A ding world

Most of the time I try to stay positive in my posts, not go on on a rant and spit venom about various things I do not like. Most of the time.

Back when Cryptic Studios was bought by Perfect World Entertainment from Atari I was quite positive about it – it seemed that PWE was a company that had plenty of experience in the MMO space and probably a better a better place for Cryptic, than Atari.

That might still be true, from a business perspective. From a gaming perspective, from my gaming perpective, it has not gone the right way. Changes in Champions Online were clearly affected by some of the game design used in other PWE titles. Perhaps a bit more streamlined and more monetization oriented.

Not long after Cryptic “soft launched” Neverwinter Online I had a look at that game also. I was not particularly interested – high fantasy is not really my preferred theme for an MMO. But it had The Foundry and I was interested in trying it out because of that.

I have played primarily a Control Wizard in that game, up to level 30. I quite liked the combat for the wizard and some of the missions and the skirmishes were pretty fun – for an action & quick play alternative it did not feel too bad.

But with that game the whole Perfect World game mechanics and elements, which completetly turned me off the game, although I stomached it for a while. All the bling-bling with various vendors, currencies/tokens and many bits and pieces turnes the whole thing more into a mix of an amusement park and a casino, rather than a virtual game world – in particular if one spends tim in the main hub, Protector’s Enclave.

There are some nice pieces in that game, but there is simply too much of the Perfect World branding that it feels like choking on multi-coloured cotton candy. There are so many bits and pieces that annoys me with this game – a lot of it is PWE heritage to some extent, but perhaps also a few other bits and pieces.

This game is far away from what I liked about Cryptic back in the days of City of Heroes – that Cryptic is gone now I guess. Other companies may provide more of a virtual world and character expression freedom instead.