Want a new PvE to play

joosii

After over two years of playing Perfect World, and being upset with them for almost half that time, I've decided its time to move on. Perfect World has gotten completely out of control with the power leveling, and the "cater-to-only-the-rich" type updates that offer end of game gear to people willing to pay thousands of dollars to get it in an instant. All the great instances are broken now by the fact that there are not enough people participating in them for PvE's to have a fair chance to play them.

The final blow for me was the agreement to make a PvP zone within a PvE server making lowbies susceptible to being PKed while in non-PK mode. The experience of being PKed for them is both traumatic and unnecessary since they chose a PvE server to avoid exactly that kind of shock. I simply have little faith in the developer's respect for PvE players.

I am looking for a comparable fantasy-type game similar to Perfect World that has not gone over the deep-end with catshoppers and is respectful of PvE players who want to progress through grinding and farming with other players and have enough of a separation from PKers to not be attacked unless they permit it.

The aspects i liked about Perfect World was definitely the visual graphics, the character customizations (and how they are so realistic and versatile), the option for keyboard and mouse clicking, the ability to manufacture my own gear and weapons, and the presence of end-of-game gear that were only for the ones who ventured into lofty goals. The questing system (both linear storyline and daily quests) was balanced enough that you didnt have to grind your way to the next level.

Me and a few other friends are planning to quit Perfect World for the reasons above and have been researching for the last two days. I would love some suggestions from anyone playing a game that might suit us.

(Oh, and a marriage system is definitely a plus... I can't play without my ingame hubby!) 

Help us... we're desperate to find a new home!! 

xKingdomx

What do you mean by

"respectful of PvE players who want to progress through grinding and farming with other players"

then

"The questing system (both linear storyline and daily quests) was balanced enough that you didnt have to grind your way to the next level"

 

So you want to grind, but you don't want to grind? :S

 

Right now, probably Forsaken World, it is another MMO by PWE, some say they have a better cash shop over there. Questing and combat is the same linear kinda stuff.

If you want similar character customisation, probably Runes of Magic, but their endgame is pretty expensive to get it. You are probably looking at minimum $100 investment there to get started at near endgame, but there are auction house to buy gears from if you choose to grind really heavily, but there will be a point where the real money investment is needed to keep up to the current endgame.

OR something like Dungeons and Dragons online, or Lord of the Rings Online. They are both P2P turn F2P sp they have a certain quality feel to it, cash shop is different to the usual F2P, where extra content is the majority of the CS, but their graphics isn't that similar to Perfect world tho

 

or P2P games. :P

joosii

haha good point about grinding!  (typing a post in the middle of the night probably breeds contridictio). By grinding i mean, not having to mindless grind in order to level, but grinding to farm mats and finish quests... there has been almost no instance in PWI where i had to grind simply to level up.

Thank you for your suggestions. They are all games that we have been testing adn considering. I should mention that PWI is my very first MMORPG (first MMO of any kind) so my questions about looking for a new one will come across kinda "newbie-like". Here are my questions about the specific games you mention:

RUNES OF MAGIC: character customization I assume is very unique in PWI if this is the comparable type of customization out there cuz its nowhere near to the kind of manipulation you can do with a PW character. But i can get over that if it's well-managed. Can we expect in the end to have to spend $10-20K in real money to get end of game gears? Or just hundreds of dollars as you suggest? I dont mind spending a little money... I do mind having the farming system destroyed because the only way to get end of game gear is to pay real money. Is this what i can expect at the highest level of RoM? (or any MMORPG for that matter). So far, the game seems pretty enjoyable except for the gross-cartoony feel.

FORSAKEN WORLD: this is the current game we are playing most, though we have a slying suspicion that if PWE broke perfect world, we can expect the same kind of management with this game eventually. For that reason, we are chosing to spend zero money until we know for sure. Again the character customization is no where near what we enjoyed in PW, but we're trying to get over that. Is there anyone who has played it long enough to confirm that we can keep most of our moeny in our pockets and actually enjoy farming our gear?

We are definitely not interested in P2P games. Though I have played around with Lord of the Rings off and on for about 6 months (since its free until a certain level) and just cant get into it. For the same reason we have considered DND but have not gone forward with any trial of that game.

My sense is that there is no game with the rich qualities that we have in PW, and we will have to make a decision to abandon the damn good graphic environment or put up with the ongoing "PvE-hating" that seems to come out with every decision/update the developers make and stay in our own "perfect world" within the game and stop feeding them money. We miss the farming community and are left with a PK community with deep deep pockets. Maybe we just need to say "C'est la vie" since every game is the same way? Is it true? Please tell me it isnt true!

hm do i sound mad? or sad? probably... :P

Karahandras

you could take a look at ryzom maybe, it's free to a certain point/level, quite high if i remember but you'll have to check.  has a lot of ingame customization.

P.S. DDO is a very different game to LOTRO.  It doesn't fall into the 'wow clone' catagory, has twitch based combat with a small tactical element,  much more ingame customizations in gear and skills but is heavily instanced/lobbied, so much that it's really an mo not an mmo.  Could be worth a try.

xKingdomx

IS fantasy gnere a must then?

 

Games that have really deep character facial and body cusomtisation are either Superhero MMO or Aion, Aion is P2P tho. Superhero MMO I would wait for DCUO, that is probably the best graphic out of the three, and it is much more action oriented. If not, I say Cities of Heroes, the character customisation is completely insane, you change everything from head to feet, power colours to power sets, but expect some costume options to be restricted (no cape I think or free players until they pay)

 

or you can wait for GW2 (which hasn't been released yet), which is just B2P (you just pay for the box like normal games), and it has Aion modified charcter customisation (meaning you can change most of the stuff, but not enough to let people to make retarded looking characters)