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The thrill of the hunt

by Joel on December 16th, 2007

Must get mind off gold … loot … power! Arrrgh! No, wait, let me explain. My apologies for the absence. Aside from the Internet conking out at the most inopportune times, most of my waking hours have been spent researching more stories for MMOtaku.

This entry’s title speaks for itself. Yes, guilty as charged. I’ve been spending an obscene number of hours exploring dungeons in my game of choice, Perfect World, in hopes of finding and owning more artifacts to aid my avatar in her journey in the mythical world of Pangu.

Woe unto the monsters of the Treasure Grotto, where my team of hardy adventurers—composed of a tanking Yao Shou or beastman, a holy Yu Ling or priest and a captivating Yao Jing or beast summoner—bagged for themselves not just one but two molds of the legendary weapon Diving Dragon Finch Bore.

Pangu, the name of the game world, is dotted with nearly a dozen dungeons populated by fierce monsters, from fierce wolves and poisonous scorpions to treasure-hoarding undead pirates. In these dungeons, from the deep pockets of the boss monsters themselves, are molds or casting tools with which players can craft what the game calls Legendary Armors and Holy Weapons, some of the most powerful enchanted items in Perfect World.

The quest to find the Diving Dragon Finch Bore began more than a month ago, when my wife and I, and a group of new-found friends, decided to brave the Treasure Grotto to complete our gear—mostly heavy and light armor breastplates like the equally coveted Cuirass of the Pirate King and the Cuirass of the Griever, and weapons such as the Maul of Black Iron that increases the physical defense of its wielder with each successful attack.

To say that mold-hunting is addictive is an understatement. It’s more than that. Every time a boss monster explodes into a dozen items (well, not really since the sprites just vanish after each defeat), my hunger for molds increases—exponentially.

What we could not sell, we sold for yuan, the in-game currency. This helped a lot since some of our gear could only be had from boss monsters in another dungeon, the Souless Gate.

The icing on top of our hunting spree was our discovery of two of Perfect World’s most coveted molds—the Ring of Lin Yun that imbues its wearer with a whopping 50 percent adjustment to accuracy, among other bonuses, and the Diving Dragon Finch Bore, a magical implement that boosts a caster’s abilities with bonuses to the intelligence attribute.

To give you an idea of the value of these items, here’s a quick “illustration”: Compared to other molds, the two molds I mentioned above have less than a percent chance of dropping from the two main bosses, Lin Yun and Lang Fang Tian. The Ring of Lin Yun can be sold for a kingly sum of at least 22 million yuan while the Diving Dragon Finch Bore may go for the insane amount of 30 million yuan. The conversion rates: 1,200 yuan = 1 gold (the currency used to purchase stuff from the item mall), 2,000 gold = 100 Philippine pesos, 1 dollar = roughly Php 42. Do the math and find out how much the items are worth.

Now that my avatar is fully equipped—Modified Light Armor Set: Cuirass of the Griever, Dark Underworld Leggings, Captain’s Armlet, Card of the Pirate King, and Diving Dragon Finch Bore—she’s ready to face more complicated challenges, such as Fairy Land and Demon Land, two of the game’s most powerful dungeons.

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POSTED IN: Asian MMO, Asian MMO Players, Level Up! Games, Perfect World, Random Rants