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!
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