Great games blog

Finally, I had the patience to wait and finish downloading Perfect World’s huge installer. The installer is broken into four pieces each piece is more than 600mb. That’s around 2gb of disk space. Whew! It took me approximately 8 hours to download all of it. I’ve always wanted to try out Perfect World but the size of the installer always turns me away from it but having upgraded to a faster DSL connection, I gave it another shot.

Installation and patching was quick. I logged in and created my first character after that. Of course, I also created a new account by registering at My Level Up! My character’s name is Kabalyero and he is a Wu Xia. A Wu Xia is a close combat fighter. My character uses a sword and I guess the Wu Xia is like the Knight of this game. There are other races and other classes but I like to fight as a human.

Getting started wasn’t that hard specially if you have played other MMORPGs before. I just followed what the screen told me and in no time at all my character was out there killing level 1 creatures. I also checked the NPCs for available quest. NPCs that have a quest for you have a floating gold shield over their heads. Most quests are your typical kill a number of this monster kind of thing and then you’ll be rewarded afterwards with either items, money or experience. I kept doing that and in just a few hours my character was already at level 10. My character learned a few fighting and support skills and, I forgot what level, he also learned Basic Forging after following some quests from the Elder.

For character development, I was kinda focusing on building up a high CON for my character, you know, to give him a very high HP but it seems that weapons and other equipments have stats requirements. This means that I’ll have to allocate some to the other stats to be able to use higher level items but I still put in stat points to CON whenever possible. I’m not saying that what I’m doing is correct. This is more of an experiment since I’m still new to the game.

While hunting or level grinding, creatures drop gold (yuan) and items. Now, a problem I’ve encountered is that there’s too little inventory space and the storage isn’t much of a help either. I learned that those can be expanded by doing an expansion quest which involves buying some items from the item shop. ARGGHHH! After years of spending a lot of money in games like Ragnarok Online, Khan Online, Flyff and Rakion Online, I have sworn to never spend any more money on any games specially if it’s FREE TO PLAY! Call it being cheap but for me it’s just being practical. So I guess, expanding them is out of the question.

One of the things I like about Perfect World is crafting. In Voyage Century, I tried to learn all of the available crafting skills because I find crafting more challenging than doing a quest or hunting. It eats up more time and it takes a lot of patience specially if you fail a lot more than you wanted to. The gathering of materials is already an adventure on its own already. LOL! I’m still learning the whats and hows of crafting in Perfect World but I was able to forge my first weapon already. It’s a level 2 dual-wield sword. I know it’s not much of an accomplishment but seeing my character’s name on it makes me proud of it. Now, I’m looking for materials for my next weapon and I’m also trying to find out how to learn the other crafting skills because the Elder mentioned something about learning them all.

If I remember it correctly, at level 9 I accidentally learned that you can chain commands by creating Macros. I’m sure the level had nothing to do with it. I was viewing my skills when I accidentally clicked on New which was located at the bottom of the Skill box. This opened a new window with skill icon slots and a lot of icons below it. It also had the name Macro 0. I spent a few seconds thinking what it was for and then I tried dragging a skill icon into it and it went in. I dragged a few more until all the slots were filled. I then realized that the icons below were to be used as an icon for the Macro. I selected one and then saved it. How to use it came to me naturally. I just dragged the macro’s icon into an open skill slot, selected a creature, clicked on the macro’s icon and it performed the actions defined in it. This new discovery made my level grinding much easier and faster. I made a few modifications on the first macro I created and even made a new one. I did find a problem with it though. Sometimes, for reasons I’ve yet to discover, the actions would stop. It’s not a big problem because you can just repeat the macro by clicking on the icon or pressing the shortcut key of the skill or item slot you placed it on.

In my first day playing Perfect World, I have seen various types of pets, flying characters, high and low level characters, kids fighting amongst themselves through global chat, annoying duel freaks who keeps bothering you with duel requests, players begging for gold, illegal traders, etc. Anyway, with more than 2 gigabytes of content, I am quite sure that I haven’t even touched 1% of this game but what can I do, it’s just my first day playing it. LOL! I’ll try to play the game more to learn more about it and, by the way, this is not a review of Perfect World. I still need to learn a whole lot more about the game to be able to review it properly. This is just an overview of what I have learned and experienced during my first day playing Perfect World. Below are some of my screenshots from the game.

You read that right, this coming April 30, 2008 a world will END and that is the virtual world of Khan Online Philippines.

“After much thought, our management has decided to discontinue the contract for Khan which will expire on April 30, 2008, due to the lack of developer support, no new content, and patch fixes for in-game exploits/bugs.” - Khan Online Philippines

I still remember when my character was born in this world four years ago. He was a Knight named Kabalyero and he spawned in the small town of Wroclaw. Here he fought hordes of ghastly creatures like Vultures, Bandits and that vile Cursed Etin.

I may have forgotten the details of my character’s adventures in Khan Online but I will never forget the important ones like becoming a member of the guilds CoolStuffMinds in Jebe and of xxxHolic in the Test and Jelme Servers. I will also never forget the characters that, once upon a time, became a great part of my adventures and misadventures in Khan Online. I’m sure they know who they are! Thanks to all of you!!!

After April 30, 2008 this world that became our second home will END and all we’ll have left are memories. Memories that will be with us forever.

What’s Next?

I’m sure that many Khanatics will move on to other games like Perfect World and Rising Force Online. While, others may choose to take a break and wait for Cabal Online and yet others may just stop playing once and for all.

As for me, I’m still a little bit into Second Life and I’m currently trying out Perfect World. I’m also curiously waiting for Cabal Online. Well, you can say that I’m just looking for the right game to play and, although, I haven’t found it yet but I’m sure I’ll find one soon.

Anyway, Khan Online Philippines’ publisher Level Up Games (formerly NetGames) has prepared some compensation packages for those loyal Khanatics who will be displaced after the closure of Khan Online’s servers on April 30, 2008. If you want to know if you qualify for a compensation then please read the Compensation Mechanics.

Old Screenshots

Here are some of my old screenshots of the game. Actually, these are during the open beta period when my character was still a low level newbie. LOL!

GM Tristan of Level Up Games announced in his blog new servers for Perfect World and Rising Force Online. It seems that, while other games like Khan Online says goodbye, Perfect World and RF Online continue to grow their player base thus additional servers are needed to meet the increasing demand.

Perfect World’s new server will be launched on March 31, 2008 and it will be named Serpent while Rising Force Online’s new server will be called Calix and it will be launched 2 weeks later which is on April 14, 2008.

New Servers, Fresh Start

The real benefit of a new server is that it gives new players a competitive advantage in the game because everyone starts at level 0. You see, in games like these having a head start is a huge advantage over other players that is why when new servers are added to an online game, old and new players alike are guaranteed to make a jump for it. The competition to be the server’s strongest character starts a new.

New servers also give old players an opportunity for a fresh start. It allows them to try on new builds, create new characters and correct any past mistakes which they might have done in the old servers. It can be compared to having a Second Life or having a second chance.

For the publisher, by adding new servers they’ll be able to accomodate the increasing number of players joining or playing their games and more players playing their games means more income for them and the more money they make means more servers will come or more new games or titles will be added.

New Or Old, It’s The Same Actually

For me, new servers or old servers, they’re really just the same. Same content, same grinding, same players, same scammers, same illegal traders, same publisher, same lousy GM Team, same drama and same everything. Yeah, you’ll see many new players but you’ll also see many old players with new characters and names doing the same ugly shit all over again.

What’s really important is content and regular updates. Look at Khan Online, they had a total of 7 servers during its peak but due to the lack of updates and the publisher’s failure to protect the game’s integrity, it went from 7 servers to no server.

Enjoy It While It’s New

Anyway, new servers are always a welcome treat for many players and it’s always fun playing on a new server because you’ll have hundreds of other players that are at your level to party and level-up with. The sudden influx of new players will surely keep you busy chatting and fighting about trivial things, that is if you are into that sort of thing.

Of course, this state of nirvana can only last for a while because, sooner or later, the competitive nature of each and everyone will take over and when that happens, fun will change to chore as they level-grind their way to the top.

Note: This was written on March 30, 2008 but was only posted today due to lack of internet access.

I have not played Khan Online for more than a year now but I still do visit the forum just to know what is happening in it. In my visit today, I learned that Khan Online Philippines publisher, Level Up Games, has finally decided to close down the service after 4 years.

Honestly, I was not surprised to learn about the closure because I’ve known a long time ago (not really that long, LOL) that Khan Online Philippines would be the next game to go and besides it was to be expected, the game is almost dead anyway so why prolong the suffering of the few remaining Khanatics.

Below is GM-Setsuna’s announcement at Khan Online Philippines official forum:

My Dearest Friends in Khan

I wish you all well and in good health.

As you are all wondering and probably in shock after hearing the news from your fellow players who attended the meeting last night, I’ll paint a clear picture on what is probably going to happen in a few week’s time.

Yes, it’s true. The management is planning on closing down the game we have come to love for almost 4 years.

Main reason is the lack of developer support.

As much as we would like this game to continue, Mirinae already withdrew their assistance in providing additional content, updates and even game exploit fixes prompting us to look for other alternatives.

We even thought of the possibility of acquiring licensing of Khan Program just to keep our small community intact.

Sadly, it’s impossible - we are just a publisher not game developer.

In hopes of saving our precious community we have decided to find you a new home to PW and it was one of our agenda last night.

It may or it may not be the answer but we can’t just go down without a fight nor leave without establishing any means of contact.

In truth, we are all part of the Khan Family.

Even with personal differences in-game and IRL, we have always kept in touch with one another for more than 3 years…

Forever a Khanatic,
Setsuna

Just for the record, I never QUIT Khan Online. I was just waiting for an update to the game. I guess that update will never come.

Anyway, in my few years playing Khan Online I’ve met and became friends with a lot of people. I know I haven’t been in-contact with them but I’m pretty sure I would never forget them specially those that make up the greatest Guild in Khan Online history, xxxHolic.

Party On Forever!

Kabalyero
Knight of Khan Online