Hey guys! It's been a bit longer than we had anticipated, but we're really trying to roll things in together instead of overloading you guys with too many announcements, so we wanted to get it all together at once. We continue our revamp with a new Steam-inspired review system (mouse-over covers to see current ratings), have launched two new novels the past week, and will be launching the remaining four Korean novels at the rate of one each day, starting tomorrow. Read on!

CHINESE NOVELS (NEWLY RELEASED)

Refining the Mountains and Rivers: We have been waiting so long for this novel! Hyorinmaru, who translated Martial World, had started it almost a year ago, but because it was a top-rated novel that was SHARED by two different publishers (Migu and Zongheng), the actual paperwork took forever and a half. We nearly gave up on this thing several times, but in the end we persevered and got the license! Y'all know how fast hyorinmaru is, so you can expect fast and steady releases going forward. We're just getting started with 50+ chapters, so hop on this ride from the start!

Destroyer of Ice and Fire: This is a Zongheng novel that was originally hosted on Volare, but which will now be dual-hosted on Wuxiaworld as well! DIF was written by legendary author 无罪 (Blameless/Innocent), and as the translator describes it, it is a light-hearted story set in a western setting with containing magical academies, warm friendships, fierce rivalries, hot-blooded youth, unique comedy, and the most handsome character of all. The official synopsis is described thusly: 'As the era of dragons gradually came to an end and countless riches and legends were left behind by arcane masters under a waning starry sky, several awakened youngsters begin on their respective, but interconnected journeys.' There are already 470 chapters out of a total of 696, so we're quite far in. Come and join in - by the time you are caught up, the story will be wrapping up!

KOREAN NOVELS (COMING THIS WEEK)

The remaining Korean novels are now coming! Overlord of Blood and Iron makes its long-awaited return on Tuesday, March 10th. Game of Divine Thrones arrives on Wednesday, March 11th. Moon's Labyrinth descends on Thursday, March 12th. And Tomb Raider King lands on Friday, March 13th! Keep an eye out for their individual novel announcements, if the translators choose to make them. Novels galore!

NEW REVIEW SYSTEM!!!!



This is definitely the biggest change that we've made. Finally, reviews are now going to be possible! One of the reasons we took our time is because we saw all of the ways other sites have implemented it, and we wanted to do it in a way that avoided the usual problems; everything basically just sandwiching together at the 4.5 range, which is meaningless; if everything is rated the same, you might as well have no ratings at all.

In the end, we settled on something that borrows heavily from Steam - instead of giving stars (which usually ends up with just a plethora of both 5* and 1* reviews), it's a simple 'recommend' or 'not recommended'. Each review must be accompanied by at least 100 words of text (spam reviews will be removed). Translators cannot alter or remove reviews at all. In addition, reviews will be slightly 'weighted' towards those who either have VIP on the site (or did at time of review), or who have spent money/golden karma on the novel in question; in other words, if you put your money where your mouth is, your voice is just a tiny bit louder, and it will also be reflected on the reviews page itself (an idea we borrowed from Amazon's 'verified purchase' system).

After factoring in everything, the overall ratio of 'recommend' to 'not recommend' will be calculated for a final score. Novels that are at a 80%+ positive feedback will be rated 'overwhelmingly positive', 70-79% positive is 'highly positive', 60-69% is 'mostly positive', 50-59% is 'mixed', and below 50% is 'mostly negative'.

We will probably add in golden karma rewards for reviews later, but there's no need to wait; if we do so, those who review 'early' will be grandfathered in and credited as well. So get to expressing yourselves! Review scores will be shown in two places; on the front page (via mouseover), and on each index page itself, which is now divided into a 'reviews' section and a 'chapters' section. We welcome your feedback!

OTHER SITE UPDATES

As you may have noticed, we have made several updates. The most noticeable is that we've changed (and economized) the logo on top. As we are getting more and more novels and functionality, space (especially on the front page) is now at a premium. We now have a stylized 'Wu' (the character meaning 'martial' in Wu Xia) as our logo, which has been incorporated into and shrank into a simpler toolbox (that will have some more changes coming). Also, the novel search pages are going to be changed to cover only (with reviews/synopsis/genres on mouseover for desktop) so that it's easier to sort through novels, an increasingly important deal as our lists of novels grow. Each index page is now separated between a 'reviews' section and a 'chapters' section, AND we are also going to be incorporating a sidebar functionality idea 'borrowed' from other sites where you can select chapters directly from an expandable sidebar instead of always having to go to the index page. This will make chapter-hopping much easier. Lots more coming as well!

iOS

We really, really thought this would be happening over a week ago. We're literally waiting on just the last piece of Apple approving the account, but for some reason it is now 'stuck' and they aren't sending the email or phone call they are supposed to. We will try to get this sorted out this week so the app (which is more-or-less ready) can actually be launched. This time, I pinky swear it's coming! Literally just needs the final OK from Apple.

OLDER KOREAN NOVELS (ADDENDUM)

As many of you have noticed, we have been slowly removing older Korean novels once they are finished. This process may continue with all non-Breathe owned novels, as many of those translators came during the earliest days as 'refugees' from Gravity and the licensing situation has yet to be sorted out (and may not be). This includes (I believe) PTO, ICDS, TNE, and TBEM. If there are other situations like this (fingers crossed), we will handle in the same manner. Sorry, we wanted to keep them up as well :(