 |
| ^Perfect World Parody^ |
Very rarely do I feel the need to gripe about a so-called FREE-to-play game; however, this one f2p game in particular, Perfect World, is so "casino'ed", I felt it only fair to give people a "warning-review" of what to expect should they find themselves sucked into this financial black-hole!
Okay, first of all, I should point out and warn the reader, this review is going to be lengthy, but in all due fairness, in order to review this MMO, that's the only real way to do it. I will also point out, my "now" impressions are much different than my original initial impressions, so first I'll lay out my initial impressions, and then I'll lay out what I've come to find out about Perfect World International. Also, I will point out as a disclaimer, I will say, I'm aware of the stigma, that the "typical f2p game" pretty much houses the policy "pay to win", but Perfect World Entertainment clearly takes that to a whole new level! Normally, I don't mind games having a MILD and/or not-that-noticeable payable advantage, but this game makes into complete light or dark.
To note for the record, this MMO is something like 8 years old! Starting out in Perfect World International; I truly felt I had found a F2P game that could truly rival and match World of Warcraft, at first it seems that way, but boy was I wrong. For the record, I'm not a WoW fanboy that's going to say, "this is a copy of WoW", because honestly it's not. When you first start out, the game has really relaxing music, awesome graphics, some of the best character customization around, very laid-back/smooth questing & progression, and the gameplay seems smooth and fun, with subtle learning curves here and there that don't seem so bad.
You start getting into the game, and thinking, wow, this is really fun. Now, I'll point out the leveling system right away; from all "theories", the leveling system seems rather unending, where some will believe the level cap is 105, and others believe it to be in the 150 range, nobody as far as I've ever seen or read has ever made it that far to finally put that theory to rest, and the highest you typically see is level 102. Here's why; there seems to be some sort of equation/function that typically calculates out the fair amount of experience needed for the next level, and seems to just keep doing this each and every level, unendingly. In itself, that seems all fine and cool, and at first I thought that was awesome; now to get to what I came to find out somewhat quite painfully. Anyways, with the highest seen/recorded level being 102, it'd be a perfect time to write a review on this MMO, considering my main just now passed over level 51, being the half-way mark to level 102.
I'll toss out there, that I'll be the first to hype free-to-play games; and my main reasons are that with pay-to-play games, I feel you may as well be "mortgaging your gaming experience"; because with pay-to-play, much like a mortgage, you have to make a monthly payment typically, and as SOON as you don't, your entire account gets frozen, along with all your characters, progress, etc. Your account pretty much becomes "foreclosed". I've read of some of the more "scary" f2p experiences out there, where some compare certain games like Planet Calypso (formerly Project: Entropia) to being a casino, where they lure you in with all this shiny appeal, and then before you know it, you're continually feeding and feeding the slot-machine, until you've reached a point where you've invested so much that you can't just walk away, because you know that jackpot and payout is coming, and if you do walk away, you're going to lose everything you paid into it.
Sadly, I'm coming to find Perfect World International is pretty much the same scenario, just not quite as blunt, or perhaps, better "packaged". As I said above, the leveling system seems all fine and dandy, that is until you reach about level 30 or level 40; now at first, I thought my experience gain was slowing way down because I had been sinking experience into my genie, in order to offset my need for spirit points used to level up skills. But as I searched around the interwebs, I found nothing at all to indicate this; what I did however find, is for some strange reason, when you reach those levels, experience gain seems to come to a grinding halt pretty much. Prior to those levels, as you kill monsters or do most quests, you'd have noticeable experience increases as you do in most games. You'd kill a monster that was at your level or slightly higher, and you'd watch your experience jump 1-5% or so depending. Right around level 30, or maybe it was 40, I started to notice that every monster I'd kill, would give me literally about 0.1% experience if I was lucky; sometimes I'd have to kill 3-5 monsters to have the percent bump that 0.1%. Now, normally, there'd be an issue with that, even in one of the most popular MMOs out there, World of Warcraft, the exhaustive grind that doesn't really give much experience typically starts around level 70. Oh, and it should be noted, when you die in Perfect World International, you lose roughly 10% of your "gained" experience, which is better than 10% of the experience needed to get to the next level, but still has its drawbacks. Let me lay that out; when you first flip to the next level, and say you only have say 2,500 experience, 10% means you'd lose 250 experience, not that big a deal. However, on my last level I just finished, level 51, I noticed when I was at 93.6% experience, the experience bar when I hovered over it read that I had 250,035 experience.
Now let's consider, if I was to die, that means I'd lose 25,004 experience, which in most MMOs would be easy enough to make up. Now, in Perfect World International, one can make that up, as there's literally hundreds of quests they can partake on, but again, each (especially including dungeons) has their high chance of getting killed and losing even more experience. Oh, but wait, let's not fret, in their "boutique" (cash-shop), there are "guardian scrolls" that a person can buy for real-life cash that protect from experience loss; then again, there's also in-game items that can be traded for said scrolls, but most of those "in game" items come from buying "packs" in the cash-shop, which have a random chance of spitting out these in-game items. Starting to see where this is going? Good, hang on to that thought, it gets MUCH crazier. (For the record, I've become so frustrated at the massive experience loss and so little gain, that I've become pretty much gun-shy to even leave town to partake on any quests, and pretty much sit in town, doing the easy daily quests like Crazy Stones, the Teacher's Quest, and the Badge quest!) Oh, and I did I mention, this game seems to have absolutely ZERO cut-scene cinematic sequences WHATSOEVER... it's just constant GRIND gameplay, CONTINOUSLY!
Up until now, Perfect World International really seemed to "empower" the player; where I'd be thinking to myself, "wow, I'd never be this powerful, or be able to take out multiple monsters this well and feel this uber at level 20-30 in other MMOs"; and not to mention, at level 30, you get your first "flyer" (flying mount) and don't even have to learn flying training to use it, but pretty soon it starts becoming obvious that the freebie is uber-slow (whereas, a player can buy faster mounts, again only in the "boutique" for real-life cash). As I played on, I started to look through all of this and analyze everything from a stepped-back perspective. As I said above, they have cash-shop items that "protect" your experience loss; and if you're lucky enough to have a cleric around that can resurrect you, you only lose 5% experience rather than the full 10%. But again, let's keep in mind, that experience gain starts to come to a grinding halt, to where the overall grind becomes READILY apparent. Now, to make it even better, because experience gain seems to come to a crawl, there's 2 options people are faced without outside the typical grind until you're a zombie at the keyboard. One, you can again buy from the "boutique" (cash shop), hyper-experience stones, which increase your experience gain as you play, but again, have to shell a bunch of cash into a free-to-play game, and again, if you die, you lose 10% experience. Or two, and you see these in the world chat all the time, people pay other players to power-level them, or take them for instance/dungeon runs. The price they have to pay isn't a measly amount either, I think the cheapest I've seen is in the 500,000 coins range. Now granted, in-game coins aren't "that" hard to come by, but training costs, repair costs, merchant/tradeskill needs, etc quickly drain what you might wrack up. So you really start finding yourself having to "wheel and deal" in order to stay afloat in the later levels, otherwise grind until you're ready to have a nervous breakdown.
But it doesn't just stop there. I've been playing Perfect World International for about a month now, (for the record, I gave the game a chance many moons ago, but couldn't really get into it back then, so it was pretty much a no go), and I'm quickly seeing, that because there's such an uphill curve in the later levels, and many people have dumped buttloads of cash into this game, the game itself is like scam/greed-central. You will find people selling the most useless stuff for hundreds of thousands of coins, if not millions. The Auction House (which has the worst Auction House filter/search/setup that I have ever seen to date) is just full of stuff that's ridiculously overpriced.
Honestly, within 2 weeks of joining the game, I actually found myself getting scammed, but thankfully in a mild way and not for THAT much. One "merchant" (people can run their own little shops on their character), offered a "promotional" that if you bought out all the wood they had, as well as all their tulips, you'd get a flyer mount (which had decent stats), as well as a scarlet fruit. So I did that, stuff I didn't really need, but had the money for, so figured what the heck, the promotionals are nice. They even announced to everybody in the local chat, that I had won the promotionals and that people had to stop trying for them. So the person says they're getting the items, I wait and wait and wait. Finally when they come to give me the items, they inform me, "I'm shooting a video to help 'promote my guild', and want to show good sales, how much coins do you have left?"; I tell them a little white lie and say, "not much, about 150k, and I need that for training and repairs, so at this point, I may as well be broke". I kid you not, they tell me, "tell you what, if you buy 150k more worth of stuff from my shop, I'll give you the flyer and the fruit". I informed them, "hey, you made a public deal that IF the wood and fruit were bought, the person would receive a flyer mount and a scarlet fruit", so I decided to be nice, and I was going to stick to what I said, I told them, "tell you what, I'll be nice, if you give me the flyer mount and the scarlet fruit, I'll do you a favor and spend the rest of my coins buying out what's left in your shop" (which unbeknownst to them, I had about 500-750k coins and could have easily bought out what they had left). They then inform me, "sorry, no deal, I can't do that, my faction leader has strict rules" and then logs out of the game. Like what the hell, I just spent roughly 75,000 coins on crap I didn't need, expecting I'd receive these "promotionals" that they told everybody I had won, to try and cyphen every last cent out of me. Now, THAT is exactly what Perfect World International makes people into sadly, and I'm starting to see why.
My fiance plays a venomancer, which can tame pets, and then in turn sell the rarer pets for a decent amount of coins. Now let's pause for a second, and point out, IF they can get those rares. Most people will run up and purposely grief her as she's trying to tame one, even other venos will kill her attempted tame; this game is completely cut-throat, and people WILL try to screw you over to benefit themselves any chance they get! Furthermore, as a venomancer, she already has to pay tons of coins for training, for repairs, for tradeskill stuff, etc, but THEN training for her pet literally costs 200,000 coins PER training scroll! Which each scroll pretty much levels up one skill, or learns a new skill. And she has to do this PER each pet, it's not like the scroll effects ALL pets either. Now, let's stop and think here; with in-game items a venomancer can pretty much unlock up to 6 pet slots, (which for the record, the boutique *coughcash-shopcough* has a "super pet cage" which unlocks all 10 slots), that's 6 pets that need scrolls to be trained, for sake of arguement, if a person wants to get 5 scrolls per pet, they're looking at a total of 6,000,000 coins. Yeah, 6 MILLION. Oh, but I'm pretty sure there's "cash shop" items to again, aleviate that burden at a price!
Okay, now, moving right along, other "catches" I've found. There are NPCs such as the Emissary of the Light or Emissary of the Shadow, which offers you daily quests, which you can do, and SOME will have little tickets in the "light" category (such as purple quests from Emissary of the Light, or blue quests from Emissary of the Shadow), while others will have tickets in the "shadow" category (purple quests from the Emissary of the Shadow). These tickets can be traded in for weapons, gear, runes, etc. Sounds great doesn't it? Well, I've come to find that it's again, much like a slot machine or an arcade. Here's why. I kept trying to save up enough "light" tickets to exchange for a weapon that was suitable to my level, which there was a decent selection, but in the 30-40 level range, it'd take 4 tickets.
Ironically, I'd keep getting JUST enough quests to get only 3 tickets. Then in the level 40-50 range, it'd take 5 tickets, and again, I'd get just enough quests to get 4 tickets. Now, for the level 50-60ish weapon, it'll take 6 tickets, but now, the Emissary of the Light quests are no longer available once you reach level 51; so now I have to hope the Emissary of the Shadow will have a blue quest, and once again, it does, but only enough to get me FIVE tickets, but even better, the quests now take place in dungeons/instances which are near impossible to do without getting some big group to run with you. If that's not bad enough, the Emissary of the Light actually had an "Order of the Light" or some such paper you had to carry with you, that allowed you to just get daily quests no problem. The Emissary of the Shadow now needs one of two things. Either one, you go to a faction-base, pay 72,000 coins and 144 contribution points in order to get an Order of the Shadow that's good for ONLY 24-hours! Or, you can partake in what's called a "Bounty Hunter" quest, which pretty much takes you into a dungeon/instance to kill an uber-hard boss, which then gives you an Order of the Shadow that's good for roughly 4 hours. Now, normally, on the Emissary of the Light, you could only "roll" two random missions, usually never giving you what you had hoped for; on the Emissary of Shadow, you can roll three. Let's stop and think about this; it seems lately, they've been rolling a bunch of white quests, which only realy give experience and spirit, no exchangeable tickets. If I went every day of the week to the Emissary of Shadow to PRAY for that last blue quest I needed, that'd cost me overall 72,000 * 7 = 504,000 coins, and 144 contribution * 7 = 1,008 contribution points. For the record, contribution points aren't THAT hard to come by, but it's STILL a grind, a massive one. And there's still a chance, I could pay all that, do all that, and still get ALL white quests, or even purple quests, and never get that last BLUE quest with that one ticket. Seeing the slot-machine in the background again!? (Oh, also, I should again point out, that if one really wants to, they can buy a “reset” for the Emissary quests from the cash-shop at a price, which merely only randomly rolls however many quests you can pick from again, which could again, roll you all white quests!!)
Oh, but wait, there's much more, lol. This one's a bit of a double-edged sword. As you start out in the lower levels, you seem to get loot from everywhere, so much that you find yourself selling off stuff you might even need just to make space. Now, here's the catch to that part, they have in the boutique yet again, a super inventory stone that costs something like 2 or 4 gold (2-4 dollars or however much it is), which doubles your inventory so you can carry more. But here's the weird part; I've noticed, playing the game free, most monsters now, at my level, hardly seem to drop any loot; most times just coins, and not all that many either! Almost like the program in the background purposely makes it harder for you to get the loot that you can sell for the coins you need to fund your training, repairs, tradeskills, purchases, etc, almost so that you're forced to want to buy cash-shop items, what the hell!? But wait, there's even more! In the earlier levels, again, you'll get so much junk that you want to hang on to, either tradeskill mats, future gear, etc, that your storage again gets over-crowded. Thankfully, there are two (very grindy mind you) in-game quests you can do, that increases your bank vault, each by 8 slots; which helps MILDLY. After that, guess what, there's again a boutique (cash-shop) item you can buy, for roughly the same price as the super inventory stone, that will double your bank vault size. Starting to see a pattern? Like the game purposely has rough edges that try to paint you into a corner to have to shell out cash in order to make it marginally enjoyable!
Now, even more proof they try to trap you into spending money on the game. When you start the game, you're given a "supply stash" that you can open every 5 levels, which has decent helpful stuff. Once you get to level 50, you come to find (without any previous warning mind you) that you will need a perfect iron hammer in order to open it. But wait, where do you get a perfect iron hammer? Easy, you can BUY a single one-time-use hammer from the boutique (!@#!ing-cash-shop!!!) for FIVE dollars. But even better, from what I've read, it turns out that after you do this, inside that level 50 chest, is ANOTHER chest which contains 1 million coins, called a chest of coins, that guess what, needs yet ANOTHER perfect iron hammer in order to open! But don't fret, if you don't want to buy the perfect iron-hammer, many "boutique" items are sold by players in game for coins, and last I checked, the perfect iron-hammer sells in game for roughly 5,000,000 coins for ONE single-use hammer. That's right, 5 million coins everytime you need to open ONE chest, (which means, if you open BOTH those chests, you've now roughly spent 10,000,000 coins, in order to make 1,000,000 *facepalm*), and ONE chest only!
I've also read, that back in the day, a person used to be able to buy gold in game, for roughly 200,000-300,000 coins for 1 gold. Now, the inflation/greed (primarily enforced by Perfect World Entertainment) has caused this exchange to be roughly 1,200,000 coins or so for one single gold. Gold is the currency used in the "boutique", and even the smallest things cost roughly 2 gold, which I believe can be purchased again for real-world cash for roughly 1 gold per 1 dollar. (Anybody else reminded of the ticket-exchange in an arcade where it used to take you something like 5,000 tickets for a friggin' keychain!?)
Saddest part is, in other MMOs, you have the flexibility of an approach as a salesman either in the auction-house or running your own shop. You have the ability to charge cheap prices for the stuff you just happen across that you may or may not need, but didn't realy pay anything for, so you have no problem selling it cheap. You have the option of being the business-person that everybody likes to do business with. You have the ability to have your name recognised as the "fair and affordable" merchant that really makes them happy to find such great bargains. Not in Perfect World baby. Let me tell you, in many other MMOs, my fiance and I had lots of fun selling stuff at half to three-quarters the price that everybody else did; to feel economically and marketably smart. Oh wow, Perfect World makes sure to suck that option out completely. You start feeling like a sweat-shop trying to make ends meet in this game! My fiance, who again, usually likes to sell cheap, has found herself forced into having to sell stuff for way more than it's worth, yet slightly less here and there than other people, in order to afford all her repairs, training, etc. It's like the friggin' Borg, "you will be assimilated"... and once they suck you in, unless you can walk away cold turkey, you're pretty much stuck playing by only their rules and their way, and boy does it SUCK!
Sadly, my poor fiance runs a little shop literally half of the time she spends playing the game, literally begging people to please buy her items out of pity, in order to fund her training and gameplay experience, as well as, bless her soul, mine as well!
I should also mention, never fear, if you don't want to spend real-world money to be able to purchase items in the cash-shop, they have "surveys" you can partake in to earn "Zhen"; problem is, each and every survey they have, is a money-making scam designed to trick you into forking over a credit-card, buying something, or signing up for some sort of paid subscription. Yet, Perfect World Entertainment try to convince you that it's easy, safe, convenient, and simple... yeah right!
Oh, also on a side-note, did you know that Perfect World International is not only client-side hackable, but also friendly to multi-boxing bots?? That's right, you will see quite a few game hackers as well as botters. The hackers are hard to spot right off, but after awhile it'll be mildly obvious, but the bots you can almost spot off immediately!! Oh, and there are several people that use lag-switches in this game for a very unfair advantage (which becomes painfully apparent when LOTS of people decide to duel/PK in and around the city of Archesaur!!!). It also seems there's a bunch of people that will fake-bid in public auctions to grief/piss-off other players; not to mention people getting friends to “partake” in auctions sort of like “plants” in order to drive/inflate the price up to something the person auctioning the item wants; (as an example, hypothetically I decide to auction a mount for 50,000 coins which is REALLY generous... you and a friend of mine start bidding on it, yet people don't know that the other person is my friend... my friend keeps out-bidding you, and spiking the next offer by large amounts, forcing you and/or others to bid even higher, closer to a price that's more fitting to what I was hoping for... like say 500,000 to 1,000,000 or more!).
Now, to get into the "staff". Oh wow, where to begin on this, OMG! First and foremost on this topic, there's an area in the game called The Secret Passage, aka: PK-Heaven. Trust me, unless you're a high level, or are traveling with friends, do NOT go in there, save your sanity and go the other way! It turns out there's some "bug" in the code that puts EVERYBODY in it, into some floating PVP mode. Now, for the record, if you turn on your PK mode (PVP), you're forced to stay in PK mode for 10 hours. But oddly, people can go into The Secret Passage, PK any other player they want to, walk out, and low and behold, they're not in PK mode (which is perfect proof that people exploit this for that very reason, as they can PK/duel ANYWHERE/EVERYWHERE else in the game!). Now, here's the major issue. Around levels 30-40, you'll start getting quests that either take you into The Secret Passage, or a dungeon whose entrance is actually located at the far back of The Secret Passage.
Getting an idea where this is going?? You will find, TONS of really HIGH level players, like level 100 players, that will sit in the first room and use The Secret Passage to be their fancy arena. But here's where the problem gets even worse, you will find SEVERAL jackholes that will hunt down each and every player that tries to get past in order to PK them. Why you might ask? I'm not completely sure if there's anything like "honor points" in the game, but what I did come to find, is that typically a character has a high chance of dropping items if they partake regularly in PK/PVP mode; HOWEVER, it turns out even people who do absolutely ZERO PK/PVP-ing, ALSO have something like a 0.5% chance or something along those lines of actually dropping a random piece of gear, coins, or something from their inventory (even against game-controlled MONSTERS). Oh but wait, check this out, they have a protection in the game that's EXPLOITED to help these jokers out. Here's how, there's an account lock that you can turn on, that keeps anybody who breaks into your account from being able to remove your gear, items, or coins from your inventory, great right? It would be, except these jokers turn this protection on BEFORE they go PKing everybody, meaning even if by some LUCK chance they manage to be the ones killed, they don't lose anything! Oh but, did I forget to mention, once again, in their lovely boutique *COUGHCOUGHF'NCASHSHOPCOUGHCOUGH* you can again buy guardian scrolls to keep this chance from being an issue, or you can trade-in in-game items which are also procured from the *COUGHCOUGHF'NCASHSHOPCOUGHCOUGH* for these guardian scrolls. Here's the even better part, which is a bit complex sort of. Seems they had this issue before, and then fixed it, now the issue is back, and even though they fixed it before, they're saying it's going to take 6-8 weeks to fix the issue; in the meantime PKing in The Secret Passage is supposed to be a bannable offense. Oh yeah, right, that's a joke. I've read numerous forums of people taking screenshots and submitting tickets, where the jokers "farming players" are STILL playing. I myself have screenshotted at least 5 people, submitted bunches of tickets, and those people are STILL playing. I had seen a couple horror stories where somebody decided to defend themselves, the PKer decided to report them, and then the person defending themselves got banned... WTF!? I'll tell you, there's nothing more annoying, than working your way through The Secret Passage, needing to meditate and heal up before a big mob, and while you're doing so, some jackhole assassin in stealth coming up and nailing everybody in the back, killing your whole party and sending them back to town, the whole while they get the biggest laugh, and your gaming experience is pretty much flushed straight down the ****ter!
Getting an idea where this is going?? You will find, TONS of really HIGH level players, like level 100 players, that will sit in the first room and use The Secret Passage to be their fancy arena. But here's where the problem gets even worse, you will find SEVERAL jackholes that will hunt down each and every player that tries to get past in order to PK them. Why you might ask? I'm not completely sure if there's anything like "honor points" in the game, but what I did come to find, is that typically a character has a high chance of dropping items if they partake regularly in PK/PVP mode; HOWEVER, it turns out even people who do absolutely ZERO PK/PVP-ing, ALSO have something like a 0.5% chance or something along those lines of actually dropping a random piece of gear, coins, or something from their inventory (even against game-controlled MONSTERS). Oh but wait, check this out, they have a protection in the game that's EXPLOITED to help these jokers out. Here's how, there's an account lock that you can turn on, that keeps anybody who breaks into your account from being able to remove your gear, items, or coins from your inventory, great right? It would be, except these jokers turn this protection on BEFORE they go PKing everybody, meaning even if by some LUCK chance they manage to be the ones killed, they don't lose anything! Oh but, did I forget to mention, once again, in their lovely boutique *COUGHCOUGHF'NCASHSHOPCOUGHCOUGH* you can again buy guardian scrolls to keep this chance from being an issue, or you can trade-in in-game items which are also procured from the *COUGHCOUGHF'NCASHSHOPCOUGHCOUGH* for these guardian scrolls. Here's the even better part, which is a bit complex sort of. Seems they had this issue before, and then fixed it, now the issue is back, and even though they fixed it before, they're saying it's going to take 6-8 weeks to fix the issue; in the meantime PKing in The Secret Passage is supposed to be a bannable offense. Oh yeah, right, that's a joke. I've read numerous forums of people taking screenshots and submitting tickets, where the jokers "farming players" are STILL playing. I myself have screenshotted at least 5 people, submitted bunches of tickets, and those people are STILL playing. I had seen a couple horror stories where somebody decided to defend themselves, the PKer decided to report them, and then the person defending themselves got banned... WTF!? I'll tell you, there's nothing more annoying, than working your way through The Secret Passage, needing to meditate and heal up before a big mob, and while you're doing so, some jackhole assassin in stealth coming up and nailing everybody in the back, killing your whole party and sending them back to town, the whole while they get the biggest laugh, and your gaming experience is pretty much flushed straight down the ****ter!
Furthermore on their "staff", wow, this one really blows my mind. If you DARE to go to their forums, make SURE you have a thick-skin, we're talking like SUPERMAN thick. They have to have the most jacked up forums ever, even worse than GamersFirst or GameFAQs, and that's pretty bad. They seem to have absolutely no rules whatsoever about trolling, griefing, harassing, etc. There's no option to report/flag posts for review, there's no ability to block anybody. But get this, they have some hardcore rule about bumping any thread that's more than 2 weeks old. So you happen to use the "search" function, find a thread that relates, and even though you read the post for the CONTENT (how dare you don't proof-read the dates in the thread!), and post relevant CONTENT, you get a cocky moderator that gives you a cocky-arse response about how you "necro"'ed the thread, and typically quite a few trolls prior going, "OMG, what a necro!". Like seriously!? May as well be in friggin' grade-school. Here's where it's really interesting. If you make a new thread on a topic that's already in existence, you get griefed because "there's already an existing thread, did you REALLY have to make another one!?", WTF! Or even better, as I had pointed out, "some questions remain relevant no matter how old they are" (like, "where do I go to find x creature, and how hard is it"), people who are relevant to the topic at hand, get trolled, griefed, flamed, harassed, etc, NOTHING happens, you post again past a 2 week point, everybody and their brother flips out because you're a "necro" (like oh f'n noez, the motherf'n humanity of it all!@#!), and even the friggin moderator who doesn't do jack about the haters/griefers gives you crap for being a necro, then locks the thread so that you have no recourse, or say, to the big dink in the face they just delivered you, (gotta love the troll-encouragement, or even moderators that will troll like b****@$$ d***heads), WHAT!? The best response I could get from a moderator, when I suggested they amend the "necro rule" to include "bumping with anything that's NOT relevant to the topic at hand", they told me, and I quote, "what can I say, rules are rules"... oh yeah, where's all the rules protecting us from being turned into *****es by the other players!? Also have seen many say, "necro-ing is pretty much an internet-wide rule of thumb"; oh really now!? I've been getting online since I was a little kid, first dialing up into BBSes, and then CompuServe, then finally the World Wide (Inter)Webs; up until now, I've only seen it referred to as "bumping", I only ever saw it referred to as "necro-ing", I THINK, in really tiny circles, MUDs/MUSHes, or really "off the grid" sort of games that nobody had ever heard of... but now, ever since coming to Perfect World, I'm supposed to believe this is a rule that's found EVERYWHERE!? WTF... I feel like Perfect World Entertainment is the equivalent of the Twilight Zone!
Oh, also, have a thick skin if you're in the game and attempt to watch/read World chat if/when bored. I kid you not, the chat in there doesn't seem to be moderated or controlled whatsoever. I see people making jokes about rape, sex, drugs, murder, you name it... keeping in mind there's KIDS that play this game. But what's kind of scary ironic; I had a friend in the game, who reached their "limit" with the game, and was actually saying in World Chat, how much Perfect World sucks, how greedy and leechy Perfect World Entertainment is; shortly after about the third thing they said, they went offline, and I haven't seen them back on since, nor have I been messaged by any alts or other accounts. So, pretty much, be as ****ed up as you want to, but don't you dare say a thing that makes them look bad, or they'll bury you next to Jimmy Hoffa and IP-ban you into a 6-foot hole! Oh, and by the way, in order to be able to actually talk in World Chat, you have to again BUY from their BOUTIQUE (cash shop) these items called telecoustics, which a SINGLE one allows you to say ONE short sentence in World Chat!
I started out loving this game, but as you can see, if you're still reading this; this is definitely one of those "casino" f2p games, where you dish in a bunch of cash, thinking it's fun, but then you're so far invested, you can't pull away, and by then, they're pretty much rubbing your nose in your own !@#!. I will admit, at one point, my fiance and I *almost* bought each a $20 Perfect World card, and are glad that right before we decided to, we started to see all the writing on the wall and opted against it. Back in the day, this game might have been worth your investment, but it's starting to dry up, and it's apparent the devs have realized that... rather than adding "fun" content, they're trying to put up barriers that force you into paying. Do yourself a favor, if you plan to check out Perfect World International, I'll be fair in saying, on the surface, and even down to the mechanics, it's a great game with lots of potential... but keep an open-mind, as well as an "escape route" out of this money-pit... because it's like that car salesman that loves to sell you the lemon... everything will look like sunshine and daisies and pretty little rainbows... until you find yourself dazed and confused, turn around, and find yourself shackled to the money-machine known as Perfect World Entertainment! :-/
There you have it, Perfect World Entertainment is perfect proof that “money talks, and bull**** walks”; because pretty much anything that “walks” (or exists) in this poor excuse for a “fun” MMO is BS, and the only way you can really “talk” strongly in the game, is to PAY for it! Also seems perfectly clear that Perfect World Entertainment is completely money-centered, and are willing to turn a blind eye to anything as long as they get the cash... sadly, they even seem more greedy than MoneyFirst (GamersFirst)! In fact, I'll even go so far as to say, that Perfect World seems like the “Perfect Simulator” of “Gold Fever”... this game proves that TWISTED version of the “Golden Rule”, and that is “he who has the most gold wins”. I even said in my faction the other day, “the only difference between Perfect World and Farmville, is Perfect World has a 3D open-world!”. Also, don't bother filing any grievances or issues with Perfect World Entertainment, all you ever get in return is form letters acknowledging the form submission; and only one time had I ever gotten a reply, that pretty much summed up said, "well, sorry, can't help you, you're **** out of luck"!
PS – I've only ever seen ONE article about anybody that EVER made it to the Perfect World end-game without spending ANY real-life money whatsoever... but from what I've seen and experienced, it's near impossible, and would take some SERIOUS die-hard grinding and massive strenuous hours of gameplay!!!
