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My overly extensive experience with AO
LittleNicky
Member Posts: 5
Hello, I am here today to share my exprience with Allods Online with you to answer your quetions if this game is -Any good? -Fun? - P2W? -Has a healthy community? - Worth spending time and money on? -Has a future?
-WARNING: THIS IS GONNA BE LONG, TL:DR AT THE END.
Before I begin, let me just state my experience with the game, I am playing this game for over year and half (with breaks), I leveled 3 toons to level 51 (the max), done all the endgame contents of this game (minus some bosses in endgame raids), experienced all the different classes, playstyles, made class guides that got me 2nd and 3rd places, used the itemshop extensively for times or for some time not even once. So overall you can say I have vast experience with the game, so what I'm gonna say is 100% valid, accurate and true.
So lets start.
is this game any good? In general yes, on the surface it is a F2P game, you don't have to spend even a dime on this. You got many classes and races to pick from, the leveling is okish with the usual "go kill 10 of these, go gather 10 of those" quests, and occasional dungeons, the atmosphere of the game is really polished and well done too, the graphics are clean and nice, with a special mention to the astral space with his VERY unique setting, and overall the game is very welcoming at first glance. We will come back to this question when I finish with the other questions.
Is this game fun? AO as a whole can be a lot of fun, leveling your toon, seeing how he grows stronger with more and more skills, aquiring cool looking and strong gear, doing astral rides and batteling huge bosses with parties and raids.
But fun is a subjective term, so we will have to go back to this question at the end too.
P2W? Depends who you ask, if you ask the die-hard veterans of AO they'll tell you this game isn't P2W, you can earn everything in the store without spending a single $, they'll also give you countless examples of people they that got everything from the store for free.
But if you ask a normal AO player, they'll must certainly tell you this game is as P2W as it can be. Why? first because the game shop actually has items that give you a raw advantage over others in form of more damage and defence % called runes, those runes range from level 1 to 13, and they require 3 things to create, level 1 runes which can be bought from vendor, gold dust which can be bought from vendor, and lastly crystal chips which can only be bought from the game shop or other players. Those crystals are over priced both in shop and when trading with others.
I encourage you to google "allods online rune calculator" and see for yourself how much do the higher levels cost, something around 100K crystal chips for 1 rune, if you compare that with the shop's rune price you'll reach amazing and shocking numbers of cash you'll need in order to obtain those. "So they are probably very rare and no one got them" Wrong, many AO veterans over the course of the years got them, and its up to you new AO player to reach them if you want to play competitive with them.
Other cash shop P2W items are combat mounts (available only in AO NA), potent elixirs giving more stats, higher patronage level (more damage %), and the strongbox items.
Oh, the strongbox items, those strongboxes could drive even the most chill man in the world insane, What are they? well once in a while there is a special sale that offers one type of those strongboxes, in them you'll find many P2W items such as extra earring slot, trinket that buffs your damage and defence stats, more rubies (to upgrade skills), more talents points, more stats points, etc. All those items are HEAVILY P2W items that can make the world difference between a player who has them all and a player who don't.
Now the best part about those items is that, you can only get them from those strongboxes or from other players (very overpriced), but how those strongboxes work? simple, you know lottery? the same darn way. You basically got a very small chance with each opened strongbox to earn that P2W item, and a very high chance to win some other trash loot, so some people can be lucky and win their item on first try, others can ever open 100 of those and not get it, so in a sense, it's AO playing with your money.
AO veterans would not know this feeling a new player has because they play for years and over the time acquire all those items, but for new players? You'll need:
-Mount: The areas in the game are big and you get a horse mount for a limited time so you have to buy a mount, which are very overpriced from players, so must sane people would buy them from the shop.
-Extra bag space: the default bag is so tiny it's funny, you'll NEED more bag space when you reach higher levels.
-Runes: All the serious guilds in the game would only let you in with at least 6 runes levels 6-7+, all endgame content in the game can be done with 6 runes level 4+ (below it'll be very hard for you and your party).
-P2W strongbox items: don't even bother trying to get those from other players, they are really overpriced, so only shop.
and the list goes on and on, now of course you can just reach level 51 and grind-grind-grind gold to buy those items, but it'll take a long time and there is absolutely no fun in that. (grinding same areas, same mobs for what seems to be like eternity). So if you use the shop to buy those items, overall price range between 100-500$ depends on your luck.
Has a healthy community? No, both in europe and NA the population is really low (especially europe), all the way to level 51 endgame you'll see very few players or none, at level 51 you have your big guild mafias, controlling the endgame GvG system, most of them are arrogant, power feeded kids which won't welcome you at all.
AO's community as a whole is very sick, just try speaking your mind about the game at their forums, you'll get life threats very soon. The population is dying and more and more players leave, leaving the veteran players all by themselves to play "gods" with the game.
Because the population is so low, it'll be very difficult for you to do endgame content as you'll have very long queue for PvP battlegrounds, very long waiting time to gather a party for astral, etc.
So you left to play with those "game gods", which because of the P2W items are far far ahead of you and can basically one-shot you whenever they wish.
Last 2 questions I'll answer together, is AO worth spending time and money on, and if AO has a future?
In my honest opinion no and no. Why? while AO has updates from time to time which can make the game seems very alive at first glance, you have to remember this game originates from Russia, and there the game is very active and profitable. In NA and EU the game is dying and very non profitable, which can be seen by gpotato's revenue reports of losing a lot of money, and by the announcment of webzen buying the dying gpotato.
In Russia AO is their national pride, THEIR mmorpg, and this can be seen by their huge community there.
In europe and NA this is not the case, as there are tons more of other F2P and subscription mmorpgs.
Also as I said the game has a huge problem with population, because mainly AO is very not new players friendly, the game at first is complicated, very cash shop based, and lacking begginers so you'll have hard time playing alone all the time.
Is it worth to spend time and money on? I believe not, you got much better games out there that have big and prospering communities, F2P games with no P2P items whatsoever, non grindy nature, etc etc.
The only reason I see if someone wants to start playing this game is if they start playing it with their friends and they commit, as playing this as a solo player is a very hard and harsh time.
So to answer my first questions, is it any good? fun? depends on you, after you read all that I've talked about here, what do you think?
TL:DR- Very P2W, dying community, grindy, VERY harsh for new players, not worth your time.
I'll be visiting from time to time to answer your further questions, until then, Tera F2P here I come.
Comments
i would replace all "P2P" in your post with "P2W", since P2P is term used for classic subscription model where you have to pay to get to the game, not to get advantages.
Otherwise nice post
As an Allods player, I can confirm and completely agree with this guy, he is telling the truth without overreacting at all.
Good post and very accurate.
Recently stopped by the EU forum as I was considering coming back and was shocked at how far this game has fallen. GPotato have basically gutted it like a fish; taken everyone for what they can get and have now dumped it on someone else.
As a warning I would say to anyone new to this genre, treat anything run by GPotato as toxic waste and stay the hell away.
Indeed, and you can tell that people got sick of it by the fact their revenue reports showing big money loss, and the fact they've been sold to webzen.
But the most sad part about it all is that we (the old school players of AO) talked in the forums all the time about possible changes that can make the game better, I've heard plenty of very good changes/additions but gpotato won't listen and just remove your posts from their forums, some say it's because the russian company won't let them make changes, but I think that if they bought the game from them they can have it changed how they please (same like Tera bought from Korea).
When i played about 8 or 9 months ago, i actually struck up a convo with...as the OP put it...one of these endgame gods i guess.
He seemed disgruntled about the game and community. I remember it being more lively than the OP suggested in the newer player areas, though that was some time ago.
The jist of the conversation was to basically not bother progressing unless you are going to pay "big money" was the exact term. Wouldnt give me a monetary amount and sounded embarassed with how much he had spent, i think he had all 10 and 11 runes and looked really cool so im assuming lots of deco stuff too.
Reason he played was becasue he had spent so much.
I was told if i dont spend i would be shunned from endgame, and stomped in pvp, and that is why most quit. That also the minimum requirement to join active endgame had increased beyond what you can get free in game and was getting more and more demanding, even excluding people who had paid a decent amount.
http://allods-wiki.gpotato.com/wiki/Runes
This is the wiki that lets you know what to expect to pay, i dont know the gpot to dollar conversion off the top of my head....but ONE...just one rune level 11 will run you 115,716 gpots Scroll down to the bottom at quick conversion.
I forget how many rune slots there are...but theres at least 6 of them. Notice at the bottom they just left the top few rune levels empty...
Lets assume its 100 gpots to $1 you can expect a $1157 investment times 6 to be with the endgame crowd...at least good among them. This is just runes the OP did a decent job highlighting all the other money sinks in game.
You could soften the blow with in game money slightly. I was told they removed all the good gold farming methods however...and that gold was really tight even if you spent money in game.
Now even if the game is decent. Were talking a whole lot of money to participate in endgame. As the OP highlighted...why not just play a better game for less...hell you could sub to many p2p games for a long time for that kind of cash.
I would also like to remind people, and part of the reason i checked the game out again (i played briefly at launch) was that they reduced the cash shop burden making a lot of needed items free in the cash shop...forget their names but you basically use to need to buy these items every single time you died. They got rid of that and made the cash shop more tolerant.
Heres the kicker:
As was stated above....this games not doing so hot...the F2P host Gpotato isnt doing so well either....they had recently shut down a bunch of their games. So what happens to these people who did spend $1000-$10,000 on this game should Gpotato go under? What if Webzen shuts this game down as its not doing so hot? What if Webzen decides to revive the game and reduce the cost of all those items, or remove them entierly? Yeah theres going to be some really angry people out a decent chunk of cash.
IMO...the rune system...should be achieved in game only. And its flat damage boost and damage mitigation is far too strong. The exponential combination properties of making them, and the root of their insane price later on, needs to be removed.
The game has LOTS of other ways to suck money from you without this system, and the root of the games issues lies within its rune system.
Omg please don't sully Anarchy Online's great name by calling crap like Allods Online "AO" also...
AO (like UO) is a honored title that only one mmo is deserving of it.
Don't get me wrong from this, the game IS good, it has a lot of really nice features like having your own big ship and
actually flying (with rudder, engine, cannons, energy management) it, the whole concept of forming a party, taking off
in your ship and flying in search for astral islands (which when you land on them serve as dungeons) is amazing and I've
never seen anything like that in a mmorpg before.
And those oldies that remember this game in beta, know how popular he was..
It's the greediness of the devs that killed this game.. Seriously there shouldn't be in ANY game an item that gives you
up to 130% bonus damage and 100% (or so) damage reduction, thats just so wrong..
So you'll think the devs learned from their mistakes and now they try to fix their game considering its on the verge
of extinction.. WRONG next patch they add another p2w items.
Items that only people that spend a lot of time and money on this game can afford and make the gap between
veteran paying players to new players EVEN BIGGER, amazing how greedy some people can be..
First of all, nice post. Your review is very interesting and your reactions are valid all in all. As a gamer, with short experience with Allods, but long with the MMO-genre in whole, where I began with UO and almost played all the big titles out there, I can fully agree with your opinions, and also be more negative in some aspects. The game isn´t ''really polished'' as it is said to be, compared to the big titles, WoW, GW2, Rift etc.
The game is kinda of only compareable with F2P games. Not good enough to be able to compete with P2P games. However, as a F2P game, it got some really nice graphics, since that genre is almost filled with ''trash graphics'' becasue so far, big companies with big budgets haven´t taken the risk with the F2P market yet.
In the end, with the come of new F2P titles, like Tera and SWTOR, it is almost impossible for old F2P games to compete nowadays. Big companies are begining to enter that industry, and gPotato gonna probably close Allods sooner or later.
Compared to other high-quality F2P games like Aion, it is not compareable either!
Thx for the review
Except for the P2P needing to read P2W, I find nothing wrong at all with this post. I'm not sure the entire problem of the game is the rune system, but it's there at the core and it's really P2W. The whole game is about as P2W as it gets, but of course you have to level your toon and get the gear as well.
It's a steep climb for new players and unless you're just there for the ride to 51 and don't really care about endgame and PvP you're better off not getting into it. It's F2P, that's the plus of it if you can't spend the cash. If you don't mind getting pwnd from time to time and know your place and stay away from the boys of the enemy faction you can actually enjoy the game quite a bit. Becoming competitive will cost you so much money it's not even funny.
Played this game over a year ago. Got level 3 level 8 runes and 3 level 7. Think I spent quite a few dollars getting those, but I had fun.
I recalled that this was one of the most beautiful games i ever played (eye candy)
Will patch and check it out. Don't know if I will be competive.
@op Thanks for the post.
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
So whats happening with it now? Last thing I read on the EU forum was that it had been taken over by Webzen and then nothing.
The EU forum has less life than the moon and even less info.
If Gpotato no longer have their nasty, greedy little mitts on this game I might go back.
Webzen just bought gPotato and Gala-Net which means nothing more than another company got to the table. Still same ppl stay where they were.
I take it then that they haven't announced any changes to the cash shop?
WebZen doesn't need to take lessons from Gala-net when it comes to milking F2P games with Open World PvP and P2W tactics. They're just as bad, if not worse. If WebZen has their way they'll probably introduce damage to your runes upon death and require you to pay real money to repair them or buy a one-use cash shop item that prevents them from getting cursed.
Oh well, Gala-net or WebZen, no improvement there. The one that was most proficient at milking players got the most money and bought the other one.
If you have a desire to be competitive in this game, then expect to fork over a crapload of money.
Game is as good as dead then considering the cash shop was probably the biggest millstone around its neck. Shame
Pretty much. Really shame as this is really the only f2p with item shop by original design that could use subscription or freemium model to work really. Especially that Allods could be quite easily adapted to both. Decent overall and one of the most fun levelling I have ever seen (been playing for like 10 years now).
I really have to agree there, those first few month of open beta were the most fun I EVER had in an MMO. It was even better than GW2 (pretty massive Open World PvP in one the top PvP guilds of the server) and then came Fear of Death and the Cash Shop...