The Hidden Valley without the Ranch and Attack of the Archosaur

So, yesterday I left you in Sanctuary, where I was taking a much needed break from being chased by every living thing in the Perfect World.

Sanctuary is even prettier than most of the places in Perfect World, what with the peach trees blossoming and the deceptively pretty monsters everywhere. Really a gorgeous place. I had plenty of time to appreciate this as I was resurrected there again and again and again and again and again...

To begin with, it was just stupidity impeding me, because I wanted to get pictures with the local NPCs.

Speaking of which, this is me with Brilliance (who "Presides over the trigram Chien" ???) and the Huggy Hares, who can kill you by blinking.



Which is exactly what happened when I looked away to write the above sentence.

Once I got over that bout of idiocy, it was the Huggy Hares (lvl75).

Huggy Hares are unusually vicious for such cute little things. They may look like fluffy bunnies, but their idea of showing affection is shooting you with lasers from their eyes that sap your hp and mana and, in the case of a weakling like me at least, pretty much all in one shot.
I would highly advice any magic users going up against these things to keep their potions handy and bring lots of beefy friends to hide behind.

Anyway, this unbelievable horde of Huggy Hares kept me trapped in Sanctuary for almost an hour. Nothing I tried would work. They were too sensitive to dodge around, they used range attacks so just running wouldn't work, even using my pets as living shields wouldn't hold them off for long. I actually got so desperate that I messaged Braden to come and rescue me. But he said he'd have to restart his computer to run Perfect World and he'd never been down to Sanctuary cause all his quests took him North and blah blah blah you're on your own.

But, fear not, for I was determined not to let my travels end so soon. And certainly not because of a bunch of rabbits.

And that's how I realized the way out.

My friends, do not underestimate the power of bouncing.

I honestly can't believe I didn't see it before. Apparently, even for beasts as vicious as bunnies, its really hard to hit a moving target. So, I held down the space bar and ran- er, bounced like hell. I got clipped a couple of times, but by some miracle I made it to the mountains and got high enough that they reach me.

Cue the victory dance.

From there I headed over the mountain to Hidden Orchid Valley. Unsurprisingly, the name again makes no sense. There wasn't a drop of ranch dressing to be found in the whole place. No orchids either, coincidentally. Again unsurprisingly, the teleport master (whose name is Chi Er) could not get me home. In fact, she couldn't even port me back to Sanctuary. Is it just me, or does the relative wimpiness of the teleport master vary directly with the size of the town? Is that intentional? All I know is its freaking annoying.

Notable NPCs in Hidden Valley (being, ones that don't appear with slightly altered names in every other town) are The Father of Tsai Tieh who thinks the Hidden Orchid is no longer a beautiful place (though his outlook is probably darkened by the fact that he has no identity except as his child's father and that child isn't even here), Hsu Hsiako who has conspiracy theories on the brain, Shuang who's pining for a Duke, and Lady Lo (I refuse to make fun of that name) who says she's the descendant of a legendary god. From the way she says it and her skimpy outfit, I'd wager the god is Aphrodite and she charges 100 silver an hour.

A little peek at the local monsters: Torgirn Prime (only level 35? *gasp*) and Abandonfeme Aranied (also lvl 35) which I think is a bad translation of 'Widow Spider.' Also, Antitan Warriors (same lvl) who look more like a cross between crickets and lobsters than ants.



If you go down to the beach there are Back Stabbing Scorpions (lvl 33) and also Chuko Junior, an NPC who spits meaningless Taoist philosophy at you, which is almost more dangerous to your health than the scorpions.

Unless I wanted to swim the Aromatic River (not even going to ask what that name's about) the road from Hidden Orchid either led to Archosaur or the Swamp of the Wraiths. I think you can guess which way I decided to go.

The road to Archosaur was full of bugs. BIG bugs. Level 30+ bugs to be exact, the most notable of which being the entophile's dream girl, the Argenweave Mantis, which take the form of a naked woman with the body and arms of a praying mantis, which just goes to show that there is nothing a computer programmer won't do for boobies.

However, there was nothing I wouldn't do to get away from the boobies. I had to employ the bounce technique again. And again I must implore you:

Do not underestimate the BOUNCE. Especially where breasts are involved.

As I neared the city, I found an increasing number of abandoned grass huts along the river side. At first these were a great confusion to me, especially since I couldn't find even a single story carrying NPC among the ruins. Eventually, however, I came to the only possible conclusion.

Once upon a time, Archosaur was a tiny native village by the river, which, with the advent of tourism, grew into a prosperous city. However, as the city grew, so did the pollution in the Aromatic River (whose name finally makes sense in this context) which mutated the local insect population who, in true B-movie fashion, ate or drove away all the remaining villagers and tourists. The city was now strong enough to stand on its own, but the outlying villages couldn't survive without the tourists money and were eventually abandoned as the native forgot their peaceful nature loving ways and entered the world of cutthroat business.

As I was studying the anthropology of this abandoned river side culture, I caught a glimpse of something curious in the river.

There was a group of three Undine swimming just at the surface, apparently taunting another Undine a little ways away. I was confused for a bit as to why they would turn on their own like that, until I looked closer and realized the group was of two Undine Enchantresses and an Undine Princess, and the victim was an Undine Wench.

Yes, my friends, even in this supposedly Perfect World, high school politics win out.

I did manage to get a picture with the Undine Princess before she tried to kill me though.

My first glimpse of Archosaur proved endemic of the old 'first impressions' rule. The bridge into the city is guarded by two massive stone statues, one a lion, the other a horse. And, just because, who could resist doing this?

And here I am waving at Chu the Pretty Lady, surrounded by lvl 21-22 monsters, which makes me rather suspicious of her. A Pretty Lady, standing on a riverbed in a skimpy dress in the middle of the day, surrounded by Ghouls? You can't tell me there isn't something wrong with that.



Here's something I bet you couldn't guess about Archosaur. It's named after a dinosaur because its HUGE. Seriously MASSIVE. Goes on forever. Why? I'm not sure, because its got three of everything just in the South District. Its got more than one teleporter! More than one Promotions agent! More than one 'Watcher of the Earth' (Read: Genie salesman). And its got four districts, a center district, and a bunch of outlying buildings too. Not to mention more gigantic statues and massive fountains than you can shake a glaive at.



Why go to so much excess? Trying to impress someone? Just for kicks? Were the programmers compensating for something? All I know is, mini map and auto travel be damned, I got lost. A lot. I had to climb buildings to evaluate my surroundings. I felt like Survivorman, hunting for shelter for the night in the Urban Jungle.

I think it can be safely assumed by now that I am not terribly impressed with towns in this game. I think they serve very little purpose aside from being pretty scenery, and Archosaur is no different. The only differences between it and any other city is the number and names of its NPCs. Don't get me wrong, Archosour is pretty, so pretty I could spit, but, like the proverbial gold plated turd, it's also totally useless.

Archosaur's one redeeming quality seems to be its abundance of interesting NPCs to mock.

The first one I noticed was something called the Warsoul Spirit, somewhere in the center of the city. I went to where he was supposed to be, but I couldn't find him to save my life. I can only think it must be on top of the roof, but how you're supposed to get there without a flying mount I've no idea. And believe me, I tried. And ended up in the pond.

This is me with Duke Black. Is he the same Duke that Shuang of Hidden Valley without the Ranch was pining for? Beats me. All he wanted to talk about to me was refining techniques.



I have to say, the trip was almost worth it to meet Library Chief Cheng in the North District, the first NPC I've met in this game who attempted to make a joke and succeeded. I won't spoil the joke for you, but I highly endorse giving him a visit. I'm strongly tempted to stick him on the side of a highway under the sign 'Worlds first funny NPC' to draw tourists.



I also met a man so enamored of lanterns that he's named after then. Lantern Cheng hangs out in West District, babbling about the 'pretty lanterns.' The sad part? There isn't a lantern to be found in the whole city.

Good news for those of you with water pets and no way to train them! I found Zoologist Yin lurking at the bottom of Archosaur's port, where he appears to be caught in the mud.

The strangest one I found was, I think, some programmers revenge for the wrongs done him in high school. I found Su the Jock hiding behind a shop. He's missing one leg for no apparent reason and when you attempt to speak to him he shouts, "Fine Cuisine! What else is there?"

But this is where my story grows sad, for it is then that I met Han the Drunkard, who thinks no one cares about him. Poor Han the Drunkard! As this is only my second post, I don't expect I have many readers yet, but I beseech all of you whom I do have, and any future readers I may garner, to pay poor Han a visit and show him you care.



One friendly smile could be all that stands between Han the Drunkard and self destruction. Remember, only you can prevent NPC suicide.


And here's me at the gallows! They have more than one of that too.



The player shop area, like everything else in Archosaur, is disproportionately huge. It fills an entire street in the West District and then some.

Speaking of which, near that same street is the giver of the craziest quest I've found on this game yet.

You heard of that guy a while back, who traded a red paperclip for a house?

You guessed it.

This is how they amuse people after they've passed level seventy.

Also nearby is a monster cleverly disguised as an NPC, and a woman named Hou Jenhsi, who says she may have a 'surprise for you' if you keep visiting her. That needs no mocking.

This area was understandably crowded, so I spent some time idling there and talking to people, which wasn't particularly remarkable until Captain Picard came through looking for squad members, followed not ten minutes later by Mr Spock who needed one more player for FQ. When I commented on this and asked where Chekov was, someone responded that they'd seen him about two hours ago, and Captain Kirk whispered me, requesting I not leave him out.

When I was finished socialising, I went to check on a peculiar NPC I'd noticed earlier, located on the bottom of the ocean just outside Archosaur's port. When I got there, I found a Minotaur with the title of River Ghost (despite the fact that he was in a gulf, not a river, and quite solid). When I tried to speak to him, he complained of the cold, but would not respond to my attempts to loan him a sweater.



When I surfaced, working hard to avoid the killer turtles swarming just above the River Ghost's head, I noticed a landmass in the distance and, in the true spirit of adventure, decided to swim for it without even checking the map to see what it was.

Once I got past the turtles the area was mostly deserted. No players, no monsters. Barely even any decoration, unusual for Perfect World.

When I reached the cliffs of the landmass, I discovered it was in fact the Nameless Isle. I'd been curious about it before, so I was eager to explore. However, once I had bounced up the sheer cliffs and made it onto the island, all I found was the ruins of a small town and, in their center, the hideously misshapen Bloodlusted Shen Fu, the most horrifying creature I've seen in Perfect World so far. However, he didn't attack, but rather begged me to kill him. I would have been happy to oblige and put him out of his misery, you understand, but I was a bit busy running away and screaming like a little girl.

Did get a picture though!



A safe distance from Shen Fu, I continued my exploration of the island, only to discover there wasn't much to it bu the cliffs, the village, and the beach, which was swarming with 70+ monsters ironically called Snake Isle Ambassadors. All I can say is, if those are the ambassadors, I'd hate to see the soldiers.

For today I'm going to end my correspondence from the top of the highest building in the village, where I'm keeping a wary eye on Shen Fu and the Ambassadors. Tomorrow, I head North to the Widow's Coast to investigate the Tomb of Heroes and something labeled only "Secret Passage." Wish me luck!

The Nightmare Begins

I've always wanted to have a blog. I mean, what basement-dwelling-spaghettio-scarfing-MMORPG(pronounced: muhmorpager)-playing nerd doesn't dream of achieving Internet fame by posting their innermost thoughts on the world wide web? Not that I ever expect to gain any sort of notoriety here. Still, I've always wanted to be able to say I have a blog, if only for me and my pitifully small handful of friends to titter over on occasion. But I've never managed to post more than one or two times before losing track of the thing in the whirl of real life. But, a few weeks ago, I graduated high school (!!!) and, quite suddenly, I find myself dead in the water. Nothing is happening. I haven't started college, I don't have a job, no responsibilities other than cleaning the kitchen every once and a while and not allowing the cockroaches who rent space in my bedroom from growing above terrier size. 0_0; What to do with all this spare time?


This is where Perfect World comes in. My friend Braden introduced me to it so we'd have something to do together. I was skeptical at first. It seemed pretty much like a WoW clone with a heavy dose of Chinese culture dumped in for flavor, and my patience with muhmorpagers is famously short. But he wanted to play with me and I figured it couldn't hurt, so I downloaded it. Of course, before I could download it I had to sign up for their site, an application process more tangled and confusing than the Florida budget plan. I ended up having to sign up for two or three websites, and it kept insisting I give it my "ID number." Never did figure that out, but did finally appease it with a random string of twelve numbers beginning in 8.

Figuring the hard part was over, I moved on to trying to download the actual game, but somehow managed to find the wrong download page. This download page, unlike the other, correct download page, wanted me to download the game in nine parts and, when bemused me tried to do this, the first mirror couldn't find the file, the second wouldn't load, and the third attacked my computer and froze me, forcing me to restart and virus scan before I could continue.



These are the lengths I go to for you, Braden.




Speaking of whom, Braden (who was probably reeling at my incompatency by this point and wondering why he'd wanted to play with such a noob in the first place) gave me the link to the right download page, which allowed me to download the game directly from the site safely, quickly, and in one piece.



Once it was installed, I set out to create my charecter. I was at first a tad confused and offended by the concept of certain classes only being available to this or the other gender, but I took it in stride, probably because the class I wanted was tied to the gender I wanted. So, I became a female Untamed Venomancer (pretty much a Hunter with fox ears and tail for you WoW folks). I was surprised and delighted to discover after starting the game that I could still edit my charecter's appearence and, through my first two days in the game, I continually played with Jezzabel's looks. Unfourtunetly, I didn't realize that you can only do this for two days, after which your appearence locks (W.T.F?). Hence, poor Jezzabel ended up with disproportionatly huge knockers, Heidi braids, and rainbow eyeshadow. >_<# (Special note to anyone reading this: Feel like getting me a gift? A makeover scroll would earn my love and devotion for all time and probably a couple of gratuitous sex acts to boot.) So I plowed ahead with my deformed fox woman, grinding away at the quests with single minded determination, in the hopes that I could one day get good enough to actually be a help to Braden (a level 20) instead of the hinderence that I was. And I was surprised to find I was actually enjoying it. The quests were rote and very grindy, but the stories were good, the scenery amazing, and my character always just powerful enough to make fighting on or a little above my level just challenging enough to be fun without being brain rottingly easy or eyeball meltingly hard. I loved capturing and enslaving all the various beasts around the world and forcing them to tank for me. And once I figured out how to work the genie (no tutorial for that one, and its about as complicated as the sign up process) killing thirty or more Scout Lynxs for a measly 300 gold and a piece of outdated equipment became almost enjoyable. I got all the way to lvl fifteen before my attention wandered.



This wandering was the fault of the Elves. I blame them for everything.



The scenery of Perfect World is gorgeous. Really, just beautiful. And the Elf lands more than the rest. So, when I got a quest to the Elven home (Plume City) for the first time, its only understandable that I wanted to explore. And explore I did. I was level 15 by this point, and over confident of my abilites. I felt pretty damn invincible. So I wandered out through Bamboo Village (beautiful), past the White Ridge (gorgeous) and on to the Black Mountains (F***ING SCARY). This is one of the most dramatic difficulty curves I think I've ever seen. The transition from the 'Bamboo Forest of the Shining Moon' to the Black Mountains is quite literally a line on the ground, and while standing on it you can see to your right a bunch of harmless, non agressive lvl 6 beetles, and to your left a pack of vicious 60+ beasts, ready and willing to tear your arms off if you come within fifty feet of them. Why? I have no idea. Certainly isn't like that in the Untamed lands. Maybe the creators were hoping to teach a few arrogant elf newbs a lesson before their heads got too swollen. Or maybe this game is just effing mental.



But, I was fifteen and invincible so, laughing in the face of danger and all that, I charged past the beasties and up the mountain, letting out a primal roar of "Leeeeeroooooy!" as I did.




Somehow, I'll never understand how, I avoided dying and made it over the mountains into Tusk Town. It held my attention for about three seconds. Then, I got a wonderful idea. If I'd made it past all those beasties without a scratch, why not keep doing it? Just down the road to the east of Tusk Town was the Sea of Reality and a place called the Temple of the Dragon. And genius me thinks, "Hey, I'd like to see that."





Let it be known: Only fools drink and videogame.




So, I ran off towards the sea, dodging increasingly violent, dangerous beasties as I went. I got clipped by an Aurum Handmaiden (at least I think that's what it was, I was running pretty fast) which nearly killed me in one. Luckily for me, I did have good sense enough to keep my health potions on the quick bar. I chugged one and kept running and lost by the time I got to the coast and started dodging Orchid Petali, who apparently have a settlement there. Buildings and everything. I thought it was a town. IT'S NOT.



I dove in the water to escape the bloodthirsty flower girls, leaving my poor Riding Wolf behind to take the heat and swam like my ass was on fire. Err, metaphorically speaking.




I encountered nothing for a good long while, which I thought was suspicious, and I was right to. The last monster I'd met was those Orchid things, at lvl 72. The next monster I encountered was the Virtuous Undine, who is lvl 87. Clearly, whoever places these monsters has no concept of a difficulty curve. Either that, or they're sadistic bastards with a personal vendetta against low level pacifistic explorers. I'm inclined toward the latter.




Note to my fellow explorers: Its really hard to dodge underwater, and there aren't any pets here to take the fall for you.



But I did make it to the Temple of the Dragon, which turned out not to be a temple at all but rather a beam of pretty blue light in the middle of the water, around which swim not one, not two, but four massive Dragon Bosses, ranging in level from 88 to 92 (Lo Wang, who has, I kid you not, more than 873,000 hit points and drops ginsing).



Thinking back, I should have taken a picture of them for you, they're very impressive, but I was a bit busy swimming for my life.



Fleeing the dragons, I climbed onto a tiny island (if your curious, its the one just above the R in Reality on the map) and there found a man in armor calling himself the White Dragon and babbling about his love for tuna. I was too low level for him to tell me anything of value, but he did consent to not eating me while I sat nearby and regathered my hit points and my courage. By this point my delusions of invinsability had been quite thoroughly shattered and I was feeling quite puny and pathetic and very reluctant to get back in the water. But I had already used my teleport to town that hour and didn't want to wait, and I'd survived so far, so I dived back in and took off.



Then I met some lovely Muscle Maidens who attempted to pound me into oil to shine their shells with.



Once I'd gotten away from them, it occured to me that I should probably take some pictures, to prove to Braden that I'd actually done this monumentally stupid thing. I wanted to go back and get a pic with the White Dragon, but the aforementioned Muscle Maidens were in the way, so I swam on. I did get a lovely picture of a shipwreck though. There are a surprising number of those down there.

I was very much hoping to find a teleporter and go back to my nice, well balanced home city now, and about cried with releif when I popped up for air and saw a ship.

Dreamweaver port was a dream come true (no pun intended). Large, well populated, and tottally devoid of big things that might eat me.

Well, cept for that one.

And I found a crazed sailor!

He kept babbling about zombies, which I figured was probably a quest for someone stronger and less cowardly than me, so I let him babble and went on my merry way. I skipped directly over to the Teleporter and ordered a one way ticket back to the City of the Lost...which she wouldn't give me.

Apparently, teleporters can only send you certain distances, and I had wandered, swum, and fled too far from any of my other checkpoints. Not only could she not send me home, she couldn't send me anywhere. I would have to walk.

And that, as I was beating the teleporter lady and the designers of this terrible yet strangely addictive game to a bloody smear in my head, was how I came up with the idea for this blog.

Why not, I thought, use my misfortune to aid others? As I'm slowly treking back to civilization, I can locate monsters, people, and quest points for people with higher levels than I, or die trying. Which I will most certainly do. A lot.

So, here I go.

I took the only road out of Dreamweaver Port, heading north. Or, I tried to. Unfortunetly, I immidietly found my path blocked by this: (I realize that pictures horrible. I was kind of having a hard time holding still long enough to take the thing.)

WTF?

Its so huge they don't even have a level for it. WHY?

And he was surrounded by about a hundred of his tiny but equally horrible offspring, who proceeded to chase me down the road, taking massive chunks out of my hide every couple of feet.

Someone, please tell me who's genius idea it was to give these bloodthirsty pig/rhino beasts armor and weapons? Or better yet, don't tell, just go find them and give them a good kick in the head from me.

I've never used health potions before this little misadventure. Now I'm glad I stockpiled them instead of selling them. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten nearly so far as I did.

Somehow or another, I made it past all the Enhanced Cougaret Deprivers(lvl64) and Evolved Serpent Soulchasers((lvl73) They were on opposite sides of the road, which accounts for the difference in level. >_>) and found the Lost Village. I have to wonder how it got lost. Its right there next to the road. I walked right into it. Though, I did somehow miss the Forest Ruins, which I should have passed to get there. Maybe they were mislabeled

Here's me with the Chief:



And here's me getting killed by an Orchid Petali three feet from the village:



And here's me getting resurrected in the village again:



You get the drift.

I started dying. A LOT. They got to know me really well in the Lost Village, and I became increasingly baffled by its name. I couldn't seem to lose it to save my life!

But I did eventually get past gauntlet of death and continue on my travels. Unfortunately, just beyond that little nightmare was a fork in the road and I decided, in the true spirit of adventure, to not look at my map and just take the one that felt right (ie: the one without a Hooded Adalwolf(lvl73) looming over it ominously).

I found a nice stone arch...





a nice glowy temple...



a nice grave robber with grammar issues ("I was here earlier than you so find yourself another grave on which to start your work")...




and painful agonizing death.

I took the other fork.

The other fork led me to Peach Blossom Grove, and introduced me to a homicidal palm tree.



Who graciously hastened my arrival at a town quite appropriately named Sanctuary, where I'm going to end my travels for today.

The pain and death continue tomorrow!