On December 13th, China (and the rest of Asia, apparently, excluding Japan) will be treated to the dual release of a big-budget movie (starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro) and an MMO version of the film, both entitled The Warlords [投名狀]. My ears perked up at all of this for two reasons: (1) the setting is the Taiping Rebellion, during the waning years of the Qing dynasty (and one of my favorite subjects) and (2) announcements about impending MMO releases equal one thing in China: fantastically bad press releases. And indeed, NetDragon and the Central Motion Picture Corporation don't disappoint ('night-errant' culture?). The Warlords is apparently only the beginning - the NetDragon CEO makes references to even more games based on movies (and TV shows and books and ...). Full release after the jump, and lots more info at the game's website (in Chinese).

FUZHOU, China, Dec. 7 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — The first domestic
online game (Warlords Online) based on the film of the same name, which is
jointly produced by Netdragon (Netdragon Websoft Inc. (SEHK GEM 8288) and
Central Motion Picture Corp., will be tested officially for the first time on
December 13. China's traditional recreational industry and emerging digital
recreational industry will greet the first annual show of a landmark work, and
it will become another important milestone in the development of China's
recreational industry.

Warlords, directed by Chen Kexin, is an epic war film represented by Jet
Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Xu Jinglei. It profoundly depicts love
between brothers and lovers.

Warlords Online ( tmz.91.com/ ) is the first large and realistic
Oriental epic online game in ancient costumes in China based on the Chinese
night-errant culture. Thanks to the efforts of NetDragon, Central Motion
Picture Corp. and the team that produced the film Warlords, it vividly
reproduces a disorderly society full of love and hatred under the background
of the late Qing Dynasty by the super-realistic technique.

Warlords Online creates the unique opposition camps of the government and
bandits and has a bodyguard system that is composed of as many as one hundred
kinds of bodyguards' occupations, almost all in the Qing Dynasty. Especially,
it builds the first pure "brother (sister)" system in online game history, and
players can truly experience the meaning of the eight characters: share
happiness and share difficulties. Moreover, it contains exciting super-large
battles for attacking and defending cities to let players bring their wisdom
into full play.

In eager expectation of numerous players, the game was first tested
internally on November 30 at 3:00pm and the response was very enthusiastic. In
order to satisfy the needs of a great number of players, the game operator
decided to increase the activating code for internal testing by a wide margin
at that time. The enthusiasm of players not only shows the star effect of
Warlords, but also reflects the excellent brand image of NetDragon in the
online game field.

The time for developing Warlords Online was very short, but the
requirement for its quality was very high. "For NetDragon, it was a challenge,
but an opportunity even more!" Liu DeJian, Chairman of NetDragon, noted: "This
strategic cooperation between us and Central Motion Picture Corp. breaks
through the conventional development pattern of the traditional recreational
industry and emerging recreational industry and shows the new development
direction for the game industry in particular. The success of Warlords Online
is just a beginning and we expect there will be more and better online games
adapted from films, TV plays and novels in the future."

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