Keepalive: Perfect World, Mafia

written on Friday, Feb. 20, 2009

The non-gaming continues. I actually paid some money into Perfect World to increase my inventory space. I figured for the number of hours it's given me, it was worth it. I also tried an interesting trick. The way the game works, you get Experience Points (XP) and Spirit Points (SP). XP levels you up. SP lets you get skills. Different activities net different rations of XP to SP. And SP are generally portioned out so that you can't possibly buy all the skills you want at a given level, forcing you to make choices. I want to make my own gear. But I don't want to have to abandon my combat skills to do so.

The answer is dying. Unlike many modern MMOs which don't want to scare people away with harsh death penalties, every time you die in perfect world, you lose 5% of your XP towards your next level. You can never level down, but you can reset yourself to the beginning of your current level, doing all the same repeatable quests and getting more skill points. I've already tested it once and it works. Imagine what kind of character you could build in WoW or Titan Quest or any skill tree game, if you could farm enough points to have every skill in the tree. You'd be a tanking, blasting, healing fool. And so shall I.

It's not really any bother, either. Enemies drop less loot if you're too high level. So staying at a low level lets me farm the ingredients I need to increase my crafting skills more efficiently.

Hmm. I guess the game is giving me some interesting decisions.

I also feel obligated to mention that I'm playing another game of dubious merit. Facebook's Mafia Wars. I check in three or four times a day and click a few buttons. But I've stuck with it for much longer than that first Facebook game I tried. Uh, Mouse Hunt.

Maybe my tastes are changing.

Maybe I need to put Devil May Cry back in the PS2 and see if it still rocks my socks.