Samurai Based MMOs

[Yagyu]

So ive been researching and aside from Tatsumaki which we are all drooling in anticipation over there are some other samurai MMOs out there. Some in the works some already being played only not here in America.

First there is Blade Chronicle Samurai online.

Theres a beta going on for this though i cant seem to get the program to run on my pc. If anyone has any luck lemme know. Its all in japanese though.

Next theres one i am really drooling over by Koei called
Nobunaga's Ambition Online.

Despite the title it is actually an MMORPG and not a strategy game like the PS2's Rise to power and Iron Triangle.

It looks sweet from what ive seen and u can buy it for ps2 but again its all in japanese so unless u read japanese it wont do u much good.

Also theres a new one coming out called
Blade and Soul

This one looks cool though its korean and i dont think its localized to samurai, from what i saw there are samurai in it, its a fantasy based game so it will have alot of stuff in it.

I just downloaded Martial Heroes and am patching.

Its not fully samurai either but does look like u can be a samurai or ninja so im gonna give it a shot and ill let ya know if its any good.

[WhiteHawk]

I've been playing Blade Chronicle for a few months now. I was a Closed Beta Tester. The game's great.
There's fishing, mining, agriculture, etc... And you can take the raw materials and use them for smithing, crafting, woodworking, or simply selling. There's a few quests all around and plenty of stuff to do. You can decorate your house with furniture too!

There are horses as well but you need permission to use them. There's a quest, I think. There's some clothing variety and the game is free, with an item shop. They cost cash but I got a few of them for being in the Beta though.
The combat system is wonderful, you move your mouse to swing and the direction you strike will depend on where you move your mouse. You can only determine the direction of the first attack, because the following attacks will depend on your skill with the weapon. Your character doesn't level up his combat abilities, only the swords level up. In other words, the abilities depend on the weapon you are using.
You can also strafe sideways and dash forward or backward to dodge. Pretty useful against human NPCs and other players, but only mildly effective against animals (like horses, cows, bats, monkeys, etc..).

The game doesn't have a lot of fantasy. There's only one or two supernatural enemies (guardian demons) and some of the NPC priests have Ki projectiles, but the rest are normal animals and humans.

The game is worth it, it was made by the developers of the "Way of the Samurai" games. Still, it's a shame the game is only in japanese so it's kinda hard to do the quests. Me and a few other beta testers contacted the guys and asked them if they were going to translate it to the western community, and they say they might sometime in the future. For now they are still testing in JP so they can't know for sure. The client is kind of big too, over 10Gb. I can take some screenshots, if you guys want.

[Svage]

that would be cool, A couple screen shots. I look forward to seeing those.

[Yagyu]

Hawk when i can log on xfire and send me the installer file youll have to leave your xfire on while it downloads but the nice thing bout xfire is theres no size limit. But yea id definitly love to play it. The Martial heroes was lame. Like an out of date 12sky though u can make your fighter look just like a samurai. But the graphix and game -play was chopy and sucky.

[WhiteHawk]

Unfortunately I never had the installer in my PC, it was a friend of mine who downloaded it to an external hard drive and installed it on several computers.
He asked me if I wanted the game and I agreed, so he connected the drive and installed it for me - even after he left, the game had to patch 1Gb of updates before I could play.

This is an old screenshot with low resolution. The maximum used to be 800x600, but there's a new patch in the game that adds up to 1680X1050 and Wide Screen compatibility! I'll try to take a new screenshot with the updated graphics and Widescreen mode soon. For now, this is all I've got: me with my brother and some guy I know (playing as a girl) in the background.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/6100/bcob1c.png

[otomotopia]

Should be very nice. Downloading it right now.

Make an account at the japanese website and you should get it. Not sure if there are english patches, but I can post a guide soon.

[Philosophus]

http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/default.asp

This site can be of help, in order to translate things.
I myself will wait till i see some image or even better a small video.
The first game that is, the others sounds to fantasyish for me, i.e wowish/grindish.

[Ex-Hitokiri]

I used to play Blade Chronicle 4-5 months ago. It is a very good game and the battle system is awesome. But it was hard for me playing a japanese game. :)

Edit: Also TwelveSky has some samurai elements.