The domestic end tour is too big, and it will not be a sequel for 14 years. The research and development expenses are enough to make three new games.
I was a little disappointed after watching the anniversary of Sword Net 3 this year.
Why? Because the "Sword Net 4" I’m looking forward to is probably hopeless.
To tell the truth, the game "Sword Net 3" has been online for 14 years, so a long-lived game would be that any manufacturer would prepare for the sequel early to accept the IP audience. However, Xishanju did not do this, and still tried his best to optimize Sword Net 3.
Photo of the 14th Anniversary Conference of Sword Net 3
In fact, last year, Guo Weiwei, CEO of Xishanju and producer of Sword Net 3 series, said in an interview with the media that it was more important to concentrate on Sword Net 3 itself than to prepare Sword Net 4.
In an interview in 2022, Guo Weiwei said that he would focus on Sword Net 3 instead of considering new works.
This has basically made it clear that there will be no possibility of "Sword Net 4", but I still won’t give up until the emergence of the flagship version of Sword Net 3 this year.
Jian Wang 3 Ultimate Official Announces Main Vision
Generally speaking, sequels are often a series of upward actions such as technical upgrading, content optimization and experience innovation on the basis of the previous works. To put it another way, if a manufacturer operating an old-fashioned product has ushered in a comprehensive upgrade of technology, it often gives priority to developing sequels to realize the iteration of old-fashioned products, and can better undertake the original audience users.
On the other hand, "Sword Net 3", whether it is the remake upgrade in 2017 or the overall evolution of this year’s flagship edition, all choose to optimize the original products, without mentioning the development of sequels at all, and there is quite a momentum of "not hitting the south wall and not looking back".
The promotion of the flagship edition of Sword Net 3 seems to declare that the team will continue to operate Sword Net 3 instead of starting a sequel.
But in fact, players will have some worries, whether this flagship version will improve the game threshold while optimizing, just like the original remastered version. This reminds me of the original remake …
The remastered picture becomes beautiful, but it scares away the players?
Many old players of "Sword Net 3" should know that the game has always maintained a hand-painted style until the public beta of the game in 2009 and the remastered version in 2017. Even at the beginning of the launch, such a picture performance was acceptable to players, but nine years has also changed the standard of game quality dramatically, and the voice of players in the group hoping that the game can have an image quality upgrade is getting louder and louder.
The hand-painted version of Sword Net 3, which has accompanied many players for 9 years, is still very popular among many players.
But after all, the accumulation of 9 years makes the content carried by this game very huge. On the one hand, technology should be iterated, on the other hand, all art resources should be updated, and the workload is not small. Fortunately, in 2017, the remastered version of "Sword Net 3" was finally launched, which optimized all the visual performance and art resources in the game, and also solved many game experience problems that have plagued players for a long time.
On December 29th, 2017, Sword Net 3 was upgraded to a remastered version.
However, when the remastered version was officially launched, it also attracted some players’ dissatisfaction. These players said that the configuration threshold of remastered version is too high. Although the official configuration requirements are not too strict, players can still find that the configuration of the hand-painted version that used to be played with low image quality is now "unable to move".
Official Recommended Configuration for the Remastered Edition of Sword Net 3
For more players, the remastered version of "Sword Net 3" has completely subverted the picture performance of the previous hand-painted version, making the whole game world seem to be a lot clearer and making the game world that players have been concerned about for many years more beautiful. Including the editor that was officially launched later, it also iterated synchronously, which also enabled many fan creators to bring better content output.
The fan creator of Sword Net 3 @ Angelica dahurica, which is loved by players, is not a pinch picture made by traditional Chinese medicine based on remastered performance.
Although the remastered version has indeed ushered in the second spring of Sword Net 3, the loss of players is always an objective problem, even if this part of the loss has not actually caused too serious an impact. However, Xishanju has not been ignored. It is for this reason that Xishanju began to prepare a self-developed game engine to overcome the existing problems.
However, at that time, due to the accumulation of technical strength and commercial returns, more than 95% of domestic game manufacturers adopted Unity and Unreal (unreal engine) technology. To prepare the self-developed engine, it is necessary to customize the development according to the needs of the project, and it will also face the situation that the previous technical precipitation may give up halfway, but if it continues to use the old version, it will be impossible to modify it. Simply put, this is the choice of whether the input cost of existing products should be completely abandoned. At this time, I thought Xishanju was finally going to consider starting the sequel to Sword Net 3, but in fact, they didn’t choose this way.
At that time, Unreal Engine4 was basically the best choice for domestic game manufacturers.
Here we can see the amazing courage of Xishanju. No matter how you choose this choice, it will eventually bring very serious research and development pressure. However, from the outside world, before the self-developed "spiritual realm" engine landed, Xishanju did not take any credit and boast about the choice of this strong man’s broken wrist. The entire "Sword Net 3" R&D team is concentrating on preparing the flagship version, just seeking to show sincerity to players with practical actions.
The flagship version opens up the mobile terminal, but it is not a "leek"?
Compared with the above-mentioned screen performance upgrade, the mobile terminal that has gradually become popular with the development of the times is also eagerly awaited by the players of Sword Net 3. However, considering that the huge end-game of 80G will be moved to the mobile terminal, it is hard to imagine the final effect even if the content is compressed. What’s more, as we said before, at that time, it was basically not seen that a mobile game would occupy more than 10G, and the memory of mobile devices was not plentiful. "Jian Wang 3" transplanted the mobile terminal, but it was just a player’s dream.
But what I didn’t expect was that through the technical blessing of the "spiritual realm" engine, Xishanju quietly realized the unreachable goal of the mobile terminal of Sword Net 3. What’s even more surprising is that Xishanju doesn’t define the mobile terminal as a new product like the precedent of "changing hands", which requires players to start all over again. Instead, we chose to take the existing PC as the cornerstone, extend the login port of the mobile terminal, and realize the full platform game, that is, end-to-end communication.
Jianwang 3 Ultimate Double-end Interworking
We should know that with the strong rise of mobile games, the decline of PC-side games has been recognized in the industry. Under this premise, many MMO end-games have turned to mobile games because of the rapid decline in the number of users. By moving PC-side content to the mobile side, even players can start all over again on the mobile side, neither the inventory of paid content nor the accumulation of players’ growth resources can be inherited.
This decision is nothing more than the consideration of maximizing economic benefits, but on the one hand, after the focus of R&D tends to the mobile side, the product update on the PC side slows down; On the other hand, the old players accumulated on the PC side have to start all over again when they go to the mobile side. No one is responsible for their energy and financial resources, which will only chill the players’ hearts. Therefore, with the gradual proliferation of "end-to-end transfer", players gradually understand that these are just "leek" behaviors of consumer feelings.
Even so, after all, this is a smooth road that everyone has taken. What’s more, although the behavior of "changing hands" is common and word of mouth has collapsed, the actual revenue can completely exceed the existing performance of the PC. This is why many manufacturers prefer not to play at all, naked consumer feelings, but also forced to "change their hands."
Although it was badly scolded, the revenue of "changing hands" was very brilliant, and it successfully "married" "leek"
However, Xishanju, who holds the "spirit realm" engine as a big killer, is not like other manufacturers in the industry. Their first choice is not to use this as a gimmick to open up new product harvest feelings, but to really give back to the players of "Sword Net 3" the brand-new technology that was originally designed to improve their game experience.
Xishanju independently developed the "spiritual realm" engine.
However, this has also brought many new problems, one of which is very important is how to get all the huge game data accumulated by players in 14 years through the mobile terminal and communicate with each other at both ends. On this issue, Guo Weiwei is very insistent that no matter how hard it is, we should realize interoperability, and we can’t ask players to pay twice with new products on the mobile side.
In an interview in 2022, Guo Weiwei said that he did not want to use the mobile terminal to collect money from players again.
In addition, "Sword Net 3" directly chose to speak with facts, compared with putting a film on PV to draw a pie. After the first exposure on April 1st, CE test was quickly launched in May, and many players’ representatives were invited to experience the real machine.
That’s not all. Xishanju came to participate in the BW exhibition in July, opening up the real machine experience of Sword Net 3 flagship version. Welcome everyone who comes to the scene to try. This move undoubtedly attracted countless players to queue up, and there was a crowd of people who queued for three hours and experienced for five minutes. It is also this time that players have experienced the comprehensive evolution brought by the flagship version of Sword Net 3, and also really felt the sincerity of Xishanju.
BW live "Sword Net 3" booth has a long queue.
At the scene, players can intuitively see the visual upgrade of the game brought by the brand-new ray tracing 2.0, virtual polygon technology and GI technology adapted to the whole platform. Whether it is fine gauze satin of clothing or jade metal of jewelry, it can show the due light and shadow performance according to the material. Even some intricate jewelry and hairstyles are designed very reasonably, which is very close to the texture of real creation.
Jian Wang 3 Ultimate Official Display Material Performance Upgrade
In addition, the longest queue should be the experience of the mobile terminal. Both the operation mode and the game content make players understand that this is not a new mobile tour of Sword Net 3, but a mobile excuse for Sword Net 3, which really makes Sword Net 3 a full-platform game.
BW can experience the mobile performance of Sword Net 3 Ultimate Edition on the spot.
In fact, as I generally think, the sequel to Sword Net 3, Sword Net 4, should be a new tour on the mobile side, but the flagship version that broke our fantasy has proved by facts that Xishanju really wants to do Sword Net 3 wholeheartedly, instead of considering the harvest feelings of the sequel just because of its decline. Guo Weiwei also said in an interview with the media: "If my R&D team and I focus on something new or something else, users of Sword Net 3 may think that you are not interested or want to give up. The confidence of users is crucial for Sword Net 3. "
Yes, confidence, whether it is Xishanju or the players of Sword Net 3, everyone is full of confidence in this game. It is this confidence that will connect us together, so that we can push "Sword Net 3" forward to a better future.
Congratulations on the 14th Anniversary of Sword Net 3
Now "Sword Net 3" has actually gone through 14 years, but judging from its vigorous vitality, I am still willing to believe that this game will continue to be strong and usher in the next decade.