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Allods Online: Open Beta Impressions
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Of course the company is going to want people to use the cash shop; the problem is that if you add up how much you are going to need to spend a month to be able to raid and just play the game, its going to be in the $50+ a month range. That's a little insane when I can play a number of very good P2P games for $14.99 a month, especialy since this game is only great when compared to other F2Ps; it's average to below average for P2P.
Bill did a fine job of explaining how great Allods "USED" to be! This game is no more when patches v1.6 and 1.7 hit the EU and NA publisher Gpotato. No matter what GP spins about the original team is still working on Allods, they do not appear to be by the latest news I had uncovered!
Nival (the original team) struck a deal with Astrum entertainment and became Astrum Nival. The game was going forward as planned under this brand till Mail.RU steps in. Mail.RU buys up Astrum Nival. Nival broke away from Mail.RU and began work on a new MMORTS called Prime World. On Nivals site in the about section (to the left of main page) they go into a small history about Nival as a whole, explaining how Astrum and Nival formed and then being bought up by Mail.RU.
They said with intensity on their site that they had a MINORITY INTEREST in Astrum and Mail.ru projects! This lead a lot of people to believe a falling out may have occurred and the work on the new game Prime World began under the brand Nival Interactive. Feb. 24th 2010 on Nivals website they had released nfo that Mail.RU had 100% control of Astrum Nival, while at the same time on their about page they had taken out ALL history leading Nival to Astrum and Mail.RU OFF the website!
It almost seems like they are distancing themselves completely now away from Mail.RU since the bad press of patch v1.7 hit and GPs introduction to a insanely overpriced item mall.
Onto the Patches of doom....
I wont go into much here but I will tell you this, the game will be solely centered around CS between levels 20 and endgame content exclusively. If you would like to know what will put the nail in the coffin for this wonderful and inspiring game, go here to see a history of how the game changed within a matter of a few months....
translate.google.com/translate Patch Notes V1.7
translate.google.com/translate Patch Notes v1.6.22
translate.google.com/translate Patch Notes v1.6.15
translate.google.com/translate Patch Notes v1.5.28
Allods had a award winning opening that caused the game to be over pop on all 7 servers during its initial run in CB phases and partial OB. The servers began to decline after patch 1.5 seeing the population run at 50-60% server pop. The servers are now at 20-25% server pop since the release of patch v1.7. A LOT of Russian players are now finding refuge in the EU and NA servers for Allods as they have stated the game is all but dead and that no one is able to afford the game breaking elements of CS any longer. Whats bad is these patches are in the works and on their way to the EU and NA clients.
GP has already gotten a lot of bad press for the insane prices set for Allods CS. Backlash was so harsh they are now saying they will try to work something out. I dont expect those prices to be any cheaper myself as I have been playing GP games for the past 5 years. This is the first GP game where the mechanics center solely around the CS, you dont pay, you dont play, period!
It also makes me wonder if GP knows whats in store for the game and maybe trying to get back as much money as they can on the over priced CS, before the rest of the community drys up? Speculation of course, but a possibility. In short the patches are coming and the game, some say, will die out before it even hits release.
I first saw the closed beta of this game on the gPotato's site, unable to play it until MMORPG offered beta keys. As well, saw a review on mmohut and seemed very interesting, especially the F2P graphics. The game file was beefy, long download and long install.
When the game launched, I was mind-dead as well. It actually took me well over 5 minutes to accidentally realize that what I have been hovering my mouse over were actually selectable. I was about to shut the game down because I thought it was still loading. The Developers should have given some notice about the character select screen, instead of waiting for the user to actually take notice.
The game took off pretty quick, and taught the basics of skills and controls pretty quickly, and gave a really nice plot of the story. Though, the story is nothing to write to home about, it just your regular bad guy and good guy thing. After getting into the world, there were so many players, even in closed beta. The maps are pretty impressive and large. One thing is that there isn't a boundary! I found myself curious about what would happen if I walk to the side, if it would continue on, or just a imaginary wall. Too my surprise, unlike all other mmorpgs I have played, there isn't a invisible blockage, rather, you fall off and die! Curiosity didn't kill the cat, it killed me. I don't think I suffered a death penalty though, maybe because I have not hit the level mark.
I have yet to play it since closed beta. But now hearing about the item shop stupidity, it's very likely I will not pick up this game again even if they fix the pricing issue. It is seem that they are merely trying to make money rather than bring a new community for gamers. The game was great during closed beta, with its bugs, but nothing as big as its item shop pricing. Good thing this article was prepared before the item shop pricing was released, or it would have been pure rants on the game rather than good first impression of the gameplay.
What game you do know that makes it a must for a player to buy things just to raid? The game mechanics are tailored as such so people will blow money to raid and pvp. Never in all my years of playing MMO's (since UO) has anything like this happened. It's ridiculous to assume people will buy these things to just raid. Most cash shop items are fluff items, mounts, etc. Not things you have to have to just play at end game stages of the game.
One thing is for certain, sooner or later everyone is going to get allods.
"This article was originally written prior to the item shop pricing being released and so isn't mentioned here."
This is the sad joke. Allods could have been the best F2P game ever made. And this one problem will destroy it if not addressed. I loved this game, and was really excited to play it. I played through all the closed betas and told everyone I could about how awesome this game was. And now it just makes me sad...
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.
I played CB 1-4, rised a char till 40, than FoD was implemented...
The general negative feedback about Fear of That was in vain. Tried to live with that, my warden was 24 yesterday, coping with usual problems in Holy Land, when they've implemented a quick patch. After the patch, mobs damage was increased (or my def nerfed). So, geared up with the maximum rep items, rubies invested in defense, get killed every 2 mins, and ofc got FoD. I got nervous-disgusted-bored.
Allods may have nice graphics and lore (I'm not a fan of Peter the Great and its double headed vulture, as everyone in eastern Europe I hate the red star symbol, well, is a russian game...) but... has lots of player-slowing stressing features: smallest bank space, smallest (single) bags, longest time/mob kill, very low quest item drop rate, nerfed proffesions... not heaving a minimap and a stack split command after hundreds of posts about these basic requirements.
Allods became too fast a "thanx for your feedback but this is what we want take it or leave it" type MMO.
I'm playin' MMOs as a break from the daily stress.
Played Allods enough.
Uninstalled.
Besides the CS crap like the bags and stuff, this is actually one of the reasons I like Allods, I'm completely fine with it not having a minimap. I'm glad it takes more than 2 seconds to kill a mob. I'm tired of having MMOs over simplified, dumbed down, and generally raping their design and vision because people whined too much that it was different or "too hard." You have a multi billion dollar game that's stupified itself for you guys who don't want to put forth any effort at all already. Can people just let an MMO do what it wants for once? I'm tired of watching every game become the same exact thing.
That being said, its just as well you uninstalled, as Allods is proving to be yet another glaring example as to why the F2P model does not work.
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
You do know about the overpriced CS controversy right? It's been estimated it will cost $40-$50 a month to play end game because items in the cash shop will be mandatory to play correctly. Than there is the matter of the runes to improve your character at end game. The best Rune costs $7,000. That's right, Seven THOUSAND American dollars.
The gpotato community is in an uproar about this to say the least. Although the devs are promising to rectify the situation they STILL have the CS open with these ridiculous prices. If they don't do something quick I thing that Allods will go under, no matter how good it looks.
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
You do know about the overpriced CS controversy right? It's been estimated it will cost $40-$50 a month to play end game because items in the cash shop will be mandatory to play correctly. Than there is the matter of the runes to improve your character at end game. The best Rune costs $7,000. That's right, Seven THOUSAND American dollars.
The gpotato community is in an uproar about this to say the least. Although the devs are promising to rectify the situation they STILL have the CS open with these ridiculous prices. If they don't do something quick I thing that Allods will go under, no matter how good it looks.
7000 bucks?!?!? Are you kidding me?
Unfortunately, no.
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
You got lucky Esther, I soloed my pure healer all the way to 15 looking for groups but never got one besides one from my guild at the time to kill baby bears since the poor things are dead before they actually spawn
Of course I wanted to have my main character use the name of the healer, so I deleted the healer and rolled a Paladin archetype to have an easier time leveling, of course after I did that, everyone was looking for healers for groups...
There was a hybrid healer build going around, but it only made you slightly better at leveling and would cut your healing ability by half, but playing a healer to be only half a healer in my book is the same as not playing a healer at all!
Like many I left due to the CS and the forced PvP after lvl20, yes there's a lil flag that turns it off but the War Banner that lets players bypass that drops more than coins, so it's useless to have that flag off, and even if they added a PvE only server, the new FoD and perfumes patch makes raids impossible for players that want to keep the game free, glad that I left.
You do know about the overpriced CS controversy right? It's been estimated it will cost $40-$50 a month to play end game because items in the cash shop will be mandatory to play correctly. Than there is the matter of the runes to improve your character at end game. The best Rune costs $7,000. That's right, Seven THOUSAND American dollars.
The gpotato community is in an uproar about this to say the least. Although the devs are promising to rectify the situation they STILL have the CS open with these ridiculous prices. If they don't do something quick I thing that Allods will go under, no matter how good it looks.
7000 bucks?!?!? Are you kidding me?
Nope!
You do know about the overpriced CS controversy right? It's been estimated it will cost $40-$50 a month to play end game because items in the cash shop will be mandatory to play correctly. Than there is the matter of the runes to improve your character at end game. The best Rune costs $7,000. That's right, Seven THOUSAND American dollars.
The gpotato community is in an uproar about this to say the least. Although the devs are promising to rectify the situation they STILL have the CS open with these ridiculous prices. If they don't do something quick I thing that Allods will go under, no matter how good it looks.
7000 bucks?!?!? Are you kidding me?
Nope!
Good Lord!!! That's like one person paying 14.95 a month for 39 years!!!!
You do know about the overpriced CS controversy right? It's been estimated it will cost $40-$50 a month to play end game because items in the cash shop will be mandatory to play correctly. Than there is the matter of the runes to improve your character at end game. The best Rune costs $7,000. That's right, Seven THOUSAND American dollars.
The gpotato community is in an uproar about this to say the least. Although the devs are promising to rectify the situation they STILL have the CS open with these ridiculous prices. If they don't do something quick I thing that Allods will go under, no matter how good it looks.
This CS controversy is already significantly costing Allods many players and potential players. If this isn't resolved by the next patch (preferably sooner), I think Allods will critically hemorrhage what is left of its players.
I for one never had any intentions of playing such a game, but I certainly have been observing this train wreck as it happens.
You do know about the overpriced CS controversy right? It's been estimated it will cost $40-$50 a month to play end game because items in the cash shop will be mandatory to play correctly. Than there is the matter of the runes to improve your character at end game. The best Rune costs $7,000. That's right, Seven THOUSAND American dollars.
The gpotato community is in an uproar about this to say the least. Although the devs are promising to rectify the situation they STILL have the CS open with these ridiculous prices. If they don't do something quick I thing that Allods will go under, no matter how good it looks.
7000 bucks?!?!? Are you kidding me?
Nope!
Good Lord!!! That's like one person paying 14.95 a month for 39 years!!!!
thats peanuts, i have already stated in a previous post that ROM has a player on a German server that spent 26000euro on a weapon THATS over $35000.
One of the things I like most about Allods is that most of the items in the Cash Shop are world drops. Although they may be the rarest ones in the game, they do drop.
I played for the earliest phase of the Closed Beta tests and found it extremely addictive. Yes, the quest grinding was a bit tedious at times and could seem overwhelming when you had 10+ markers on you world map but you could knock all those out and then reap the rewards. The classes and races like all other games are hard to be really original. But I do like how they switched around what archetypes are available to certain classes. An Orc Reaver(Paladin)? Yes please.
One thing that disappointed me was the lack of loot that dropped in the earliest "instance", XAES. As a level 10 I was hoping to bring in some phat lootz but the only drops I got was from the last boss. I know that the Reputation Quartermasters and quests give you all the gear you need but I was looking forward to getting a bigger stick in XAES.
What made me laugh the most was the astronomical Russian influence on every aspect of this game. The /actions have audible Russian coming out of your character and every sign/billboard in-game is in Russian text. Pretty much every name in the game, except for the arisen, is Russian-based or Russian-influenced. It's not a bad thing it just caught me off-guard.
While this is the most polished of the F2P games, I just hope that gPotato doesn't try and make it P2W. There are a lot of veteran gamers and people who actually enjoy the challenge of the game to where they too will lose interest when those with that extra bit of cash twink themselves out with Cash Shop uber-loot.
I'm of the opinion that no matter how much the CS changes, or if FoD is eventually dropped, this game will be forever tainted. I told many, many people about this game. I was honestly excited about it before closed beta even started. And when I actually got in? I was immersed. Sure, it wasn't the most original gameplay, but the world had style! It wasn't your typical anime grinder. It wasn't your plastic-looking-trying-very-hard-to-look-real-but-failing-miserably EQ2 clone. I'm guilty of being a WoW fan simply because I really enjoy the graphics style. And Allods was pulling me in based on that. I quested for a few levels, I had a lot of fun, and I told even more people about the game. About just how awesome it was. When new closed betas came out, I forced people to grab keys. I even got ready to play with some friends when open beta started up. And then all the hoopla over the CS started.
I don't think I've been this appalled at a game company for a very long time. This game has a lot going for it. Enough to be well worth a subscription. As I said, it's not exactly original in gameplay, but it's pretty well rounded and fairly polished - more polished than many high profile games released the past few years. Now though, the taint from this CS debacle will turn many people away. The CS that they came up is EXACTLY the sort that everyone complains about, but not many games actually have. It's a shining example of what not to do in a F2P game. And I honestly felt that this was a F2P that would change peoples minds about the genre, and maybe we'd actually see some more quality games go this route. But if barely anyone ends up playing this because of the bad rep it'll get from the CS, what will that tell other companies? That a high quality game like this isn't worth it? Will we just continue to get the same grinder crap with no style fed to us?
This whole mess worries and saddens me. They would have been better off just asking 15 dollars a month to start with, but I suppose that just wasn't enough money for them...
Yet again the shop will ruin the game. Deffinately in endgame. I wont pay 40eu a month on wather of death to play endgame. I rolled 2 lvl40chars in cb but it stops here. Well im off again, looking for a descent mmo till SW:TOR kicks in.
Definately had the same issues with combat being soooo slow. I got bored very quickly. I almost always play a hybrid melee healer (paladin-like) but this one drove me nuts.
Anyone know if the recent changes have sped this up a bit (aside from the silly cash shop/parfum stuff)? That was my only real hangup, but it was enough for me to move on.
lols, everyone's comment are so long, all I'm going to say is that......my brother plays this and it doesn't look to bad even though some of its features are clearly from other mmos.
There are so many things I like about Allods, the whole Spell Jammer vibe, the models ( if Blizzard was smart they would hire whoever did Allods undead models) the fact that dungeons aren' t faceroll zerg fest, but all that is killed by insane people who have the BS notion that all Americans carry 10k around as pocket change, and honestly that is what it all boils down to...I got so sick of hearing "You’re American your rich" when I was in Prague a couple years back...this ignorance is going to make a really good game fail completely.
This sword here at my side dont act the way it should
Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave
Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave
And it howls! it howls like hell!
One aspect that was not mentioned in a preview,was how bad the initial graphics are.I almost deleted the game instantly,the graphics start out one grade above pixels,then improves to the lowest standards you expect from all F2P models.Character models are unique in some cases,i can see people getting giddy over that,it wore off on me rather quickly,played the Gibberlings[3 little guys].Also the game starts and plays extremely linear,exactly like a single player game.These are the preview things that stick out.
When you actually get into the world ,nothing changes much exactly the same npc>npc questing to see how fast you can make your level number rise,if i remember right,you had to return to a npc to actually get your level rise?.You need to finish certain quests to be able to move on,so yes linear continues.Make a couple jumps to ship off the bounce pad,and that is about as unique as the game gets.The game early on at low levels already has the feel of being a hard driven cash shop game.I do not care about levels usually as i prefer game play over watching a level number rise,but when the game offers little to enjoy,you hope that maybe a new level area might bring something unique.The game felt like it was going to be a slow leveling game,not because of content but to drive that cash shop.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Read the Open Beta Impressions.
Now you see what happen when American developers port a mmo from other countries. They think in term of how much cash I can rake in off of dumbass american players. Thats their way of thinking and how they see you as a customer.
Allods has some nice things, but in general it was a grind fest!
Long walking distances to get to a camp of 10 mobs that 100 players want to kill..
I played for several days! Liked the grafik, but the animations seemed slightly of timing
and the general gameplay seemed pretty repeatable to me! (kill amount X)
I played 1 character on both sides to level 10.
But if you haven't tryed it, Try it.