Cash Shop Question

Kyrss - Raging Tide

Will I ever need to use the cash shop? To be blunt I am currently poor and mostly only have the internet for I can work from home. My wife works to pay the bills and I work for the house we live in. ( I am a minister in exchange for service the church provides a house) Anyways I think Perfect World is a beautiful game and can be fun but I was wondering if I will ever need to use the cash shop. If so I might as well quit now before I get too involved. I don't plan on doing too much PvP. Please answer my cash shop question.

Dustin

Yindra - Sanctuary

"Need" = no.

However, like other F2P games, Perfect World DOES try to put some pressure on players to buy cash stuff (they have bills and people to pay as well). Cash-using players also like to try peer pressure --- after all, what's the point of having a fast mount when they have to wait for you to arrive, or having a charm if you need to meditate? Why play with a golem-using veno if they can get a herc-user? Cash users also tend to be rich "ingame", as they can always sell cash stuff to other players for game money to buy whatever uber-gear they want, and they will certainly prefer playing with people using all that uber-gear as well.

Concerning the gameplay, quests like to send you all around the worldmap --- who wouldn't want a really fast mount for that? Mana regeneration and hitpoint regeneration are quite slow --- but hey, there are charms in the cash shop to restore it! Aren't we lucky? And that low experience gain --- geez, if those exp bonus items weren't already in the cash shop, they would have to be invented. Stuff like that, trying to get people to buy the stuff, but not forcing them.

It's up to you whether you want to give in to the pressure or not. There ARE probably other free-players (I'm one, for that matter), but they are probably much harder to find.

Still, let me repeat this again: nothing in the game mechanics FORCES you to buy anything. You don't need a ticket to leave the newbie area or enter an high level area. You don't need a cash scroll to get past a certain level. You don't need cash mounts to get anywhere --- you need a flying mount, but you get one for free. And frankly, the free 7-day-timed "fashion" that Jolly Jones hands out occasionally really sucks compared to standard gear.

Note that you can buy cash-currency using game-money, so in theory all the cash stuff is available "for free". However, that's a trade between players --- so somebody actually bought the cash currency using real money, and they are not going to give it away in exchange for a rusty sword. For example, I keep reading that a Hercules (Venomancer pet from the cash shop) costs 70-80 million (I looked into the AH a while back, but didn't even see one). I'm currently lvl 69, and "working" on my 5th million... although I must admit I'm not a dungeon runner or anything, so I don't know whether money can be had from there (however, do keep in mind that cash item prices WILL go up if people get rich ingame --- we are talking unregulated capitalism here, no social component. So I'm sure those 70-80 million are a lot even if you can run dungeons).
On a smaller scale, I seem to remember that a shout costs 15K. That's just a single shout, though, and a rather fleeting experience compared to a pet. It's still a cash item, and I've seen people doing actual chats with lots of garbage lines... I do need to work quite some time to collect 15K.

Riverwell - Archosaur

No. You don't need to use the Cash Shop at all. If you just enjoy the game and aren't worried about PvP'ing and TW you don't need it.

Really, the only reason I started to use the cash shop was to get a faster mount and charms. That's only because on this char I joined a TW faction, and items from CS kind of a neccessity then.

But if you just go at your own pace, find a smaller guild to have fun with, and not worrying about being OMG-SUPER-COOL-DECKED-OUT then you should be fine.

In later lvls there is pressure on venos to get Hercs which you obtain by getting 9999 (I think that's the right ammount? not sure >.>) Source of Fource and then exhanging them for the pet.
Do it if you want, but a veno with a Walker that knows what she's doing will do fine/great. It might be harder to get in to squads, but people who judge a veno based on whether she had a herc or not are idiots.

Morell - Lost City

I think the cash shop is a must only for inventory.. you can crawl across the map and you can meditate or lvl a walker but in my opinion it is so frustrating to play without any kind of inventory upgrade that its almost not worth it.

Riverwell - Archosaur

Morell - Lost City wrote: »

I think the cash shop is a must only for inventory.. you can crawl across the map and you can meditate or lvl a walker but in my opinion it is so frustrating to play without any kind of inventory upgrade that its almost not worth it.

...I actually kind of agree with this. This is the first char that I've expanded the inventory on and I can say it was my BEST investment. But there's no rush, save up for the stone with ingame money.

Having space avalible in your inventory so that you don't have to go back to town five times in one quest has made the game a lot more pleasent.

Hellhowl - Sanctuary

Kyrss - Raging Tide wrote: »

Will I ever need to use the cash shop? To be blunt I am currently poor and mostly only have the internet for I can work from home. My wife works to pay the bills and I work for the house we live in. ( I am a minister in exchange for service the church provides a house) Anyways I think Perfect World is a beautiful game and can be fun but I was wondering if I will ever need to use the cash shop. If so I might as well quit now before I get too involved. I don't plan on doing too much PvP. Please answer my cash shop question.

Dustin

Technically, no. However, the game will be a lot more difficult and annoying for you. Plus, it will be harder to find squads if you're "not up to date".