avoid at all costs

jillinabox

 

this game is not for the casual gamer this is a cash shop heavy game

cash shop item; salary shop item; bonus shop item (technically speaking); credit shop item;

 

expect to burn a lot of money as the game runs on chance:

• 
  fortification for gears, pets and mounts
• 
  random attributes for back gear and fashion
• 
  upgrading chalices
• 
  unlocking pet skill slots
• 
  altering pet skill slot
• 
  pet re-birthing and growth
• 
  coin purses (bronze,silver,platinum,diamond; used to obtain rare pets and the zodiacs)
• 
  starwish charms and zodiac cards
• 
  blessing of tiger box
• 
  bag/storage/material expansion slots

 

if you decide to spend, you are mostly likely to spend on:

Getting Zodiacs (some points applicable to all pets):

• 
  avoid focusing on coin purses as a means to obtain diamond coins for zodiacs, even if you spent 1K USD the chances of obtaining enough diamonds for a zodiac is astronomically low, you have a better chance of winning 21 in a casino
• 
  karth quests items obtained from blessing of tiger box yields as higher chance of getting diamond coins
• 
  buy a zodiac instead it cost less to purchase a 2nd gen zodiac from a player than it is acquiring them via coin purses
• 
  starwish charms and zodiac cards
• 
  you are always better off buying a 2nd gen zodiac that has perfect attribute and all 6skill slots unlocked

Upgrading your Zodiacs (some points applicable to all pets):

• 
  if you are a parent owners expect to spend a lot on re-birthing (rebirth gems) your 1st gen to get perfect and even worse getting a perfect with ultimate skill, there is a massive significance having a perfect with ultimate skill compared to one without
• 
  pet fortification (pet fortification crystals) the bane of owning a pet and refining them, (you will often see in system chat players frequently trying to fortify their pet to higher refine levels and nuking them) this is the most costly of all pet upgrades as you ascend a fortification level the chance rating lessens and worse drops pet fortify levels significantly
• 
  for 1st gen pets unlocking pet skills (seal stones) and altering {universe stones) the slots will burn a hole in your zen, expect this
• 
  for both generation growth/boost affects base stats harvesting pets with essence takes time so this option may not be for everyone, growth crystals and (catalyst of growth) are the fastest way to spam the stat which goes up to 10, expect to spend a lot on catalysts and coins to obtain 10 growth
• 
  finally pet skills so now you have your 6 skill slots and the slots that you want time to spend more zen into getting pet skills

Gear fortification:

• 
  pwe has recently introduced a items that are capable of locking fortification levels (sealed array/seal matrix/f-protect)which is a good and bad thing cos now you have a secondary items to spend on, but you will no longer need to worry about losing the entire fortify
• 
  one major con to fortifying gear is that you will not be able to transfer fortification levels to other gears example: you a soul gear 90 with +9 fortification and you wish to transfer it to your lvl 100 soul gear, the system currently does not permit transfer of fortifications.
• 
  getting high level gems requires salary or can be obtained from event chests such as fallen darkness; if you do decide to consume salary always aim to acquire 5gems to ensure the 100% success rate of combining them, you will also need gem charms according to the level of gem you wish to upgrade to
• 
  embedding gems, embed charms usually deal away with the risk with embedding gems into gears, there is also a chance of getting perfect embeds when embedding gems which increases % depending on how many slots you have however if you fail to get a perfect embed gem polishers has a 50% chance of perfect a gem that 's already embedded into a gear
• 
  blessing stones further enhance gear by adding 15% to all base stats
• 
  soul insignias add minimal bonuses to any piece of gear it is used on, this includes fash,souljades,backgears,chalices
• 
  glow stones for aesthetic purposes only; adds a glow to some of your gears

Mount fortification:

• 
  another frustration to add are mount fortification gems, which can level mounts to the highest level of 4, unlocking the mount skills depending on the mount itself

Fashion and Backgear fortification:

• 
  to get high stats on fashion you will need to combine essence of void x25 in order to get the advanced essence of void or spend 2platinum coins for it, the stats you get is random which a small chance of getting crit %
• 
  backgear upgrade requires essence of eternity (strength,intellect,dexterity,wisdom)

Chalice upgrades:

• 
  its not so much a zen burner but mostly burns coins and a lot of it depending on how greedy you are, especially if you're aiming to get a lvl12 chalice
• 
  it burns coins and holy water

The Market:

• 
  I'm not entirely sure if anyone else has noticed the reason why they made 4 different market place shops, is nothing more that a method to leech off more of your money I'm going to break down my observation according to the shop types
• 
  marketplace, like all cash shop this is the default that carries most of the game's goods
• 
  credit obtained by spending in marketplace which gives you 60% of any marketplace price tag to your credits points, however this form of marketing is clearly a tactic to encourage more spending primarily because the credit shop contains the coin purses, rare mounts, sealed array/matrix and other "luxury goods", they key is to coax the gamer to spend more to get more
• 
  bonus is obtained when your inductee ie. the person you gave your induction code to spends zen, which is dependent on your inductee's level, the higher their level the more bonus you obtain from their expenditure, this is a form peer pressure where the marketing objective is discrete and the advertiser is your inductee encouraging you to spend more or as in my case another way to obtain the more excessively luxurious goods in the game
• 
  salary though salary maybe free by keeping your account logged in for 6000minutes salary can also be obtained by purchasing zen can be found in your charge reward you receive salary and coin purses
• 
  the intent of the developers by establishing 4 separate cash shops instead of 1 common is to encourage spending, pwe just gave you 4 motives why you should spend, example: your goal is a zodiac, thus you are required to buy zen which entitles you to coin purses and salary cards, then you are required to spend your spend to gain credit to obtain more coin purses
• 
  all in all the 4 shops is what provides gamers motivation and plays into their impulses to spend

 

though some may argue that they've had great luck getting zodiacs on their 1st try or getting a +10 fortification on gear without any downgrade this portion of player is miniscule in comparison to the majority of the player consuming large amounts of zen to even break past the +5 barrier or even getting their 1st diamond coin

 

on a side note this was supposed to be all rant which has now turned into a semi-useful rant, don't think I'm ranting like the non buyers or the 100USD only buyers, as to the amount I've spent has placed me in the top 10 of wealth and properity, yes I am a 1st gen zodiac owner with ulti skill in the top 10 pet ranks and one of the top pvpers till

 

I WOKE UP AND REALIZED THAT THIS GAME DOESN'T DESERVE MY MONEY ANYMORE FOR ITS SO CALLED "CHANCE" OR LACK OF CHANCE PERCENTAGE IN THE DESCRIPTIONS FOR FORTIFICATIONS, THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS THIS GAME'S "CHANCE" SYSTEM IS UTTER BULLCRUD WHICH MAKES YOU WASTE PRODIGIOUS AMOUNTS OF ZEN JUST TO GET STRONGER, THE LACK OF ANY NEW CONTENT, THE FACT THAT THIS GAME RUNS ON CASH SHOP AT DISGUSTINGLY ADDICTIVE RATES...

 

so if you're a newcomer please avoid this game or if you've been gaming for a while now like and started to realize that there's a massive lack of content, lack of significant updates, new content, you're just sitting around doing your dailies, running instances or whatever its time to retire your avatar...

 

you will be much happier when you finally let go, you might enter into a withdrawal but its well worth it...dont ask me who my avatar is ingame or which zodiac my pet is well if i said which zodiac my pet is it would be a dead giveaway, well if you wish to stay and prolong things or try it out goodluck

 

one last edit:

also the fact that pwe decided to use my content as advertising material without my consent justified my hasty departure

nothereatall

Originally posted by jillinabox

 

avoid at all costs

Thanks, I'll make sure to try it.

Charlizd

 

"one last edit:

also the fact that pwe decided to use my content as advertising material without my consent justified my hasty departure"

 

 

What content is that exactly??

just2duh

 I actually agree with a lot of this.. recently quit after over 2 months of wasting my time.

 The game was well balanced when I started, in terms of free/cash players, but as time went on it just kept shifting more towards the cash players, and last week market and cashshop prices finally hit the fan for me. It is no longer possible to actually play free like it once was. 

 Even if you're fine with paying real $ for ZEN, you'll still need really good luck with the success rates of everything in the game, or should I call them fail rates.. next to impossible upgrading/unlocking pets, mounts, and gear. All the upgrading systems are just designed to fail and suck away your hard earned time or money.

 Total CASHCOW.

tranceam

i am totally agree with you my friend.

This game is not playable without spending hundreds of $$$/month at higher levels.

I am just playing it for fun in my spare times.

i would suggest everyone go to casinos if you really want to spend money and try your luck instead of spending your hard earned cash in BOI.

mysticque

dont play this game... too many broken game elements and too costly for character upkeep. think of it as you are playing blackjack against everyone in the server with only 1 winner.

berking

 

i reached lvl 87 in that game its frustraiting,i  oppened 88 coins purse and the best coin i get was 1 platinum the rest was crap silver a bronze coins....

jillinabox

 

@charlizd

if I told you what it was you'd find out exactly who I am. but ultimately their argument was any depiction of the game (fanart,screenshots, etc) is considered the ip of pwe and within their right of usage according to their TOS

what I can tell you though is that I'm one of the first batch of heavy zen spenders who quit game, the low prices in zen that you saw in the early week we're only possible cos of the amount of zen being pumped into the game 

@berking

i think I've seen your name while I was lurking boi forums, the normal rate of getting diamond coins is 1/110 purses, I've spammed enough purses to know that this is somewhat accurate

@everyone else who spent

this is typically with all pwe games on their chance ratings, if you are planning to unlock/alter/fortify/anything that involves chance, the game's chance system uses the law of large numbers you are never going to get any chance of success if you are not consuming large quantities to fortify. to successfully unlock/alter/fortify you need to have 100x of the fortification material for consumption to have a "chance" at unlocking/altering/fortifying

it was due to this that kept the exchange rates down in the first month of play, 90% of the spenders we're failing in all aspects of chance, eventually ofcourse we all got sick of the BS and left

 

note of interest:

pwe game economies are controlled by the rich players (though they may not realize this, one person with very deep pockets can influence the whole game economy by simply flooding zen overtime dropping the exchange rates or buying all available zen increasing the prices, this is also commonly seen in real life practices)

the absence of the major zen spammers or volume buying on each server basically is what caused things to inflate lately, while people we're complaining that the exchange rates was high back then, expect it to hit astronomical levels in the next few months, its not about greedy rich players its the fact that the economy will lose 75% of it zen buyers in a few months.

making the game typically dead with the cycle which can be seen in every f2p title where the gap between the spenders and the non spenders widens each passing day

 

speculation on chance:

the game's chance system is a cheat in itself by not having the ability to "lock" once you hit a certain level of success you are ultimately forced to play chance versus every level of fortification instead of the current level you are at.

while you can brute force your way through obtaining higher fortification levels you would end up consuming 10x of what the current chance rating actually is

jillinabox

doubt posted >< sry

dar_es_balat

As a rule of thumb I no longer touch anything made by Perfect World Entertainment.  All of their products are like this now.

MMartian

Originally posted by dar_es_balat

As a rule of thumb I no longer touch anything made by Perfect World Entertainment.  All of their products are like this now.

This is pretty much the formula that all micro transaction games use and we will be seeing this more and more as gemes move from subscription to microtransaction funding.

The question is how the returns from real world money to in game items are. The original post shows a very bad return. The problem is that if people accept this return the company will feel that it is acceptable. If people reject making those purchases till it hits a better ratio then it may change. Remember all businesses are driven by financial gain.

dar_es_balat

Originally posted by MMartian

Originally posted by dar_es_balat

As a rule of thumb I no longer touch anything made by Perfect World Entertainment.  All of their products are like this now.

This is pretty much the formula that all micro transaction games use and we will be seeing this more and more as gemes move from subscription to microtransaction funding.

The question is how the returns from real world money to in game items are. The original post shows a very bad return. The problem is that if people accept this return the company will feel that it is acceptable. If people reject making those purchases till it hits a better ratio then it may change. Remember all businesses are driven by financial gain.

Huh?  What did that have to do with anything?  I wasnt debating the niceties of whether a business should profit off a product or not.  Of course it should.   Perfect World however is rapacious, shameless, and since everything you make, film, purchase, or whatever does not belong to you according to the EULA and can be taken away at any time --- ultimately PWE is engaging in criminal fraud only made legal by the viewing of items purchased as part of a service, and not as an actual item.

This is a far cry from whether a business should profit or not.  In my opinion, there are better games to spend a wad of money on.  I play Entropia now.  With the money spent on Perfect World 'services' I could have had myself a much better time in Entropia --- and my items and effort belong to me legally --- thats right, theyre protected by the games EULA, and values less than $35,000 are protected by the games insurance plan should the service ever be abruptly cancelled.

In short:  I prefer to spend my money on a company that recognizes the value of its customers, rather than a company who attempts to exploit its user base.

jillinabox

 

pwe is the US subsidiary of wanmei (perfectworld china/pwrd) 

boi infringes on many copyrights and ip from other games namely WoW you will notice this as you progress through the game.It not only infringes content from other game titles it also leeches off the popular media ie. movies like the Mummy Series once again you'll notice as you progress through the game

 

what's really bothersome is that pwe acts merely as a distributor of the titles it is wanmei that infringes on the copyrights of other titles and movies by developing and promoting the game by associative marketing. in a sense the r&d and marketing performed by the original content owners are taken advantage of by this cookie cutter game development firm by taping into the masses associative memory

however since pwe acts primarily as a distributor legal action cannot be taken by companies who have had their ips infringed upon since international/USA law is not applicable overseas namely China where the major of the profits from royalties go to

the majority of the profits do not come from the gamers but from the distributors of the wanmei's titles, f2p cookie cutter games are bought and sold like your McDonald's and Subway franchises, and like all franchise agreements royalties are expected to be paid whether or not the franchisee is making any profits

 

its been legally argued that since pwe does not hold the ip nor does it state that it is the developer of its titles it is legally shielded from any civil lawsuits taken against it 

however it can be argued that pwe can be ordered a cease and desist of all services if it is charged in a criminal court...

 

@dar

I was actually curious what your signature was earlier so i gave it a click and now find myself downloading entropia xP

berking

second chance