Swordsman Beta

     When I went to load Neverwinter a few weeks ago it popped up a window at me asking if I wanted to sign up for the Swordsman Beta. Eh, why not? It's an MMO with martial arts and a quick glance over it looked interesting enough so I clicked the button to sign up and then promptly forgot about it. Until they sent me a beta key two days ago. Beta started today, and I was mostly excited to spend time in the character creation screen, which is seriously one of my favorite things in a new MMO.
     Not bad. Don't like it quite as well as Aion's which is the best I've seen but it beats most of the others I play in some ways. I made two characters before I actually got around to...clicking the enter world button and actually seeing what the game was about. I haven't done much. It's a beta. It just launched and is very very crowded. But since I double checked and there is no NDA here are some initial impressions.

     This is Quilian. A website assures me that this name means Autumn Lotus in Mandarin. (It's probably a girl's name if the site is actually correct. Oh well. Still a better name than most I see in Betas.) Quilian belongs to the Zephyr school. Martial arts school where he gets to dance around hitting people with a fan and being ridiculously pretty? Yes, please. The other character can be the tough, manly one.
     The game is pretty. Unfortunately, remember me complaining that Neverwinter is obnoxious to take screenshots in? Swordsman is oddly much much worse for me. There's a lot more freedom with them, a lot more control but to me the controls for them feel very counter-intuitive and worst of all they can't be taken without entering a special camera mode and using an on screen button rather than the keyboard one. To make this even worse, my keyboard, which I love for fitting onto my very small tray with room for my mouse is a media one. so Buttons F9 to F12 are functionally useless for most MMOs. F9 is supposed to be the quick camera mode toggle... so to enter the fabled camera mode I have to hit escape, select it from the menu then try to figure it out before I can take the screenshot.
     I feel like the universe heard me complain about Neverwinter screenshots and said: Want to see how it could be worse? Maybe it won't be worse when I get the hang of it... and if I can ever find a free hotkey to bind the camera mode to. Won't recognize my mouse buttons for keybinds, so I can't use the one I use to clear the interface in Aion either. First world screenshot addict problems.
     Now onto gameplay. There are three control mode set ups. I've tried two of them. Right now I'm using the 'action' one... which is... interesting and I don't really like it but it's similar-ish to Neverwinter so at least I'm not utterly lost. I'm still very much figuring things out.

    The world is pretty so far. Not eye-popping spectacular, never seen this before yet. But then maybe I've been too annoyed with the screenshots. Quilian has a fan. He beats people up with it.

He also periodically takes time out from beating people with his fan to dance around the battlefield making himself feel healthier. I freely admit that I love the dancing around healing. Makes my day.

     So far... at the exalted and experienced level of 6. (Level ups are incredibly unobtrusive and I keep missing that they happen) this is where he got left until more playtime happens. So far the story modes are my favorite part of the game, but I think only because they are not crowded with other players. Still this little area I left him in is really pretty lovely. (And I think he's about to learn more sword techniques or something.)
     I'm definitely not sold on this yet. But I will be fair and give it more than a few minutes and six levels before I drop it. More thoughts to come.