September 4th, 2007

Are you “The Incorruptible Warrior”?

It seems Chinese officials are trying the propaganda scheme with new and modern means. I’m talking about “The Incorruptible Warrior”, a new MMO game commissioned by no other than the Chinese Communist Party Disciplinary Committee of the Haishu district in Ningbo city. The special thing is that the game itself revolves around fighting corrupt government officials instead of killing the next innocent looking rabbit you come across for experience. Since China is currently in the midst of an anti-corruption campaign, The Party saw the game as means of raising awareness among teens and teach them the way to properly fight it. At least that’s the main idea, but unless the officials expect people lounging at the mayor’s throat in real life, I’d say there is still a long way to go in this direction.

The developers set up a single server for the game which was expected to hold up to 500 simultaneous connections. You don’t have to be a computer expert to figure out that having 100.000. downloads over a short period of time might pose a problem later on. Players started to experience severe lag as the game became unplayable within just a week after launch. Eventually the server was shutdown for a massive hardware upgrade. Regardless of the actual impact “The Incorruptible Warrior” has yet to have on the average gamers moral fiber, questions of copyright still remain, as the title rudely borrowed a lot of content from well known private Chinese MMOs, like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or Legend.

The idea isn’t new in itself, but boy, do I love the thought of a free MMO game sponsored by my own taxpayer money, where I have the chance to crush my boss with the +9 Two Handed Mace of Doom. Think about it, the limitless possibilities, and the fun factor. Although graphics are mediocre and developers did a shabby job when creating the models, you still have a shot at completely obliterating your opponents. Not only you get to kill the corrupted officials, but you also get to pick on their children, wives and bikini clad mistresses. Unfortunately the skills you need to improve are a bit of a turnoff, reeking propaganda from a mile away. What would you like to improve this level up, “Combatting corruption,” “Moral character” or “Degree of being corruption free”?