Istel
I haven’t been producing much art, lately, which kinda sucks. I dunno; no time or desire to do it for myself, I guess, outside of the Zenntheart of doodles I produce at work.
Well, for some reason I decided a great way to rectify this would be to start taking commissions at Gaia Online. Yeah, I dunno what I was thinking either.
Anyway, here’s the first, for Istel.
Variel vs. the Oddfoot
Okay, since I know there are at least two people out there who may marginally care about this post (which is two more than usual), here goes.
Perfect World's Fortunate Kylin mount.
The other day I went out and downloaded Perfect World International. PWI is the English — as opposed to Engrish — translation of a Chinese “free” MMORPG. I have a love hate relationship with Asian MMORPGs, especially of the “free” variety, but I’d gotten stuck in zOMG!i and figured… what the hey. Plus, PW has the distinction of having the most awesome mount in any game in the universe; the Fortunate Kylin, as pictured right. And any games that gives me a shot at something like that can’t be all bad, right?
So anyway I downloaded the game client, signed up and signed on. I was tossing up between making an Archer and a Venomancer. Both are good, solid soloing classes, with the Venomancer being the best on account of it being a high DPS pet class. However, in the end I couldn’t resist a Winged Elf Archer, simply because you start the game with the ability to fly. I thought being able to slowly hover at level 6 in City of Villains was OP!
Thus was Variel born on the Sanctuary server.ii
First things first, Perfect World looks beautiful in a kind of generically, hyper-realistic Asian sort of way. Whether you like that sort of thing is up to you, I guess. The monsters are generally fairly cool-looking (another reason to be a Venomancer) but the world is a little… bleh. Then again, I’m still in the “noob” areas so maybe some of the later scenery is more spectacular. It’s also the first game of this type I’ve played which actually runs in native res for my monitor, though some UI scaling would be nice, since everything is so tiny I spend a lot of time leaning forward and peering.
The game itself is definitely post-WoW, and if you’re familiar with that there are a lot of things — from gathering to the skill tree page — that will cause some serious déjà vu. The gameplay is also similar, and PW is the first Asian MMORPG I’ve played with an emphasis on questing rather than letting the player loose to grind their way from 1 to 99. Okay, admittedly I’m only level 17 — I haven’t even made it to the major city yet — so it’s possible that peters out sometime but so far it’s promising. Questing actually seems integrated as a character stat, and crafting in nominally useful, at least at low levels (HP regen increase thingie for the win, man), even if I can never find enough Logs or Nectar.
Where PW does differ from WoW is in its skills and stats system; for godssakes, if you’re new, go in with a plan. Character building “resources” are limited, and while they can be reset, it costs actual Really Real Money, and the game is unforgiving if you allocate your stat and skill points incorrectly. Google yourself a class build guide before you start, and I swear you’ll have more fun.
Oh, and Guardian Charms? Best. Item. Ever.iii You get one as a quest reward early on, and unfortunately that addicted me. Further charms have to be bought from the store, but I figure the couple of dollars is worth it if you’re going to play seriously. It still works out cheaper than WoW and Guild Wars.
So yeah. All-in-all I’d have to say I’m fairly impressed with Perfect World. It’s not, well, perfect but nothing is, and it’s certainly fun enough to keep me entertained at the lower levels. Plus, of course, the fact that there’s no subscription fee make it easy to pick up and put down at will.
So yeah, definitely worth checking out if MMORPGs are your bag, baby.
Next on the list to try out: Shaiya.
