Well I can understand this scrutiny about this game. Just like to note I'm from the UK and waiting for our servers for the game to come up, but anyway I'd like to defend some aspects about its lack of uniqueness.

   I understand I havn't played it yet, yeah I know, I don't know any thing about its nature for that fact, but I'd like to point out that no matter what mmorpg you play, no matter how great technology becomes, we always keep those old systems as they were the systems we fell in love with. As a result many games lack being ultimately unique and I always expect this from any game, rpg or not. No matter what an mmo is always based around grinding to get to the max level by attaining exp, I've seen that from almost every mmo (I say almost as I have discovered a game that was a bit different in this sense).

   I also noticed someone mention that the game is one of those pay for more games where you need to pay money for extra items and junk, well I'd like to note that I believe this is more because of the company that buys the rights to publish the game in a certain area. In fact this market scheme seems to be an "American thing" as every time I play the european version of the exact same game (such as dream of mirror online) I notice this buy items for your character buisness is non-existent. You get the whole content to start off with and get special items in events, thats the nature of these type of mmos over here, so sorry but your companies appear to try rip you off (by the way I'm not trying to say that america is a terrible place I'm just stating that there's this trend that I keep running into, its not necersarily true in every case). Though I must admit the companies over here do try to sell screen savers and stuff like that that no one buys anyway.

   Another thing I'd like to note, I have been a member of WOW (I stopped playing it about 2 months ago now) and I have to agree that it is a good game, however I can't help feel that WOW actually is popular because it was one of the original mmorpgs. Its same story with FFXI (a game I was addicted to for a year and a half a while back). You'll find that people who play that game would claim that it is one of the best also though if it wasn't the original mmo that a person has played they would disagree. I also notice this with runescape players if it is the first mmo someone plays.

   I can also see that a lot of you are comparing this game to WOW, which you have to pay to get the game then pay monthly installments. The fact that you can try compare a free to play mmo to a monthly fee one makes this game deserving of respect. I don't mean to say that this game will be better than WOW when I start playing it I just want to note that you get similar features to WOW (not saying exactly) such as ability to jump and the feature from flyff of flying (which you have to note WOW also took for the burning crusade booster pack especially with the druid flight form).

   Oh and another thing, though the game does lack unique features it has brought an updated form of character creation to a game like this so I wouldn't describe it as a total korean bish bash as most korean bish bash, as you put it, doesn't really bother trying to create upgraded versions of anything, but rather watered down versions. The fact that the developers have bothered to upgrade anything gives the game a right to be respected. 

To summarise, Yes, this mmo doesn't really have much new, but it has upgraded something. It is not a perfect mmo, but I don't beleive such a thing would exist as mmo's are basically virtual realities that people can choose to enter if it suits their preferances. Me personally, I beleive this game suits my preferances as I love chinese mythology and the ability to go wild in character customisation. Other people will disagree, which I would agree with to disagree as no rpg is suited to everyone, some mmos are just more popular, thats fact. Also since so many ideas have been used up already it is harder for more features to be added to mmos these days. 

   In the end this mmo is making many people hyped, but thats just how its turned out, I don't think it should or should not be hyped over, it just seems millions of people are hyping over this game, its not the best nor the worse, its just a game that has been added in the mix and people tend to like its features, even if they aren't necersarily new. That's it really. 

 Actually, to tell you the truth, I didn't read your whole post. I did notice that you named WoW as an original though. PW is more original and more famed in Asia. It's a HUGE hit there. Has been for a while. The point of PWI is to bring it to America and other English nations. I love it personally. The gameplay is awesome. A lot of rants about the in-game-store. The botique as it's called. How else do they make money? I can't stand people ranting about it. You can play perfectly well without spending a dime. I havn't and I am fairly well-renouned in the game as far as a player. I say NOT same old same old. Also, if you decide you don't like it, Give it a chance around christmas, an update is coming out soon and it's going to change it a lot. The game isn't totally finished yet (or near finished) 

Originally posted by hellshanks

 Actually, to tell you the truth, I didn't read your whole post. I did notice that you named WoW as an original though. PW is more original and more famed in Asia. It's a HUGE hit there. Has been for a while. The point of PWI is to bring it to America and other English nations. I love it personally. The gameplay is awesome. A lot of rants about the in-game-store. The botique as it's called. How else do they make money? I can't stand people ranting about it. You can play perfectly well without spending a dime. I havn't and I am fairly well-renouned in the game as far as a player. I say NOT same old same old. Also, if you decide you don't like it, Give it a chance around christmas, an update is coming out soon and it's going to change it a lot. The game isn't totally finished yet (or near finished) 

I played the game on the Malaysian servers and it was OK.Great graphics. I loved the views when flying.They were spectacular.An English speaking community could be a signifigant improvement for some players.I look forward to the December update.Sure would be nice if housing was included...finally.

I had a lvl 45 fire/'water mage and a 36 nuke-elemental archer.  The game is indeed very grindy.  Graphics are none-too special, as the character rendering only lasts about 10 yards and then there is a SEVERE drop in detail.  The character customization is indeed good, but it's offset by the lack of user-friendliness and the lack of high quality in-game rendering.  Quests are pretty much your run of the mill MMO quests, but at least it has them.  Flying is kinda nice, but it's not that much faster then walking until way later levels.  Experience loss on death is rather annoying, since you might have to work your butt off for that litte bit of experience.  Gear is pretty much generic in appearence, there are probably only 200 different models.  Art direction is nice, but again, offset by the lack of long distance rendering.

Conclusion-This is a decent game if you lack a good graphics card, or don't want to Pay to Play.  However, like any otehr grind heavy game, it has it's share of botters and farmers and it also has a cash shop(yuck).  If you like the flying aspect, the character customization and the art direction, then i would suggest looking at Aion: Tower of Eternity-you will need a better GFX card for this one.

Originally posted by Pezhead

I had a lvl 45 fire/'water mage and a 36 nuke-elemental archer.  The game is indeed very grindy.  Graphics are none-too special, as the character rendering only lasts about 10 yards and then there is a SEVERE drop in detail.  The character customization is indeed good, but it's offset by the lack of user-friendliness and the lack of high quality in-game rendering.  Quests are pretty much your run of the mill MMO quests, but at least it has them.  Flying is kinda nice, but it's not that much faster then walking until way later levels.  Experience loss on death is rather annoying, since you might have to work your butt off for that litte bit of experience.  Gear is pretty much generic in appearence, there are probably only 200 different models.  Art direction is nice, but again, offset by the lack of long distance rendering.

Conclusion-This is a decent game if you lack a good graphics card, or don't want to Pay to Play.  However, like any otehr grind heavy game, it has it's share of botters and farmers and it also has a cash shop(yuck).  If you like the flying aspect, the character customization and the art direction, then i would suggest looking at Aion: Tower of Eternity-you will need a better GFX card for this one.

Geez go whine on some other board.  there is absolutely nothing wrong with the graphics in this game.

As to being grindy, wake up and do some quests.  There are tons of them.  I have not had to grind hardly at all.

All I can conclude is you did not like the game and that is fine, but lets not make up things that are not there.

I made nothing up... and you're right, there is nothing wrong with the graphics in the game, I never said there was, however, having played Lineage 2, City of heroes Silk Road, WoW,  Grenado Espada... I can tell you that the graphics are below what I would consider good. This isn't a bad thing, hell look at Runescape, has some of the crappiest graphics in an mmo, but it's still popular.

I did say there were quests, but having quests doesnt make it any less of a grind, just because I have to do 100 quests in stead of killing 1000 monsters straight up does not mean its not a grind.  It just means that I am killing 500 monsters with a longer traveling time, and with quest rewards and purpose.  The grind in games can present itself in any form, including professions and even pvp.  Yes it was relatively grindy.

 ok. Ever played a game and figured out how to fking play first?? there is a quest find button. IT gives you the quests you do to lvl. At lvl 20 which takes almost 1-2 weeks to achive, you still only need to do about 2-3 quests to lvl. 100 quests as a pose to 1000 kills my ass. Inspect the graphics all the was up. You'll notice something. Ah yes not the same 10 pixles over and over... in fact, NO repeated pixles. I played SRO. This has the same graphics on HIgh.

Of course I knew about the quest finder, getting quests would be practically impossible otherwise, but the quest content is still the same..... kill 10 monsters at location x.  Then the next part, gather 10 herbs etc. for however many quests you need to lvl.   Is that not grind? 

I said that the game was good for a F2P game, but if you are really wanting to compare graphics, perhaps you have not seen EVE online, or played LOTRO, and how can you not notice the same pixels used, it has a tiling system like most other older MMOs, this isn't a bad system, it allows for players with lesser computers to play as well, giving it a bigger community, but to treat the graphics are truly competitive.....  

Also, I don't believe I made a personal comment about you anywhere, I am fully aware of the games many features, from the FB 19/29/39 etc.  to the skill builds in the game, various stat allocation builds (me being nuke[+9 int +1 con], but also hybrids).  1-20 took me 5 days to get to, 20-30 took me several weeks, 30-40 double that.  Now granted, i didnt get to experience end-game, but I played enough to realize that the exp and time to get more levels would be even more.  

I understand that you really like Perfect World, and I did give it a nice long chance.  It wasn't a horrible experience, expecially since it was at a time when i had little money.  However, now that I have some dollrs to my name, I know that In order to have the customer service I so appreciate in a game,, not to mention graphic quality and interface issues, I need to be willing to dish out a few bucks a month-and that is infinately cheaper than paying for a card game.

 to play with th textures all the way up you have to restart it. Thats why you see the same textures. It usually starts with graphics all the way down so what you have to do is go in, turn the tetured up, save settings to show up next time you get on, and retart. Then tell me if it's a repeat. 

Not neccicarilly grinding quest. A mojority are, but a lot of the time it's mixed in with story quests. Go to so and so and telk to him to get more info. He wants you to obtain some item from a player of monster and talk to so and so to process the item and then go turn it into main NPC. 

I played Perfect World for a good 5-6 months, and then off and on for a good 5 more.  I was there when the patch was released that made it so taht certain players depending on their specific IP's could not loggin-I was one of the victims-.  I do know that you had to restart the game.  The tile system is not necessarily 100 pixels, or even 1000 repeated, it is hundreds of thousands of pixels repeated and covered with other objects giving the illusion of a completely original terrain.  It works and that fine, but it's nothing new.