Forsaken World is a free to play MMORPG from Perfect World International, set in that fantasy realm of Eyrda the lands have come under the attack of dark and dangerous forces and as the protagonists of the game players will rise from various races and classes to champion good. The game itself has many common western MMORPG elements and this similar style themepark gameplay kept it in good standing for many years, however, the population has begun to dwindle, the new content flows more slowly and in our opinion there are a few key things that make the game overall suffer and drive away casual players. Check out the following “What Would You Change About…?” article to see just what improvements we’d like to see to the game.

• Triple Currency - There are three different currencies and it’s frustrating. Players in game can earn Soul Coins, the primary currency that players will earn by the bucket load and mainly used for purchasing all sorts of basic items and consumables such as healing potions; this currency is not tradeable and bound to players. Next up is Gold Coins, considerably harder to come by and restricted to certain activities, used for purchasing some key services from NPCs it is also the only tradeable currency, on its own it’s not that important but when taken to a bank vendor or the Leaf Exchange then, as you might expect, it can be exchanged into Leaves. Leaves are the games premium currency to be spent in the Cash Shop/Boutique, Gold allows players to get access to Leaves, though there is a charge for trading, so you don’t exactly get a lot at the end of it. The issue is that the Boutique items are almost a requirement in the game (as you will see with some of our other points in this article) and Gold seems like a prod towards the importance of the boutique but without being really useful. In comparison to the near necessity of the Boutique and Leaf currency, Soul Coins are pretty much redundant once players reach level 30 and none of the items that you can buy are actually worth it.. it’s at this point that the free to play element really starts to drop off and we’d say more basic amenities and consumables should be available without spending real cash or having to farm Gold Coins.


• Grinding - Grinding content is high in the game. As an Asian import we do kind of expect an element of grinding, it seems to be pretty commonplace in a lot of Asian MMORPGs even when they find their way over to the Western market the core content revolves so heavily around it that it’s impossible to get rid of it. We don’t mind grinding it it’s to try and get a certain material, or to unlock a feature, or gain a title, whatever, the problem with Forsaken World is that the grind comes simply from lack of options. The staggered quest line, which is pretty linear in the first place, has level requirements before you can continue it, this means endless amount of reaching a point where you can’t do anything apart from the repeatable quests you’ve just done, and then do them again and again and again. It’s not fun and the game suffers from it, it really needs an injection of some extra features to partake in or some other means of levelling… anything except this next point…


• AFK Training - You literally get XP for doing nothing. If your game focuses on grind, but so that people can get around the grind you put in an AFK levelling feature… why not just remove the grind so you don’t have a terribly boring game with ridiculous mechanics? There is a second more dubious element to the AFK training, given that the approach to the game seems to be to make the game a boring grind at points and making people want to AFK through it, unlike other MMOs with similar AFK features this isn’t something that is free to access as part of the game; it requires consumable Memory Fruit/Memory Lotus items that, whilst can be found occasionally, are primarily available through the cash shop; the game has been made boring to force players to grind or pay to get through the content…


• PVP = Purse v Purse - PVP has fundamentally come down to spending real cash. No two ways about it, ask anyone who plays the game and they will tell you that PVP is pay to win, anyone that says “Forsaken World isn’t pay to win…” will typically follow up with “… unless you want to PVP.” Given the there’s not much “winning” with PVE the PVP P2W is quite disheartening and, in all honesty, pretty blatant. Players can buy gear and upgrades that improve their gear, or buy pets (which the game relies on quite heavily) to boost your character, with the Boutique/Cash Shop purchases being better than the “free” options; the game is put forward that “all items can be acquired by earning gold in game” but the reality is that the entirety of PVP is skewed because there’s enough players willing to drop A LOT of cash; enough to ruin it for any casual player. This doesn’t just effect high levels, as there’s no restrictions with gear in the Arena even low level players are at the mercy of players with bigger wallets, and you know what, Perfect World International seem to be just fine with that.

So that’s what we’d change with Forsaken World, but more importantly what do you believe should be changed? What do you think could/should be added to improve the game? What would you add to your own personal wish list? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

If you want to know more about this title visit our profile by clicking the "Info" button below.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2015 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.