Chinese film, television, music

canniBUS

Junior Member
Registered Member
I have some Chinese web novels to recommend SDF members. They are Release that Witch (放开那个女巫) and Heavenly Dao Formula (天道方程式), both written by Er Mu (二目), and Sword of the Daybreaker (黎明之剑) written by Yuan Tong (远瞳).

Many Chinese web novels have wuxia settings but not these three. All three novels feature prominent kingdom building elements. That is, the protagonist rules over a territory and develops the economy of the territory. All 3 novels feature protagonists who introduce modern innovations in both technology and politics to greatly boost the speed of economic development in order to build a military force superior to surrounding territories and to improve the livelihood of the people. Of course, the stories also feature political intrigue, military conquest, and spreading the new political order across the land.

These three novels are quite different form each other so they're all worth reading.
Release that Witch focuses on traditional 18th through 20th century industrialization using familiar real-world technology. This is best of the three novels though the other two are also good.

Sword of the Daybreaker mixes in typical fantasy-setting magic to achieve, 19th and 20th century industrialization, though the machines and technology used are fantastical. This novel has a more humorous tone than the other two.

Heavenly Dao Formula is somewhere between RtW and SoD in terms of mixing real-world technology and fantasy. It's also half kingdom building, half adventure.

Where to read:
Release that Witch has an official and complete English translation that you can find on the web. Heavenly Dao Formula and Sword of the Daybreaker have incomplete (and likely never to be completed) translations to English. Though there exist machine translations, I do not recommend them, they are not readable and full of errors. For members who can read Chinese, the full Chinese text of all three novels can be found easily by web searching the Chinese names of the novels.

There are also a manhua version of Release that Witch which you should stay away from, the art style is wrong, the art quality is mediocre, and the story is butchered. Stick with the text novel, use your own imagination for visuals.

If you would prefer to listen to an audiobook, there are unauthorized uploads of the Chinese audiobooks of these novels on bilibili. Look for the audiobooks with multiple voice actors as they provide a more immersive listening experience. Bilibili takes down these uploads but they get re-uploaded fairly quickly.

Links (you won't find the full text from these links)
Release that Witch
放开那个女巫
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Heavenly Dao Formula
天道方程式
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Sword of the Daybreaker
黎明之剑
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ficker22

Senior Member
Registered Member
mihoyo is looking to dethrone Tencent and Netease as China top gaming company.
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Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae, Kafka, Ren gonna get them those fine $¥£€ en masse.


There is Kinda a Genshin low with version 3.7 ATM tho, maybe 4.0 will bring back fresh wind. Then again, they already earned their asses of with Zhongli and RaidenEi
 
D

Deleted member 23272

Guest
Good! More competition. Maybe this will finally get NetEast to get off their asses and Tencent to put more work into their upcoming games.
Tencent will produce quality if the audiences demand it. Most Chinese gamers only have access to phones and are okay with quick fixes rather than quality games, so Tencent for a while was able to get away with LOL clones. Then with MHY in the equation, Tencent realizes you can make money and art at the same time.

I mean this year, Tencent's already the drama winner with Three Body and The Long Season. So once again, if Chinese audiences demand quality, Tencent will deliver or at least work towards it. And with MHY as competition, they sure as shit will work towards it now.
 

Aniah

Senior Member
Registered Member
Tencent will produce quality if the audiences demand it. Most Chinese gamers only have access to phones and are okay with quick fixes rather than quality games, so Tencent for a while was able to get away with LOL clones. Then with MHY in the equation, Tencent realizes you can make money and art at the same time.

I mean this year, Tencent's already the drama winner with Three Body and The Long Season. So once again, if Chinese audiences demand quality, Tencent will deliver or at least work towards it. And with MHY as competition, they sure as shit will work towards it now.
I was speaking more on the non-mobile side, specifically the PC community in China. It's already huge and ever-growing and big enough to make almost all game developers globally put the Chinese language into their games. Sources from Steam have shown that it's the fastest-growing demand and at one point early this year, surpassed English on Steam for a short period. Demand for a true Chinese AAA game has been going on for nearly a decade now and Tencent has tried before but from what I've heard, failed miserably and is still mocked by the gaming community to this day due to that. They then proceeded to do nothing on the AAA front since and this only made the community angrier. Having all this wealth and IPs which many could only dream of yet they themselves choose to hold not only themselves but also other Chinese indie creators from making a true AAA game since it wouldn't make them as much money as their mobile games are what's angering everyone in China.

There was a story a couple of years back not too long ago from the creators of the upcoming Chinese game, Black Myth Wukong. They were originally Tencent employees who joined because they wished to create a true Chinese AAA game. It wasn't just him but quite a few more. Who would've thought that when discussed, the higher-ups absolutely refused to make something like that because it wasn't as profitable as making LoL clones? This ended with the creators leaving and forming their own studio which later created the game we have today. But the worse to come out of this was that not only did Tencent threaten the studio but also threatened anyone who tried to join said the studio. Of course, hearing this the community was furious and demanded punishment.

Even the government came in and fined them for being useless and sitting on that large stash of cash instead of investing it into creating something non-mobile. Immediately after this incident, Tencent backed off and decided to invest a lot of money into all sorts of things including 2 new future AAA games. One is Honor of Kings World and the other (which is the game I'm most excited for) is Project to Jin Yong. Everything that came out of Tencent since then only proved they had the ability to create high-quality content on par with the West and Japan but chose not to. This is why I said competition is good (and government threats) since if they want to stay on top and keep that money, they better work hard.

As of now, in conclusion to Tencent, the shows they released are great and Honor of Kings World seems to look amazing. All I wish for is for Project to Jin Yong to turn out great as well. That and I hope NetEast also starts moving their ass or face some tea time with the CPC since people have already been complaining about them.
 
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solarz

Brigadier
I was speaking more on the non-mobile side, specifically the PC community in China. It's already huge and ever-growing and big enough to make almost all game developers globally put the Chinese language into their games. Sources from Steam have shown that it's the fastest-growing demand and at one point early this year, surpassed English on Steam for a short period. Demand for a true Chinese AAA game has been going on for nearly a decade now and Tencent has tried before but from what I've heard, failed miserably and is still mocked by the gaming community to this day due to that. They then proceeded to do nothing on the AAA front since and this only made the community angrier. Having all this wealth and IPs which many could only dream of yet they themselves choose to hold not only themselves but also other Chinese indie creators from making a true AAA game since it wouldn't make them as much money as their mobile games are what's angering everyone in China.

There was a story a couple of years back not too long ago from the creators of the upcoming Chinese game, Black Myth Wukong. They were originally Tencent employees who joined because they wished to create a true Chinese AAA game. It wasn't just him but quite a few more. Who would've thought that when discussed, the higher-ups absolutely refused to make something like that because it wasn't as profitable as making LoL clones? This ended with the creators leaving and forming their own studio which later created the game we have today. But the worse to come out of this was that not only did Tencent threaten the studio but also threatened anyone who tried to join said the studio. Of course, hearing this the community was furious and demanded punishment.

Even the government came in and fined them for being useless and sitting on that large stash of cash instead of investing it into creating something non-mobile. Immediately after this incident, Tencent backed off and decided to invest a lot of money into all sorts of things including 2 new future AAA games. One is Honor of Kings World and the other (which is the game I'm most excited for) is Project to Jin Yong. Everything that came out of Tencent since then only proved they had the ability to create high-quality content on par with the West and Japan but chose not to. This is why I said competition is good (and government threats) since if they want to stay on top and keep that money, they better work hard.

As of now, in conclusion to Tencent, the shows they released are great and Honor of Kings World seems to look amazing. All I wish for is for Project to Jin Yong to turn out great as well. That and I hope NetEast also starts moving their ass or face some tea time with the CPC since people have already been complaining about them.

I wish Chinese AAA studios spent more effort on original gameplay and stories instead of endlessly rehashing the same old genres. In this respect, indie studios are way more innovative.

It occurred to me the other day that Eastern Exorcist was basically The Witcher in a Chinese setting and with 2D gameplay. The setting and atmosphere is just begging to be expanded into a vast open world like The Witcher.

Why aren't there more FPS or MMOs based on the Japanese or Korean Wars? I would love to see a game where an Eighth Route soldier or guerilla fighter shot their way through hordes of Japanese soldiers. Or a strategy game recreating the Korean War where you can play the American campaign followed by the Chinese campaign. In the American campaign, you go from a desperate defense of Pusan to completely routing the NK army. The campaign ends with UN forces approaching the Yalu river and General MacArthur promising the soldiers that they'll be back home for Christmas. Then the Chinese campaign starts, and you push the Americans back all the way to the 38th parallel. The two factions even have vastly different battle doctrines, with the American side relying on air support and having lots of fire power, while the Chinese side starts with mostly light infantry and slowly builds up into an artillery force.
 
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