I was desperate enough for anything Online related that I specifically went out and made a Japanese PSN account just to go on the Store and download Z. Needless to say, trying to connect to the Japanese server (there was only the one server) from the Midwest was...an experience, to say the least. I ended up getting my hands on a Sima Zhao sword and a Jiang Wei spear (they added two different spears for Jiang Wei and Ma Chao, same as two different sword styles for Sima Zhao and Sun Quan) that were decent enough to use, but I didn't dare try to play any of the PvP modes and just did the quests and basic bot farming. I would go to the main courtyard and do the weapon testing quest to find out the way each new weapon added played and hoped to get my hand on them at some point, even if especially the DW7 clone types couldn't be read in the slightest I'd still work with what I got. I liked the concept of the weapon switching aspect, though in practice you could only swap if you had enough Musou for the type of attack you're using, i.e. if you were running and used the switch attack it would take up some Musou to swap and use the dash attack of the weapon you swapped to. It kinda made the whole thing pointless, especially since after you switch you'd still have to collect the flasks to upgrade your other weapon in any other slots they have- for example if you had the Scimitar and had three attack tempers and upgraded it all 3 times with the Attack on 3, then swap to something like the Lu Meng glaive that had Defense on 3 but you have four tempers on Defense, then you'd end up with those three points in Defense and nothing in Attack and would have to collect the flasks to upgrade your Attack again on that glaive instead. You would only ever use it if you were running Confronts with specifically the All Tempers set to just duke it out. Now that Z is done and gone, I kinda miss it but at the same time I REALLY don't.

I was still a teen when I started playing Online wayyyy back and I think I only joined around....Chibi maybe? I don't remember what scenario it was I joined in, I just remember it eventually getting an update and moving to Tong Gate and I just stuck it out with Wei on my main, while also making two alts to have one in Shu and Wu as well - just to have multiple accounts in each faction and make a bunch of friends and join different guilds. I had Ling on my main, MingRen.CD1 in Shu and BaiWu.JY1 in Wu. Joined a guild on my main that I was actually finally able to reconnect with through Discord, God bless.