Allods Online Q & A

I got some things poking around in the head of mine after reading the post at Massively.com on their upcoming Q&A with the AO team. They have a great site, but the general reader base isn’t as focused on AO as we, the current players, are. They even got some crazy questions wanting to know about the logos….come on..logos?

So I am here to start off with my own group of questions I plan on trying to get some information on and any others that readers might post (as long as they are asking something worthwhile..not like the logo one). So let me get started.

PvE/PvP Reward System – How is this going to work? Will it be a set gear for PvE raids and a set gear for just killing people or will they be separate but on the same level? If they offer set bonuses, can they be intermixed? Will hardcore raiders/PvP’ers have a distinct advantage via gear over the slower paced gamer in the game that still is trying to compete?

Astral Ships – My knowledge is limited on the subject so I’ll be sticking to some factors I think a lot of players might like. Will we get the option (cash shop or drop/very long guild quest) to customize our ship by guild? This could be coloring options, guild crests on the hull/sails. What about trophies of Astral Demon/Raid kills being mounted on the ship? One last question on this would be ship size, will the ship get larger as the size of the guild grows possibly? From the size of the ships I have seen on YouTube currently, 150 people might be crowed/laggy especially in fights.

Housing – This gets asked in every game out there so you know it’s coming. What about Housing in game? If we make this a guild only option, then it would probably based in the Astral somewhere, so a guild Allods possibly (instanced based of course)?

Battleground System – It works! PvP’ers are all crying over the flag system since the game basically is a PvP game. So are there any options for a battleground coming or being fleshed out? (If done similar to Warhammer scenarios, that would be awesome) If you only implemented even 1 (could be a fight for a resource Allods?) it would be great, as long as we could queue up from anywhere and more could be added as the game goes along.

Solo Astral Play – I don’t see it but I have seen the questions asked on the forums, so I’ll bite. What if you are max rank, missed out on your guild nightly foray into space and can’t find a PUG with a ship to go out into the deep blue, what form of Astral Play can a solo player look forward too? ( My thoughts would be adding tiny Allods that would be used for repeatable quests giving you a skiff to fly short runs on to gather items and then fly back/small astral demon fights (think Empire intro))

Future Content/Classes/Races – I know it’s extremely early but we all want to know about the longevity here of the game. Could we possibly see additions land masses being found that bring us to other lands where we are doing things off ship? What about some of the more standard races from fantasy (Dwarves)? Will Empire be getting their “animal” race possibly? Classes would be another thing as time goes in any game, adding 1 or 2 more classes just makes sense as long as they are not game breaking to a point (DK’s?)

That’s most of the thoughts coming from me as I wait (even longer!) for Open Beta now. What are some of everyone else’s thoughts or things they might like to know?

Changes Incoming

As I had started this blog originally for my time in Warcraft, it was themed accordingly to that point. As my time has gone on, I realize that specific gaming blogging is fun, but topics can be sparse during time away or periods of no real news in the current game being played.

With this, I am working on changing the theme of this blog to accommodate my gaming atmosphere more in tuned to my feelings over the whole MMO scene rather than specific game blogging. So expect to see some changes to the template over the next few days and more Allods Online posts as well as other topics as well.

Allods, You confound me!

So I was pretty much set. I had played through every class and got a starter feeling on each and what class I had the most fun with up to that point. I was done. In my mind, there was no need to go any further as time was dwindling down and I am not the kind to spoil myself the fun of the real game when I am just testing (I only let myself go to level 10 in the Open Beta of WoW).

So what does the Allods team go and do? They extend the beta…..! No I am not mad, just frustrated as I could have done just a few more levels before stopping where I had but now I have all this play time until the 10th!

What will I do!

Well, I guess I’ll get some experience with the crafting side of things as I’d like to be better informed of what is going on with that. I have an idea of the route I want to take but I need to make sure I understand how it works.

Well, hope everyone is having fun in the game as it wasn’t closed on us, and that’s a good thing as the withdrawal might have made me go do something crazy, like re-subbing to Warhammer Online….nuts I tell ya!

PvP Flagging ,Fear of Death and the Death of /Lol?

There is a lot of forum bantering and outright crying from people about changes with the latest patch. People, I am here to tell you to officially shut up! Stop whining because you now have people that will be non-flagged and ruining your gaming experience because you want to kill them and you can’t because of the flagging system. Not everyone likes to PvP all the time. Some people want to just log in and play the game for a short time period and not have to worry about getting jumped upon.

It’s not mandatory now and I like the change. Why? Because of the fact that not only does it impact my desire to PvP or not when I log in and play, it also affects how much experience I get while playing. If I really want to get leveled up fast to get to the whole “End Game” of AO, then I am going to be perma-flagged while playing to make sure that I am maximizing my Fatigue AND Experience, which means PvP will happen. Will I be mad at those people that don’t flag up while leveling? No, because if I am flagged and level up while getting ganked, ganking, and doing PvP runs for breaks from the normal leveling grind, then those of us that do that should be better equipped knowledge wise of what worked and didn’t work in a PvP setting than the initial player who finally gets to 40 and starts PvPing then.

What could be included to help entice more players to flag up? The bonus to experience is nice but how about a debuff to those people that just have to go gank lowbies? Let’s call it the “Coward” debuff. This would be placed on players that attack other players over 5 levels lower than them. This debuff would stack, say up to 3 times, and each debuff would effectively bring them closer to being in line as a level 1 character. So in theory, low level players could flag up in low level zones, and not really have the fear that they are going to be ganked as it effectively adds another “Fear” effect to the gankers.

While we are talking about Fear, let’s talk about the Fear of Death. Honestly…get over it! “If I die, I am going to be useless and not able to play because I can’t kill anything!” whining again. This Fear of Death in AO actually brings me back to a P2P MMO that had a similar system, but that game took experience away, made you go back to where you died to recover your gear, and could possibly unlevel you. That game was EQ and look how it is still going after 10 years of being out there AND competing with Warcraft which has a very lame “Oh well you died” where nothing happens. I like the Fear of Death. I think it will make some of the player base in AO work harder to better themselves so that they do not die. It might help to get rid of the “Lets Zerg!” mentality and bring a tactical system to PvP. Sure it’s going to suck to die, and have to wait to go again. Sure it’s going to suck to farm quests in game to get the items that remove the effect. It could be worse though and I think the whole idea of bringing back the “Fear of Death” is a great thing.

On my last note…WTF happened to /Lol? I tried the 5 remaining classes I have and it didn’t work on any of them. Some of the others like /Dance still worked and /Sleep, but /Lol is gone. Why can’t I laugh? Is there a new “Fear of Lol” system in place?

On My Own Allod

I haven’t been able to play for a few days due to Real Life (what’s that right?) training for a job in the IT field. I have some new posts coming though so stay tuned and I’ll get those up shortly.

In the mean time, do what I haven’t and play some Allods Online

I’m in the News!

I got a shout out from the Allods Team for  TRYING to be a good little blogger about a game I am really excited about playing. I can’t  take all the credit though as there are some other great places to get your fix of interesting reads about Allods Online.

Thanks for the link Allods Team, I appreciate it!

Allods Online Class Reviews (Levels 1 through 7)

Yes, yes…it isn’t a great level 40 review on every class, but why would you want that? It’s the first few levels of a class grinding through quests and mobs where you find out if you like the class or not. Sure, end game changes things but if you don’t like the initial few levels, you probably won’t make it to the end game as that class anyways, unless you are extremely stubborn and refuse to change.

So most of my time so far this beta has been trying out all the classes to see how they play, what they are capable of and getting an idea on their “fun” factor. So below will be my thoughts on what I think these classes are like.

Warrior. Finally I think a game company has gotten the Warrior class pretty darn close to what people that love that type of class should be. This is your Conan loving, sword slashing, take a beating so I can beat on your next class. Meat shield doesn’t come close to talking about how I think Warriors are, especially at lower levels. I played a warrior up to level 7 and thought the entire time…does this guy ever take damage? Sure the HP dropped some but not enough to worry me. For you Warrior lovers out there, the DPS is there and the tanking is there. If you want to tank in this game, you can, if you want to DPS as a Warrior in this game, you can.

Paladin. Like the Warrior, the Paladin can take a beating. Their mechanic is the Barrier system that absorbs an amount of damage and sets it on a 10 second timer before it actually hits the Paladin. There are abilities you get that absorb some of that damage and reset the barriers (you get 3 total). Along with this, you do some pretty good damage and healing.

Healer. This class surprised me. Normally playing a healer is mind numbing at best. The stereotypical thought is that you need healing spells as a healer, and DPS is an afterthought and never really giving to you because…well, you are supposed to heal. Not the idea here. The Healer actually does some decent DPS with their spells and can bring the heals as well. From some of the 30+ Healers I talked to, getting plate AND being to possibly DPS in instances make the class even more fun to them.

Mage. Mages get a weird mechanic. You cast a fire spell, you get an “attunement” to that branch. This stacks up to 5 times. Now what you do with this is either nothing, or use this to “possibly” get a buff in the way of healing, mana back and others or it can take health, mana and so on. It is completely random and after trying to find a set order to what you get, it changed every time. Mages still bring massive amount of damage and getting used to their mechanic will be interesting to see what they can do.

Summoner. One of my favorites, this is your basic Warlock/Necromancer class from most MMO’s. You do not get a pet straight out of the box though and you actually need to use your talent points to get your first one, but it basically plays the same. Pets are based off of what race you pick, so the Arisen I played got mechanical pets while Elves (spit, spit) got skeletons from the same talent. Nice mechanic in my opinion. Also, these guys can bring some fundamental healing to a group…yes that’s right…HEALING. I foresee a lot of people playing this class because of this and for their DPS which is pretty decent.

Warden. If you have played Everquest before, then this class will take you back to the days of the Beastlord. You can cast, you can melee, your pet can tank, you get some nice minimal healing for you and pet, some nice buffs in the form of potions for others. It has been a long time since I have seen a true pet class like this in a MMO and not have them based off of ranged weapons. This is a very fun class and look forward to seeing what they do in large scale PvP.

Psionicist. In honesty, this isn’t a great review for this class as at lower levels, playing this class for me was a grind. Not a bad one as this class takes time. You need to know your stuff and be able to prep for every fight beforehand. This is a class that controls the situation. To control it you need to know what to do before you attack and prep yourself ahead of the fight. My experience on this class was more of a watch my buddy start a level one and play up to level 7 (watched not play with) and then him jump on his level 33 Psi and then show me what they are capable of. There is a HUGE difference in the play style here and if you like the class and stick with it, you will be rewarded with a great class at higher levels.

Scout. Pretty much what you think of a ranged DPS class in most MMO’s out there today. I honestly blanked out on the game play during most of this class as this isn’t a fun style for me. What I can tell you is that this class will be your Rogue class if you played Warcraft (and who hasn’t). They get a stealth, luckily on a 5 minute cool down. They get some “stun locks” though and can be a pain in that sense, but honestly, they are a fun class. I did like playing them even though I don’t like the play style.

Over all I have to give a big thumbs up to the developers of this game on their class design, Sure there are bugs currently that affect every class, but it is still beta. I never did “hate” playing a class rather than I did find playing a class not to my liking. The abilities every class brings is pretty nice and nice to see that a developer noticed that game play starts at 1, not at the highest level. You want to have fun from the start and get better later on, not be boring and slowly get a little better over time. I liked every class and suggest that you try them all out as well, as what you think a class plays like based on other games is not how they play out in Allods.

Allods Online CBT4 Day 1

So things went pretty well last night. I actually got OUT of the starting area/instance and into the city. This was a big accomplishment to finally see some of the game…and the sky! I have to give credit though as the initial area where you start interacting with other players beneath the city (Empire side) and killing things for quests went fairly easy do to the fact that the mobs are on a fast respawn rate. So even though everyone is looking for the same thing to kill, there is actually plenty to go around.

The city proper was a sight to behold in itself.

This is the first view of the city as you come up for a breath of fresh air and actually into the world. That is actually how far you can see too as the draw distance is amazingly far compared to other games. See those smokestacks on the roofs in the distance…they are real and you’ll be over in that area at some point soon.

Another thing is the detail of the city and the skyline.

The point of this picture is that I can’t SHOW you what’s going on with that building, but I can tell you. It’s electrified, literally. There are arcs of electricity that roll and randomly run around the top part of the building and really makes you go…”Whoah!”… all Keanu like. This game truly is shaping to be something amazing.

The quest givers are easy to notice (they have the icons above them) and if you open your map up, you get waypoints on there so you know exactly where you have to go. I am truly getting into this game and definitely see making this a “Main” game if it keeps going this good.

Reminder – CBT4 Starts Today!

Allods Online is going to be a big, big game on release this year. If you want to know why then today would be a good time to find out. It’s in the Free to Play model with a cash shop but don’t let that deter you from checking out what could be the biggest new game of the year.

It has the design of Warcraft and Warhammer. The PvP skirmishes of the old South Shore and Hillsbrad fights and the fun of the Tier 1 runs in Warhammer. It has hip to ship combat with you being able to actually board their ship. It has a newer, updated fantasy feel with a side of technology. There is a new fun design in a race called the Gibberlings, and so much, much more.

Yes I am a fan, and I think you would be too.

The New Game in Town

Well, not yet, but it is coming and I am sure it is going to be what you expect. The game in question is Allods Online. What makes it so great? Many, many things give this game flair like most games in the MMO market today, but this game comes at us in another way.

First, yes, I am no longer supporting my Warlock in World of Warcraft. I haven’t cancelled my account as of yet, but I have found a new class that brings to focus what I really wanted Poxus to be in the game. The new champion is an Arisen Summoner. He plays a lot like a Warlock in Warcraft. He Dots (damage over time) somewhat the same. He heals himself (think Death Coil without the fear effect but better at healing) AND…he can also be a support healer. That’s right! a warlock type class that also has heals.

Another great aspect of this game so far is the Free to Play model. What? No way you’d play a F2P game? You’re going to stick with WoW and not a cash shop game? sorry to burst your bubble but WoW is a cash shop game and is about to become even more so of one. Don’t think so?

Have you paid for a server transfer? A race change? A new mini pet? A name change? There’s your cash shop folks. You’re testing the waters for what Blizzard is going to be bringing you soon. Same as Allods Online, but why pay $15 a month upfront for the game as well?

Especially when Allods brings you the same visual quality? The same polished game play that they have. A better PvP system. End game battles of PvE and PvP that matter. Nothing yet? How about guild ship battles where everyone is doing something to help the ship (STO can’t touch this!). Comes across an enemy faction ship, work together to pilot, defend and take out the other ship AND THEN board their ship to take them out and possibly take any loot they may have gotten from a raid! Oh yeah, that’s right…ship to ship combat.

So if I have gotten you interested, I say go take a look for yourself. Give yourself an hour and don’t judge the game based off the first look of it. This isn’t your normal sci-fi MMO. It’s more.