Perfect World International General Article: A Quick Look at PWI
MMORPG.com Perfect World Correspondent Khalil Shabazz writes this overview of the F2P MMO for players who might not know what the game has to offer.
By Khalil Shabazz on October 21, 2009
Writing the overview for this game turned out to be very easy. Happily at the time of writing the article Perfect World International (PWI) had its first birthday.
Downloading PWI is easy. It takes two hours to do so, and another 45 minutes or so to install. Game client downloads do seem to be getting quicker these days as the newer formats of browser based plug-ins for high end games are on the rise. Cloud gaming- they call it. Good examples of it can be found with Free Realms by Sony Online Entertainment and with the entire OnLive gaming phenomenon. Although Runscape was one of the first browser based MMOs back in 2001, the format of browser based gaming quickly turned into client/download based gaming that can pose a great challenge for older computers. Happily, PWI poses no real problems with functionality, and I am using average equipment on a three year old laptop. Like a wise man once said, I would rather spend the time and the patience for a long and solid download, than just a few minutes on a game that lags to the point of ruining that happy and anxious anticipation we always feel right before we enter a new virtual gaming world.
Registration and launch are typical and what we've come to know as online gamers. After signing into the game, you'll be taken to character creation and class selection. You can choose between: Archer, Blade Master, Barbarian, Wizard, Cleric, or Venomancer. As of September 1st PWI announced the up and coming "Rising Tide" expansion, which promises two new classes of the "Tideborn" race tentatively called, Assassins and Psychics. This will mark the third expansion this year for PWI. While playing, you should create multiple characters. I would highly recommend role playing more than one class so that you may understand how to handle all of your player opponents as well as empathize with your friends when they come across their own character shortcomings.
Game play is smooth and quite inspirational over all. And like many MMOs, you are required to socialize. Whether it's for help finding that last herb needed to manufacture some focus powder, or to complete missions, raids, and various instances. You will be forced to communicate with players. In order to cultivate your class to the next level of skill, be it magic or melee, you are required to participate in brawling instances called Fubens (which means dungeon or cave) at every ninth tier of your current cultivation level. Thus, at 19,29,39,49 etc. you will be instancing, and it becomes more and more difficult the higher you climb in skill. And don't think you'll be able to do this alone. Oh no my friend, you must perform these tasks as a team.
Love and in-game relationships are abound and plentiful in PWI. 45% of the game requires you to chit chat and build friendships. If you are shy, I promise you will overcome this by the time you reach level 30. There is even a marriage quest that yields a cute ceremony with plentiful rewards and gifts for the happy couple. The avatars can appear extremely attractive with a vast assortment of fashion and attire for all types. Like all games, the more fancy and shiny you look, the more attention you'll garner. When you infuse two or more G5 or greater stones/shards into your armor plates and/or weaponry, you will engender "the Glow", and everybody wants the glow at some point in their career.
PVP begins at level 30 and sadly, you may wish that it did not. Getting PK'ed for the first time in this game is like truly loosing your innocence. Most especially if you are caught up in a territory battle, or between warring guilds, and you've got a super fast level 80 player demolishing you with one hit because you "just" became a level 30.
The music in this Game is top quality. PWI showcases neutral and unobtrusive themes. After a few weeks of playing you will be singing the tunes to yourself just because they are that good. It is a mix of passionate major and minor pentatonic scale type melodies that dance atop deep and rich orchestral passages. No hard rock here gents, just good solid inspiration through skillfully arranged instrumentation.
;)
As you progress into the game, you'll find that equipment, armor and weaponry will cost you a pretty penny. Gold is a true commodity here and can be difficult to come by at times. You have many sources for acquiring gold such as completing quests, grinding for drops, farming, auctioning, and consignment shops. You can even sell your monster raiding services to lower level players so they can complete their quests more quickly. Overall, the balance between free game play and the micro transactions through the item mall are skillfully placed, without one being dependent on the other. So, you can either slave over that new flying mount, and hope somebody will buy one and then sell in-game for coins (which is always the case), or you can invest $10 or more from your own purse- and convert it into Zen, then transfer it into your server boutique account for gold in order to enhance your playing experience. Either way, you have options.
By the time you reach 60, leveling your character must take on a different approach, or you will face a serious plateau. There are daily quest that guarantee you 10% exp of your current level every 24 hours to help keep you going if you don't have the long hours to spend. You could also team up with a Venomancer that has a high level Hercules pet and just grind your way through levels, as pets tend to be excellent grinding machines. Eventually, you'll become powerful enough to Zhen, which gives the Wizard , Archer, and Cleric the opportunity to create an impressive light show, displaying control over your hard eared skill might and magic, unleashing it on multiple enemies at a time.
After all of your hard work and huge reputation you've won over, you'll finally get the chance to become a Demon or Sage at level 82. At this stage, your magical cultivation takes on even greater levels that display power exponentially higher than average. What you must keep in mind when playing this game is that it's all about hard earned gold, reputation, might, magic, skill, friendships, hustle, and Power with a capital P... all wrapped up in a fantastic package that's free to play!
Perfect World Entertainment offers many promotions throughout each month for their loyal fan base consisting of millions of players. They add new features such as genie- gear, mounts, charms, fashion, weaponry, and contests (and coming up, a whole new race with two new classes). So coming from a sincere, positive, and mature gamer, this one is a keeper. Check it out if you haven't already.
The article really glosses over some of the more important points of the game. First off, probably the best implementation of flight in any MMO to date. Elves can fly from lvl 1, the other races at level 30. Mounts are only available through the item store or though a really long quest grind, unless of course you buy it from another player.
The client is well written, hence this game will run on older computers, unlike other popular f2p games like Atlantis and RoM.
After 60 the game becomes a real grindfest and almost requires purchase of item store leveling aides. The daily quest they were referring to is not a static 10% experience, but starts at 25% at level 30 and then goes down from there. Past 80 it is under 5% of level and expensive.
The major point here is that the item store is one of the most expensive of any of the f2p games. You can spend up to $250 on some of the special pets. Mounts can cost up to $75 with all the addons. Fortunately the item shop offers no weapons or armor to give anyone special advantage, but there are charms that are mandatory if you want to pvp.
So, the thought of playing this game up to level 100 without using item store aides would be appalling.
It can be a fun game though if you are not serious about reaching end game or don't mind sinking serious money in the item shop.
Another correction, You DONT get your sage/demon at lvl 82. You get that at lvl 89 AFTER completing a series of Cultivation quests and FB 89.
You forgot to mention you NEED a flying mount, otherwise you cant pvp.
Gold prices are around 350-400k nowadays due to continues sales. The game is not that is used to be.
Lunar and Frost weapon are being given through cash shop.
I was venomancer lvl 83 in Harshlands and its not the same. I dont consider this game to being newcomers friendly no more
just to be on the spot, yes the daily stones quest wont give you 10% total xp per day, but at 70 u also start the "world" quest. that is a daily quest also that can net you 5-10% xp (rewared are random).
as for the op, pwi isnt what is used to be. zen prices are over the roof, to many in game events broke the market etc....
its a nice game for a while if u can get your out on time. as for pvp, any so called "pvp" that invovle better stat= more$ (all those lvl 79 or w/e with +12 and 4 g9 like wtf? lol :).
anyhow. enjoy it (while you can).
Good thing they just implemented a FREE flying mount for every character when they reach level 30. That alone should have been enough to lure me back into playing, but it's not. I find that even with a killer PC that grinds through WoW, AION, and EQ2 like a champ literally slows to a freakin crawl when you hit a highly populated city.
Too bad you can't skip these areas but they are the major quest hubs at certain levels. With all the player owned stores up and the multitudes of people in every major quest hub/city at a given time the frame rates creep along making running in and out of a city area for questing extremely painful. They need to designate an area/realm or something that is a trade only area and not allow stores to go up anywhere else. Maybe then they will get more players back and not have to send me, "hey we are doing this..." emails hoping to lure me back.
Theres been free mount at lvl 30 since the beginning of the game. The problem is that mount has a speed of +0.5, while the cash shop one can be as fast as +3.0, which means that in any sort of PvP you wont be able to escape or use distance at your advantage.
With the actual gold prices, unless you pick a PvE server, there isnt much you can do.
Thanks for the bump guys and gals. It means alot to me..
Cheers.
K
"I find that even with a killer PC that grinds through WoW, AION, and EQ2 like a champ literally slows to a freakin crawl when you hit a highly populated city."
Odd, I can play this game on my old PC, an AMD 2000 with a nVidia 5700 and 1 GB of ram, on medium settings, with little problems of lag in a highly populated city. Either you don't have a killer PC or you have your something wrong with your PC. My newer rig has zero lag problems.
A friend and I are trying out PWI for the first time, so far it's been pretty fun, we are probably not gonna play too much though since I doubt that we're gonna invest too much money in it.
I could never get into perfect world. The charecters were un-interesting to me and the gameplay wasn't ground breaking on any level. That said I don't know what I was really expecting since it is a F2P game. F2P games don't tend to dump money back into their clients to increase longevity which is a shame since they are usually thrown together hastily in the beginning.