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Why would you play this over WoW?
_Jord_
Member Posts: 228
I'm not trying to start a flame war. I'm not a WoW fanboy. I quit WoW a while back (not for the first time) primarily because I was bored. After playing Allods for a short while, and reading numerous player-reviews, random threads and website/blog previews, I find myself wondering - why would I play this over WoW?
WoW has a HUGE operating budget. WoW has a smooth-as-butter game engine that runs as well on my MacBook on medium settings as it does on my gaming PC on max. Allods has the same style of combat, with it's own ideas thrown in, but without 5+ years of refinement behind it. Allods has done a nice job creating lore, but WoW's lore is HUGE and incredibly developed by comparison (I'm not a lore guy, just saying).
WoW end-game consists of gathering, farming, instance running, PvP and raiding. Allods will likely be the same, but along with almost every other "F2P" game, will likely involve shelling out hundreds of dollars to be competitive (A la Runes of Magic). I prefer games to reflect dedication of players, not the thickness of their wallets.
So in the end, I'm enjoying Allods so far, but seeing as I'm many hours in and yet to see any ships, any incredibly original ideas, or incredible features to differentiate itself, I can't see any reason to play it over WoW. Unless of course you can't afford a sub.
Thoughts? Opinions?
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Played - UO, FFXI, WAR, WoW, EVE
Currently - Bored.
Comments
Absolutely going to guess and say, ITS FREE..
Biggest reason for people to play this game is because its pretty much WoW, and its free. This allows all those kids with no credit cards, or bank accounts to just jump in game and play.
I'm neither a wow-fanboy nor an allods online fanboy. However, only because a game says "free" it doesn't mean it is free. They're designed in such a way that the game starts very smooth, no matter if you pay or not, but the more you progress the harder it gets without paying anything. But the more you progress the more time you already invested into the game and your char, and you are reluctant to stop now. So most people will pay. And some people will pay far more than you'd pay for a P2P game.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
I'm neither a wow-fanboy nor an allods online fanboy. However, only because a game says "free" it doesn't mean it is free. They're designed in such a way that the game starts very smooth, no matter if you pay or not, but the more you progress the harder it gets without paying anything. But the more you progress the more time you already invested into the game and your char, and you are reluctant to stop now. So most people will pay. And some people will pay far more than you'd pay for a P2P game.
Well, I didn't say that's the only reason. But I'm more than sure the percentage of people playing this game and trying to find a new MMO home compared to kids that just want to play a game is slightly odd.
Well, if you want to compare game play I imagine at this point a game like wow has far more than Allods. However, Allods is free and also (and this is why I'd play it over wow) the art design, though reminiscent of WoW, is of a style that is FAR more appealing and less annoying to my artistic sensibilities than WoW.
In any case I'll will most likely keep it on my machine because of these things (one of my "before I go to bed" games) over wow.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I'm not a WoW fanboy either but I did play it for a year because friends did , here are my reasons why I'm trying it out. Other than trying to build up a good beta testing resume.
1. Its free
2. Graphics are better than WoW's (Even though its the same style)
3. Not your typical fantasy setting
4. A few more interesting races and I like the classes.
5. No auto attack and you can charge up certain spells
6. No Mini Map
To be honest, so far I like Allods way better than WoW, this could be just that its new and all but well see. I would laugh if people start dumping WoW for this game because the find it to be a better game. It pretty much is the same game except for those things I said up above.
I don't know how the cash shop will effect the game though, I think the main thing they are doing to promote sales by FoD if people don't want to wait 40 minutes before they can play again they will buy some Myrrh. Other than that IDK if they are going to sell weapons, armor and potions that can only be found there or what.
People will play this because it's free, because it's a different setting with some different mechanics albeit from what i've see not vastly different.
I for one unsubbed from WoW because I don't enjoy spending $15 a month to run the same dungeons/raids over and over.
It's not fun to run the same raids (or first part of them) each week only to get saved to an instance with a raid full of people who are frankly quite bad at the game. In my opinion instance lockouts + $15/month + (most people are terrible at raids) = a ripoff unless you want to join a guild and treat it as a job with required attendance.
I digress.
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WoW is better than Allods in all objective standards. BUT, some people have played WoW for years and are just sick of it. They're sick of the grind, the combat animations, the dated graphics, etc. I've already done all the 5-mans, and majority of the raids.
Sooooooo, for someone like me, it's... do I want to play a game with content that i've already completed and pay $15 a month, OR do I want to play a completely free game, with different classes, different combat, new areas to explore, new dungeons to do, new everything.
It comes down to, which do I (currently) enjoy playing more. WoW may be "better" but 5 years into it, it's no longer an objective analysis but rather subjective preference.
On the other hand, if a brand new player having never played WoW or Allods, and has disposable income to buy WoW (40 + 15 a month = $220 for first year), then go for WoW.
For someone who has no disposable income or is sick and tired of WoW, then go with ALLODS. Because it's free (meaning no game purchase or subscription fee), then there is LITERALLY nothing to lose by playing Allods.
As for the cash shop, if you have no discipline and spend like a drunken sailor, yeah, it might cost you some money to maintain the "competitive advantage." But, will that cost you more than $180 a year? What if you're someone like me who enjoys pve more than pvp, and does not spend money on vanity crap like pets, then yes, at this point in time Allods IS better than WoW.
You just need to look at what they recently implemented on the Russian servers, the EU and US ones are a patch or so behind atm. On the RU ones there are cash shop items for almost everything, including for the chat box. If you think you will be able to compete and endgame without CS items then think again, they weren't satisfied with giving +20% pots they've made +50% available for quite a few things, +50% health at endgame is like adding another 20,000 HP.
25% stat debuff when you die after level 15 that stacks up to 4 times for 100% stat debuff for 50 minutes, of course... removable via a cash shop item.
They certainly know how to strip the fun out of PvP. I'd have been interested in the game if they weren't so money hungry, they all need to make a profit yeah but this company seems to be leaning to the extremes.
Allods has a lot of interesting features. One of my favorite being "Prepared" Spells. You can cast a spell and prepare it for later use. This makes Spell-casters a lot more interesting. Another thing I like about the game is the in-depth character customization. You can directly influence your stats and skills using stat/talent points.
I also love the visual theme. The graphics are almost up there with Aion and the game play is pretty familiar with WoW players so you can just jump right in. The only thing lacking is the music. Some areas are still without music and those areas that do have music are subpar. All-in-All this is going to be the game that holds me over until Cataclysm.
If that's the case, you'll see them losing a lot of people fast. In which case, they'll either have to make it P2P (which at this point is a point of no return), or severely limit the items they offer.
It's a pretty simple calculation, if the cash shop items they offer to remain competitive exceeds ~$15 a month, then people will play p2p games instead.
But, for casual players who could care less about "competitive advantage" then this is a good alternative to get your mmo fix.
It's a pretty good game, and since I'm sick and tired of WoW. Yes.
It may have a similar art style to WoW, but it IS significantly prettier. It's got tons of quests, progression doesn't seem to difficult so far, and the world is very unique, music is great, high production values...etc
The thing is: you won't be even near competitive at high levels without CS items. It's like going raiding without buffs flasks, if you want some sort of analogy.
For the people that play casually, like a couple hours every now and then it might be fine. For the rest of the people, it might be frustrating when you get your ass handed over to you countless times because the other guy spent some money and you are playing because it's free.
People will start paying, more or less, noticing or not. That's why this business model works. You get attached to your character and you've been enjoying the game, so you figure spending 5 bucks isn't a big deal. Next week, you do the same, after all 5 bucks ain't much. When you notice, you're paying a lot more per month than you would for a subscription-based game. Or you don't pay and still are getting your ass being handed over, or just kicked out of parties because you don't have the required perfumes potions that are needed to go through easily.
It's a good game, I've played it. The art and the spell animations and flashes are pretty cool. The combat could be better, but it's fluid enough. The races are so-so, but the classes are interesting. It still needs some polish and content, which hopefully will come with time.
The CS won't really ruin the game, company-wise, as a lot of players will probably just pay and go, and some others will manage to endure the free route. It might end up ruining the game for a lot of players that enjoy equalness and fairness though.
To give everyone an idea where I'm coming from ...
Runes of Magic was a fun game early on. It had an interesting class/subclass system. It had a reasonably interesting grind full of various, well-developed things to do (quest, craft, grind, dungeons... all worked as you would hope).
The problems became apparent end-game. In RoM, any piece of gear can be "drilled" to put up to 3 rune slots into it. You can also use "jewels" to add "plusses" to items. If you got an epic drop from an end-game dungeon, it would usually have 1-2 rune slots. Free players could stick a rune into that slot, and then use a jewel to achieve +1 (which would slightly increase stats). You COULD use in-game items to boost up to +6, but you had to play a lottery of sorts. Once you're passed +1, you have a chance to fail with jewels, which would SUBTRACT one upgrade. So, you could add +1, then +2, then fail and back to 1. It cost millions to try to upgrade to +6, as well as an hour or two and a lot of frustrating attempts...
Paying players could get jewels that DONT fail (meaning +6 takes a few $$ and 20 seconds) and "drills" to add an extra rune slot. Adding slots and plusses could increase the stats on an item THREEFOLD - meaning free players get 1/3 the benefit from their gear as paying players.
Translated into gameplay it was simple - free players could not compete in PvP at all. In PvE, they were on their own because paying players would inspect them, laugh at their "free" gear, and not invite them to party.
On the other hand, if you're a mostly solo-, adventure- or RP-minded player, you could indefinitely enjoy it for free. For me, though, I like to feel like I'm a part of things, and I had to choose between dropping $200+ into the item shop to upgrade my gears to max, or quit the game. I quit the game.
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Played - UO, FFXI, WAR, WoW, EVE
Currently - Bored.
Only one reason for me to play Allods:
Science-Fantasy
Face it, it's the only game that's not steam-punk, not Sci-Fi but does include "space flight".
Allods reminds me of the old Dungeaons & Dragons setting called Spelljammer, my most favorite pen-n-paper setting.
It might just be me remembering weird things, but didn't they allow players to spend gold on the cash shop diamonds and rubies, so that non paying players could still get the items if paying players were willing to put them in the AH. It sounds like you just do not like F2P games.
It might just be me remembering weird things, but didn't they allow players to spend gold on the cash shop diamonds and rubies, so that non paying players could still get the items if paying players were willing to put them in the AH. It sounds like you just do not like F2P games.
Due to the exchange rate between those who have money and those who don't, a single diamond costs 5000 gold. You need 70-100 diamonds for EACH item to upgrade your gear. It works out to something like 300-400 hours of pure grinding on mobs for daily quest item drops (which can be sold on AH, and is considered the fastest money maker) to achieve the same result you could get with $80-100.
I like the idea of F2P games. I just find the model is often pretty greedy, and uses marketing tricks of all kinds to maximize their revenue, often at the expense of gameplay quality.
I see F2P games in other genres that use a much more effective item shop ... League of Legends and Battlefield Heroes come to mind.
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Played - UO, FFXI, WAR, WoW, EVE
Currently - Bored.
Sort of like WOW, its free, and has space ships (pew pew)
What's not to like? Especially if you've completed your time in WOW.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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This is the first game I find the "cute" race actually not that bad xD
Each with their own weapons the front one with the sword the beardy guy has the shield and the tiger like lady dunno was bare fisted but love how she looks
Other than some of the cartoony feel of the graphics, I really don't get why people call this a WoW clone. It harkens back to older games, specifically the older Warhammer and Warhammer 40k universe, Everquest, and some aspects from Diablo2.
All that aside, though, after 3 years of World of Warcraft, I've gotten sick of it, and kept missing what WoW had been, rather than enjoying what it had become. Frankly, the two bear little resemblance. Allods has a sense of freshness about it, while still retaining a lot of old school aspects. The world is interesting, and it's more polished than the vast majority of F2P games. Assuming that the item shop doesn't grossly unbalance the game, Allods will keep me satisfied for quite a while.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
This + free (at least no $50+$15/mnth commitment)
And the CS is supposibly going to be nothing like RoMs were you need it to really get good end game/pvp gear. I can acutally tell already that its nothing like RoM in terms of stats, and gear which was a big aspect of RoM and the CS.
Well see though. I'm guessing they are releasing the CS after OB (which is basically release/headstart anyway)
I could deffinitly see myself playing awhile though for sure.
Only thing is that there really arent awhole lot of people playing for it being OB and only having 2 servers....they are crowded but not that crowded. I don't think many people know about allods tbh. I know they spent like 12m on it so will be interesting to see what the CS is like and if allods will be around for awhile.
This + free (at least no $50+$15/mnth commitment)
And the CS is supposibly going to be nothing like RoMs were you need it to really get good end game/pvp gear. I can acutally tell already that its nothing like RoM in terms of stats, and gear which was a big aspect of RoM and the CS.
Well see though. I'm guessing they are releasing the CS after OB (which is basically release/headstart anyway)
I could deffinitly see myself playing awhile though for sure.
Only thing is that there really arent awhole lot of people playing for it being OB and only having 2 servers....they are crowded but not that crowded. I don't think many people know about allods tbh. I know they spent like 12m on it so will be interesting to see what the CS is like and if allods will be around for awhile.
If you had played it, you'd know that even a small change in stats could make or break the game for you. It's quite notorious at the beginning when you're still getting freshman gear, for example.
If I'm not mistaken, there will be CS potions that give 20% stat increase, and even one with 50% health increase (I'm even ignoring all that fear of death stuff with the perfumes). You don't stand a chance against anyone that's using a potion like that (in PVP) and you'll probably not be able to get into many PVE groups if you're not optimized.
If you're a loner, an explorer, or a guy that gets a great guild that covers some stuff for you (or just like you, freebies) you'll probably enjoy the game even after the initial "woo, it's a new world" phase. If you want to take it a bit more seriously, you'll have to drop cash on it unless you play till you drop dead to make cash and trade it for CS stuff.
You're free to pick your poison, I'm just trying to make it so you take informed decisions. Personally, I enjoyed Allods a lot, but all I did was relax myself into the game, I didn't do much serious stuff.
If I desperately needed to play a game like World of Warcraft but without supporting Blizzard, I would play Allods Online. Sounds like a good idea too, but Square Enix is better suited for my money with FFXIV.
Well I've given the game a fair try in CB3 and 4, and doing now the "open beta", I quote that because it's actually release since you get to keep your characters.
Pros:
- Has good (yet not great) graphics.
- Great music and English voice overs.
- So far every class is genuinely fun.
- The skill and talent system are pretty big (specially the talents) so customization and uniqueness of character is very high.
- The first days sure looked and felt like other "big paid MMO" release days and the servers held (after the initial crash of 1h) and have only been taken down once for a scheduled maintenance which was announced long before time in the forums.
- Encounter lock, no more KSing, if you touched it first, it's yours no matter how much damage others do to it.
- Death seems to be similar to what AoC wanted to do originally, you get ported to a underworld room of sorts and you have to wait for a time before getting respawned.
Cons:
- The quest collecting system is once for all, aka 40 players need to gather 5 logs, there's only 2 spawning and when it's collected it disappears, so it's pretty hellish to get quests done.
- There's no GM moderation whatsoever, so you can imagine how childish, insulting and just overall awful the chat is.
- If you don't have an instant range spell you most likely won't finish a single kill quest for a good 30-45mins even if you're at the spot.
- Simplistic chat, can't add new tabs...heck there's only one tab, it resets to default when you log off or zone, have to type /zone or /raid every time you want to keep talking in the same channel, it doesn't stay in your last used channel, there's no auto reply to tells/whispers and there's no option to appoint it to a key either.
- Respawn points after death are pretty far and apart so if you had to release during a raid, it will take a long trip back.
In Between:
- Crafting and Gathering, regular ones you see in most MMO, but you can only have one at the beginning as it costs to buy the books to learn the skills, the first book is pretty cheap but the second one is extremely expensive, would take 20 levels or so to get enough money to get it.
- Bag and bank spaces are very small, unknown yet but it seems that the only way to expand the bag is via quest or with the item shop, and the bank might also fall under the item shop.
- Respec like the bag, you can do it once via a quest but after that is via the item shop.
Allods overall is a nice game to kill time between paid MMO's or if you're waiting for a certain one to release, but the quality you get from the game is not enough to spend money on it.
Just wanna say its kinda annoying when ppl starting play and entering the game and all they have to say is "off next WoW clone" etc etc. And forums ist better comparing all new mmo's to WoW. Little tip for some peoples WoW wasn't first MMORPG on market, and telling that some new game have Humans / elfs , or class like rouge etc etc so it must be WoW clone, cos WoW have it hehe :-/. Thats all
Why wouldn't you play this over WoW? Besides the fact that its free, and has NOTHING to do with WoW besides perhaps vague similarities with the art style, how about the various unique features (astral ships, gibberlings*a race that is technically three creatures*) level of detail (pet types actually vary between not just class but race and even gender), the integration of exploration and objectives beyond raiding/gear grinding, and an overall unique and refreshing story instead of one that is a clusterfuck of childish over the top fart jokes built on top of modified warhammer IP? Hell, even the tweaks to similar classes that give them far more depth than their knuckle roll counterparts in WoW, being able to apply skill points yourself and the general versatility of the classes available, or the flat out more unique classes like the mesmer/psion.
The list could go on. Allods takes itself considerably more seriously, and actually has a story to tell that isn't hamfisted together so that they can base expansion content off it. Additionally, I have considerably more respect for the developers, as they have been making compromises instead of flat out pandering to the community, to maintain the vision of the game while still keeping it fun. They don't want a minimap in the game because it kills the immersion and hurts the "exploration" feel as you're always looking at a little box with arrows instead of pulling out your map or putting areas to memory (like we used to), but are considering allowing for a transparent map overlay due to the sheer amount of whining from the WoW transfers Allods has acquired recently. Personally, I would have preferred they held to their guns a bit more, but they didn't say "screw the feel/philosophy of the game, lets add a minimap and a bunch of other crap so they'll buy stuff" like Activision would have in a second.
People need to stop the Allods=WoW comparisons. They look similar. They are nothing alike.
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