What would be in your perfect world? In ours Dubya would never have decided to “help” Iraq (where nobody would ever have heard of Saddam Hussein), it would rain chocolate peanuts, and Ant & Dec would have followed through on a suicide pact many years ago.
None of which Perfect World Entertainment can help us with, sadly; but their Director of Marketing Jonathan Belliss was at least able to answer our questions about their MMOs.
CG: How did Forsaken World first come about?
Jonathan Belliss: Forsaken World is Perfect World’s longest game in development and we wanted to raise the ante in what it means to be a free-to-play MMO. While most of Perfect World’s games are developed within a year, Forsaken World has taken three years to develop. Specifically developed with the western audience in mind, Forsaken World combines the best elements of eastern and western MMOs.
CG: Why make this a free to play MMO? With microtransactions, does this make the title more profitable in the
long term?
Jonathan Belliss: Not all players are able to pay for a subscription to try a game. At Perfect World Entertainment, we strive to create high quality free-to-play MMOs to reach an international audience. In all our games, players will not have to purchase items to progress through the levels, but the microtransaction items give players an opportunity to customize their character and enhance their in-game experience.
CG: How do you strike a balance between a rich story and player – led gameplay?
Jonathan Belliss: Since we wanted the story to reflect in every aspect of the game and give players a heightened sense of ownership of their in-game experience, we created the Unique Server Progression system, which will allow players to develop the world they live in.
CG: With humans, elves, dwarves and so on running around in a fantasy setting, what measures are taken to avoid an overfamiliar and derivative experience?
Jonathan Belliss: In Forsaken World, the different races and classes allow players to customize their experience according to each individual’s play style. A human warrior versus an elf warrior will not only look different, but will also possess unique skills and talents. Even classes such as Warrior and Bard that are available across races will have slightly different skills accordingly. The dwarves in Forsaken World also stray away from traditional dwarves. We’ve given the dwarves in Forsaken World a steam punk feel and created the female dwarves with a cute appearance.
CG: How many MMOs are Perfect World currently managing? What are the advantages and disadvantages of
managing several at once?
Jonathan Belliss: As of today, Perfect World Entertainment has published eight titles, including Perfect World International and Battle of the Immortals. Forsaken World will become our ninth title and we are proud to have a hardworking and dedicated staff at Perfect World that enables us to manage several titles at once. Our Product Managers and Community Mangers are working daily to hear our players’ feedback and ensure that our games are running smoothly.
CG: What does an MMO need to do in order to survive in the overcrowded market?
Jonathan Belliss: Looking at the past few years, we have seen a significant growth in both size and quality of free-to-play games. There is still a negative stigma attached to the term free-to-play, however this has started to change with many of the big MMOs that were previously subscription based turning to the free-to-play model. At Perfect World, we are constantly open to players’ feedback in order to create new gaming experiences and raise the bar of what players should expect in free-to-play and MMORPGs.
CG: What is your most popular title, and why do you think this is?
Jonathan Belliss: Our most popular title is probably Perfect World International. Within the past two years, Perfect World International has become an international phenomenon expanding from two to seven servers to support over 50 million players from around the world.
CG: Why have you yet to move into console gaming?
Jonathan Belliss: We currently do not have any plans to move into console gaming, but perhaps in the future. We are always thinking of new ideas to grow our company.
CG: What are Perfect World’s plans for the future?
Jonathan Belliss:We are currently gearing up to release Legend of Martial Arts into closed beta in North America and we are always looking for new ways to improve as well as expand our games based on players’ feedback.
For more information on MMOs at the perfect price (i.e. free) visit http://www.perfectworld.com/
PWI forsaken world had a Design a Dungeon contest on their forums and denied a winner james2010a from collecting his phase 1 CBT winnings cause his son was using his pc while he was at work and chatted on their forums.
so they banned winner from the forums and from playing or entering the game.
crabclaw forums mob defrauded contest winner !!!
nasure1987
ive played this game for 3 weeks now, and i am totally dissapointed.
i just heard about the game like 2 monts be4 phase 1 invite so i didnt nearly waited as long as most of u guys.
it was clear from the begin that this game will be f2p so i didnt rly put my expectations to high, but what u get here is just a waste of your free time.
heres my explanation.
1. till like … lvl 20 u lvl pretty fast, i mean like… 7-8 hours of gaming, after that the experience progress is getting rediculously big. as soon as u hit 20 and get mount and talentpoints ( which are sooo soooo useless) the exp amount needed is a whole nother lvl than from maybe 18-19, and from lvl 30 is just getting horrible…
like i said from 1-20 is pretty simple enough quests its pretty easy. from like 25 u are just nearly only following the main story quest and a side quest here and then. the only way to “really” gain exp is by doin the same damn henry daily quest over and over again ( which u can do 30times a day) some 1-time daily gods trail instance and the other few daily quests. it just repeats like over and over and over and over… u know what i mean.
2. the “main” instances ( and not those fail event instances lke carnival or fort K ) are rediculously boring and so simple that u can easily do it with a tank ( can be warrior as well) a priest and if u dont want to spend hours in the instance a dmg dealer… no need more people. also u only get 1 “main” instance per 10lvl ( so from 20, 30 ..). all of those are exremly small and the exp amount u get even if u do them 5 times a day is so small that i shouldnt even mention it…
3.the skill variete is rediculous. i played till lvl 40 ( jj foff cn version ) my marksam had 4 usefull attacks.. i mean that makes lvling even more fun…
4. dmg balancing is… most of the tanks i saw had bigger brits then the mages.. cmon plz..
5. pvp … it doesnt even deserves a comment
6. coin system… u have normal money(soul coins) which u get by selling items and “normal” coins which u only get by changing badgees from events or selling items to other players. the real cool stuff u only get with thoose thinks and i think the only other way is to pay for it..
the ONLY good thing about this game ( IN MY OPINION ) is that the graphics are pretty good for a f2p.. but overall it was a huge timewaste for me, and i can just tell to the people who cant wait for open beta or phase 2 if u played p2p mmorpgs before, u should lower ur standards by 300%.
so far …
p.s. lets make a quiz on how long it takes be4 mr. crabbs or subway to shelly clooses this thread…
All and all it’s a nice game the leveling after 20 is not horrible it’s just a little slower paced. The elf warrior class I have is level 17 and has about 9/12 attacks are good to use. Hope this help cya in game!
Char:Brisx