Character farming feels weird.

It's such a weird feeling, playing as someone else's character. Kind of like sleeping in someone else's room. I still haven't gotten used to leveling up Kristei and Rod's characters for them.

It's especially weird playing as Rodneye, for two reasons.

The first is just that I'm not used to playing as a dude. I got out of the habit a long time ago. I feel a strange urge to put a disclaimer on all my chats: I'm actually a chick!

The second is that I used to go questing and grinding playing as Liulen or Meirizhu, in a squad with Rod playing as Rodneye.

It's a whole new perspective.

Goodbye, Liu!

It is with sadness and regret that I announce the retirement of Blademaster Liulen as an active character.

We were doing just fine until after the big boss quest at level 19. When I got the special weapon that was a quest reward, I realized Liu didn't have enough strength points to equip it.

I made the journey to the big city of Archosaur, anyway, where I was the only Blademaster who didn't have my big glowy spear equipped. It was three more levels, very difficult levels, of pouring every growth point I earned into strength, before I could finally equip it and compete with all the other Blademasters.

By then, though, I was getting really frustrated. I dealt less damage and was less sturdy than other Blademasters my level. The truth of it was, I had built Liulen wrong, putting too many points into magic and dexterity. In my attempt to make a well-rounded character, I made a useless one.

My immediate reaction was making Siloam, a Cleric, and I've really enjoyed playing as her. But I miss mindless hacking away as a Blademaster, so I'm starting a new one: a sexy male named Bassai.

Yep, that's me. I get frustrated, I start over from scratch.

Just for the record...

...I don't particularly like being a scary androgynous bitch.

I had a good system going with Liulen. She was a persona I assumed well. While playing as Liulen, I am delicate, friendly, and feminine, despite the plate armor and gigantic sword.

Recently I met a fascinating wizard. With his linguistic acrobatics, bizarre sense of humor, and awkwardly chauvinist pick-up techniques he reminds me strongly of one of my ex-boyfriends. Maybe it was because I felt I already knew him that I found myself being more honest with this wizard than with anyone else I talk to on Perfect World. Thus it was that Liulen turned into an aggressive, castrating, sarcastic grammar nazi... in other words, me on a bad day.

His shtick is asking girls if they want to ride on his flying sword. (He does actually have one; the flying swords are kind of cool.) Today he asked me, "Hey, are you a girl? If so, want a ride on my sword?" This pissed me off beyond reason. I've thought it odd that people usually assume players in PWI are actually the gender of their character. Well, here was someone not making that blind assumption. Good for him, right?

The thing was, I'd been talking to this guy for a while, and he still didn't fully believe I was a girl. But that's ok, too, right? Gender shouldn't really matter in a world where players make no physical contact with each other.

I guess I might still be bitter from the time I got my hair cut like Bruce Lee's and everyone kept calling me "sir."

Eventually he excused himself, citing faction business as his reason. I ran into him later in the city chatting with a Venomancer. Fully aware of the awkwardness of the situation, he said, "Holy shit... uhh, want to ride my sword, Liulen?"

My Characters

I love character creation. It's my favorite part of games. I've made a bunch of Perfect World International characters, most of them hunky men. What can I say? I like men so much better than I like women. But I never made it very far into the game with these male characters before I got bored. No one talked to me. And I wanted to try out one of the winged elves. So I made Meirizhu, a female Archer.



She looks just like me!




Well, sort of. She looks like what I wish I looked like.

I liked Meirizhu a lot and played with her for a while but one day got a strong, bizarre urge to make a character who was actually sexy. So I made an elf Cleric with curly blonde hair, big blue eyes, petite frame and big boobs. But that was far too cliché. So I made her a Blademaster and got her the heaviest armor and the biggest, most ridiculous sword I could buy. Behold Liulen, the doll-faced tank and favorite of the gents.