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Pwi ongoing review.
maxnrosy
Member Posts: 608
So i came from wow to this game and well this is my ongoing review. i will update it as i lvl more.
I decided to write this review due to what i have experienced in the game so far. I have both a lvl 40 barbarian and lvl 40 venomancer.
When i started playing this game it was for 2 purposes. Try somthing new and escape from wow's grasps. I kinda didnt expect much from this game since it was a ftp game and ill admit it i was assuming this was a grinding game with no focus but on getting drops. So i did go to the main website and did some research of all the classes. This is where the game gets its 1st props. This game actually has official fourms that many p2p games do not have.
pve n stuff:
I decided to roll a Barbarian since tanking is one of the things i do like. As i played the game i quickly discovered it is not a grinding game per se. while at later lvls you do have to grind, it is completely optional for those who wait as there are daily quests that can be done, books that can be found or purchased that offer quests, helping lowbies with their instances, cube of fate, ect. The game does offer alot for even high lvls to do instead of just going out hours mashing mobs with no reward.
The community in Heaven's tear is very helpful and nice. of course there are a duece or 2 that try to ruin others fun, however these are very few compared to where i comefrom.
also the server is packed people are everywhere. due to how high lvls can benifit from helping lower lvls, they offer their help, there is No need to bribe or beg for help.
As for questing, most quests do inform you well where you have to go if you actually read them. some if you skip you will not have any idea where to go so i do advise you read the quests. Now comming from wow i quite expected a good story behind evey quest, this pwi quite does poorly, but then how can i complain the game is free to play. Still Pwi does offer you many quests to do to gain exp and spirit.
only sad thing of most of the quests, they are kill x and get y items. but then this is in all mmos. good thing you do get exp and items for achiveing them.
Character customizing.
This is where pwi actually shines. NO im not talking about how your character looks. Bah ok i will. The game does give you many options how how your character will look and is very indeph save for the barbarians which is extremely limited on how you will look ingame. All the other classes can make you look unique if you spend your time on it. Now with that out of the way lets go to the most important part about customizing your char.
Each class has a talent tree, you dont spend points in it as every talent can be learned, all you need to do is learn the lvl 1 version of the skill before the other will be aval to you as you lvl. Now every class has access to every armor and weps in the game. But its up to you on how you want your char to be.
There are cookie cutter builds for each class, but that doesnt mean they are the most effective, they are just the standard builds to follow. Only the Barbarians and Blade masters will suffer greatly if you invest points in magic.
other than that Every class has different ways of playing them. This i found out more after making my venomancer and did some deep reaserch of the class. I mostly enjoy melee not that much of a caster. now on the pwi forums most of the builds are caster builds. I did stumble on the PW my-en forums to find out that PWI is actually not a new game , it has a few years of age, other parts of the world have been playng this game for a long time. Now i stumbled on some melee builds for the venomancer.
What melee builds for a caster class.? Yep and they work. Fox builds and tanker builds. by placing points into str, and mag with little into dex to meet the requierments for heavy armor. my char now can melee into fox form and actually tank a bit (limited due to low hp) This allowed me to survive much longer and even take out 3 to 4 enemies at a time with my pet out. now compared to casters, they can down a mob a bit faster than i can, but if they get mobbed they die very fast. The build i opted does allow me to use heavy armor and arcane. so i have the flexibilty to change armor and adapt to any situation.
Each build has its pros and cons in both pve and pvp. the beauty of the game is you mold your char to your playstlye. Some classes will have more ways of molding (blademasters for ex)em offering you alot of skills to choose from.
While at max lvl you can obtain all the skills and max them, your build will determine which skills will be more powerful.
This game does offer alot of flexibility.
Territory wars and pvp.
I will admit i am very limited here since i only done this a few times. While lost city is the pvp server, that doesnt mean that the other servers dont offer pvp. infact the pve servers allow more competition for territory wars since somthing wierd happeend in the pvp server where 1 guild basicly rules the world.
You can duel at any time and at any lvl vs anyone. you cannot see other peoples lvl but you can see what they have equipped giving you a general idea what their lvl range can be. at lower lvls some classes or builds may seem be overpowered.
At lvl 30 you can enter pk mode. in lost city this is permanent, in the other servers you need to toggle it. Because there are no factions you are not limited on who you can attack. basicly anyone else who enters pk mode can be attacked. pk mode lasts 10 hours when you trigger it. So dont expect to kill a few people and it wears off then you can get away with murder xD.
Most builds and classes will not do good in pvp till they hit the lvl 60 cap. this is where each class will finally get most of their important abilites that do factor in pvp.
Now for territory wars. This is a bit complex and somthing i wish wow had. your faction can bid to attack another factions land. if you win your faction gets a weekly profit among other benifits. Now tw is not cheap. Even if you win a bid you still have to pay for defence and offence. you spend coin on towers to help keep enemies at bay or on catapults to destroy towers and your enemy's crystal. The defender does get to add more towers in the mid map than the attackers. Both have a base which they need to protect its crystal.
Now before you can enter a territory war you char need to be in that said faction for atleast 100 played hours. (this can be achived by opening a cat shop and let the game run when your at work, school , asleep ect.) you need to be lvl 30.
Now the effective way for territory wars is to be at lvl 60. while i went into one at lvl 35, i was steamrolled by higher lvls. however i did manage to purge and curse the enemy/s tank holding the catapult allowing my faction to down him.
pvp combat is not limited to the ground. you can get on your flying mount and attack from the sky. infact in tw the healers tend to take flight and heal from above.
tw supports 80 vs80 (of what i was told in game not sure)
Tw does have an impact on your faction so the pvp is much more desirable that other games i played. you actually achive somthing or lose somthing. wars have a purpose in this game.
Cash shop.
yes the dreaded cash shop. It offers alot of items that you can benifit from also clothing. you can wear clothing , it doesnt affect your armor. armor is not sold in the cash shop.
what is sold in the cash shop that can make a pvp and pve difference are the charms. these things heal your mana or hp when you lose a 50% of health or drop to 75% of your mana. once they trigger they are on a timer and you must survive that timer for them to heal you to full again. each charm has a set amount of hp or mp that it will heal you for.
now YOU ACTUALLY DONT NEED TO SPEND$$ FOR THESE ITEMS.
the game allows players who do purchase these items to exchange them for ingame coin. Infact you can even change coin for gold via the acution house and purchase the items.
EVERY item that can benfit pvp or pve are tradable. so you can even farm coiin to get mounts.
The only benifit of the cash shop is being able to aquire mounts and charms early on with cash if your lazy and have a wad of money that needs to be spent.
grafics n sound.
This game does look amazing yet it is prob 2 to 4 years old not sure. with a quad processor and 4 gigs of ram i can run this game at max setting and even suffer no lag in the most populated areas.
The sound is a mix bag. The music is calming and all , however there is not alot of it. i wish there were more of it in different areas of the game.
The main city hub is huge and suffers from 2 songs that are short and repeat one after another. these 2 songs do get annoying . Still the music does its job to relax you.
as for the sound. it could have been much better. Some sounds are really nice to hear. but when it comes to being a venomancer. you suffer to some of the most annyong sounds ingame. most of the pets make annoying screeches and sounds that force you to use cookie cutter pets that are not annoying (the golem doesnt make sounds) that or lower your soundsettings or shut off the sound XD.
Conclusion:
This game does entertain me. it actually broke me free from wow. It offers arial combat dammit XD. Now what won me of this game is the cusomization of your char. I do reccomend this game to anyone seeking somthing new. or somthing till the game their waiting for is done.
there are some negative things about the game however. Most have to do on where the game was made and how they aplied their morals.
the game is pretty sexist. Men can carry women around, even on their mounts. but women cannot do the same.
only different sex can marry.
there is no same sex embracement or marrage.
venomancers can only be female and barbarians male. (due to their mythology)
Where the game was made it does have many cultral differences than ours. In their game they made they do not want to see same sex themes. Now the game is ftp so once again if we dont like well we dont have to play it .
if those things do not bother you , well get ready for a fun ride in a perfect world
Watching Fanbois drop their soap in a prison full of desperate men.
Comments
this is a good Review thanks for the info.
Dude you just wrote so much and didn't say anything more particular.LIke can you give me explanation why you can't move while casting spell or stoping it (attacking a mob)?And why aftrer the first 20 minets questing you fill like nothing happens and gaining exp while fighting equal mobs is $##$ it reminds me of L2.... Oh and the graphics at 1280x1024 the obects of the inerface are so small, I want to break my LCD..(and the most used colors are red,green and pink ...what the F***.)
.
Well for me this game is overrated but of course where are many ppl can't be bad right ?!Just like WoW!?
Can't move while casting a spell? Is that really something to complain about especially since most spells early on have less than 3 second cast times?
have you tried to press the esc key when casting? it does cancel the spell, thus you can run from the enemy. please name me a game that allows casters to move and cast spells.
Also i do play this game at 1600x1050 the icons are not small. also un the ui you can ajust the font size.
if you have a hard time seeing the icons, there is a high chance its more of a problem with the size of your monitor.
now i do wish the ui could be costomized. fix controls and fixed ui is one of the bad things of the game. But then im not paying for it. its free cannot complain.
as for the game colors. dont know what your talking about and your showing signs your just trolling.
Anyhow this is an ongoing review. now that i hit 50 ill be rereviewing the things i posted 1st.
Watching Fanbois drop their soap in a prison full of desperate men.
I was gonna tell him that in my previous post, but I guess I forgot. If your icons are small its most likely because you're going OVER THE RECOMMENDED settings for your monitor. I honestly didn't know what the dude was talking about when he said stopping cause he seemed unclear, but yeah if you hit ESC (durrr
) it stops the casting and you can run.
I was gonna tell him that in my previous post, but I guess I forgot. If your icons are small its most likely because you're going OVER THE RECOMMENDED settings for your monitor. I honestly didn't know what the dude was talking about when he said stopping cause he seemed unclear, but yeah if you hit ESC (durrr
) it stops the casting and you can run.
Sorry, but your comments on resolution is bs.
I have a 22" widescreen monitor, and the ONLY resolution that looks ok, is 1600x900. Which is the resolution I use in most games, without any problems. In this game, all icons and text are microscopic. After searching the official forum, I found out that the ONLY way to improve this, is to increase the font size in the settings. That helps a little, but not much.
I was gonna tell him that in my previous post, but I guess I forgot. If your icons are small its most likely because you're going OVER THE RECOMMENDED settings for your monitor. I honestly didn't know what the dude was talking about when he said stopping cause he seemed unclear, but yeah if you hit ESC (durrr
) it stops the casting and you can run.
Sorry, but your comments on resolution is bs.
I have a 22" widescreen monitor, and the ONLY resolution that looks ok, is 1600x900. Which is the resolution I use in most games, without any problems. In this game, all icons and text are microscopic. After searching the official forum, I found out that the ONLY way to improve this, is to increase the font size in the settings. That helps a little, but not much.
One of my computers I use to play this has a 19" Dell monitor thats recommended for no more than 1024 x 768, but I play it on 1280 x 1280 and nothing is "microscopic". There's little difference other than increased refinement in the graphics. If you're going blind trying to look at the text then maybe turn boldness on?
Let me start off by saying I really like the pve in this game.
Let's modify your section on pvp and territory wars.
Both pvp and TW are pretty much reserved for the rich. While a player can compete somewhat without spending too much in the item shop, at the higher levels it requires lot of money to just to be competitive.
Gold charms are a must in both pvp and TW. Without them, you are a just a little gnat to be swatted. Top notch equipment that costs 1 million upward for each piece is also needed. Refining which requires item shop items can make weapons far better than what most people have access too. I know one archer that spent $200 on one bow.
If you like pve, this game is for you, if you have this hot desire to pvp, you better get ready to lay out the cash, you will be very disappointed otherwise.
Well as promised i decided to do a 2nd part of the review.
These are my Views of playing the game getting to lvl 50.
I wont lie i kinda feel burnt down, loosing intrest quickly. While the game does offer many ways to get exp (if you refuse to grind you can help in fbs ect and dailys) you still need to smack a few mobs here and there to keep the coin flow going. Not much of a problem.
Whats hurting me is quite the fact that the game doesnt pose much of a challange and the story doesnt grasp you like lotr or wow . You start to feel empty . Im still 10 lvls shy from being able to partake in real pvp as lower lvls you will just get ripped apart. atleast from 60 you can fight on higher lvls. but this boils down to the another problem.
Pve: The game does pit you vs some hard elites. some are 10 lvls over you. No one (community problem not game) wants to attempt to tackle an elite mob quest without high lvls. while it is possible for lets say lvl 45+ to take down a lvl 55 elite no one seems to dare to attempt it. you just get high lvl help and sit back . This kinda crushes the challanges the game does have to offer. Also i have notice as i have done fb's for lower lvls, they are more content to do it with a high lvl instead of seeking people thier lvl (a real group) and take the challange. Now I am aware the changing point does come when you hit lvl 60 as you will be grouping alot with your lvl to tackle Twilight Temple . grouping does increase after lvl 60 and it seems thats where the game does pick up. But the lvl 40 to 60 is a big turning point to many players, it will decide who will stay and who wont. Sadly this is more of a community problem than game mechanics, although from 40 to 60 you are offered little to do in terms of seeking groups to do things with. that is a massive amount of lvls.
The spec i took for my veno ensured me to much survivability to even be dependant of others. however many people are very curious with my build and mostly barbarians and clerics wont hesitate to ask me to group with them for their quests after watching how i play. in essence i do wish there was more to do other than a few quests as these times i do enjoy the grouping concept. But my spec does bring me a share of ignorant players. Many who dont even know perfect world has been out for a while and shun my playstyle because they are not aware that my spec is years old and they are used to seeing venos as casters. However their opinions change when i obliverate them in a duel. This happens due to their inexperience with the spec i decided to go after.
Pvp: Sadly i have only been to a few territory wars. the guild i was in couldnt fincance no more and the obious you need to be 60+ in order to even do them became obious. You need to be high lvl to do them, infact just not you. your whole guild.
This puts you in a situation that if you want to pvp well you need to join one of the bigger guilds that own territory. This becomes a problem as guilds are limited to how many people they can have in their guild. the most popular and bigger guilds have maxed out.You can make a guild but it does cost alot of coin to upgrade it. so you depend alot on your guildmates loyalty and determination to make your guild thrive. You need to be at least a lvl 3 guild to get enough players to finance a war. So you will need many MANY (40+) guildies at lvl 60+ in order to even think about going to war. When you do own territory you do get a weekly pay, normally this pay is devided into those who participated at the war. its not alot but it does help.
This type of structure does sound fun but it does alienate new players as many of these guilds require a lvl limit. due to the limit guildies cannot get exp from other guildies getting their fbs. as low lvls are not accepted. smaller guilds benifit from lowbies as they help them progress thus more exp. This ends up making you have alot of jumpers. People who want exp will join a lowbie guild and help till they get what they want then jump boat to a bigger more progressive guild. The lowbies finally hit that magic lvl number they needed to join a bigger more active guild. This tends to lead you with many new players who then leave to to the exodus that does tend to happen.
By all means this game still has its good things, and well to enjoy them you need to be in a well formed guild.
Now there are a few things that can bother a player alot about this game. Your character.
If you decide to make a male char, your in luck. you can Help more people than a Female char can. you can take female lowbies to places ,regenerate chi ect. The benifit of being a male char is very big and well very sexist.
You may end up making a female char in the game In my case i am FORCED due to the class i enjoy is limited to females. This means if i do need a chi boost i do need to seek out a male and actually tolerate stupid " omg this chick likes me crap" mind you i do stay as a fox all the time so i dont have to endure getting kissed like other female chars. (but damn those guys seem their into bestiality XD) . The main problem lies that a female char cannot help another female char. also you cannot help male chars taking them to places. all you get is a chi benifit. Sadly there are more female chars than male.
Most archars are female. while they can be male. many cannot tolerate the queerness of the male archers (i have nothing against gay, lesbian ect) The game makers ethics kinda go against themselves. thye may not tolerate same sex themes. However being that mostly males play this game and many end up playing females due to classes forced one sex and well elves being to metrosexual. This makes players have to resort to doing things they would never do in other games do to benifits given in this game by embracing.
I have to tolerate being held by a male char which kinda gives me a bad sensation, its kinda not me knowing that the other player is male. Then people who prefer the same sex are pissed because they cannot use the embrace mechanisim . This will affect the immersive part of the game. it does have an impact to the players. Why, there are alot of players who damn think every female char is female. I played female chars in other games and never been hit on as much as in this game. kinda what turned me off. I did make sure that players knew i was male and well would get my disses and insults on why im playing a female char (goddamn the class i like is female only) .
All these things started to push me off a good game. Most of these developers should not intergrate these types of themes into their mmos. (wow did have wedding dressex tuxedos , flowers and even wedding rings. but anyone could put them on or buy them. there was no wedding ceremonies ect it was open game) Things that benifit one sex more than another does affect how players precive the game , aslo when classes are forced to 1 sex . wait there are even quests that are only to be done by a male char.
For now i moved on . Im currently trying Runes of magic. Aleast there there are no forced thems or classes forced to 1 sex.
I can understan a race being forced to one sex but not a class.
Watching Fanbois drop their soap in a prison full of desperate men.
Thanks for the review, you've convinced me to give it a go!