The history of Gujian and its relationship with Chinese Paladin

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

As a native Chinese and hardcorn fan of Gujian game series,I am very proud to see so many people on steam from other countries to enjoy the Gujian3 game and send amounts of compliments.It would be a pleasure for friends all over the world to introduce the beautiful Chinese traditional culture and ancient civilization.

But I found many people also know another Chinese RPG game series called Chinese Paladin.By coincidence Chinese Paladin and Gujian has a very deep relationship,it is a very intersting story and kind of famous in Chinese native players,but very few people outside China has heard of it.So I decided to introduce it to all of you and contains as more details as possible.

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

First of all you need to know the full name of Chinese Paladin and GuJian.Neither translastion of Chinese Paladin and Sword Fairy is accurate,the full name of it is Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan,it means Tales of fairy sword and strange masters,and GuJian's full name is Gu Jian Qi Tan,it means Tales of ancient sword.One is "fairy" and another is "ancient".

And a little correction,thanks to @匡扶漢室不二人選 ,in the context above,when I said sword I mean Jian（剑）,but the translation is not accurate either.Actually Jian（剑）is just one kind of Chinese language defined swords,it has double edges;as for the sword has single edge,it is called Dao（刀）.They are both Chinese language defined swords.Of course,in the topics of Chinese Paladin and Gujian,there are both Jian（剑）a.k.a double edge sword.Jian is a very important kind of weapons in ancient Chinese cultures,just like the Japanese and their katanas.Their is an old saying in China that said"Sword is the gentleman of the hundred weapons".

Secondly, in the modern Chinese fictional cultural products about ancient China,such as literature、TV series、Movies Animation and video games,there are two different kinds,one is called Wuxia（武侠）,one is called Xianxia（仙侠）.
As for the difference,Wuxia is a story about people practise martial arts,also known as KongFu.They fight with weapons or their own hands and legs;But Xianxia is a story about people practise the magic arts of Taoism,they are like the sorcerer of the western fantasy,but believe in Taoism.

Wuxia and Xianxia also has something in common.First of course both happened in ancient China,some is based on the real Chinese history,some is based on a fictional universe;The other thing is,they both have Jian（剑）a.k.a double edge sword as an important element.For Wuxia,Jian is a kind of weapon and has schools of arts.For Xianxia,the Taoist usually prefer Jian as their weapon and rarely used other kind of weapons such as Dao（刀）a.k.a single edge sword or Qiang（枪\Spear）or Gun（棍\Stick）.The reason?No doubt about it,cause Jian（剑\double edge sword）is the gentleman of the hundred weapons.

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

The story begins in 1995.A man named Yao'zhuangxian went into a game company in Taipei Taiwan,it is call Dayu information Technology Inc.At that time he just broke up with a girl and apparently very upset.But he is also a talented programmer and game maker.With the sadness and missing with the ex-girlfriend,Yao'zhuangxian create a RPG game runned in Windows Dos,almost by his own,with just few help from others.
Yeah,that game is the famous Chinese Paladin 1（《仙剑奇侠传》） .It tells a very touching love story,there is a boy who wanted to be a hero,one day he met a beautiful girl which is taking a bath in a riverside,naked.After removing the misunderstanding,they went to adventure together and failed in love with each other gradually.However,the end was not that happy.Although the boy eliminated the big villain and stopped him from ruling the world,the girl died of difficult labor and only left him a daughter.
Since the Chinese Paladin 1 have been released,it quickly became a huge success in all over China,thousands of Chinese teenagers were moved by the touching love story and the end of tragedy.And the creator of the game,Yao'zhuangxian,is famous because of it and known as "Father of Chinese Paladin"for many years until now.

[tinajun]

very good

[medion_no]

Interesting. Next chapter?

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

Although Chinese Paladin 1 was a huge success,the development of its sequel was falling into serious.Because Yao'zhuangxian had a big argument with one of his colleagues named Xie'chonghui. Xie thought Chinese Paladin 2's story should be happened at the time right after Chinese Paladin 1 ends and made the daughter of the main character of Chinese Paladin 1 to be one of the main characters of the sequel. However Yao insisted Chinese Paladin 2's story should not have any connections with Chinese Paladin 1 except in the same background world.
The divergence lasted for several years,they cannot find a way to agree with each other.Eventually there is nothing else but going separate ways.The time arrived 2000s,The headquarter of Dayu company made a wise decision:to go to the Mainland China and establish a branch company in order to expand their business.Yao'zhuangxian seized the opportunity right away,after getting approval from the HQ,he went to Mainland China to strive for his new career.But he didn't go alone,a man also in Dayu company but younger than Yao followed him into the Mainland China.
This young man's name is ZhangYiJun,he is the man who led a group of people created the Gujian RPG game series many years later.But let me continue,please be patience.

[tinajun]

只喜欢仙剑四，古剑一和古剑三，这三部编剧是某树

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

The first stop is in BeiJing,the capital of China and economic and cultural center of northern China,Yaozhuangxian established a new company called Softstar. And he recruited amounts of local game makers into the company. Yaozhuangxian had the authority of development of many IP programs.Besides Chinese Paladin,there are Richman（《大富翁》\Da Fu Wen）,a Chinese version of Monopoly and the Chinese Paladin and Richman's online version games.
So Yaozhuangxian came up with an idea,to let the younger man ZhangYiJun which followed him from Taiwan,to go to the city Shanghai,the economic and cultural center of southern China,an essential port city of the country.Following Yao's order,ZhangYiJun established another company Softstar Shanghai,and just like Yao did,he recruited another amounts of local game makers from southern China.And Yao gave the authority of Chinese Paladin sequel's development to ZhangYiJun and Softstar Shanghai,to develop his version of the Chinese Paladin 2.
But back in Taipei at the same time,Xiechonghui also gathered many people in DaYu company,to develop the his version of the Chinese Paladin 2.So there was a very rare phenomenon in game history:both in Shanghai and Taipei,two different teams were working on the program of the same game series's first sequel.It is sort of a competition.

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

The "competition" ends in 4th January 2003.The team in Taipei finished their job first and released the version of the sequel. It got the name Chinese Paladin 2 eventually.But the sequel hadn't achieved a big success like the previous one,because it used the same 2D graphic technology with Chinese Paladin 1,but the latter is released in 1995,8 years ago,and on a MS-DOS windows system.And Xiechonghui left Dayu company at the half way of development. Yaozhuangxian had to go back to Taipei to clean up the mess.All of the factors above led to the failure of Chinese Paladin 2.The game series were in crisis temporarily.
But the situation got better seven months later.In 1st August,Softstar Shanghai released Yao's version of the sequel,it is Chinese Paladin 3.Contrary to the Chinese Paladin 2,Chinese Paladin 3 used a brand new 3D graphic technology.Its story、graphic effects and gameplay also promoted a lot compared to Chinese Paladin 2 in chaos.
Since than the HQ of Dayu company at Taipei tacitly consent to let Yaozhuangxian give the authority of Chinese Paladin sequel's development to Softstar Shanghai.And at the leadership of the Softstar Shanghai's CEO Zhangyijun,employees of Softstar Shanghai developed two Chinese Paladin sequels after that,and some other games like Tun Town 2（《阿猫阿狗2》\A Mao A Gou 2）and Han Dynasty and Rome（《汉朝与罗马》\Han Chao Yu Luo Ma）.

[medion_no]

What happened after?

[noren]

I have actually played Chinese Paladin and over the years my taste in RPG also has grown and I felt that the combat system is not longer suitable for today's game play environment. Of course I understand some people still like turn based, but I can no longer enjoy the experience of an RPG with turn base combat. So I find Guijian to be a more suitable series for me. I do love Chinese Paladin 1,2 and 3 to death though. Childhood memories, when I saw the game here being a mobile port I was quiet disappointed.

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

For your information,the new Chinese Paladin's developer,Softstar Shanghai.It is a splendid developing team,their production Chinese Paladin 3 prevented the series from being a failure,after that they developed an unorthodox sequel,called Chinese Paladin 3 extra:Asking for love.It is not as good as Chinese Paladin 3,but not that bad either. Softstar Shanghai's biggest reputation,is Chinese Paladin 4 released 4 years later.The story and graphic has been improved again and led the series into a new level.However,Softstar Shanghai comes to its end.
That is all because the headquarter of Dayu company in Taipei,had never given them enough money to them for developing games.During the developing progress of Chinese Paladin 3,headquarter of Dayu company only gave them 6 million RMB,that can be explained,cause Chinese Paladin 2 is developing almost at the same time.It is really a huge budget for supporting two developing teams.
As for the distribution of the profits,Dayu company took the profits in Taiwan and Softstar Shanghai get the profits in Mainland China.It seems fair but at that time,the video games' market share in Mainland China is occupied by online games and pirate copies.So Softstar Shanghai didn't get paid enough for their great achievements.

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

Without enough money,during the developing progress of every Chinese Paladin sequel,all of the Softstar Shanghai employees including the CEO Zhangyijun,need to work under a lot of pressure.They need to face very hard work and lots of overtime,but got paid pitiful wages,while the price of food and houses in Shanghai was rising rapidly.
After finished Chinese Paladin 4,Zhangyijun and the whole Softstar Shanghai employees are disappointed to the headquarter of Dayu company,they had enough. In September 2007,just one month after Chinese Paladin 4 released,Zhangyijun and the whole Softstar Shanghai employees resigned from the branch company,and Softstar offical claims Softstar Beijing incorporated Softstar Shanghai. Acttually everyone know Softstar Shanghai was dismissed.
But sooner after that,Zhangyijun found another investor in mainland China,and a much more generous one than Dayu company in Taiwan.His name is Mengxianming. With his support,Zhangyijun gathered some of the previous Softstar Shanghai core backbone employees established Shanghai Aurogon Information Technology.The company that create a new Chinese RPG game series——Gujian.

[medion_no]

Pure videogame history. Pretty exciting.

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

What happened in Chinese Paladin series and the taking over developer after Softstar Shanghai dismissed,I will talk about it later.Let' us switch topic to the Gujian first.
First thing first,I need to talk more about Zhangyijun,the CEO of Shanghai Software,who is in charge of all three Chinese Paladin sequels developed by ex-Softstar Shanghai company.And he also took control of developing Gujian1 and Gujian2.
Zhangyijun is very strict with his work and his subordinates. In some of the employees' eyes,Zhangyijun looks like a tyrant,sort of James Cameron in his movie set.Another distinctive feature of him,it that he has a very different opinion with Yaozhuangxian.
Has anyone remmenbered what I talked about Wuxia（武侠） and Xianxia（仙侠）?In this case,Yaozhuangxian,the founder of the Chinese Paladin series,he prefers the style of Wuxia,and ZHangyijun prefers Xianxia.Yao wants a simple romantic love story and adventure,but Zhang has a very different opinion,he thinks the core of Chinese Paladin should not be a man and his story,it should be Jian（剑）a.k.a double edge sword.
And Zhangyijun putted his idea into practice on the game.Chinese Paladin 3 expands the world of the game,added more elements from Taoism and Chinese mythology.He also had more demands about the story line. Instead of Yao's romantic adventure,Chinese Paladin 3's story is based on a big conspiracy hidden at first and showed up gradually as the story goes in order to make a astonished reverse.
But all of above is not the most exciting thing for Chinese native players,Zhangyijun and his team's favourite thing and the best they can do is combining Chinese traditional cultural elements with modern video games.For example,all the names of the main characters comes from one certain kind of Chinese traditional items.Chinese Paladin 3's main characters' names are medicines；Chinese Paladin 3 extra:Asking for love is XIngxiu（星宿）a.k.a constellation；Chinese Paladin 4's main characters' names are mine stones.
And the Gujian series inherited all of the special abilitis from Chinese Paladin 3、Chinese Paladin 3 extra:Asking for love and Chinese Paladin 4. Gujian 1's main characters' names are Chinese wines;Gujian 1's main characters' names are Chinese ancient musical notes;Gujian 3 is XIngxiu（星宿）same as Chinese Paladin 3 extra:Asking for love.

[早乙女まりあ's Husband]

With more money from the new investor,Gujian's graphic technology and art design has improved substantially. Aurogon（The Gujian maker's company name）has created a much more bigger game world and more details transformed from Taoism、Chinese mythology、Chinese history and ancient traditional culture.That made Gujian 1 a success in 2010,and gave the new series a great start.
In Gujian 2, Aurogon made a bold decision, to change the combat system from turn-based to real time combat.Turn-based game is the majority of Chinese RPG Video games for a very long time,Chinese Paladin is the typical example. Gujian 1 is also turn-based because first generation of the series must not be a failure.
However,because of the lack of real time combating developing experience,Gujian 2's combat system is a terrible disaster.At the same time, Aurogon started the program of Gujian Online, so Gujian 2 must squeeze in a lot of extra statement about the Xianxia world in order to serve the Gujian Online,which made its story very lengthy.And for the reason of preventing pirated copies, Gujian 2's player need to be connected to the Internet at the whole process, that still be a problem in Gujian 3. But Chinese video games had almost died becasue pirated copies, it is not all their fault after all.
After Gujian 2, Aurogon put all their effort into the Gujian Online program temporary. But Aurogon's experience about online games was as few as real time combat system before Gujian 2.So the early version of Gujian Online is not that good,until recently it has eventually getting better.