The producer of the European version of Age of Wulin - Legend of the Nine Scrolls has written a lengthy letter explaining why the game's launch date has been pushed back to an unspecified date, and the main point is that it's still in development. Once developer Snail Game locks down the content in China, the European localization can start the massive translation process.

For more details, you can read the full letter after the jump.

Producer's statement

Dear future Wulins,

As you may have noticed by now, the European version of Age of Wulin – Legend of the Nine Scrolls has had its release date postponed from early this year to an unspecified date.

The most obvious question you may ask is: “Why did you have to postpone the release of the game, and why can’t you give us a specific date yet?” These are indeed valid questions and I would like to take the time to address them for you.

First of all, it is important to understand that our release schedule depends on the development progress of the game itself. We cannot release a product that is still undergoing development and testing at our developer. 

The reason why Snail Game, the developer, decided to extend the development timeframe is to allocate the necessary time and resources to make final adjustments to all aspects of the game. They aim to provide an even better gameplay experience and to increase the overall quality of the game even further. While this decision resulted in a delay for the launch of Age of Wulin – Legend of the Nine Scrolls, we fully support it, as we believe in offering you, the players, the highest quality game possible, as opposed to sacrificing content or quality for a premature release.

That said, Snail Game is currently preparing a focus group playtest in China. This means they will test the game with a group of very lucky players who are invited to be the first in the world to test Age of Wulin – Legend of the Nine Scrolls. Upon completion of this playtest, the developers will be confronted with two possibilities: either the game does fully meet the expectations of the gamers or it doesn’t. In the unlikely event that the game falls short of some expectations, another development phase will take place in order to implement the testers’ feedback and to ensure that their high quality standards are met.

If the game completely satisfies both the developers and their testers, Snail Game will then proceed to what we call “a content lockdown”. This means: no further major changes will be made to the gameplay or the storyline and the Chinese version will enter their Closed Beta Test (CBT) shortly afterwards. For the European market the content lockdown will enable us to kick off the localisation process (localisation is the process of adapting and translating the game to our markets).

The localisation of an MMORPG of the size of Age of Wulin – Legend of the Nine Scrolls represents a huge workload and will therefore take a few months. While we have no final word count at the moment, we estimate that we will have to translate about 4 million words per language (to give you a comparison, most novels have around 100,000 words). To handle the challenges of such a process we have already put together a strong and dedicated core team to prepare the localisation, which will be expanded as soon as we have reached the content lockdown.

If you follow our news posts you have also seen our announcement that we are currently looking for dedicated Community Managers. They will be responsible for providing you, our community, with regular updates and information, to make your wait more bearable. Therefore make sure to check back regularly for new information on the progress of the launch preparation and details about the game.

I am in the lucky position that I already had the chance to play the alpha version during one of my visits at our developer’s studio in China and was amazed how polished the game already is. This isn’t only limited to the cinematic martial-arts style or the dynamic fighting system, but even more visible in the level of detail and passion in every aspect of the game. Since I personally dislike when other MMORPGs boast that they have a huge game world only to then discover that they have repeatedly copied and pasted the same building or dropped monsters randomly around the landscape, it gave me chills when I realized the amount of tiny details that make every house unique and how believable and immersive the world as a whole is. Therefore I can honestly say that we are as eagerly awaiting the game as you are and, on a personal level, share your impatience.

Professionally, we are looking forward to get started with the localisation and to prepare everything to bring this fantastic MMORPG to you. Your support and anticipation of the game will make us work even harder to give you the best gaming experience possible.

With all that being said, we will be able to give you more accurate and up-to-date information regarding the release date of Age of Wulin – Legend of the Nine Scrolls in Europe as soon as content lockdown has been achieved by our developer.

Thank you for your support and your feedback,

Dennis, Producer of Age of Wulin – Legend of the Nine Scrolls