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E3 2011: Perfect World shows off three killer new titles
We recently learned that Perfect World Entertainment bought Cryptic Studios, the maker of Champions Online and Star Trek Online. While it was a surprise, it shouldn't have been. PWE has been successfully growing and publishing games for a long time. I caught up with PWE at E3 to take a look at three brand-new titles that will be coming out later this year. I approached the decked-out booth cautiously just in case the company had plans to buy me as well! I was ushered into a dark cave-like structure built just for showing off three new titles. I shook hands, made introductions, placed faces with names that I normally knew only through email or social media, and sat down in front of a screen with a glowing image of a man in a bear suit -- a bear suit with giant claws. It reminded me of Frank from Donnie Darko. The PR team started to give me the details of the new titles I was about to play, and then I turned around and logged in. Join me past the cut to hear what I thought!
Forsaken World to be unleashed March 23rd
Looking for new vistas to explore, for untamed MMO wilds to colonize? Perfect World Entertainment hopes that you'll give its upcoming free-to-play title Forsaken World a shot, as the company just announced its March 23rd release date. Forsaken World will be simultaneously launched in North America and Europe with English, German and French versions. PWE's Director of Marketing, Jonathan Belliss, thinks the game should appeal to these regions: "Forsaken World is one of our most impressive games to date. With vast devotion from our talents and contribution from our players, this game was built from the ground up with the western gamers in mind. We're very excited to finally be releasing Forsaken World and a huge thanks goes out to our beta testing community for providing us with such great feedbacks." Forsaken World is an MMO that features both the familiar and the unusual (such as floating guild halls), and has been praised by testers for its performance and interesting classes. If you're looking to get to know the game a bit better, hit the jump to watch PWE's third developer diary covering locations and dungeons (here are the first and second videos, if you need to catch up).
Battle of the Immortals releases second video developer diary
We've been hearing quite a bit from Perfect World Entertainment's upcoming free-to-play MMO Battle of the Immortals over the past few months. The developers originally planned for a closed beta in early February, and wound up delaying it until April 13th to ensure a well-produced game. This move bodes well for Battle of the Immortals, considering some of the ambitious features added to the game. Several of these features have been mentioned and described this year, such as Soul Gear, the intricate mount system, and a highly unusual pet system that allows you to potentially make a pet out of any enemy in the game. Perfect World Entertainment has released a new video developer diary featuring Product Manager Jonathan Belliss, and he's got some more details on all of these features. If you're anxiously waiting to see how all of this is going to pan out in beta, you'll enjoy the video for both the information and the gameplay footage. Follow along after the jump to see for yourself!
More Battle of the Immortals info, including upcoming closed beta
The crew over at Perfect World Entertainment have been hard at work localizing their upcoming action MMO, Battle of the Immortals. But as we find out from their Product Manager, Jonathan Belliss, this isn't just a question of localizing the story or converting the in-game text over from the original language to English -- the ramifications are far further-reaching. In their most recent video developer update, we're not only treated to some in-game eye-candy, but Belliss informs us that the team at PWE has been really doing their homework on the differences between Eastern and Western gamers and what they enjoy in their games. One of the major things many were wondering about is how the cash shop will be utilized. In China, players expect a "pay for power" model, which Belliss clearly states that they know Western players "absolutely hate." As such, they've put in a lot of time doing a massive overhaul of the game, placing the power upgrades in as drops, and instead gearing the cash shop towards "convenience" -- something much more palatable to the Western gamer. Add to that, we've now gotten word that the plans are to start up the Battle of the Immortals closed beta on April 14th for players to get a chance to start testing these new gameplay changes. So if you've been curious about getting your hands on this beautifully-detailed upcoming Diablo-esque action MMO, then you'll want to be sure to head over to the Perfect World Entertainment site and get signed up. If you're curious about everything Belliss had to say in the recent developer update, we've embedded that video behind the break for you to check out. We'll also be talking with Jon Belliss and Jason Varden from PWE on an upcoming edition of Massively Speaking, so you'll undoubtedly be hearing more about this game soon!
Perfect World's Belliss discusses free-to-play business model
The concept of microtransactions is still relatively new to many of us in the western MMO world, but many Asian companies are already very familiar with it. That familiarity is opening doors for them to transition over to the western market more easily. Jonathan Belliss is the product manager for one of these companies, Perfect World International, and he spent some time talking about the challenges and advantages of the transition.Belliss and Perfect World seem to stand out among the deluge of Asian based free-to-play games, and Belliss' outlook may well be partly responsible for this. He has quite a bit to say about game quality over quantity (especially given the current market saturation), player preferences in two very different cultures, competition for those microtransaction dollars, and the future of the free-to-play business model overall.Belliss seems to have that all-too-rare ability to look at the pros and potential cons of a situation, to learn from others mistakes, and to see which direction the free-to-play/microtransaction model is likely to take in the future. It's an asset to Perfect World and makes the interview well worth the time spent reading.
