I played the original Perfect World International (which was the Malaysian server everyone seems to refer as being just the Malaysian server) up until like level 30 something. I just realized that I was wasting a lot of time playing the game. I played through the whole Public Closed Beta and from day 1 of Open Beta. I never bought a thing from the cash shop with my own cash. I bought some costumes in game but they were relatively cheap seeing that the game had pretty much just started and people that bought colors they didn't want needed to resell. I do agree that it is pretty pricey to buy all the stuff you want in game. But as someone else mentioned some people just bought stuff purely to support the game. The vice guild leader of my guild spent $40 on the Chinese version of the Malaysian server and then $40 on the English version. I believe she stopped about level 60, as much of my guild did. The grind just got to be too much for them.

But I have to say that the game was one of the best f2p games I've played. The customization of course was awesome. I enjoyed the music in game. Werefox was one of the coolest classes I've ever played (seriously more mmos need a class like that) and I liked doing the FB dungeons. It was overall just really fun. But there were points where I just realized I was wasting time playing the game. I know most hobbies are just time fillers, but I'm more of a console gamer and although I do play some mmos still (looking forward to two currently) I prefer a console game with an added online feature. Mostly because everyone is truly equal, unlike in mmos where it's difficult to really be equal.

And although I do understand that f2p games do add up eventually if you spend a lot, I am very sure there are some people who have played to end game without ever spending a cent of their own money. Whether they buy in game or not shouldn't be a factor. Because they made that money playing the game, and hence it is still 100% FREE to them. So free to play is possible, you just have to be willing enough.

Perfect World International looks set to forever live in Aions Shadow. Who'd play this over Aion?

Originally posted by BigMango

You forgot to talk about the game's features. Many of them like territorial battles and territorial ownership, free flight, sea and air combat, ... aren't even in most of the pay  2 play games.

Here's a features list : http://pw-wiki.onlinewelten.com/Features.ashx

 

* Territorial Battles

The game divides the whole terrain into smaller domains and has a built-in territorial battle system where clans and factions can build, arm and fortify a city or multiple establishments at the same time. Fortify the captured city with catapults and armaments to effectively guard your location against opposing attackers who are keen on expanding their territory.

* High detail character customization

The game allows players to customize character features from head to toe. Every detail of the human body: hair style and color, facial features such as distance of the eyes, shape of the brows, body shape, skin color, torso size, width of limbs, etc., can be customized using a unique slider system that offers full control to the user. Using this customization system makes each character unique.

* Battle in Land, Sea and Air

Each character and class in Perfect World has the special ability and peripherals to fly, trek, and swim in different terrains. Inherent attributes, special equipments, summons or even mountable animals make it possible for characters to not only fly, trek, and swim but also to duel and clash on any of the terrain. Perfect World created a world with flying monsters and floating cities and ruins, all waiting to be explored.

* Massive Quest/Mission System

The game itself has more than 5,000 quests waiting to be discovered and completed. Quests can be race- and class-specific. Instance quests are available for players who would like to make their own adventures.

* Huge continuous terrain

The entire game world is within one large map that requires no loading or no changing of maps so players can move around without waiting for scenes to change.

* Day, Night and Weather Shifting

The game shifts from night to day and sunny to rainy season on a regular cycle, changing the view of each area to suit the time. This “real world” effect will immerse the players more effectively in the game.

* 16:9 Widescreen Mode

Allows players to play in widescreen mode to simulate a movie-type experience.

* Perfect World Mailing System

This enables players to communicate with their online and offline friends, clan mates or factions. Aside from mail, items can also be sent through this unique system.

* Perfect World Messenger

Perfect World has an in-game messenger that allows players to easily keep track of and chat with friends. The messenger always works, even if you’re outside the game.

* Player Chatrooms

Chatting among players is now made easier with in-game chatrooms, allowing easy and clear communication among them.

* Personalized Clothing

With this feature, one can truly express him/herself through his/her in-game character. Players have more options when it comes to what their character wears. They can even design their own in-game clothes.

* Crafting System

Each crafted item is unique as the item will bear the crafter’s name.

* Item Upgrading System

When a player upgrades his/her items, the item will have a glowing effect, the color depending on what gem was used.

* Double Experience Option NPC

Leveling is easy with the Double Experience Option. A non-playing character (NPC) can provide 12-14 hours of 2x EXP per week (non-stackable) at the discretion of the player.

* Martial Training System

This system allows you to train your character and improve its martial combat skills. Now players can be sure that the warrior they send to battle will dominate in the battlefield and bring you honor.

* Riding Pet System

Pets are not just companions in Perfect World. Players can train their pets, mount them and use them as a means of transportation.

* Partner Ride Systems

Mounts can accommodate up to two players at the same time, enabling you assist a fallen comrade and bring him to safety during a battle, or take a nice stroll in the woods or fields with your in-game loved one.

Edit
Additional known features

* Create your own hometown

You can create the houses, the plants,furnitures,etc.
 

* Many social animations

* Many social skills like craft, mine, etc.

Any character can craft any thing, so you don't have to ask the other craft-player to creat the armors or weapons for you.
There are 4 craft professions:
blacksmith: craft the weapons
tailor: craft the armors and the fashion cloths
craftsmen: craft the jewels,bows and ammos(arrow).
apothecary: craft the potions

* Tons of amazing pets and mounts

* PVP System

PVP on land sea and air. City PvP, Guild VS Guild PvP and more

* Guild and factions system

* Instanced dungeons

Additional to the world there are also instanced dungeons where the players can experience their own adventures with a group of up to 6 people!

* 3 races and 6 classes

Elfs: Archer and Cleric
Human: Warrior and Wizard
Untamed: Baberians (Polymorph) and Venomancer (Summoner)

im a CB (closed beta) player and i found no evidence of the stuff i highlighted in red probely bc its still in beta, and also bows r made by blacksmith in the pwi version the stuff in blue i changed bc this is probely takeen from one of the asian version thus the other names

If I may..

BigMango, get out. You haven't reached 50+ OBVIOUSLY.

I have a level 60 Elf Archer, and I have played with PWI (This version) and the PW-My-EN(Maylasian version in english.)

The PW-My-EN Version has a cash shop thats litteraly, 50%+ less than this one, PWE is scamming people who play PWI.

There's a thread on going at the moment about how expensive this game is, 70+ pages and still no change.

Once you hit 60+ (which I doubt because you sound like a person who gets to level 20 and only plays an hour a day after that and then goes on forums and says how awesome the game is until you really do realize leveling 60+ without cashshop is impossible. No, not exagerating, it's impossible.)

Let me tell you why, 60+ you are forced to grind, the only way to grind is with zhen partys, basically giant AOE partys where your mana goes by so fast that with 3 skills your back to 0.

Now, you can buy cash shop HP and Mana heiros which go by per hour, since they are 2.5$ in this version each, that's 5$ an hour. In PW-My-En, it was around 2 dollars for both. And you don't make enough money from doing this to be able to keep buying the Hieros (auto pots basically) from drops. And 3 classes in this game can AFK in aoe partys since their skills keep auto doing it by themselves. So this is also a bonus to having heiros.

OR.. you can do the non cash shop way, and use pots. This is impossible. Reason? Every 3 aoe's(10 seconds) you'd have to use the largest mana pot for your level. This means you'd be spamming pots every 10 seconds, and pots in this game are extremely expensive from NPC..) meaning if you had around 500k and spend it all on mana pots, it'd go buy in around 1 or 2 hours. While not being able to afk aoe, and having to constantly pot every 10 seconds. On top of this, you would only make back 100k from the time you spent leveling. This means you have to go and farm money for 5 hours to make back that 500k to go back and level for 1 hour.

And people don't want non heiro users in their party, you can imagine why. Having someone leave your party every 1 hour, it gets to be a pain since setting up the aoe party is a bitch.

Therefor you either have to pay to play this game 60+, or you can quit.

Simple choice if you're not going to pay. And I wouldn't pay for the current prices either. PWE is ripping everyone off.

   This game starts out free/cheap at first. And then you get up past lvl70. You can farm TT70 armor (which is needed for playing lvl70 instances) but by the time you get all the mats, you will be lvl80. That is unless you have weeks to sit in front of your computer and farm for 24 hours a day for a month.

   And then you hit 80 and the mats for armor get even harder to get. After that is 89 where you decide on Demon or Sage culti. Now you need skill books for the path you choose. Farming them literally will take years. but don't worry. You can buy them for $30 each. And you only need 18 or so of them.

   Now for the real headache. PWE took some in-game content out of the game. So you have to "chip" mats for TT99 gear. Meaning you need to trade Mysterious Chips and coin. You can get them as Bounty Hunter awards after you hit 100....except that without TT99 gear, you won't survive the dungeons. Sooo....you cash shop them. Don't give up yet though. For four pieces of armor, it is only around $1,000 in US currency.

   Say you do want to excel on the server. And you want to join a faction that actually does Territory Wars. Since all the maps have been taken over by factions full of well-geared lvl100+s, a TW faction will expect you to be the same. But don't fret. There is always Rank 8 armor if you're willing to spend another couple of thousand dollars. Or Rank 9 if you are willing to sell your car. There is also Warsoul Gear that you USED to be able to farm. It's not that expensive, really. You can get the weapon for a mere $27,000.

   Have I metioned the horrible lag that gets you killed? Or the $6 charms that you have to buy weekly to keep you alive because pots won't? What about the horrible customer service? Or the "24 hour chat assistance" that never has anyone there?

   This company is making $6,000,000 a year off of stupid people. I refuse to be one of them any longer. I lvl'd an archer to lvl101 and I can tell you right now. PWI is NOT free to play.

I'm happy to finally find a game that has an XP loss. That alone makes it better to me than Aion. This game brings me back to the fun I had in L2.

I have been playing PWI for over two years now. I have six 100+ characters. Honestly, i dont mind spending money in a game if it allows me to continue to play the game with enjoyment. But i have to say that for the past year, i have become increasing upset with the decisions PWE makes in their game updates. I have been silently suffering through it all, but I realize now that speaking out is the only way to get the developers to listen, instead of allowing the squeaky wheel to get the oil all the time. Let me list them here:

CS vs Farming

I do not deny that in order for a game to be successful, you need catshoppers. It turns once-called "i-will-never-spend-a-cent" players into catshoppers themselves and grows the industry. I completely understand the business aspect of it. But PWE has gone over the deep-end. They have not only made all end-of-game gear completely accessible by CSing, but make them available with a piece of plastic and virtually no game-play. They claim they are listening to their players, but the ones they are listening to are the rich-whiners who say they are bored... and the reason why is that they CS high level gear and then are bored within a couple of days again. ANd over and over, PWI has offered higher level gear... to the point where the ultimate end-of-game gear -- the kind that should only be available to the ultimate loyal players of the game -- can be CSed within a few minutes using your credi card. The end result is completey broken farming instances. Lemme explain a few:

1. TT (Twilight Temple). It is virtually impossible to find a squad if you are leveling up your characters. The only reason TT is still used is that people with CSed high end gear are farm it for more CSing. Since TT gear is so essential to the game, it pretty much everyone to catshop themselves and gives new players virtually no chance to actually learn or enjoy the instance for what it was meant to be. No one will take a geniunely needly lowbie in to help them farm thei gear anymore.
2. PQ3 (Public Quest 3) for the end of game PQ3 rings. Having worked so hard to participate in the repeatable event during the day, they recently introduced the rings in packs and emptied out the instance. Now people just CS the rings
3. Nirvana for upgrading TT and Lunar gear... used now as almost strictly a farming instance so that people can buy rank gear which is only accessible now by catshopping.
4. Lunar: Completely abandonned... all lunar gear is CSed
5. Warsong: Completely abandonned... all catshopped. LIke Lunar, people dont even know HOW to make the gear becuase it's considered a CSed item. No one knows how to do warsong or lunar, or barely even realize they exist as a regular farming instance.
6. I can go on and on... every instance  (dont even get me started with Frost-Covered City... or i wont stop)

PS... someone please help us find a new home.  QQ

Reading that makes me more determined never to invest my time and effort in any game that offers items for money that enhance your armour or weapons or skills. It cheapens the experience and this was why I always hated f2p games that become ptw  and stayed away from them. Glad I was right about my reservations.

Originally posted by joosii

PS... someone please help us find a new home.  QQ

Wait for GW2?

Thanks for the article btw I can feel your pain.

But 10's of thousands? Really!?! A subscription-based MMO is around 12-15 bucks/month, add a little bit for fluff items if you're into that stuff but why spend more than that .. ever?

About PWI ...

I think it's like with many other P2W / CS driven games at the moment, their companies crank up the way of the credit card because of 3 western games coming around who might finish their game off sooner rather than later (TOR, GW2 and Diablo 3).

It's a hasty money grab, a sellout. But we'll see next year I guess.

My basic issue with Asian games being run for western gamers is lack of communication between devs and gamers.

They have a fundamentally different mentality of gaming which is more business than providing a playground with fair rules for their customers.

It's impossible to "talk to them" as long as enough ppl who get lured into the CS scheme are willing to open their wallet.

Examples: SRO (botting issues, server access, rudeness in game) or Atlantica (no bug fixes, slow updates, gambling boxes)

I can only suggest is to check on a company's different games and their forums, their CS and "reputation" before you settle for a new game.

Originally posted by munecaroon

Originally posted by joosii

PS... someone please help us find a new home.  QQ

 

But 10's of thousands? Really!?! A subscription-based MMO is around 12-15 bucks/month, add a little bit for fluff items if you're into that stuff but why spend more than that .. ever?

Yes, I notice noobs on here saying "OMG! thousands of dollars?" and "First I would not play a game that has items in cash mall". 

1.) If you pay monthly for a sub game, you will pay about the same as a cell phone service, with is a multibillion dollar business. The difference is the same after time, and what the company does with your money.

2.) Items in cash mall DID NOT EXIST BEFORE! PEople began this game and worked hard to level up, and maye after one level 100, they got another and then the game changed on them. 

I knew a guild, the best in this game at the time. They owned all territory in Malaysian server. They basically had GM friends and helped shape the game. Even in the "Good old days" it was rigged. You get special faveors and territory was locked out to the best. This guild was insane, they were not disciplined asian hackers, it comprised of 1 farmer chick from Canada who had no life so as the government pumped her money for her down time in farming she pumped it all into the game by the thousands. The other guildies that were dedicated were from other parts of the world, usually spoke english and were either paid by her to play, or paid themselves. I would ask "Is this pay to win? I do not want to continue leveling if it isnt". People told me "Oh if you work hard you can get all that you want". Then I would get a private message...silent...slowly, after publicially reassured all is good: "Hi, its me from your guild, this game is great if you have the time. But even if you do not have the time, or if you do, you should pay cash and do it now, at low level just buy some mats for charms, or stones, it will save you time to get you to the dungeon, then once around 80 you will need to spend cash if you are going to seriously raid. We are a nice guild and will take you with us any ways, but if you want to go alone, or with a smaller group, or hold territory, start paying now"...

This was oh...4 years ago, maybe longer. BEFORE PWI, Then PWI came out. And this guild moved there as PW Malaysia (the only english version at the time), was full of bots, and full the territory totaly dominated. The GM's abandoned the game and the company raked in the money. There was one GM but they could do nothing in the game except ban people, and unstuck people. The territory was a mess, and the comoany did not have the power to reset it. So they just copy and pasted it to PWI and "Upgraded it", that is right, Genisis was the first content update in over 5 years of this games life. Sad, as all it was is a new power level for a fish face assasins. To get to level 20-80 here was done in less than a week. The OP guild I mentioned saw this, and their numbers dropped. I quit at level 48 as the game already took my money in Malaysia, and here in PWI, there were more Americans pumping in cash characters, but had NO IDEA how to play end game, they just knew how to pvp each other (actually they had no skill, they just spam one skill). In Malaysia, you at least had a fighting chance and several new strong groups that new how to play the dungeons, and get each other going would threaten the pvp territories and hold some territory for about a week, Now PWI Pumps you up if you pay, and I heard they refreshed their territories more than once LOL! So fail. 

I have found better games and moved on. You have to understand they are all pay to win. But some are ok. For example almost all require you pay to insure your armor is +8 or whatever by end game. The difference is, will people treat you different if you do not have it? and is the content still doable even if you do not pay? If the answer is yes and you are having fun, go for it!

Currently I am playing DArk PRophecy (casually, just something new) grate game, no cash shop breaking things yet.

Regnum: Again, great community that enjoys any player than can get for pvp and pve, if you cash shop or not, doesnt matter, cash shop doesnt break game. And yes the graphics are like something from 1990, but the classic feel is part of the idea...Casually play here. (On euro servers, french, they usually have better mature audience. Americans are usually dumb wow players or COD boys).

I found a gem recently. LEgend of Edda. It had shut down in USA (EU was updated, and USA could not get it due to publisher fail), but is active in Europe (FR, GR servers). I am studying French so I cna read the text. It is anime, I normally hate that, but it has a great 3-D super improved Ragnarok feel to it. The story PVE, and PVP is fun! The mobs have tactis, the players have tactics. It's simplicity / yet little challenges and straight forward game play make me attracted to it. UGhh it is hard to explain because I REALLY hate the anime games, I always joked it is for pedo bears, and 16 year olds. But I found a great guild, and again, the classic rpg feel is a fresh breath compared to PWE Crap (Yes, I tried Jade Dynasty and Forsaken world up to level 50 and foudn the SAME HOOKS of cash shop and broken gameplay, I really loved FW graphics, probably the best on the market, I took screen shots I was so impressed LOL, but PWE DESTRYOED it) .

I've checked on the reviewer's posts, he seems to be a happy panda in Forsaken World now :p

You've typed inside the quotation box making it hard to see where the quote stops and your own text kicks in.

Originally posted by munecaroon

But 10's of thousands? Really!?! A subscription-based MMO is around 12-15 bucks/month, add a little bit for fluff items if you're into that stuff but why spend more than that .. ever?

ok i calculated and its just over 10K... yes. over two years... and that's just the way the game sucks you in. YOu dont really  know it until you look back. Fortunately, i have a good job and can afford it, but not worth it for a game that's pretty much on the downward spiral... my friends are all leaving now.

By the way... im playing Forsaken World now... much more complex than PWI even though its offered by PWE. Im thinking that they will hopefully not make the same mistakes here... its already looking better. I dont really know what is at end game atm, but i'll just keep leveling and farming and let the game tell me when i get there :P When I get to high level and have an actual feel for the end game, i'll post some kind of review of my impressions.

BTW, thanks for your responses everyone!  <3

A new game of PW is now set to launch (originally set  last month , change to nov 2 , change to nov 9 ) im just curious if Perfect world can manage all the games on thier hand , seems from the trend of changing launching date perfect world  has less manpower  and creating more games they cant manage , what will happen to other games they manage can they handle it simultaneously?

Well i like PW games but if they cant even handle to give players what they promise , i think they should lay low on making new games but focus on the present games they have and handle it well .

Well with the most recent update to PWI, they're pretty much killing what's left of the game. The new guild  instances to recast rank gear is pretty much either going to force a person to catshop for rank gear (since rank gear cant be farmed with mats ingame) or they are simply going to quit. Once again, the new update is just giving the bored catshoppers something to do, and once again, it wont be enough. They will either go for it and stick with the game a little longer, or simply quit from frustration, because HELLO... THEY DONT FARM GEAR!!!! Rank sins will finally have a way to be 5 aps... and then be bored to death all over again in a couple weeks cuz there's nothing to farm... nowhere near enough people buying ingame mats to make soloing TT worth it. Cloned rank-geared characters -- wow, there's really no game left to play. It just makes me so mad on so many different levels.

Nirvana was the last of the existing farming instances, broken, but still with a little value. Now pretty much with zero value if everyone is buying rank 9 gear. Good luck finding ANY decent nirvana squad... or a new source of income to catshop ingame. (Nirvana was pretty much made obsolete by the overly-extended 2x that just recently happened this past September... there's no one left who needs Nirvana!)

The one bright spot perhaps is the encouragement for factions to get upgraded and make a base. Or for people to get into a faction that has a base. The problem is, the new instance is not easy... and really only the strongest factions, the ones giving absolutely no one else the chance to have land, are just gonna be that much stronger and keep TW a joke. TW has been reduced to "show up and win in 2 minutes", or "3-hours of grinding and pointless charm-rape" (and a massive waste of my money and time).

My guess is that they are preparing to let PWI fall by the wayside and concentrate on not making the same mistakes in the newly launched games. Forsaken World is already far superior to what PWI offers. And while i sorely miss the customization in PWI, and how unique my own characters looked (and believe me, looks is the ONLY uniqueness you will have in PWI... cuz you'll be forced to be a clone of all others in your classes), a broken game is not worth my time or money.

(oh yes, i can go on and on. Having been dedicated to PWI for two years of my life, I know all the ins and outs of the game. I've done every quest 10 times over with alt after alt. Believe me, its just getting worse. If you are thinking starting PWI Im just saying, save your time and try something else. And if you decide to go for it anyway, get your credit card ready cuz your gonna need it over and over again....now more than ever)  Thanks for screwing us all over, PWI...  D:

PWI needs more mature business strategist who think less about short term money gain and more about game longevity and endurance. Its obvious that they are panicing over their irreversible mistakes... an obvious symptom of a young and inexperienced game developer. But learning from mistakes is a part of life. So please just let PWI die and move on. You'll do much better next time (you already are).

(sorry for the long posts... just a year's worth frustration with no outlet... now finally a place to speak).

A gamer I can respect so much and I know exactly how you feel. There is so much potential in most F2P games these days, it is just the cash shops that ruin it. They put all the end-game items/gear in there for a drastically low price (when it is more like hell to get it in the game) and ruin the game because you can create an end-game character for $15...

Not only that but as you have mentioned in your posts, because of the CS, zones go unnoticed as power leveling takes the lead and then comes in the payment plans. I am a 100% payment free player, almost never spent a single dollar on a CS item unless it was something I wanted from the bottom of my heart (and made it worth-while, even when it was replaced.)

I remember playing PWI a year or two ago, never got far, but still.. I wanted to play it again. Appariently the game is not downloadable-compatible for Windows 7 or something because it wont even install for me and I have tried everything in the book. But from your recent description of the game I don't even want to try it anymore. Not only your reveiw, but I trust the threads from MMORPG posters and there is a lot of recent rage against PWI, especially with the Genesis patch/expansion launch, I do not want to be caught up in it and become one of them :/