Went to Bangkok with a friend over the weekend.

Saw loads of stuff! Mountains of gold, goooooold, gooooooold!!!1!11!1!1 at ze temples and palace. Stuffed self with so much Thai food that I now have a bit of a sore throat. Rooftop bars and shopping in da Chatuchat market! Pole-dancing bars and ladyboys!

But most importantleeeeeee... after 5ish years, I was REUNITED WITH MY BELOVED BAMBOO WORMIEEEEEES!

:( Sad part is they are much more expensive and harder to find than they used to be.

*plot* There has to be a way to get a regular supply. *plot moar* *PLOT!*

Oh yes, and in a related bug-feasty way, this site rawks! Insects are Food.

I haz new MMO toy!

After a week or so of playing Forsaken World, including checking out their cash shop and comparing prices, I've come to the conclusion that if you're currently playing WoW (or DDO, or LotRO, or EQ, or Aion, or... well... you get the idea), and want to tour other MMO places, but aren't really looking for something new, Forsaken World is just the ticket.

It's the least rapacious PWE game I've played, and it's very much tailored for the English-speaking market, which is reflected in every aspect of the game. Most of PWE's games are obviously developed for China, because that's where they always launch first - which is entirely reasonable considering China is their home base, then adapted for English-speaking markets. Forsaken World, however, was obviously developed from the ground up with the English-speaking market in mind, with nods to China, with full intentions of trying to grab a substantial piece of the English micro transactional pie. (I refuse to call it Free2Play, since that term covers so many styles.) And from 1 week of FW, I think they have a pretty good chance of succeeding.

FW is the first PWE game where I'm saying, "Hmm... This is good enough and I'll play it for long enough that I WANT to spend 15 dollars on it this month, because I'll get as much worth as a subscription. But... I don't know what I want to buy." All the other PWE games that I've tried are NOT like that.

What's more, FW has some interesting mechanics in and of itself for the classes. Unique mechanics - which is why I said it's sort of a WoW clone - but with different classes. For instance, the bard class actually *gasp* uses a rudimentary form of *GASP* music, actual music. Or, well, chords, anyway. XD Which is not the same as music, but still... Basically, you can play sets of different chords to trigger different effects, and the chords really are accurate. For example, C and D sound like C and D based chords. It's really quite cute. So, er yes, this is the new toy!

So while FW is not really something new - Guild Wars is something new, Eve Online is something new, Atlantica Online is something new. Forsaken World? Nahhhhhhh... But it is VERY polished, and PWE even wrote the quests all properly in English this time. (Most of PWE's quests, if you READ them, are bizarre when rendered in English - but in FW, are properly done.)

PWE is also experimenting with a triple currency system - important in a F2P game - which I've never seen done by another studio before. It's very impressive actually. It's what makes FW much more interesting (and playable) to me than the other PWE games I've played. Basically, there's your cash shop currency (which you can exchange for in game gold); there's in-game gold, which can be traded between players, is gotten from a very few quests, and is limited in circulation (at this point) because the control of the creation of it is intentionally highly limited - inflation is always a killer in F2P games because money in this genre of games literally falls from the sky; and the third currency - which makes the whole thing intriguing - soul coins - which are quest reward gold that you can ONLY use on NPCs and cannot ever be traded with other players. It's the third currency that holds all 3 together, and makes FW really playable.

In other F2P games from PWE newbieness is a horrible scraping hardship when it comes to gold, thereby pushing you towards the cash shop. But in FW, I'm actually enjoying it enough that I WANT to pay PWE money, I just haven't decided on what yet. And I find that fascinating. It's precisely because, unlike other PWE games, FW doesn't make you go through Hell and high water if you want - oh, a mount, for instance. You can get one through pure in-game means. Which in turn, leaves me feeling a lot less blackmailed than PWE games usually do, and reinforces my awe at PWE. I didn't think they could truly adapt to an APPEALING model for the English-speaking market, but FW is exactly that.

PWE is obviously experimenting with different degrees of monetisation thoughout all their games. They used to do a top down model - what works for the flagship, Perfect World, they then reproduce throughout all their other titles. But now, they're changing/tweaking for each title they publish, some to a greater extent, some to a lesser extent. Jade Dynasty is their apotheosis of the virtual lotto world, but not all of their games are like that. At least, not anymore.

By implementing the three currency system, PWE has given players a kind of welfare system - but not exactly because players still have to earn it. It definitely gives players a playability buffer. Which also makes me wonder what effect the third currency is having on their direct profits. Oh, they run the lotto system at the same time, but it also alleviates the OMGthisisunplayable without forking over cash initially. So I'm wondering if it brings more cash long term, because it eventually converts more freeloaders into paying customers. Certainly, it makes their games a lot more pleasant to play - the ones of theirs I've tried without it are a bit insane at lower levels due to the money issue. Not even having enough to buy basics from AI, or having to watch that like a hawk is no fun. Whereas in FW, I have almost no money I can trade to players, but I don't really care and am happily running around watching my vamp chick's boobs bounce (yay boobies), because I have a break-even-not-stressed amount I can trade with AI. This makes me a happy little noobie nugget.

Which leads me to the most interesting point. With FW, PWE has earned my goodwill for the first time. I want to pay for stuff from them, not because I feel forced to in order to progress, but because I think the game is entertaining enough that they deserve it. As someone who works in marketing, one of the things I've learned is that customer goodwill is invaluable. It'll be fascinating to see how FW, and other PWE titles continue to develop.

And for those of you who care about such ratings, in ze nuggetty opinion, Forsaken World is an AAA MMO title.

This was really done for something at work, but let's ignore that okay. Kyoot is not my forte.

Photos and official blog post here.

One of the games I'm playing on and off (and satisfying those occasional gaming rat-pellet urges with) is Heroes of Three Kingdoms.

Some of HoTK's systems are very different from what I've seen in western games - including MU*s. One particularly striking difference shows in how they handle instances, which aren't exactly instances as we commonly know them. Rather than being places to go to kill scads of things, instances in HoTK are instead re-enactments of historical battles. They're a little like what Alterac Valley would be if it were a Totally Epic PvE Experience (don't start ;)).

The Xiliang Rebellion (which is what the pics in this post are attempting to show...) is a pretty good example of what HoTK instances are like. You're supposed to 'protect' Ma Chao (some illustrious general fellow), while he charges into masses of enemies in a frothing ball of rage. I say 'protect' because really, the guy is pretty damn durable. You're side-kicking him, more or less. He's certainly more durable than you are at the minimum recommended instance level. In a different instance, (but in the same vein), you're supposed to defend some pretty lady general (Sun Ren) from dastardly assassins as she perches on her horse and rains fiery arrows down upon her enemies - since obviously, women can never be screaming frothing balls of rage. -_-

It's an interesting dynamic, though, because it means that all the instances take a set amount of time - no more, no less. When you enter Xiliang Rebellion, for example, what you see is:

Victory: Yan Xing dies
Loss: Ma Chao Dies
Time to Completion: 25m

And so Ma Chao basically charges his mad way through balls of enemies over the course of 25 minutes, and your job is either to heal him, or kill all the enemies before they can wear him down. Ma Chao is level 60, the enemies level 20-24, but there are hordes of them. There are 3 'bosses' in his way before he gets to the final boss, one in each camp which he (and you) stomp through, systematically killing everything. It's attrition at its finest. If you can kill fast enough, or keep Ma Chao healed enough, you'll win. And the best part is, it isn't draggy. Even on repeatedly running the instance, it doesn't drag. In fact, it does feel kinda epic before you outlevel it. And since it always takes the stated amount of time (unless your frothing ball of historical rage dies), it works very well in terms of parcelling out playtime. 'Oh I only have 30 minutes to play today, what shall I do? Aha! There's my favourite frothing ball of historical rage. Let's get going then!'

However, while it generally works pretty well, you probably won't succeed if you are alone, at the minimum level, because Ma Chao will probably die before he gets to the last boss, or at the last boss (the condition for the win). These things are meant to be done in groups, after all. It's not a total loss when you go alone, though, because Ma Chao usually survives at least one boss, if you're solo at minimum level - meaning you'll usually be able to get 1 boss 'token'. Naturally, with a full party (6) of minimum level, chances of Ma Chao surviving and killing the final boss are much better, but what I find interesting is that you almost always get some sort of reward, no matter what your playstyle (unless you go afk).

Even more interestingly, there's something called 'charity'. How it works is, if you / any other punies are in the instance, and there's one high level (65+ in a level 20 instance), if the group succeeds, and the last boss dies, each level 20ish (even-levelled to instance) puny will get 2 tokens. These 2 tokens are given in addition to the reward for winning the instance at the correct level, and they can only be used by level 65+s, and they disappear once you leave the instance. So, in effect, it rewards level 65s for helping punies, but it stacks the deck in terms of social power play, thereby encouraging people to be polite to each other. Because if the punies aren't polite, the level 65 can say, 'Fuck this' and leave without killing the boss. If the level 65 kills the boss, but has been mean to the punies throughout, the punies can then say, 'HAH! I'd rather VANISH these tokens than give them to you! Thbbbbpttt!'

And it does, for the most part, work.

In fact, it's only a problem when the 65 is a total n00b. I didn't think you could be a n00b in PvE, PWE games are that easy, but...

At any rate, I've only had a problem once with a n00b65, and even the problem was kinda funny.

Xiliang Rebellion in HoTK is the first time in years that I have had someone FORTY LEVELS higher than me leech off me.

There I was, killing the hordes of mobbies and keeping Ma Chao alive, and n00b65 was doing nothing at all - except rolling need on the common rewards. XD

It's only happened to me once though - and I could have quit the instance rather than carrying him... I was just so curious to see if he would ever do anything at all.

All in all though, it's a refreshingly different approach to instances, and while it's not something I'll want to do all the time, I do like short stints of it now and then - particularly since it always takes exactly as long as it says it should, and no longer.