Discussion What's up with wuxiaworld?

Is it just coincidence? Ive been snooping around wuxia, looking for some good novels to read, but almost all of them have abyssmal ratings. (Usually around 2 stars) Are the stories they pick truly that bad? Or are there haters disliking their stories? Ive been reading wuxiaworld since 2016 and most of their stories were at least entertaining, definitely worth more than 2 stars.

 

It's just that most of the good Chinese novels are from Qidian and most of the good Korean novels are from Munpia.
And since Wuxiaworld probably doesn't want to deal with either of them, they're making deals with more lesser quality companies. Take Breathe (publishers) for example, giving WW some of its worst reviewed novels yet!

 

Though Breathe has given us some good novels, Most notably Second Coming of Gluttony but also Life Once Again (smthn like that) and Moon's labyrinth.

 

I suspect Qidian 2 cents army.

But in any case, they are turning from chinese xianxia stories due to the fact they couldn't get the qidian contract. Korean webnovel is not as popular imo...

 

I been with wuxiaworld since before it was established. I believe it was when coiling dragon was translating around that time they decide to establish the website. The thing is they do have a lot of good novels but they have a lot of similar themes. Not only that the novels especially the chinese ones can go on for a long time. Dont get me wrong i enjoy the website and they have a good variety for a official translation website. It's probably a lot haters that are doing a lot of the reviews.

 

The last few novels they have picked up truly deserve those ratings. Kind of feels like they expanded to include various outside translation groups to counter the centralization of novels by Qidian. Except all the good stuff is an issue copyright related.

This alongside of needing to register, novels going premium and lack of originality with carbon copy novels leading to an overall decrease in interest in the site, although this wouldn't alter the novel ratings by much and anything hosted by Qidian would overall get much more 'hate votes'.

 

As for people getting tired of the same stuff, that is indeed happening. When Chinese novels were first introduced, people called them different and unique compared to Japanese novels. Then people got bored of CN novels as well. So when Korean novels came along, people also called them unique and refreshing. Though this is not the case for some people.

 

This is one of the caveats of running a legal business. Not everything you can get your hands on legally is of quality. With Qidian pretty much hogging all the "better" novels, not much WW can do but search for what's available.

 

I think it's a bit of a combination of # 2 and 4? There are only so many wuxia, xiaxia etc. novels a person can read before having the super human ability to predict entire plotlines 500 chapters ahead.

And a while back Wuxiaworld introduced their Karma currency along with free chapters caps and locked stories. A step that I understand, from a business point of view the old model proved unsustainable, but as a consumer it did bump me off most of my WW novels.

 

I think it's go something to do with licensing, and the troubles that come with it, but since I don't know much about this subject I'm not going to say anything else.

 

... and that is exactly how I ended up again reading Western junk fantasy. Wheel of Samsara.

 

Variety of reasons probably. This is a non exhaustive list of why I believe there are low ratings:

1. The novel started out good, was good when they picked it up, got progressively worse as the story went on. A common problem I’ve encountered in the wuxia genre.

2. Usually only people with strong opinions or too much free time go to review novels. A large part of strong opinions end up being negative. I have not seen many reviews along the lines of “eh, it was nice, not the best, but pretty ok.” which I think is what most of the community thinks about the novels, other than a few favourites.

3. A lot of their good/completed novels got pulled down due to rights issues, leaving behind a larger number of lesser rated novels

Edit: I also agree with the water army, and the same stuff being tiring from poll options

 

There are barely even 30 wuxia series translated/being translated, and you'd have to add the series targeted toward a female audience to even reach that number. Their reader base is tiny.

 

The reason is very simple. Its the desire for legitimacy. The whole novel translating industry was destroyed by this reason. Its what brought qidian here and its also why Wuxiaworld doesn't translate any good novels anymore other than necropolis immortal. There are plenty of great novels that are not qidian that are not being translated. For example Everlasting immortal firmament is one. The best illustration of my point is that there was a promising novel that they RWX couldn't translate because he didn't get the liscence to it or something its called dragon talisman I think. If they forgo the need for legitimacy there are a plethora of good novels for them to choose from.

 

Well no matter how much they try the whole CN tropes aren't changing in the home base, so they pick the best of them. And even that is getting boring to us cause of the same story over and over again.


Honesty I think the most readers are from newbies and ones already half way into novels(mga, ed, I'm looking at you).

I only like rmji , and a bit of sage monarch.

And Once upon a time warlock of magus world, and BTTH.

 

it's a combo. the water army is real, the Chinese use them a lot to sway public opinion and pull down the competition. there are also legal complications now that WW is an actual company and not just a translation hub, and they're not always able to obtain the license needed. added to that, most of the Chinese novels they translate are all from the same genre (cultivation+harem), which leads to severe reader burnout after a while. branching out as they have is a necessity if they want to compete with QI. here's hoping they branch out more and someone starts translating a nice supernatural horror story or two.

 

WW should focus on Kr at this point, most of its CNs are Harem or too pricey sadly

 

Webnovel removes low star votes from their novels, so I don't think you will see many 'hate votes'. It is funny to see 5 star ratings totally trashing on a story though.

 

Why should they do it when they by-far surpassed WW in pretty much every way except for NUF's opinion?

Like, it's not even worth doing it as WW is still translating their web novels.

 

We're talking about the ratings the novels get on NU. Obviously 50 cent army completely dominates their own site's ratings. At least they stopped boosting terrible fan fiction novels that were locked to the top 3 by thousands of power stones. The danmachi story that's always first now, used to be like 7th with the same amount, just because he isn't milking it for cash.

Not sure if they still do so for their main novels since i don't follow their promotions. I remember Shadow hack being super hyped with them adding 10.000 stones and promising bonus chapters for votes and not delivering with the story being terrible past the initial interesting concept.