ZU Online Full Open Beta Review

ZU Online is a massivly multiplayer online role playing game hosted by the company IGG. ZU online is a chinese kung fu based MMO. Although it is chinese kung fu based, you dont see to much of that in the game. I looked and could not find too much of the theme. The game is similar to RF online with its different factioins and pvp system. The game may not seem to cool at first because of its very cartoony characters but after you start playing you wont be able to stop.

Zu Online has server classes that make this game stand out a bit. There is the Moonmaiden The theif based class, Sun Warrior The uber tanker of the game, Swordsman The Hit-and-run Nuker, Bead Fairy The clerics, and last but not least Summoners. Each class brings its own thing to the game. The only problem being is that they are not well balanced. Sun Warriors are to most people a bit overpowered and bead faries a bit under powered. Each of the Three factions Wu, Tai, and Xun can have each of the classes.

The money system in this game is the worst i have seen yet. There are three different types here. Gold, Silver and Bones. This is not your normal type of gold-silver-copper system. Gold is the Item mall money silver is money you are able to trade with players and Bones is the money you use to trade with NPC's but cannot trade with players. The only thing is silver is nearly impossible to get. You cant get it from monster drops nor from selling things to npc's. The only way to get it is from buying gold and turning it into silver. This makes it very hard to trade buy and sell things in the auction house. Even rare things that you find that should be worth alot of money you have to sell very low becuase there is not much silver to go around.

Commercial Travel-This is the best way to Make money in the game. Although you only get bones from it you need to travel. Refining weapons and armor costs ALOT of bones.
----------+What is Commercial Travel? Commercial Travel is going to one area to collect good to sell to another area. Each area has its own "Bussiness man" and you need to collect capital from him. Captial is a limit to how much golden strikers(used to collect items off the ground to sell) you can buy each day so people dont make mills in one day. Once you coolect you sell to another area to make your bones.
----------+ Dangers of Commercial Travel While you are in Travel mode your speed gets decreased by 50%. This makes is harder to get away from pkers who will steal your Commercial Travel. Also while you run from area to area you have a chance of being attacked by bandits that hide out in each spot. Using pets can help with the speed part but as for the pkers and bandits... good luck.

There is a very intresting talent system in the game. Since there are no stats points your characters power increases with his talents. Each class gets three different talent books and depending on which book you choose you can change every aspect of the characters stats. Each book servers a purpose weither that be PKing, Boss fighting, or mob killing its up to you to choose your style of play.

Now lets talking about Crafting. Crafting in this game is a pain in the butt. Its very costly to refine low level things. And if you try and refine high level things you will go broke faster then i do in a candy store. Each piece of equiement has potention 12 being the highest. when you refine you will use one up if it works. If you fail there is no down side just make money and try again. With the new ZU online patch refining is now even harder becuase you need to craft the higher level materials when bfore the patch you could buy them. You are still able to buy them just now you need to pay real money.

The pet system in Zu online is awesome. While the pets don’t help you fight you are able to ride them after the pet hits level 40. You must get and level your pet if you want to get anywhere in the game. The pets passive skills add a nice boost to your characters stats while also helping increase the speed when you ride the pet. Leveling a pet is quite easy. All you need to do is walk your pet with the pet walk skill and collect EXP leaves. Feeding them to your pet will give it exp and level it up. Feeding it equipment will teach it new skills and level up old ones.

The Treasure Hunt system in Zu online is fun for all those adventurous people. For people like me it is annoying running around everywhere. In the Treasure Hunt system you collect treasure maps from monster drops and daily caskets. Once you get your map you open it up and go after the clues to get your fortune caskets. Once gotten you can open them up to get just about any item from the game. The 3 clues on the map lead you all over Zu online. What makes this annoying is there are quiet a few bugged maps with false clues. These get very annoying as you run around because you don’t get anything from them.

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interlink/Round quest These quests are also like the Treasure Hunts. The only difference being when you finish them you obtain Faction contribution. Faction contribution is the only way to get and upgrade skills after level 40. You are limited to 10 round quests a day which will get you 100 faction contribution. The only problem here is the higher level skills need 2000+ to buy and 1000+ to upgrade. This means weeks and weeks of play just to upgrade one skill. And its not like you can not upgrade them because then you will be very weak.

Game events are the second most exciting part of the game. There are several events Question and Answer, Monster Slaying Contest, Sacrifice Ceremony, Sinuous Maze, Pet's Adventures, Creating Contest, Area Occupation. These events are the best ways to level because of the large amount of exp given out after the event.
----------+Question and Answer- Is what it sounds like a trivia quiz. The only problem is with this one is its very easy to cheat if you have more then one computer or know how to open more then one game on one computer. After finishing this even if you are in the top 20 you get massive amounts of exp.
----------+Monster Slaying Contest- This to me is the most fun of all the events. You get 15 minutes to Kill, kill, and kill some more. When time runs out the party will the most will get announced to the whole world. This event gives out the most exp. What is easy about this is you can go to level one mobs and use you area of effect attacks to take them all out.
----------+Sacrifice Ceremony The most boring event. You set your character to dance and walk away for 30 minuets while your gone you gain exp every 20 seconds depending on your level.
----------+Sinuous Maze Never tried this one myself. It’s a maze that you go through that gives very little experience. I hear that the first 3 people also get a special prize.
----------+Creating Contest This is a crafting event. You talk to any flight guardian and get 99 material to craft. The you start crafting to make as much as you can in 15 minuets with the 60% success rate. This event gives a fairly good amount of exp.
----------+Area Occupation Read the guild section for this one.

There is a very cool flight system in the game. Where you can fly to anywhere on the map. This makes it nice for long quests and getting away from pkers.

The guild system here is awesome. I feel in love with it from the very start. While its not very much different from other games what sets it apart if the free EXP. Yep, free exp, but this is only if your guild owns area.
----------+Area Occupation In this special guild event you go around capturing pillars. These are big totem pole things. Catching them costs guild fund. If you catch it and hold it for 30 minuets it becomes yours. There are usually 5-6 on each map. If you guild owns some of these you can go AFK and gain free exp. Depending on your level you gain more or less and this helps a lot in leveling. While i still played I would afk every night all night long.

The quest system is very easy. Everything in the quest system is auto except the killing. you get walked to your mob, walked the quest npcs and you can also fly everything. Questing is the only way to level because mobs give you little exp. and because of all this questing it is very easy to level. I myself hit 100 in less than a week.

Now the best part PvP. This is why i played zu online. The pvp is very much like that of rf online. there is 3 factions here the Wu, Tai, and Xun. When you reach level 60(used to be 30) you can raid other peoples areas. Raiding other factions gives you honor which you can then trade in for exp or awesome equipments. Pking here has to be some of the most fun especially if you are a sun warrior. Now if you pk your own faction that is bad. Pking your own faction will get you Dishonor and make your name turn red which means when you get pked by someone you lose exp and have a good chance of dropping items.

Here are some game play videos for you guys so you can see some of the things im talking about.