Perfect World – Page 3

Neverwinter Raises The Level Cap This Year

Perfect World Entertainment has officially announced the next module for Neverwinter, Elemental Evil. Elemental Evil will introduce the new Paladin class as well as increasing the level cap from 60 to 70.

Over the past year, the citizens of Neverwinter have faced a menagerie of terrifying foes from Thayan Liches to the Dragon Goddess Tiamat. Now, however, the very forces of nature conspire to bring the city to its knees! Fear not, as a new hero blessed by the gods, the Oathbound Paladin, has emerged to fight the impending threat. These righteous fighters will be able embody both the healing and tanking paradigms that have made them so popular with Dungeons & Dragons players everywhere.

Neverwinter Previews Upcoming Event

Cryptic Studios has detailed the next big event to hit Neverwinter. Currently embroiled in an ongoing war against the Dragon Cult, this week’s event sees Neverwinter under siege yet again by the forces of evil. The event ties into the latest campaign, Tyranny of Dragons.

With this Siege of Neverwinter event will come the chance to obtain Dragon Hoard Coins, Dragon Hoard Coffers, as well as other items used in the Tyranny of Dragons campaign. All of these items will aid you in your quest to defeat the Cult of the Dragon once and for all and help prevent them from unleashing Tiamat!

The event runs from January 15th through 22nd.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Neverwinter Plays Dungeons and Dragons

Perfect World Entertainment has announced that Dungeons & Dragons is coming to Neverwinter. To be more specific, April 1st will see the adventurers answering the call of Respen Durothil, transformed into a miniature figurine and used in a rousing tabletop game of Dungeons & Dragons. Those who complete this adventure will have an opportunity for new rewards, including a green slime companion.

Respen’s Marvelous Game launches on April 1st. For those keeping track, that is the first of April.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Perfect World Arc Client Freebie: Khan Costume

Remember that Star Trek film where the guy shouts “Khan!” really loud? No I’m not talking about Into Darkness, I’m referring to the second film in the original series, The Wrath of Khan. Now you too can look like Khan, or at least dress the part. The Arc client is Perfect World’s central hub slash community portal through which you’ll be able to download and launch any of the games in their library.

To give a little incentive to use the program, Perfect World has put up free Khan costumes.

Claiming your exclusive uniforms is easy! Simply log into Star Trek Online via the Arc client and read the “thank you” message from the team that will be waiting for you in your in-game mailbox. After, make sure to stop by the tailor and outfit your captain in the incredible Khan uniforms pictured above.

If you’re not a Khan-man, don’t feel left out. Check out the link below for codes to Perfect World’s other games, including costumes, perks, and consumables in their respective games.

(Source: Perfect World press release)

MMOrning Shots: Winter Festival

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from me, more specifically the very dangerous act of walking out onto a frozen lake in heavy metal armor. One of Neverwinter’s claims to holiday events has been to include a temporary skill that lasts for the duration of the event, and give players another thing to grind for. For the winter event, which thankfully caps out at level three, the skill is mostly just good for upgrading your fishing pole and finding better lures. There are fireworks and a few other pieces here and there, but the meat of the grind is for lights of simril from the various events.

If you fish up my corpse, have the dignity to bury the body.

Automatic Veteran Rewards For Champions Online Lifetime Subscribers

As a token of thanks to players, Cryptic Studios has announced that anyone who purchases a lifetime subscription will receive all veteran awards immediately, regardless of how old their account is. This applies to all lifetime holders, old and new, and includes other exclusives like extra costume and character slots. Veteran rewards are issued every one hundred days and include items like exclusive titles, retcon coins, costume pieces, and more. Check out the full announcement at the link below.

Earlier this year, Cryptic North opened up to address problems in Champions Online and bring the game up a few notches.

(Source: Champions Online)

Neverwinter Readying Server Mergers

Neverwinter’s upcoming server merger is no surprise, the company has been straightforward about the fact that the three servers were there to spread out launch traffic as much as possible, and that they would be combined as soon as possible. In an FAQ posted to the Neverwinter forums, Perfect World has noted that the merger is close to being ready and will be rolled out as soon as possible.

We have always been fans of the single-shard model, and like our previous games, we’ve always wanted to optimize Neverwinter’s infrastructure to be able to meet this goal. We are excited to be close to meeting this goal and are excited about allowing all players in our game world to be able to communicate and group with one another.

The good news is that thanks to Perfect World’s unique handle system, players do not need to worry about changing their character name or guild name even if there are duplicates. When the merger does go through, all auctions will automatically expire and either sell to the highest bidder or return to the seller if there are no bids. Astral Diamond exchange orders will be withdrawn as well, and all mail and currencies will be merged to the new server. There is no timeline on when the merger will take place other than “very soon.”

Check out the entire FAQ at the link below.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Cryptic Makes Neverwinter Gateway More Useful

If you haven’t played Neverwinter, the crafting system is similar to Fallen Earth: You click a few buttons and then wait for the cooldown timer to stop. Gathering iron ore? That’s ten minutes. Researching new potions? That’s fifteen minutes. You unlock more research “slots” by leveling up your characters and leveling your crafting skills. Needless to say, the system is higher maintenance than your average MMO and can lead to the frustrating system of having to log in just to keep your professions going.

The good news is that you don’t have to log in to work your professions. Neverwinter’s Gateway allows players to log into a character and make use of some game functions when not logged in. Gamers have access to the auction house to buy and sell items and manage their bids. They can also work on professions, starting research and collecting results, and checking your mail and character stats.

The good news is that Neverwinter’s Fury of the Feywild update will bring much more functionality to the Gateway system. Players will be able to sort their inventory, discard items, open chests, and sell junk for gold. Professions will now allow for buying required materials straight from the market right through your browser, and the Zen market will be open through the browser to making purchases.

Those of you with Neverwinter accounts can check out the test page for the new Gateway here.

Thank You For Not Competing

Perfect World Entertainment made news this week when they said that their plan with Neverwinter is not to compete with World of Warcraft. In an interview with Red Bull UK, Craig Zinkievich said that the goal was to “operate a fun game people like to play and want to come back to.” The developer believes that the box price and subscription model are no longer valid in most places, with the vast majority (86%) of gamers subscribing to only one MMO at a time, and fewer willing to subscribe to two. You can read the entire article here, where they talk about the free to play model and a couple other topics.

I almost feel bad for assuming that World of Warcraft’s consistently falling subscriber numbers would mark the end of developers trying to compete with it, but I suppose that years from now when World of Warcraft is a shadow of its former glory that the new benchmark for success will be the twelve million subscribers that the game peaked at. That said, I can’t help but give points to any developer willing to state that they are not looking to beat/compete with World of Warcraft. Why? Because at least I don’t have to worry about Neverwinter shutting down because it couldn’t meet the developer’s unrealistic expectations. Or Perfect World Entertainment labeling the game a failure, firing all of its developers, and stripping its funding to fix launch issues, subtle reference to Warhammer Online and several coughs.

The only thing that such a business model tells me as a video game writer is how willing the company is to cripple its own product during development and then shoot it in the head when it doesn’t pop out of the womb as an already accomplished millionaire. What better way to instill confidence in the press and your potential community than picking a goal that not a single other developer has managed to achieve, and measuring anything less as abject, irreconcilable failure? One can only sit and wonder why consumers don’t flock to spend sixty bucks and fifteen dollars a month on what is almost guaranteed to be a mediocre attempt at recreating a game they got sick of three years ago, launched with all of the grind and bugs of said product and no understanding of why it became so popular to begin with.

As a writer, I encourage developers to try and compete with World of Warcraft because the ensuing train wreck attracts leaves a lot of onlookers and that means more views for websites like MMO Fallout. As a gamer, however, I keep my money out of anything that so much as mentions competing with World of Warcraft, unless of course it is preceded by ‘we are not.’ So while Neverwinter may not be the perfect game, I have to give extra kudos to Perfect World for seeing World of Warcraft as a product to live with, not having the same reaction my dog has when he sees the vacuum cleaner running.

Also why is Red Bull better at getting MMO interviews than I am?

(Source: Red Bull UK)

Neverwinter Unveils Caturday, Gift Pack For Players

As many of you are aware, Neverwinter suffered a fair bit of downtime this weekend thanks to the mass abuse of a bug allowing players to duplicate Astral Diamonds using the auction house. While originally stating that non-cheating characters would not be affected overall, Perfect World had decided to perform a rollback to early Saturday morning, taking action against accounts that had abused the bug and going into the game’s history to track down those who were abusing it prior to Saturday’s outbreak. As compensation for Saturday’s extended downtime, as well as for the inconvenience in the rollback, Perfect World has given all characters created prior to May 21st a Caturday pack.

All characters that have been created before 6:00 A.M. Tuesday, May 21, 2013, will receive the Caturday Survivor’s Pack, which will appear in your in-game mail as an attachment to the message, “You Survived!” The items within the Caturday Survivor’s Pack are bound to each character that receives it.

The pack includes a cosmetic cape, a dwarven mask, teleport scrolls, experience boosters, and a stone of health. The cutoff date was initially May 19th, however Perfect World has moved it to the 21st at 6am PST.

(Source: Neverwinter)

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