Perfect World Review

Perfect World Review

Rightio, so this is my review of Perfect World. As promised. My mom played it, and I loved watching her do Territory Wars with her faction (Kamikaze) and I even got to use barb buffs on one of them! When I was younger and before I played, of course.

Anyways, now I have my own account and I play pretty often. I’m in a faction called Rivalz, and we are a level three faction with no territory, although I’ve heard rumors that our leader is planning on entering us in one about a year from now. I have a level 62 Venomancer and a level 47 Cleric, as well as a few others I don’t use.

Onto the review.

Character Creation:

Overall, this is good. You’ve got lots of different hairstyles, although there aren’t many that just “pop,” y’know? You can change the shape of your eyes and nose and mouth and head and stuff, and it’s really a lot like the creation thing in The Sims 3 when it comes to editing your character’s looks. You don’t have a bunch of different outfits, just the one armor set. (And fashion (called “fash” in game for short) if you decide to buy out of the cash shop/boutique.) Fash can also be bought from the auction house for in-game coin and from cat shops in major cities like Archosaur and City of the Lost.

The cons of the creation system are a lack of variety, especially for hair. As a girl, I love having kick ass hair on a character. PWI simply doesn’t have that without the cash shop. Also, it’s hard to get your character to look just right. The sliders work fine when editing the body, but you can never find that perfect shape. Another thing, when editing the breast size (on a female character) it changes your character to have broad shoulder (if you go for bigger boobs) and smaller, frail looking shoulders (if you go for smaller boobs). The color picker also isn’t very good. The colors available are not vibrant, at all. You can’t have flame-red hair or silver eyes. It comes out looking washed-out. I think that if they’d add preset colors (i.e. in The Sims’s style designer, you have little squares under a tab with pre-selected colors.) that it would be much easier to find a half-decent color.

Overall: Character creation could be better, but it’s not bad.

Gameplay:

This part of the game is rather boring, in my opinion. You do the same thing on all classes, minus the parts before you go to Archosaur (The main city). Before that, you’re in your home city (i.e. City of the Lost, Tellus City, City of Raging Tides) and you’re getting used to the game by killing mobs and learning how to auto-path and just work the game in general.

After that, you go to Arch (Archosaur) and do quests for General Summer and The Elder of Archosaur and stuff. More or less flying and killing mobs. Honestly, I’d like to escort some npc to safety or something.

The fun part is the dungeons. You need a squad for most of them (Not sure about you lvl 100+ guys) and this is where you have to play a part. I’ve done damage dealer most of the time, and I like it. It’s the least stressful position to be in. You wait for your tank (usually a barbarian) to get the mob attacking him, and then you hit the thing. You, ideally, take no damage, and the whole thing goes smoothly. The cleric is the most stressful position, as you have to keep everyone alive and are probably dead if you take damage. No one expects you to get hit, and if you do, they don’t notice a lot of the time. Also, if anyone dies, you’re immediately blamed for it. If you let the tank die (even if it’s because you’re healing yourself or someone else) your whole party will probably die. Then it’s all your fault.

However, there is always the option of leveling and then helping low level players. You can make money off of that. Power leveling people (plvl) can bring on 500k coin a lot of the time. If you were to plvl six people, you’d get around 3 million coin. That’s enough for cheap fash in the auction house and cat shops. The higher level you are, the easier it seems to get to play. Low level players see you as a force to be reckoned with.

There is also the option to be “Reawakened.” Once you hit level 105, you can choose to start over with all of your skills and items and run yourself back up to 105. You can do this nine times. There are also people who are overpowered (op). These players can one-shot anyone if they choose to do so, and are extremely useful to have on your side. They are lethal as an enemy, especially in PvP things like duels and nation wars and territory wars.

Also, if someone you trust invites you to join a guild, don’t pass up the offer. (OOOH! Get the reference?)
               Seriously. Join a faction if you can. It’ll help with the gameplay (you’re gonna have questions) and you need people to run dungeons. Plus, it gets lonely without one.

Overall: Boring, unless you play with a group. You are also considered a “noob” and basically useless to levels 80 or 90, and even then you may not be useful since they’ve added a Reawakening system.

Graphics and Game Design:

I have a lot to say here, as I dabble in 3D animation and modeling. The PWI designers were what someone might call lazy in designing this, in my opinion (Could also be that when the game came out graphics weren't great?). I don't mean to insult anyone here. I do understand that it is a large world to design (even on the fastest flying mounts it can take ten or fifteen minutes to cross the map from top to bottom), however you would think that they have a fairly large team working on it. I have looked at what was done when it was designed. It is all basically flat shapes with fancy shading. The wooden stairs in City of the Lost? They aren’t warped like they look. That’s shading on the texture map. The railways on Archosaur’s stairs? Also just a flat surface with good shading. All of those little details are just shading on the texture map, from what I can see. The swords and weapons are flat, and not shaped like swords and axes at all really. For example, the magic sword on my venomancer does not come to a point. The handle isn’t round, either. It’s a rectangle too. It looks like a box. Again, I do understand that it is a big world and it does have a lot of work put into it as is, but if you’re going to do an MMO, why not go all the way with the design? Also, like the character creation, the colors are generally washed out. And the mobs look the same for the most part. Like pokemon. You have the same mobs that you have pre-lvl 30 (for the most part), but they look like they’ve just evolved. I think most of them have the same attacks too.

Overall: Pretty, but it lacks detail.

Community:

In all honesty, I love the PWI community. As a lower level, I didn’t know what I was doing and I needed some serious help to learn how to play. I’m a level 62 and 47 now, still technically a low level but I’m working on it, and after a while of being on the game, I feel comfortable asking people for help. There are almost always factions recruiting, and there are usually the same people on World Chat most of the time. So in a way, you become familiar with them and are comfortable asking them questions.

The players are friendly as hell. I have yet to encounter one who is unwilling to help or is rude, and I adore that. I place a lot of importance on the community of a game, and I’d give PWI’s community five out of five stars. I don’t really have anything bad to say here.

Overall: Great. People are nice and always willing to help.

COMPLETE OVERALL REVIEW:
               PWI is fairly boring in gameplay and it takes a long time to level, but it has a pretty world and armor and an amazing community. The PvP events are lots of fun to do, but for it to be fun, you need to play with people. Join a faction or have a small circle of friends you play with on the game.

Swordsman Beta Review -- Day 1

Hey Warriors,

So as some of you probably know, there's a new MMORPG out called Swordsman. It goes through Arc, like Aion and Jade Dynasty and Perfect World and Star Trek online do, and I've recently signed up for beta. My beta key came in and I downloaded it and stuff and so this is my review of  the game so far.

Review: 

               Swordsman is a new martial arts MMORPG. It’s made by the same people who did Perfect World and requires Arc to download and access, like Perfect World. It is currently in beta-testing, and as a beta tester, these are my first impressions.

Character Creation:

I was impressed with this. The hair selection wasn’t big from what I saw, but I did find several that I liked and had a hard time picking. The facial creation and modification was tricky, as the pre-made features were never quite right (What game has good pre-made face features, anyways?) and the sliders were a bit odd. The lips were hard to get right.

               There is no custom-color picker in this creation. You have pre-selected color squares to click, meaning you can’t have green hair or blue or pink if you want. This is a step up from PWI, but if they have unnatural colors too, it would be great. I personally prefer natural colors, but some of them aren’t exactly what I want and I know people who like odd colors.

               There is also no way to edit the body of your character. You choose a gender and you have that body type. Meaning you can’t change the height or weight or breast and waist size of your character. This takes away points in my book.

               Overall: It’s okay, but if you were to fuse it with PWI’s creator, it would be near perfect. That said, it’s easy to make pretty characters.

Gameplay:

The first thing I thought when I got into the game was, “Oh my god, this lag…” That didn’t change. The entire game was laggy. I don’t know if that is normal in a beta or if it’s because there were so many people online, but it was insane. It took a minimum of five seconds for one attack to work (Assuming it worked at all) and hotkeys like “B” for bag and “C” for Character did not work sometimes due to lag. I actually had to stop playing after a while because of it.

As for questing, it’s confusing. I know you click the NPC and talk to it, but then you have fifty million little squares popping up on your screen and you have no idea what to do.  There isn’t even a “Help” dialogue to explain what something is and how it works!

Overall: Confusing and laggy. If there were a “Help” dialogue box that would pop up, it would be easier. Also unable to find out how to assign attribute points. There is also no build set to help you. (I seriously screwed up my venomancer by putting a lot of dexterity on her, and I suck at trying to figure out builds. I need endgame stats or something to go by.)

Graphics and Game Design:

The game is drop dead gorgeous. I haven’t had time to look at the detail of the game yet, but it looks amazing, even with graphics turned all the way down. It seems like it has detail though, because your clothes actually flutter in the wind and on your starting armor, the coin shaped things on your waist bounce too. Like, individually.

Overall: Can’t tell for sure yet, but it seems absolutely kick ass.

Community:

I have yet to assess the community. There were a lot of people asking questions about the game in world chat (how did they get to the required level so fast?!) and the alpha (pre-beta) players seemed to be answering their questions, so it seems fine, but I don’t know for sure.

Overall: Unable to tell for sure yet, but it seems decent enough.

Also, after the beta, there will be a complete wipe. Everything will be lost on your character. That’s crappy.

TOTAL OVERALL REVIEW:

Pretty, but super laggy, but it seems pretty cool. Will have to keep playing to assess it further.

Summer's Here!

               Heya, Warriors!

               Sorry again for the lack of updates. As you know, my grades had to be above a B for computer access this summer. Unfortunately, there was one C+, but my parents let it slide. Since then, I have been playing Perfect World, an MMORPG that my mom got me hooked on. I’ve joined a faction (Rivalz) and the people are freaking amazing. They’re all fun and helpful and I definitely recommend joining if you can. I’ve also been on The Sims and testing out the new Swordsman beta. (A review will be posted on PW and SM soon.)

               Since school got out on May 30^th, I haven’t done any new writing. However, as I write this, my internet is out and wont be back on for at least two days. So I’m going to write. And edit. And write more. I’ll have blogs posts for here, as well as my blog on Wicca (http://novawicca.blogspot.com), and as I said before, there will be some reviews for MMORPGs. So far, I’m gonna do Perfect World, Jade Dynasty, Swordsman, Aion, Lord of the Rings Online, and Aura Kingdom.

               It’s likely that I’ll post a few book reviews as well. I’ve decided to do on on The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Some Darren Shan reviews will likely end up here, as well as Heather Brewer, Richelle Mead, and Becca Fitzpatrick and Cornelia Funke.

         CONTEST

 There will be a competition for the character design of the characters listed below:

·        Raleigh

·        Amelia (Dresses girly)

·        Aunt Victoria

·        Syra (Wears all black, usually armor or a plain black shirt and pants.)

·        Liah (Wears all white, usually armor or some sort of simply, but regal, dress)

·        Klaos (Usually wears a white button up shirt and black slacks.)

I’m not going to give much more direction on what these characters should look like, because I want to be surprised. I will say, however, that these characters must appear human. Scars and horns and stuff are alright, because they can be easily glamoured, but nothing like reptile spines and scales and snouts or anything. Wings are fine, so are fox/cat/wolf ears and tails since in most fictional stuff that they’re in they have the ability to hide them.

Rules:

·        No nudity

·        One submission per person (You can choose to do multiple characters, but you can’t do two of Raleigh, for example. Multiple people in the same household can submit entries)

·        The art must be your own, and it must be original (Meaning no recycling previously drawn art)

·        The art does not have to be hand drawn. (You can use Photoshop and Illustrator and Gimp or whatever you like to use. Feel free to build a 3D model in Maya or Blender and send a screenshot of it if you want!)

·        Collaborations are allowed (Say if you wanted to work in Photoshop. Unless you want to try and hand draw everything in there (which is difficult to say the least) then you can have someone draw something and edit it in there or something. Again, no recycled work!!!)

·        No dialogue or busy backgrounds (If you want a background, please stick to a simple gradient or a solid color. Make sure you can see the character well.)

·        Picture must be in color

·        The image must be good quality

·        All submissions must be send to katherynhawkins97@gmail.com and must have “Character Design Competition” for a subject.

As no one will likely see this post until June 18, at the very least, and there is a lack of viewers here, the contest will end on December 31, 2014. (No, I wont forget. The emails will go in a folder and I’ll keep them there till I pick the winner.)

I hope to see many entries coming in! I will pick the best picture for each character and let the winners know, and we will work on what will likely be a Valentine special/short-story featuring the characters of Raleigh. They will also get special insight to the book, as well as the followups! (Meaning some dirty little secrets that aren’t shown in the book! :O Stuff that the characters of the book keep hidden, I’m thinking. Dunno exactly what information I’ll give out, but it’ll be something.) Or maybe I’ll answer questions about character’s past? To some extent. I’m not gonna give you Liah’s life story and why she does what she does or anything, but.

So yeah. A contest, and lots of reviews coming up. Hope to see you guys submitting!

All by best,

Katheryn

Questions, comments, concerns?
Email me at katherynhawkins97@gmail.com

School's Out -- Almost Forever!

Heya! So, school here gets out in a week, and I may or may not be able to keep updating during the summer. (My parents want me to get B's or higher, and I currently have a C-.) It's the end of my Junior year, so yeah I guess school is almost out forever. If you get the Maximum Ride reference.

As for Raleigh, it's still in progress. At first, the main plotline was underway by chapter five, which I didn't like. I'm moving those back, and adding more of Ray's daily life (and the start of her visions) before the plot starts. I think it's going to give you more insight on her character, as well as her companions before the main plot. There have also been some name changes here and there, so when excerpts for this start appearing, don't freak out. I'll let you know whose name has been changed to what when I post them. And I place a lot of importance in the names of my characters, so they may continue to change up until publication.

And publication is only a hope right now. Keep that in mind. Most publishing companies I've looked at only have any interest in previously published authors, and only in finished manuscripts, if they're even taking on new projects in the first place. And editors? The ones I've looked at charge about two cents a word. Raleigh will be, ideally, about the length of a Vampire Academy book, and at the bare minimum the length of a Cirque du Freak book. (Maybe they'll end up short and get longer as the series goes on? Or maybe the editor will help with expanding everything. Maybe it wont need expanding, but some serious rewording?) Who knows. Anyways, you guys have a great summer. Have fun. And don't die. Definitely don't die. That's no fun, I hear.

All my best,
Katheryn

Questions, comments, concerns? Email me at katherynhawkins97@gmail.com

4-30-14

     Heyo, Warriors! Again, I apologize for the lack of updates. I don't have access to my computer at home for a few weeks, so it's been a bit tricky for me to getting the blog posts done.

     In relation to writing, chapter five is done and edited. The excerpt with the flashbacks was unedited if I remember correctly. Anyways, chapter six is now underway. Raleigh is completely out of her element now, due to some spoiler heavy reasons I can't reveal. I can tell you that the main plot has started, though, and Ray is going to have her plate full. She's also been dragged from Minnesota to Texas. Talk about climate change!

     Anyways, I'll get 6 done as soon as possible. And then you guys will get an excerpt. (Pre-edits of course.)

     All my best,
            Katheryn