As everyone knows, Chinese players love stories of prodigal sons returning home.
No Man's Sky is the best example. Back then, the harsher the criticism it received at launch, the more vigorously people praise it now. With ten consecutive years of free major updates, the former sinner has become a saint. Players even beg him in the comments to charge some money so he doesn't starve. Cyberpunk 2077 is another example. The promotional fraud of 'Night City Wire' made countless people swear never to pre-order games again. But the high-quality 2.0 update and the 'Phantom Liberty' expansion still led most players who had fiercely cursed 'CDPR' to reconcile.
Chinese players also love stories of persistent dream-chasing.
For example, Stardew Valley, released ten years ago, was an indie game developed by a single person that became an instant hit upon release, selling a million copies in its first month and reaching over fifty million global sales to date. Thanks to the framework of 'Harvest Moon,' the game had a high level of completion at launch. The developer could have declared it 'finished' at any time and retired comfortably...
But he didn't do that. Instead, he persisted in providing free updates for ten years. Today, Stardew Valley has become the longest-running river in the farm simulation genre, enjoying the highest reputation in the domestic player community (97% positive rating).
So, let's merge these two stories together—
There is such a game. Like Stardew Valley, its creator came from humble beginnings, teaching himself coding to make games. They were once hailed as the 'Hope of Domestic Games' and elevated to the altar, yet for various reasons, they fell into a state of mixed reviews. The team overcame numerous difficulties, including lack of funds, programmers quitting, and Unity China delisting overseas assets. After eight years and two major overhauls, along with over a dozen free major updates, they finally released the official version this June.
Until now, they have persisted in updating.
Not long ago, they revamped the game's heavily criticized UI, fixed a large number of bugs, and optimized the operational experience based on player feedback. They also released an update plan, promising to continue maintenance and roll out new content in the future...
Surely, this game must have a very good reputation among players, right?
Uh... not necessarily.
Dun dun dun
To explain the current 'Mixed Reviews' status of The Scroll of Taiwu, we must go back eight years.
At that time, The Scroll of Taiwu, in its 'Early Access' phase, still wore the halo of 'Light of Domestic Games.' The vast Jianghu, rich builds, countless NPCs, and the notorious chaos demon from Lao Ju's videos collectively propelled this grassroots-born game to the top of the Steam Best Sellers chart. This was the first time a domestic Chinese game topped the Steam Best Sellers chart, and The Scroll of Taiwu was momentarily unparalleled.
However, old players more or less heard the story of the 'green skin code.' Because the main programmer quit, the lead creator Eggplant had to reverse-engineer C language, learning while doing. The code worked solely thanks to the power of 'I reckon it should work.' Rumor has it that The Scroll of Taiwu's code used ten thousand if/else statements. Later, this number in the rumor grew to hundreds of thousands, then a million...
Although the exact number of 'if' statements is unverifiable, it is certain that the underlying code of the initial version of The Scroll of Taiwu was an absolute mountain of spaghetti code.
At that time, The Scroll of Taiwu had only completed about 30% of the overall game, but the crumbling 'green skin' code could no longer support further expansion. Therefore, Luozhou decided to completely tear down and reconstruct the game, entering a two-year period of closed development.
As for the result of this reconstruction... in short, it was somewhat disastrous.
In 2022, the reconstructed The Scroll of Taiwu was released. Countless eager players flooded into the game, only to be greeted by screens full of red error messages, bugs, and crashes.
Instead of being released as a 'complete version' as expected, the game appeared even more incomplete than before. Not to mention the massive number of bugs that made the game nearly unplayable, gameplay features like Strange Books and Identity Interactions, which had already been implemented years ago, disappeared. Players had fewer things to do than they did four years prior.
The main storyline, which should have been completed, was merely a half-finished product. Tutorials and the built-in encyclopedia, the 'Bai Xiao Manual,' were completely absent. Luozhou had to use self-recorded videos on their official account to serve as tutorials...
The result goes without saying: The Scroll of Taiwu fell from grace, and its four-year reconstruction was met with widespread criticism.
After that, comes the 'prodigal son returns' story mentioned at the beginning.
Faced with a desperate mess,螺舟 (Luozhou) repaired the game to a playable state with visible speed and sincerity amidst the criticism, and continued to provide free updates for the next four years. Strange Books, Aspirations, Sect Storylines, Martial Arts Revamps... The unfulfilled 'Eggplant Pies' were crossed off one by one, the game's content became richer, and the community's reputation gradually improved. It seemed only one step away from returning to its peak.
At this point, Luozhou announced another game reconstruction. This time, The Scroll of Taiwu would strike in its complete form, making up for all previous regrets. Players' expectations reached a peak once again.
And then... they messed up again.
The Scroll of Taiwu reenacted a script similar to that of four years ago. This time, the game's content was indeed abundant and satisfying. The upgraded art, revamped encounter system, and completed sect follow-up storylines were commendable, and bugs like red text and corrupted saves were not numerous... But that damn UI became the target of public criticism again.
How would you evaluate the UI of The Scroll of Taiwu's official release?
It successfully managed to be both unattractive and impractical, confusing new players while making veteran players suffer as well.
The UI of The Scroll of Taiwu's official release at launch was simply the one with the most sub-menus I've ever seen in my life. The key issue wasn't just the quantity, but that some menus were hidden in bizarre places. Many people couldn't find where to equip the monkey given as a reward for the Monkey King encounter at the start. After fumbling around for ages, they finally discovered that you had to hover the mouse over the 'Equipment' button and then click 'Carriage and Horse' in the pop-up box to switch to the corresponding page.
Many frequently used pages are hidden in very obscure sub-menus. Theoretically, you could use the newly added custom menu feature to promote them to primary menus. However, in the initial version, frequently accessed pages like 'Strange Book Treasures' were not even available as options in the custom menu...
By the way, this custom menu is called the 'Quick Menu.' Quick where, may I ask?
You have to click the inconspicuous small button in the top right corner first, and only then can you find the Strange Books in the secondary menu that opens.
At the same time, other issues with the game began to ferment.
Although there weren't many bugs related to corrupted saves and red text errors, widespread issues like incorrect feature implementation and disappearing NPC interactions occurred within the first few days of launch. A few days later, the development team fixed the NPC interaction disappearance bug, but this caused NPCs to interact excessively. In short, because NPC freedom was set too high, the entire martial arts world plunged into a battle royale mode reminiscent of the Great Xi Wang. The Taiwu world instantly became the Hai Hu world, with crazed fighters starting to brawl and unleash Hai Hu Explosive Fist punches within three seconds of meeting...
Luozhou had to work overtime again to update patches, barely curing the NPCs of their madness.
Complaints about the game system being overly complex gradually grew louder. This is also a legacy problem dating back to the 'Early Access' period.
Take the combat system, for example. In other games, fighting might just involve calculating attack and armor, or magic power and resistance. But in The Scroll of Taiwu, martial arts throw four sets of hit attributes at you right from the start: 'Force,' 'Precision,' 'Speed,' and 'Mind Shake.' Each martial art has different hit attributes. Shaolin's 'Powerful Diamond Finger' focuses on Force. Even if the opponent parries or dodges, if your strength is great enough, you can still inflict 60% damage. Conversely, if your force is neutralized, no matter how high your Precision and Speed are stacked, you can only exert 40%...
Not to mention, martial arts have their own internal and external injury attributes, which are linked to the player's own internal energy attributes and distribution. If you can calm down and delve into this complex system, the potential fun of building your character is immeasurable.
The problem is, the more complex and intricate a system is, the higher the barrier to entry becomes. Even though the official release of The Scroll of Taiwu includes built-in tutorials like the Official Guide and the Bai Xiao Manual, it still falls short when facing such a complex system. Oh, and new players jumping into the official release at launch had to endure the atrocious UI and bugs while exploring, so you can imagine how much of a chore it was.
As various issues intertwined, the reputation of The Scroll of Taiwu's official release plummeted, changing from 'Mostly Positive' to 'Mixed Reviews.' Even though the development team quickly released patches to remedy the aforementioned problems, the poor first impression had already been set, and the complexity of the underlying system was hard to change, offering little help in reversing the reputation.
According to common sense, the standard ending for a game that has been put on the spotlight twice by the player community would be negative reviews, refunds, warnings on social media, a few days of criticism videos by self-media, and then completely dying out.
But... the script didn't follow that path.
If I were to use one word to describe the current state of The Scroll of Taiwu, I would choose 'Play While Cursing.'
Despite negative community feedback, the data curve for The Scroll of Taiwu's official release replicated the shape of its 2018 launch. By the end of June, the game's concurrent player count exceeded 50,000, and it maintained an average of 15,000 concurrent players throughout July.
Furthermore, these players' cumulative playtimes are often shockingly long—according to unofficial statistics from Xiaoheihe, the average playtime for The Scroll of Taiwu is as high as 78 hours. Considering that many players were discouraged by the complicated systems early on, this figure is quite exaggerated.
Moreover, The Scroll of Taiwu has a significant number of 'long-term standby' players. Open the Steam reviews, and whether positive or negative, you'll see plenty of players with hundreds or even thousands of hours of playtime. Aside from 4X giants like 'Sid Meier's Civilization' and 'Stellaris,' as well as various MMOs and competitive online games, few games can command such a substantial time investment.
You could certainly say that this is because The Scroll of Taiwu has too many complicated and redundant elements, causing a single save file to take over a hundred hours to complete. But if those complicated elements were boring and tedious, surely no one with such peculiar tastes would persist for that long; they would have deleted the game and left long ago.
So, here comes the question.
We all know that The Scroll of Taiwu is complex, content-heavy, and riddled with flaws and shortcomings. Players who dive deep almost inevitably reach a breaking point at some stage, cursing Eggplant for being inhuman. So why do so many players still willingly invest huge amounts of time into this game, chewing through it from start to finish?
Similarly, you could pose this question to the 'War Thunder' players who sit in Slavic prisons daily, or the 'Pokémon' players who curse GameFreak's technical capabilities while grinding for shinies, or even the 'Legends of the Three Kingdoms' players who defend their territory on the negative review list but log in immediately when a new Dou Dizhu general is released.
The game's problems are visible to the naked eye, so why keep playing? It can't be because everyone is a sucker, right?
Hard to say
Their answers may vary, but ultimately they all boil down to one sentence: We curse it, but we still play it. Even if it makes you angry and frustrated, the experience this game offers is irreplaceable and has no substitute.
I think this answer applies equally to The Scroll of Taiwu.
Personally, the appeal of a game, especially a role-playing game, largely stems from its 'immersion.' And immersion largely comes from whether the game can present a convincing world.
The Scroll of Taiwu happens to possess such a world. Without exaggeration, The Scroll of Taiwu is likely the game with the most 'complete' worldview presentation among current domestic Chinese games.
The reason I use the word 'complete' rather than 'perfect' or similar terms is that The Scroll of Taiwu's way of presenting its world is incredibly 'clunky.'
Let's take the Miaojiang Poison Sect, which consistently ranks in the top 3 of must-play lists for Wuxia games, as an example. This sect usually lives in seclusion, appearing only alongside strange poisons, Gu insects, and miasma. There is usually a 'Saintess' who remains pure amidst the filth to create contrast... Most cultural works portray the Poison Sect by focusing on a specific storyline or character, revealing just the tip of the iceberg in a suggestive manner.
Of course, The Scroll of Taiwu also employs this technique in its regional storylines. Heart Poison is adorable.
This approach allows most of the creative effort to be focused on the most critical plot points and characters. Although the sect behind the characters remains mysterious after the storyline ends, it doesn't matter much. Using the best steel for the blade edge is only human nature.
But The Scroll of Taiwu takes a different approach. Their way of shaping a sect is to shape a complete sect.
A complete sect must have a complete organizational structure.
The lowest tier of the Five Immortals Sect consists of the widespread 'disciples.' Moving up, the 'Five Poison Members' are considered initiated, followed by middle management roles like 'Flower Gu Members,' 'Five Poison Envoys,' and 'Xian Niang Envoys.' Above them is the fourth-tier identity of 'Clan Leader,' which is the highest secular status and the highest position a male can reach within the Five Immortals Sect. No matter how outstanding his strength, he cannot advance further.
This is because the top three tiers of identity in the Five Immortals Sect are selected entirely according to Miaojiang secret customs. Outstanding women among the Xian Niang Shi can advance to become 'Wu Xiang.' They will divine from across Miaojiang to find the true 'Saintess' who stands at the peak of power in Miaojiang, and the Saintess with the greatest influence will become the Sect Leader ruling over Miaojiang.
Meanwhile, whether it's the Wu Xiang responsible for divining the Saintess, the Saintess herself, or the Sect Leader who emerges from among the Saintesses, they all possess supreme authority while being bound by Miaojiang secret laws. They are forbidden from engaging in romantic relationships or losing their virginity, and marriage is prohibited. Violators will be stripped of their status, have their martial arts abolished, and even suffer the punishment of having Gu implanted in their marrow...
Take, for example, this 'good girl' locked in the Ten Thousand Gu Cave. As a Saintess, she was simultaneously involved with three men and even gave birth to one of their children. When the affair was exposed, she was immediately thrown into prison, her lifelong martial arts were abolished, two types of poison Gu, Black Blood and Red Eye, were implanted in her body, and her child ended up as an abandoned infant in the neighboring Lion Phase Sect in Guangdong.
In other games, the setting described above might be presented through a plot quest involving a divining saintess and a leadership transition, or perhaps a few lines of backstory on collectible notes. But in The Scroll of Taiwu, the entire Five Immortals Sect genuinely operates according to this logic.
Of course, this logic sometimes bugs out. For instance, since many members of the Five Immortals Sect are rebellious by nature, and rebellious people tend to engage in promiscuous relationships, it's often impossible to find anyone in the vast Five Immortals Sect who meets the 'Saintess' criteria. The system then has to generate a 'Martian' out of thin air to fill the position...
But more often than not, these tangible logics make players feel convinced that they are truly situated within this world.
Another major feature of the Miaojiang Poison Sect is poison Gu.
From a game development perspective, Gu is a difficult thing to handle because its settings are too troublesome. Gu is born from hundreds of poisons, parasitizes within the human body, and when it activates, it not only causes physical suffering but also captures the mind... The question is, how do you implement such a sinful thing into a game?
Most games incorporate the various magical effects of Gu into the narrative flow, having the protagonist or others get infected to demonstrate its power. In actual gameplay, they try to downplay it, turning it into various debuffs or simply making it an attack item you throw at enemies. Although this is somewhat clever, it is the preferred option for balancing gameplay and setting presentation. Need I mention that the ancestor of Chinese RPGs, 'The Legend of Sword and Fairy,' did it, and the neighboring Western fantasy 'Baldur's Gate 3' did it too.
If I say that Mind Flayer tadpoles are also Gu insects, does anyone understand?
But The Scroll of Taiwu refuses to do that. It insists on biting the bullet and implementing every effect and mechanism from the poison Gu settings into the game, turning them into tangible, playable 'entities.'
Red Eye Gu causes the victim's eyes to swell and turn red. In the game, this translates to the victim's attacks missing due to blindness, preventing them from seeing clearly and studying books during monthly turns. Corpse Centipede Gu is described as resembling a large insect. Once it enters the human body, it grows wildly, consuming flesh and blood before bursting out like an Alien. In the game, this causes the victim's flesh and blood to wither and injuries to become more severe. Once their injuries exceed a threshold, the Gu insect will kill them directly, burst out, and parasitize nearby people...
Accompanying this is a complete set of mechanisms for Gu insects to hatch, mature, and die.
Gu implanted during combat require 'Gu Bait' as nutrients to survive and transform into Young Gu. Young Gu has a minor effect on the host, but once triggered by certain external factors, it transforms into Mature Gu, which is far more harmful. For example, Red Eye Gu grows when exposed to alcohol; Heart Demon Gu matures when the host experiences extreme joy or sorrow; Qing Sui Gu, commonly known as 'Love Gu,' matures through physical intimacy with the opposite sex, earning it the nickname 'Taiwu Venereal Disease'...
Honestly, many players who don't use poison or gu might play for hundreds of hours without even knowing about the systems mentioned above in The Scroll of Taiwu, nor would they delve deeply into the organizational structure of any particular sect.
But The Scroll of Taiwu did it anyway.
And they did it for every sect and every region. Even for every item, from divine weapons down to wild boars and rabbits, the development team perfected the details as much as possible. These details might just be a paragraph of text annotation attached below the item. They may not be extensive, but at least they let you know what the item is, where it comes from, and what it's used for.
Of course, some details might differ slightly from the real world. For example, the wild boars in the Taiwu world have two long ears and a three-lobed mouth. If you think they look like wild rabbits, it's purely your illusion. Wild boars in the Taiwu world have always looked like this and always will. (Actually, this is an Easter egg leftover from the early days when art assets were scarce, and wild rabbit models were reused as low-tier ingredient assets.)
Even the cricket fighting system, which serves as a core gameplay element... er, accessory, is no exception.
The development team specifically consulted 'The Cricket Classic' written by Jia Sidao, the powerful minister of the Southern Song Dynasty known as the 'Cricket Prime Minister.' They referenced its records to design a complete cricket grading system. Cricket colors range from inferior to superior: white, black, red, yellow, purple, and green. Features on their bodies also reveal their quality. Those with water patterns, floral patterns, or spots on their mandibles are inferior, while those with smooth, oily, and bright mandibles resembling black steel or white bone are superior...
Above this system lies the one-in-a-million 'Cricket King'—
This insect is covered in signs of failure; one in ten thousand is truly absurd.
Do not lightly discard such ugliness; possessing all eight failures makes it the King of Insects.
This is the companion poem for the exotic 'Cricket King' named 'Eight Failures.' The verse was fabricated by the development team, but references like 'Eight Failures' and 'Sky Blue Green' are not baseless. The former refers to crickets whose appearance is the exact opposite of the 'Three-Section Brocade' form praised by Jia Sidao, yet they always win. The latter is a traditional Cricket King in the cricket world; just placing its picture here evokes an extraordinary aura...
Much of the reference material is so obscure that it can't even be found through dedicated searches. The fact that the development team researched to this extent is truly admirable.
But... does all this really have meaning?
The diminishing marginal returns brought by excessive detail stacking and overly complex system construction are severe. It's a typical case of great effort for little reward, spending big money on small things. Almost no other manufacturer would do as much 'useless work' as Luozhou. Many players say that if the effort spent obsessing over details had been diverted to the main storyline or UI design, The Scroll of Taiwu's reputation would likely be much better than it is now.
Perhaps.
Yet, it is precisely this excessive accumulation that gives The Scroll of Taiwu an extraordinary depth of worldview and the 'room for imagination' most needed to create immersion.
Take the lowest-tier ninth-grade movement technique from the Sword Casting Villa, 'Wooden Clog Technique,' for example. Looking only at its effect, it's an obscure movement technique that is mostly useless. Its effect is to reduce the foot stamina loss caused by enemies. In the language of neighboring 'Pokémon,' this thing is just here to 'complete the Pokédex.'
Also, why would wearing wooden clogs reduce foot stamina loss? That doesn't make any sense at all.
But when you break through a martial art and casually glance at the key points of the breakthrough's start and end, you'll notice that this 'Wooden Clog Technique' is actually not a movement style involving 'walking in wooden shoes.' Its starting and ending key points are 'Toe Cutting' and 'Ankle Stabilization'—this isn't walking in wooden shoes; it's literally cybernetic modification!
Others practice martial arts by walking on plum blossom piles or flying over eaves. I practice martial arts by chopping off my feet and replacing them with machinery. It's just...
The annotation for the 'Wooden Clog Technique' martial art reads: To master this technique, one must cut away part of the flesh and blood from their feet and replace it with wooden mechanisms, thereby permanently escaping the torment of injuries and illnesses. Now it makes sense why it reduces foot stamina loss; it's not surprising at all.
Since then, I've looked at those blacksmiths from the Sword Casting Villa differently.
I originally thought they were just a bunch of crazy blacksmiths obsessed with forging, similar to the Kong Sang Sect next door who are obsessed with alchemy. Now I realize that these guys have already entered the cyberpunk era—flesh is weak, cybernetics ascend... When dealing with the Sword Casting Sect Leader, I almost want to say, "Awesome, V."
Sword Casting Sect Leader be like
It is precisely these seemingly meaningless details that allow players to immerse themselves in the world, convincing them that they have mastered the secret techniques of a famous martial arts sect, rather than just a formulaic reskin skill that "deals 30 fire damage with burn effect."
Moreover, most martial arts techniques in "The Scroll of Taiwu" are not just formulaic reskins. If the complete, broad, and detail-filled world-building is the "face" of "The Scroll of Taiwu," then the martial arts system is undoubtedly the "core" that allows players to invest hundreds or thousands of hours without getting bored.
There are fifteen sects in the world of "The Scroll of Taiwu," each possessing forty to fifty unique martial arts. These martial arts are divided into orthodox and reverse practices based on the mental cultivation manuals used during breakthroughs.
Taking the Gu Finger technique mentioned earlier as an example, the orthodox practice allows you to implant poison Gu into the opponent to inflict debuffs. However, if you reverse practice its mental cultivation, you can implant Gu into yourself instead—the blindness effect of the Chi Mu Gu reverses to improve vision, increasing basic attack accuracy; the Shi Chi Gu no longer consumes flesh and blood but instead reinforces it, providing high damage reduction.
Moreover, while most sect NPCs only use their own sect's martial arts, the protagonist, as the Taiwu successor and "savior," can freely learn martial arts from multiple sects. This means you can wield the Lion Phase Sect's powerful "Da Zhuo Shou," move with the Xuan Nu Sect's elusive footwork, cultivate the Shaolin Sect's "Tong Zi Gong," and simultaneously use the Blood Hou Sect's evil "Blood Child Undying Body" technique for survival.
Many martial arts that seem difficult to use at first glance can find unexpected synergies in strange places—for example, the Wudang Sect's top-tier sword technique, "Wuji Jian Shi." Its reverse practice effect allows it to be used without consuming "Shi" when the enemy has no "Shi" (casting resources accumulated through basic attacks), significantly boosting power and offering infinite range.
Sounds great... But the problem is, if the enemy hits you with just one basic attack and accumulates even one "Shi," aren't you screwed? The Wudang Sect itself basically has no techniques that can synergize with this—which is reasonable, otherwise, at the Martial Arts Conference, the Wudang Sect Leader would be using the infinite-range, power-boosted Wuji Sword to take you down...
Wudang, invincible under heaven!
However, just because the Wudang Sect Leader can't learn compatible techniques doesn't mean Taiwu can't.
Isn't it just about ensuring enemies have no "Shi"? That's easy—the Emei Sect of Ba-Shu are masters of manipulating "Shi." Learn their ultimate technique, "Jin Wu Gu," and every time you dodge an enemy attack, they randomly lose two "Shi." Pair this with their low-tier movement skill, "Tan Tui Suo Di," to dodge every basic attack from enemies... Clearing enemies' "Shi" becomes a breeze.
Or, you could choose a more direct approach—if the enemy can't hit me, they can't accumulate "Shi," right?
The Jie Qing Sect's top-tier movement skill, "Hun Tian Yi Xing Gong," directly sets the distance between both parties to 9 upon use, far exceeding the maximum range of all weapons in the game, and prevents enemies from actively approaching the user. At the start, Taiwu activates this movement skill, instantly becoming a marathon runner B. Enemies chase, he runs. When his Qi is full, he fires infinite-range Wuji missiles to explode them. Enemies with no countermeasures can only die miserably.
If you want to get even more perverse, the Ranshan Sect of Shandong's top-tier sword technique, "Wan Hua Shi Si Jian," is also a good choice—its effects are a long list, but simply put, it allows you to activate "Unlimited Blade Works" to copy the opponent's sword moves. But these effects are just bonuses; what we want is the small line of text at the beginning of the skill description: "This technique can be executed using any available 'Shi' from the enemy."
Damn, that's impressive!
Yes, the "Shi" that enemies painstakingly accumulated through basic attacks was simply appropriated by our "Wan Hua Shi Si Jian." After using it, we reward them with a cost-free, power-boosted Wuji Sword. So, this is what it feels like to be the blond-haired antagonist in a cuckoldry doujinshi.
The above "solutions" can be used individually or combined into a Build for situational adaptation... And this is just one usage of the "Wuji Jian Shi." There are countless techniques in the game, with endless potential Build space. Players with a deep understanding of this martial arts system can completely defeat the final boss using techniques dismissed by their godfather as "inferior martial arts," such as "Dao Da Chong Tian Zi," or the Blood Hou Sect's lowest and most despicable "Poke Eyes and Cut Ears Technique."
It is also this martial arts system that lays a solid foundation for other content in "The Scroll of Taiwu." The myriad martial arts themselves are the best rewards for players exploring the world and roaming the Jianghu. Systems like encounters, sect plot rewards, Taiwu Village management, and NPC affinity ultimately feed back into the martial arts system in some form, giving "The Scroll of Taiwu" the depth and strong drive for repeated playthroughs.
Theoretically, such a world with both surface appeal and depth should provide players with a quite comfortable experience, especially for old players who have overcome the lack of guidance and adapted to the outrageous UI—most of the time, this is indeed the case. But sometimes, even old "sword handle enthusiasts" with maxed-out adaptability can't help but complain about the occasional "immersion-breaking" feeling in "The Scroll of Taiwu."
The main source of the "immersion-breaking" feeling is the NPCs coming and going in this world.
Whether it's the worldview, sects, or various martial arts, they all need NPCs in the world to carry them—plot progression requires characters within sects, Taiwu's companions are caught by giving NPCs "Wu Dan Huang," and martial arts and skills are taught by these NPCs. If NPCs perform poorly, all the previously laid groundwork could collapse entirely.
As early as 2018, "The Scroll of Taiwu" in its Early Access stage already demonstrated astonishing NPC autonomy—NPCs would spontaneously engage in behaviors like befriending, romance, childbirth, holding grudges, theft, and murder based on their dispositions and social relationships. The game even created biographies for each NPC; opening any NPC's profile felt like reading a melodramatic romance novel... Many players might not care about the aforementioned world-building or whether the martial arts system is profound. They play "The Scroll of Taiwu" simply to experience an auto-generated wuxia ensemble novel.
Image source: ChuLe
However, nowadays, NPC interactions in "The Scroll of Taiwu" are frequently criticized by players as "bland." NPCs seem to have much less desire to interact, and the stories emerging between NPCs no longer seem as dramatic as before.
The game has been in development for eight years, how could it regress?
Actually, a simple comparison of the NPC interaction systems from eight years ago and now reveals the clues.
Eight years ago, in "The Scroll of Taiwu," interactions between NPCs were largely based on random generation tied to their dispositions and social relationships, with a limited number of interaction types. This made NPCs in that version more "bold in love and hate," acting more absurdly. Furthermore, since only the protagonist Taiwu could generate affinity with NPCs, various NPC behavioral logics would ultimately revolve around Taiwu, resulting in higher player perception of NPC actions.
In a sense, this is also a concrete manifestation of "green code" working—although if you look closely, you'll find that NPCs in the ancient version were often performing random, irregular Brownian motion. But as the saying goes, the intention was bad, but the execution turned out well.
However, seeing the insane amount of content mentioned earlier, given Luozhou and Qiezi's perfectionist nature, such random "green code" interactions certainly couldn't remain in the official release. Therefore, during the years of restructuring from 2022 to the current official version, Luozhou has been trying various ways to add logic to NPC interactions.
Compared to before, now not only do NPCs have affinity and closeness with the protagonist, but each NPC also has affinity and closeness with each other. NPCs also act more according to their identities during interactions. For example, in the past, sect elders would always point fingers at Taiwu, frequently teaching supreme martial arts, especially those with benevolent personalities, earning the reputation of "Baihua Kindergarten." But now, these elders are more inclined to guide those closer to them, such as their direct disciples or immediate family members, rather than just Taiwu, who is merely an "unwavering friend."
Meanwhile, the official release also added many new "activities" for sect NPCs. For instance, disciples of righteous sects like Yuanshan and Emei now actively leave their sects to capture criminals, while Taoists from Wudang and Ranshan occasionally engage in fasting and meditation.
But problems arise accordingly—as everyone knows, the phrase "characters in the game have their own lives" has never been entirely complimentary. When NPCs start busy with their own affairs and handling their interpersonal relationships, opportunities for player perception decrease. Although the new NPC interactions have spawned evil cultivation玩法 where Taiwu specifically befriends lonely old men to inherit their estates, the overall connection between players and NPCs in the Taiwu world has weakened.
The solution is either to further bind NPC interactions to the protagonist or, as mentioned earlier regarding world-building, to overwhelm with sheer volume, using more interactions to heighten player perception... The problem is that the former approach makes the game fall into the cliché of "the whole world revolves around the protagonist," while the latter is limited by hardware performance. You don't want your game to lag for half an hour every month, do you?
"The Scroll of Taiwu" currently faces such a dilemma, stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to move up or down.
That said, I must clarify one thing—among the many games with NPC autonomous evolution systems today, "The Scroll of Taiwu" is not doing poorly.
A few days ago, while doing the Fu Long Tan storyline, I discovered a naked guy with a noble title in the sect. Out of curiosity about why this guy was streaking at New Oriental, I opened his biography.
This person is named Shan Hong, a mediocre individual. He is naked because he was just captured and brutally interrogated in the Fu Long Tan prison, with all his belongings confiscated. He was released only two months ago. The reason for his arrest is clear—murder.
The incident started because he held a grudge against someone named "Hu Die." The direct cause was that he asked her for Biluochun tea, which she refused, leading to animosity. But the deeper reason was likely that both, being nobles, had long disliked each other. Hu Die, being self-centered, loved kicking cats and dogs, so this cup of tea was probably just an excuse.
Thus, a fierce fight broke out. Shan Hong beat Hu Die to her knees but momentarily softened his heart and did not take her life, planting the seeds of disaster.
After that, Shan Hong's good days came to an end. Hu Die repeatedly provoked him and even engaged in physical fights multiple times. Unbearable, Shan Hong flew into a rage, defeated and bound her in front of everyone in the village. The once-dignified noble became a fugitive, forced to leave his hometown.
However, even local nobles are seen as martial arts-illiterate ants in the eyes of martial artists. Shan Hong was on the run for only a month before being arrested by Fu Long constables who arrived upon hearing the news. He was imprisoned and brutally interrogated, subjected to monthly burning torture, significantly shortening his lifespan.
A year later, Shan Hong was released from prison. By then, he was all alone, as his birth parents had died during this period. After his release, he first acknowledged a high-ranking member surnamed Long from the Fu Long Tan as his adoptive mother, then returned to his biological mother's grave to sweep and pay respects, seemingly having made some determination.
After visiting the grave, he did nothing else but returned to the village he had abandoned, full of enemies, and found his nemesis, Hu Die. This time, he showed no mercy and decisively ended Hu Die's life.
Soon, the constables came knocking again, and he was imprisoned for another two years, still subjected to burning torture.
A month before his release, he received news that his child was born—just kidding, locked in the Fire Prison, how could he have had intimate contact with anyone? Not only were his eyes bloodshot and his body burned, but he was also cuckolded.
Now the guy is homeless. Returning to the village means facing retaliation from Hu Die's faction; not returning means his body, tortured to the brink of death, won't last long. So, I gave him two plates of "Wu Dan Huang" and brought him back to Taiwu Village.
Honestly, in other games, I rarely feel any emotional fluctuation towards randomly generated NPCs, nor do I have the motivation to imagine plots for them. But "The Scroll of Taiwu" is different; occasionally, a few striking characters emerge out of nowhere, leaving a lasting impression.
It is precisely such cases that bring emotional fluctuations and shock to players, making them wish for more frequent, dense, and interesting emotional experiences... Unfortunately, the current "The Scroll of Taiwu" cannot make every NPC's life as exciting as those few examples. Most NPCs just live ordinary lives in the world, experiencing birth, aging, sickness, and death, entering the cycle of reincarnation.
Therefore, many technically skilled players choose to develop Mods for "The Scroll of Taiwu." Recently, several Mods focusing on AI dialogue and dynamic Jianghu emerged in the Steam Workshop. Similar to the "Rimtalk" AI dialogue Mod for "Rimworld," these Mods inject considerable vitality into the game world. Although objective factors like limited context and AI hallucinations still restrict the Mods' performance, they still reflect the expectations of "The Scroll of Taiwu" players for the "ideal appearance" of this world.
It's not that you are truly worthless; it's precisely because you once allowed players to glimpse that ideal world that they are so disappointed and frustrated.
Finally, let's return to the initial question: Why does "The Scroll of Taiwu" make people play while cursing?
Actually, I have always firmly believed in a controversial theory—for the game industry, the "bucket effect" does not fully apply. A game can have shortcomings, and these shortcomings can be so large that they are intolerable, driving many people away. But ultimately, what keeps players is the game's strengths, or its irreplaceability.
The shortcomings of "The Scroll of Taiwu" are almost leaking; its content is overly complex, the tutorials are obscure, the barrier to entry is unusually high, and each version spawns a few mood-ruining bugs or outrageous settings. But the experience it offers players is irreplaceable—it uses absolute quantity to create an immersive feeling that is hard to replicate, features an extremely rich and free martial arts BD system, and has a self-evolving world whose performance is unsatisfactory yet irreplaceable.
If even one of these hits the player's sweet spot, it's enough to immerse them in the game for hundreds of hours. If more than one hits, the game's appeal increases exponentially.
However, although we often say "flaws do not obscure the jade," when you actually play it, the shortcomings of "The Scroll of Taiwu" always exist. Even the most addicted "sword handle enthusiasts" have moments where they go mad due to those pain points and furiously curse Qiezi.
Four years ago, I got qualified and joined the internal test group jokingly called the "Five Hundred Slaves," playing the extremely awkward first restructured version of "The Scroll of Taiwu." Since then, I developed the habit of writing tickets to Luozhou customer service for feedback. Over four years, the number of tickets and replies has exceeded one hundred—and most of the time, my curses were quite harsh.
But after getting angry and cursing, I opened the game again and again, fighting crickets, defeating old men, eloping with the Five Poison Saintess, creating yellow peaches for the Xuan Nu Sect Leader... To outsiders, players of "The Scroll of Taiwu" are like Sisyphus pushing the stone. But in this world, there is indeed no other stone so enjoyable to push.
As one of the Sisyphus figures, I am now eagerly anticipating two things: first, that a true alternative to "The Scroll of Taiwu" that meets player expectations will finally appear; and second, that one day, Qiezi and螺舟 (Luozhou) will bring "The Scroll of Taiwu" to the perfect state we envision.
It's hard to say which comes first, or if either will ultimately be realized. However, if I could wish for one to come true, I would hope for the latter—
"Sword handle enthusiasts" have affection for the first generation of Taiwu. If possible, let's stick with one lifetime.