Meiri is lonely.

I dreamed last night that someone asked Meirizhu to join a faction.

Alas, it was but a dream.

Starting afresh

What do I do when the going gets tough?

I freak out and start over from scratch.

Rather than trying to make new friends and find a new faction for Meirizhu and Siloam, I just made a new character: Idumea the Blademaster, a cliche feisty redhead.

I've been enjoying playing as Idumea so far. Already made a couple of friends. Joined a faction, which died the next day.

I had expected people to shorten the name, but I wasn't expecting meadea, which is what one guy calls me. It's kind of adorable, though.

By no means am I going to retire Meiri and Sil. I'm too attached to them. But they're probably going to be on the bench for a little while.

Extreme Makeover: Armor Edition!

Ok, ok, so today's title is super corny, but deal with it. Gosh, now I feel like even more of a nerd than I did when I realized I was designing clothes for my Perfect World character.

I'm sorry, but the people who designed the women's armor in Perfect World were definitely men. Bra, miniskirt, and stiletto-heeled hooker boots are not sensible battle attire.

The boots probably bother me more than anything else, mostly because I hate running in heels so much that I project my own pain onto the sprites.

My alternate character, Siloam, can probably get away with the heels. Since she's a cleric, she spends most of her time hovering benevolently over the field of battle dispensing healing spells. Meirizhu, however, is an archer, and archers do a lot of running away from werewolves.

So I took the heels off the boots, covered up most of the vital organs with metal or leather, and gave her pants. I won't try to fool myself or anyone else into thinking that this new armor is 100% practical, but I think it makes a little more sense.

The color scheme is still up for debate. I have six prepared at the moment. You can find all six here if you're interested. The one shown here is my favorite, but I'd like to hear any suggestions.

Siloam's next. She's going to get a pretty new robe.

Hello, and goodbye again.

I am submitting this from the Chester County Public Library. When it comes to Perfect World, I'm still afk. And I think I'm obsessed, because I still think about it all the time... ah, well.

If you miss me, you can visit my DeviantART site... not that it's been updated too recently, thanks to the filter here, but it has some of my writings and scribblings.

I know I miss you guys!

Shout outs, thank yous, and going afk

Well, guys, it's been a good run.

But now my Writing for the Web class has come to an end, and so I'm no longer required by the injunction of my professor to maintain this blog.

I've gained a lot experience points, learned some new skills, and leveled up a few times. And here are some people I'd like to thank for that:

• My class and professor, for sticking with me whether they wanted to or not and giving great constructive criticism.
• Rod, Kristei, and Tokada, for all the random comments. You guys rock.
• My faction, for their patience and humor. *Salutes King, bows to Ling, pokes Kit and Teh, and shakes Thug's hand... err, paw*
  
• Ero, for introducing me to sharks.
• Tamar, for taking me seriously.
• All those idiots in world chat who brighten my day.
• and lastly, you, anyone who has ever read this blog. Especially those of you who leave comments. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This is not the end!

I have decided that I love blogging way too much to give it up just because I'm no longer getting a grade on it. So I'll keep playing Perfect World and keep updating this blog as often as I can!

Unfortunately, I'm going to be spending the next 3 months sojourning in the Land of Dial-Up Internet, with brief visits to the Wireless Embassy whenever I can. So I can't guarantee regular posts.

But I can guarantee that I will never forget you guys . . . so please don't forget me!

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.

Slingshots

They're just too awesome.

Everybody else has one!

I don't need one. I don't particularly want one. I don't even know what they're good for.

But everybody else has a genie, and I feel left out.

What is a genie, you ask? I'm not sure, myself. I only know that it's a small, cute, colorful little thing that circles around your character and sucks your experience points.

The addition of genies seems to be the extent of the long-awaited "expansion pack." Not to knock the fine folks who design Perfect World, because I obviously adore this game . . . but you pretty much already had genies, except they were called angels and you had to buy them.

Genies are free, though; you just have to ask an NPC for them. So, of course, EVERYONE has a genie now. Even though nobody is really sure what they do. As a dear faction mate said in his lovely Engrish, "Not yet discover the beauty usefulness of it yet."

Well, I'm trying to wait until someone discovers the beauty usefulness of genies and tells me what it is. I don't like getting things that don't have a point, especially if they're going to suck my experience.



In the meantime, I'm going to just feel left out. Like in this picture. You can see Kay's purple genie hovering over her shoulder, and OrangeElf's green genie just behind him. And my cute flying thing, Nugget. Not really the same effect.

Apologies and excuses

I've wronged you, dear Readers, and I'm sorry. I haven't been posting for a while, but I have several reasons:

• I'm nearing the end of this quarter in school, so I have about a million things to read, write, and study for.
• I also have to pack up nearly all my earthly belongings for storage or transport home to Tennessee for the summer.
• I've been helping various friends with time-consuming projects, including dressing up as Pippi Longstocking.
• I've been feeling self-conscious about my blog. One of my classmates expressed dislike for the subject. She wasn't nasty about it, but I still feel like I'm back in high school being teased by the popular girls.
• And, finally, I'm lazy.

There is hope, though! It's looking like my friends Kristei and Tokada are going to start writing guest posts before too long. So, hopefully, even if I stay busy and can't update very often, there will still be updates.

Until then, here's a flat-color drawing I did of my characters, Meirizhu and Siloam. It was going to be my avatar for my faction's forum, but it didn't shrink well.

Welcome to the farm.

I recently agreed to log in with my friend Rod's account and do some work on his character, Rodneye, a Blademaster. Rod's computer is on the blink, but he doesn't want Rodneye to languish and pine and be left behind in levels before he can get it fixed. I'm happy to help out a friend, and it's kind of fun.

Then Rod's sister Kristei asked me to work on her Wizard character, appropriately named Kristei, and her new Venomancer, Somonia. I agreed to these, too, despite having 3 of my own characters.



"Careful, Rita," teased my ex, Al. "You might get caught up in the seedy business of experience farming."

It is a lot on my plate, along with school and a part-time job, but I'm enjoying it so far and taking it slow. I'm focusing on Rodneye and Somonia for now, since Kristei the Wizard is at a higher level than either of them.

I work with each of them once every couple of days, trying to raise them at least one level per session. I e-mail frequent progress reports to Kristei and Rod. It's kind of cool! I feel like I'm managing a team, or something.

I've played a Blademaster before, and they're pretty straightforward. But I was nervous about training a veno. Luckily my faction has a lot of high-level venos, and they've been very helpful about answering my questions.

This is a good opportunity for me to learn about the PROPER way to build a character—checking the forums and consulting higher levels, planning the allotment of growth points, deciding early what skills to get. With my characters, I've always just kind of messed around, learning from my mistakes with Liulen but otherwise playing it by ear. But I'd be pretty upset with myself if I messed up someone else's character.

Name the chicken!

Something random happened to me today. A guy gave me a free pet. We squadded together for a quest, and when it was done and we were saying our thank-yous and goodbyes, I complimented the pretty bird following him around.

"You want it?" he said. Apparently he had a few spares lying around.

Baby Elysium Fowls aren't good for a lot except flapping around your head and getting in the way of people trying to target you. They're basically just big, pretty, decorative flying chickens. But you don't have to feed them or train them, and this guy was offering one to me free. How can I turn down a free animal?

So now I have a Baby Elysium Fowl. It has a disturbing habit of hovering just above Meirizhu's head, a little too close for comfort. I have an irrational fear it's going to poop in her hair. It makes cute little cheeping noises.



But now I have a problem. What am I going to name this big, pretty chicken? I've had a couple of ideas and suggestions already:

• Zephyrus
• Elysian
• KFC
• The Colonel
  

If any of you guys have any other ideas, let me know in the comments! My pet must have a name!

Trying so hard not to be shallow

I will not buy a new dress. I will not buy a new dress. I will be content with my armor. I will be content.

This is what I keep telling myself. Up until this point, it hasn't been hard. But the new Plumed Embrace outfit would look so cute on Meirizhu!

The problem is that I'm poor. There are two kinds of currency in PWI: coins, which you earn for stuff you do in the game, and gold pieces, which you pay for with a credit card. If you want to buy gold pieces, the minimum you have to shell out is $50. That would get me enough gold to buy tons of Plumed Embrace outfits. There's no way I'm dishing out that much actual money, though.

There is an alternative. I'm sitting on a small pile of mirage celestones, semi-precious little rocks you can use to upgrade equipment. It really doesn't make sense to do that, though, until you're at a super-high level and keeping your weapons for a long time. So, do I keep stockpiling them until I'm level 60, or do I sell them and buy pretty clothes from another player?

I can't believe this is even an issue. I used to think it was so silly to dress up your character in clothes that don't help in combat.

But, like I told Thug, I have to make some concession to girliness.

What do you say?

What do you say when somebody asks you if you're as pretty in real life as you are in the game? Really? What do you say? I know this guy was only trying to pay me a compliment, but actually it made me feel kind of crappy. I designed Meirizhu to be an idealized version of myself. Me, only pretty.

So no. I'm not as pretty in real life. I'm skinny and redheaded but the similarities end there. She has flawless skin and decent boobs and she's tall. I'm shrimpy and boyish-looking and I have acne. I'm not saying no one has ever told me I'm pretty. But come on. I probably wouldn't be playing this game if I thought I was gorgeous. I'd be off... being sexy, or something... I don't know.

Well, there ya have it, boys. Enjoy Meirizhu and Siloam for what they are and not for what they represent.

Excuse me for liking men.

Let me just start by saying that I really enjoy the faction that my characters Meirizhu and Siloam belong to. It's full of fun, talkative people, and a good handful of them are women near my age who share some of my interests.

Perhaps it's not too surprising that we spend a lot of time in faction chat discussing--and arguing about--the sexiness of Johnny Depp, Vin Diesel, Viggo Mortensen, and other men. And we are quite honest and specific about how we feel about them.

Usually other faction members are amused, indifferent, or just weirded out by these discussions.

Today, though, someone in the faction was offended, and asked us that if we were going to "trash talk" we should do it in private chat rather than faction chat.

Well, whether she was being oversensitive or not, we agreed to keep our discussions private. I think it was silly, but I'd rather not cause offense and drama within the faction. Or get kicked out for starting trouble.

"Blue_Wind wants to carry you. Accept?"

Here's a little event that happened a while ago, but it's relevant to the way I'm feeling right now.

It was probably only the first or second day that I'd been playing as Meirizhu. At any rate, I was at a low level. I was hanging out in Plume, the lovely city of the elves, when I received a notice:

“Blue_Wind wants to carry you. Do you accept? Yes/No”

I'd never gotten a notice like this. Duurrrrrrr, I wonder what that means, I thought, and pressed “yes.”

Next thing I knew I was in the arms of a handsome young archer, my booted feet dangling.

“Hi,” Blue Wind whispered.

So this is what it means to be carried, I thought. Why didn't I guess? I found out later that carrying someone or being carried fills up your chi gauge, which allows you to execute special techniques. Therefore it's not uncommon for male characters to ask random female passersby for “a chi spark,” though usually they have other motives that are less pragmatic.

I don't know about chi sparks at the time, so I didn't know if that's what Blue Wind was after, but he quite gallantly asked if I needed help with any quests.

I thought about my current quarry, cactopods, which usually died after two hits, and rolled my eyes. Chauvinist pig.

“No, I'm all right,” is what I actually said. And then, I went on: “Thank you, though. Quite chivalrous.” And I politely asked him to set me down.

At the time, I was slightly miffed. The nerve of him, scooping me up and then patronizing me! But later on I began to melt. It was still less than a week since my boyfriend of a year and a half had dumped me, and I was stressing out about school, too, considering switching majors. I felt overwhelmed and very, very alone. I think some part of me actually wanted someone to drop out of the sky, pick me up, and offer to help me with anything I needed.

And that's kind of what I want right now.

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.