Romance of the Three Kingdoms

[Abe Sargent]

I always knew that some day I wanted to pick up and read this epic tale, and I finally did so earlier this week. I'm eight chapters in (around 130 pages) and it's great! I can;t beleive I waited so long!!!

Anybody else here read it? Are you a fan?

(For those who do not know, Three Kingdoms is one of the bedrock myths of China, written hundreds of years ago compiling older stories, it's to China what the Odyssey and Illiad are to Europe. It's also, in unabridged form, around 2000 pages).

-Anxiety

[Groundhog]

I've never read it, though it's been on my list to read for a few years now. I'm a massive fan of classic Japanese literature (Heike Monogatari, Taiheiki, et al) and so much of it draws on and directly refers to episodes from Chinese legends (RotTK in particular) that it has peaked my interest. Glad to hear it's a good read, I'll bump it up a couple of notches on my amazon.com wish list.

[WVUFAN]

I like the games.

[SirFozzie]

did you get the four volume set? It's also available to read online

[Izulde]

It's a hell of a great read, but in my opinion you get the most mileage out of it if you've played any of the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms games, Dynasty Warriors games, or Destiny of an Emperor.

[sabotai]

It's been on my "to read" list going all the way back to high school, along with many, many other books. One day I'll get to it.

EDIT: BTW, which version/edition did you get?

[Blade]

I was a huge fan of the games, and that prompted me to get the book as well. I had to go to my local University to find it, but once I did, I could not put it down. Absolutely fantastic read!

[SirFozzie]

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Kingdoms...e=UTF8&s=books (the version I own)

[Abe Sargent]

SF, that's exactly the version I have as well, ordered mine from Amazon too!!!

[Abe Sargent]

It's an easier read than most English literature from that time (compare to, say, Chaucer). However, it is difficult because a lot of places and names have not been translated (people and places not translated, nomes of other things are trasnlated, so Guan Yu's sword is Green Dragon, Lu Bu's horse is Red Hare, etc). It's very foreign at first keeping track of, by now, probably a couple hundred names. A lot of names are very similar (Zhang He, Zhang Fei, Zhang Jui, Zhang Yi, Zhang Liao) and so you sometimes have to just plow through. However, all of the main characters have enough distinction that you are good (Cao Cao, Dong Zhou, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, Sun Jian, Lu Bu).

It's a surpringly good and nice read.

[Jonathan Ezarik]

Is the book linked above the abridged version or the whole text? I've been meaning to get a copy of this, but I want the full thing.

[SirFozzie]

The full thing, in four volumes

[DougWyatt]

I liked the games, and the story lines that I've browsed - but I just can't get into reading. Nothing that long anyway - I'm good with a newspaper lol.

I know they ran it on TV in China for a while; so I'm hoping one day we'll make a couple movies out of it - or maybe even sell a subtitled copy of the old Chinese TV show.

[SirFozzie]

Doug: I have the Chinese TV subtitled set

spmething like 60 DVD-VCD's

[Abe Sargent]

60 DVDs huh? Awesome. I totally belive that too

[SirFozzie]

http://www.cgcmall.com/Three_Kingdom...p/dv00thre.htm

[Abe Sargent]

You are such a bad person to show that to me....


Yay!


-Anxiety

[Izulde]

I think that version's abridged. It only has 28 compared to 60

[SirFozzie]

I may have gotten the # of DVD's wrong (or this version has 3 episodes to a disk, mine did not). It looks to have all the episodes

[DougWyatt]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Doug: I have the Chinese TV subtitled set

spmething like 60 DVD-VCD's

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

http://www.cgcmall.com/Three_Kingdom...p/dv00thre.htm

Wow, bookmarked for future order. Great stuff. Thank you sir.

[Groundhog]

I downloaded a ton of episodes with english subtitles via torrents a few months back. Only sat through a couple of them, and they weren't the best quality, but looked like a good show.

[Blade]

Has anyone ready anything about the latest game? I was at EB Games today, and saw the newest one (XI) on the shelf. I went home and started looking for reviews on it, but cannot find any...

Anyone been able to play it yet?

[SirFozzie]

It's gotten way too complicated.

I prefer RoTK3 (had it on my machine for a while

[Groundhog]

I wasn't even aware that they still released new versions of RotTK in English. I really wish they released the current Nobunaga's Ambition in English. They are up to like #13 in Japan.

[SirFozzie]

They skipped between 6 and 9 or so I think

[Calis]

For anyone interested in the games, they are actually giving the latest game in the series an English PC release which they haven't done in a long time. There's a demo available now.

News: Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI Demo - GamersHell.com

I believe the full release is due in September, and I'm hearing it's going to be a download only deal.

I've played through the demo a bit, which is just the tutorials and it looks very nice. I always preferred these types of games on PC so I'm pretty excited about this one. I believe the PC versions are beefed up quite a bit from the PS2 releases as well.

I still fire up ROTK 10 on the PS2 quite often. I really loved the different style of that one and hope they go that route again at some point.

[Neon_Chaos]

Sweet!

[fantom1979]

Originally Posted by Calis

For anyone interested in the games, they are actually giving the latest game in the series an English PC release which they haven't done in a long time. There's a demo available now.

News: Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI Demo - GamersHell.com

I believe the full release is due in September, and I'm hearing it's going to be a download only deal.

I've played through the demo a bit, which is just the tutorials and it looks very nice. I always preferred these types of games on PC so I'm pretty excited about this one. I believe the PC versions are beefed up quite a bit from the PS2 releases as well.

I still fire up ROTK 10 on the PS2 quite often. I really loved the different style of that one and hope they go that route again at some point.

Very nice

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by fantom1979

Very nice

Triple ditto awesome

[DaddyTorgo]

it's definately on my list - you just might spur me to pick it up...

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

did you get the four volume set? It's also available to read online

where please

free audiobooks?

[PurdueBrad]

Been playing the old one on the wii and loving it, brings back lots of gaming memories. And let me second DaddyTorgo's request, where is the on-line version of the book set?!

[PurdueBrad]

Dola, as soon as I post, I find it. It's free here, scroll down a bit and you'll find all the chapters:

Romance of Three Kingdoms - by Luo Guanzhong - Table of Contents

[PurdueBrad]

Double dola, just decided to break down and order the book set.

[DaddyTorgo]

i want to order the book sets, but i'm cheap.

seriously, anyone know if audiobooks exist - would be awesome train-reading...

[Groundhog]

I got the book set a little while ago, haven't had a chance to start on them yet.

Awesome news about the video game, too! Hopefully it sells well enough to see them do the same with the latest Nobunaga's Ambition. I was looking at screenshots of some of the later versions of that and it looks awesome.

[Neon_Chaos]

On my trip to Beijing in May last year, I actually picked up the entire four-book set for San Guo Yan Yi. It's a pretty awesome read.

[Groundhog]

Anyone with any thoughts on the demo?

I was playing around with it yesterday, and the demo is made up of all the tutorial levels. Overall, I really like it. Looks like the game has a lot of potential. It has a dueling module (sort of like a "fighting" game) and a debating module (a card game) as well, but you really can't tell much about either of those from the demo.

Definately a must-buy for me when it's released.

[Crim]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

It's an easier read than most English literature from that time (compare to, say, Chaucer). However, it is difficult because a lot of places and names have not been translated (people and places not translated, nomes of other things are trasnlated, so Guan Yu's sword is Green Dragon, Lu Bu's horse is Red Hare, etc). It's very foreign at first keeping track of, by now, probably a couple hundred names. A lot of names are very similar (Zhang He, Zhang Fei, Zhang Jui, Zhang Yi, Zhang Liao) and so you sometimes have to just plow through. However, all of the main characters have enough distinction that you are good (Cao Cao, Dong Zhou, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, Sun Jian, Lu Bu).

It's a surpringly good and nice read.

I just got Volume I, and am barreling through Chapter 2 currently. This shit better be good, you bastitches.

[PurdueBrad]

My copies arrived on Friday but the English teacher nerd that I am, I have to finish the LOTR trilogy before I get to this set.

[Groundhog]

As long as you can deal with all the names (places and people), you'll be fine. That's always the hardest part about first delving into Chinese or Japanese history.

[terpkristin]

Added to my amazon wishlist. Now at some point, I'll even buy it and read it.

/tk

[Izulde]

If you've played the series, you should be able to recognize most of the names, even though there's spelling variants in there.

[Calis]

Just read that the game is going to be selling for $19.95 so that's a great price point. I liked the demo. Not much to say about it though. It's ROTK with crisper graphics and a few tweaks.

As for the book I would highly recommend having a small notebook or something handy to take some notes. It was one of the few books I needed to do so to keep track of the names. The writing itself is very easy to follow, not at all what you'd expect for the time it was written.

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

Anyone with any thoughts on the demo?

I was playing around with it yesterday, and the demo is made up of all the tutorial levels. Overall, I really like it. Looks like the game has a lot of potential. It has a dueling module (sort of like a "fighting" game) and a debating module (a card game) as well, but you really can't tell much about either of those from the demo.

Definately a must-buy for me when it's released.

+1. it has gotten completely complicated. but, hell, we are FOF and FM people so complicated is our game.

i've never been able to get through the books but have read many individual stories about the various individuals that were featured (zhao yun and huang zhong have always been my favourite).

there are a lot of chinese influence in thailand and this story is hugely thought of. we refer to zhuge liang by courtesy name of kong ming, however (not sure of the reason).

it is said that anyone who reads through the novel is considered very smart and anyone who has read through it three times is not to be trusted.

[Neon_Chaos]

Just in case anyone's interested, John Woo's RoTK movie came out in china in July.

Chi bi (2008)

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Calis

For anyone interested in the games, they are actually giving the latest game in the series an English PC release which they haven't done in a long time. There's a demo available now.

News: Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI Demo - GamersHell.com

I believe the full release is due in September, and I'm hearing it's going to be a download only deal.

I've played through the demo a bit, which is just the tutorials and it looks very nice. I always preferred these types of games on PC so I'm pretty excited about this one. I believe the PC versions are beefed up quite a bit from the PS2 releases as well.

I still fire up ROTK 10 on the PS2 quite often. I really loved the different style of that one and hope they go that route again at some point.

The game will be out for download this Tuesday Spet. 9 from trygames.com site exclusively for 20 or 30 US DOLLARS.

[Galaril]

Here is a quote from someone who got the game that makes it sound like there is a ton of depth and gameplay:

"Each city has it's own distinct resources, so it's not like having the most cities will guarantee success as far as I can see. You can transfer resources manually though using a transport army.
There are a lot of options available to a player. Too many perhaps, but it's nice to have a lot of options. For instance, the game I'm in - there is a front gate guarded by 30000 troops, but I can also take my armies all the way around the back to much easier gates, except this will take 6 months instead of 2, which means your army will need extra food. Looking around the map there are dams which could be used to flood a city, and boulders at the top of cliffs which can be used to push on to armies below."

[aran]

Well, it's 9/9 and the game is not up on trygames or d2d.

[Calis]

Yeah, sucks. I had today off by chance and thought I'd spend it playing the game. No sight of it yet though.

Then again I don't know when D2D puts their games out on release day. Do they do it at midnight or does it happen at random points throughout the day? This obviously isn't a marquee release for them so maybe they're in no rush.