Perfect World: Closed Beta Hands On (Part 1)

Like I said in my previous posts, I just started actually "getting down and dirty" with Perfect World (internal closed beta).

I started playing this week but since I had to rush a lot of deadlines for work, I only managed to log in for a couple of hours at most. Still, I'll indulge all your PW cravings and share my experience.

CHARACTER CREATION

To know the "grind levels" and look for optimized monster kill-ratios, I opted to play a male Wu Xia (Human Warrior) and named him Tristan. Creation screen was pretty straightfoward and looked like any other game. But what really impressed me the most were the "slider-controls" where you could really do anything to your character... it's like playing Sims 2!

Oh well, I told myself I could spend an entire day if I put my "OC cap" and really make my character look like me. I just made a few adjustments, took a preset type of hair and off I went to foray as noob in this brave, new world.



Here's what I was able to come up with around 30 minutes of tweaking (above). Notice the uber-cool blue hair!!! Bwahaha.

So, with my trusty 'Wooden Sword' and crappy gear, off I went to explore the environs of Sword City (my first area).

Impatient bastard that I was, I think I skipped the tutorial and just spoke to the first NPC I saw with a yellow emblem on top of his head to get my first quest.

Of course, as in all MMOs, leveling in the early stages was pretty straightforward.


All you have to do is have your Quest Journal up and follow the arrow... it really is that simple. After a few kills and a few minutes, I was around level 4 and found myself in the first newbie area, Sword City (reminded me of the Sword Coast in D&D). There, I took a few more quests so I can upgrade (read: change) my crappy gear with semi-decent ones. The Sword City quest to just find and talk to the NPCs around the city was helpful. I got to know where the auction place is, the bank, the forger and the "kafra" (hehe). Soon, I was armed with a double-bladed Scimitar and some decent leather armor pieces. So off I went to talk to a few more NPCs for more quests and more stuff to do.

True to the developers claim, there are a lot of quests... you just can't level without them, aside from the important items (like consumables) and the XP that you gain, you get away from the grind (sorta).

At any rate, the controls and navigation of the game is similar to WoW. With an ASWD scheme for movement.

The map was also very helpful since you can zoom into the world and track your movements within the map. And yes, the world is EXTENSIVE... and yeah... there are no loading screens... sweet!

My minor reklamo was that the game will make you travel a LOT and I mean vast distances. And I kid thee not, the areas are far in between.

Next time I log in, I'll check out the item mall, level up some more and finish more quests. I'll keep you updated on my journey into PW.

Strength and Honor!