a better combat experience.

03

In this trial, the official provides six chapters that can be experienced. If I had to pick one of my favorites, it would be "Biography of Zhaojun".

It is different from the battle level of red and blue buffs, and it is also different from the puzzle level of Lost in the Abyss. The biography of Zhaojun is an exclusive hero quest, which completely shows a section of Wang Zhaojun's Northern Wilderness coming to Jixia to visit the Baicao family, looking for the secret method of obtaining the resurrection of dry plums. And the story of finally reuniting with his sister buried under the plum tree.

Swipe left to see the image

The wonderful thing about this quest line is that we can finally see what Tencent looks like as a content-oriented game. They want to flesh out the character design by creating a story behind the image of Wang Zhaojun's plum blossoms. In the game, through their strong graphics and dynamic performance of mocap-level characters, it is difficult not to let people be substituted into the plot.

I even think that this is the most important meaning of "Glory of Kings". It is to continue the vitality of the IP through a new game, and at the same time, solve the problem that the previous IP world view was too scattered, resulting in players not knowing much about the background of the hero, and it is even more difficult to perceive the hero's story.

These are too important for the king IP.

As a nine-year veteran of Honor of Kings, a veteran player who plays the king every season, if you ask me about the backstories of more than 100 heroes, I am ashamed to say that maybe 99% of them can't tell. But after trying Zhaojun's biography this time, I actually took the initiative to check Wang Zhaojun's background story.

And to my surprise, in the penultimate sentence of the heroic story, "Her elegant, beautiful, bright eyes full of sorrow" are almost perfectly reproduced in the game. The close-up of Wang Zhaojun's appearance, the richness of his expression is amazing.

The complete expression of these exclusive content of the Glory of Kings heroes allows players to truly immerse themselves in the process of experiencing the game, without thinking that this is a so-and-so like game.

I used to talk to my friends about what "Glory of Kings World" means to "Glory of Kings"?

This question may start with "Honor of Kings" itself, if such a game that has dominated the domestic game circle for nine years, what are the weaknesses. It can only be that it is a national game, but it has not really released the energy of this IP.

Most players' love and stickiness for Honor of Kings comes from social relationships and social ecology. Although the planning and world view teams have spent a lot of effort to complete the character background and world view of Honor of Kings, it is difficult to pass it on to more users due to the limited form of the game itself.

And "Glory of Kings World" is different, the product type based on stand-alone experience is naturally suitable for storytelling. The large open-world map allows players to see where the heroes really live, rather than being crammed into three paths in the canyon every day.

Of course, there are still many challenges and problems to be solved, and the research and development has yet to be "completed", let alone "perfect". It may not replicate the impact of World of Warcraft on Warcraft IPs, but it chose to do something difficult but right, and delivered such a high level of graphics quality and character performances, as well as enough ambitious large world maps and unique combat experiences, which is enough to give people reasons to look forward to.

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