Two more Allods Online videos

This will probably be my last Allods post for a while as the beta is now down until the 29th of the month.  I am still unbelieving that I am liking the game, especially as much as I do.  I am actually going to miss it until the next phase!

I shot about 40GBs of video while in-game over the last phase, most of it inside the starting area.  I am a total noob when it comes to video editing so I have pieced it together and learned as I go.  This next video is a pretty simple one, it is the Empire starting tutorial, which takes place on board an Astral ship.  I did no real editing to this and kept the in-game audio, all I really added to it was annotations through You Tube, but you can really see the attention to detail and the production values in the game.  This one is in HD so you can get a better idea of the graphical detail.

Notice the quality of the voice acting, the fire on board the ship, the animations and the small details.  The game screams high production values throughout.  This is truly a triple-A MMO.

The next video was actually not filmed by myself.  I downloaded it from the Russian forums and posted it on You Tube because there were few examples of Allods PvP on You Tube.  All credit for the video goes to RazGib on the Russian servers for this excellent video.

This video reminds me so much of the early WoW days.  The combat is fluid, the animations are excellent and the fights are just plain fun to watch.  The paladin is also very, very good.  I thought that maybe Paladins were just over-powered until I saw the second fight, where he fights another paladin.  He absolutely obliterates the guy.  He is just good….damn good.

Hope you enjoy the videos!  Let me know what ya think!

Astral Ship Battles and Wouldn’t it be Funny?

For most of the your time leveling in Allods, you will see very few new things.  Though I think the game, at this stage, is the most truly complete “theme-park” MMO I have played since early WoW, there is little that truly seperates it from WoW.  The art direction is top-notch, the classes are fun and interesting, the character stat/ability customization is great, the world is open and immersive, the quests are well written and the instances seem fun and challenging….but, then again, WoW has all of that.  WoW’s graphics are not as good, their stat/ability customization is not quite as deep but there is little that is truly innovative in Allods Online as compared to WoW.

So, why play Allods Online over WoW?  Why leave your level 80s and start over from the beginning in Allods Online?

Two words:  Astral Ships

Kanian Astral Ship

Astral ships, astral battles and astral exploration are the single biggest thing that differentiates WoW from Allods Online.  It will add a whole new dimension to Allods endgame.  What are astral ships, you ask?  Read on and find out!

Astral ships serve a multitude of purposes in Allods Online.  They serve as player housing of a sort, as they are owned by people or guilds and can have a unique design.  I believe, though I am not 100% sure, that “trophies” can be hung in the astral ship to decorate it, much like homes in LotRO and EQ2.  This allows the ability to personalize your astral ship and make it your own.

Astral Ship Interior

Secondly, they serve as transport and exploration vehicles.  The Astral is supposedly huge in Allods, as big as the normal world entire.  From what I have seen in Allods so far that will be huge.  Much bigger, for instance, than Aion’s Abyss.  In addition to being huge, it is random.  From a developer’s interview located here, even though you got to point B one way, does not necessarily mean you will get back to point A the same way.  Consider this quote:

The Astral is a dynamic, changing substance that appears to have a life of its own. This means that any travel away from the security of an allod is very random, with lots of exploration available. Players who find a way through to one place using a certain course should keep in mind that they may never get back to the same location by following the same course.

That really brings out the explorer in me, that is something I want to wander around in.  It adds an entire new dimension to gameplay.  If they can pull that off, it will be unlike any other MMO around.

But what good is exploration if there is nothing to do once you get there?  Luckily, Allods Online has tons for you to do in the Astral.  There are roaming (flying? floating?) monsters in the Astral, some taking a full raid or guild Astral Ship to defeat.  In addition, many of the endgame raids are located on small Allods (islands) that are floating around in the Astral. This means that your raid will have to travel to the island in an Astral ship, dock it and go in and complete the raid.

One of the UIs for Astral Ships

This opens up the next option for Astral content, PvP and pirates!  You see, once you complete that raid or kill that boss and loot it, all that loot is loaded into your Astral ship’s hull and can only be distributed to players after they dock the ship at a friendly port.  This opens up your ship for attack by player pirates.  Not only can you attack other ships, using magic and cannons, but you can disable and board the ship.  At that point, PvP battles open up on board the ship, as one side protects their hard-earned loot, while the other tries to take it.

When players unlock Astral battleships, they can travel in rather safe zones, fighting small demons and discovering small allods. As their fighting skills develop and their ships improve, players will soon realize that they are ready to embark on far more dangerous adventures and explore the far Astral. There they will encounter huge monsters that hold useful trophies, find unknown islands and have the opportunity to fight other ships. Once their ship is packed with treasure, they need to set back home. The return trip can be as eventful as the journey, as a booty-laden ship is an attractive target for pirates that are hidden among the conduits that connect the Astral.
Players have lots of choice to get back home. They can set off in a random and unknown direction, and risk getting lost and losing their ship with all the treasures in its hold. They can engage pirates and defeat them in battle, or try their luck and see if they can sneak past the pirates. Risk is an important part of the Sarnaut world.

Players get their Astral ship through quests, gold and patience.  They are a large endeavour and something that will have to be worked toward, they are not handed to players.  There are smaller ships that can be owned by one person and controlled by up to six and there are larger ships that are guild controlled and require up to 24 people to control.  Each person on board will have a role, be it as a pilot, gunner or navigator.  There will even be a engineer that will control a team of goblins who will run around the ship and repair various damage.

No other “theme-park” MMO has anything like this.  It truly adds something new and interesting to endgame and if it is as polished and fun as the rest of Allods Online, it will be a joy to experience.

So, in the title of this post I asked a question:  Wouldn’t it be funny?

Wouldn’t it be funny if Allods Online, a free to play, sword and magic, fantasy MMO, ended up having better “space” combat than Star Trek Online?  The more I read about each respective title, the more I believe that may end up being the case.

That, to me, is humorous.

My Xaes Video

As promised, here is my first Allods Online video.  Filmed in Xaes, the level 10 Empire instance, it shows a few of the bosses and trash from the instance.  We had a level 20 paladin tanking it this time, so the boss fights go by fast.  If you are all the correct level the fights are much more difficult.

Please excuse the lack of editing, as I am new at this and I hope to get better as time goes on.  Also, please turn down the sound if you are not a fan of black/death metal.  The music I used is by a band named Dissection.  I was going to use only in-game audio but we had vent going and there was a bunch of random, politically incorrect talk over it!

End of Allods Online Closed Beta 2. Nooooooo!!!!

This weekend has been busy for me.  I work retail so the Christmas holiday is hell.  Long hours, on my feet all day, customer stress, it all adds up to a very, very tired blogger.

Even with being dead tired, however, I could not resist logging many hours in on Allods Online.  I knew that Monday was the close of this beta phase and I really wanted to see more of the game, plus the game is just good.  Really good.  And getting better.

The weekend started with getting my summoner up to level 10 and finding a group for Xaes, which is the first instance in the game for the Empire side.  I really wanted to see if Allod’s engaging game play would continue to shine in instanced content.  I was not disappointed.

Xaes takes place inside the Empire capitol city of Nezebgrad.  Keeping with the Empire’s industrial/magical feel, the instance is inside and around a factory/sewer area of some sort.  There are a number of quests that can be picked up, both outside and inside the instance and completed within.  The instance requires a group of six on-level participants and is highly challenging.

I have been let down by instanced content many times after WoW.  Every MMO since WoW has dropped the ball in some way as far as instanced dungeons are concerned.  WAR’s instances were horrible.  The mobs were buggy and had pathing issues, the bosses were buggy and had abilities that, many times, did not work.  LotRO had decent instances but the loot tables for the bosses were horrible, though that may have been fixed since last I played.  No MMO has had instances that felt as “smooth” as WoW’s.  Something always let me down.

Allods Online’s first instance was like WoW.  That is a compliment and, for me, a pretty big one.  We went in with a group of level tens, a paladin tank, 2 summoners, 2 mages and a priest.  The mobs had no pathing issues or bugs that I could see, the instance was well laid out and the bosses were challenging without being infuriating.  They also dropped good, useable loot.

The bosses, of which there were three, were mostly of the “tank and spank” variety, which one should expect from a level 10 instance but they did have a few special abilities and adds that caused us problems.  The trash was also challenging and there was enough of them to keep the instance engaging but not boring.

We advanced through the instance in about an hour or so and did not have a wipe, though we did come close a couple of times.  We found it necessary for the summoners to aid in healing during the boss fights, in addition to DPS’ing as the Priest had trouble keeping the Paladin alive at times.  There were many places that we had to use the Mages crowd control abilities to hold one mob while we concentrated on another and we had to plan out a few of the pulls, especially near the last boss.

Xaes is a very good instance, especially for a low level one.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and would do it multiple times.  I would put it up there with Shadowfang Keep as far as low level instances are concerned.

I ended up going through the instance a second time last night, though this time we had a level 20 paladin tanking.  Of course, that allowed us to run through in just a few minutes.  I recorded some video and am currently uploading it to youtube to post on the site, expect that later today.

In addition to leveling my summoner, I created a paladin and began leveling him.  He is now level eight and I think I may just like him better than the summoner.  There are some unique mechanics involved that make the paladin different than any other tank I have played in a MMO.  Let me tell you a bit about the paladin mechanics.

Offensively he plays pretty straight forward.  Many of the paladins abilities place a “seal” on the opponent.  Once you stack enough seals, you then use another ability that “detonates” the seals.  This does direct damage, places a DoT on the target and slows the target.  The amount of damage, the size of the DoT and the amount the target is slowed is dependent on the number of seals on the target at the time.  Seals can be stacked up to three.

In addition, the Paladin has very limited healing.  However, this works totally different than a WoW paladin.  Unlike the WoW paladin, main healing is not an option.  Instead, a paladin’s healing is mainly used as occasional heals to top himself or a group mate off.  Heals require “Canons”, which are obtained through prayer that can not be done during combat.  The prayer is about a five second cast and generates ten “Canons”  The first heal a paladin gets is a small HoT placed on the group member with the lowest health.  This is an instant cast which consumes two “Canons”.

Defensively is where the Paladin really differentiates itself from any other tank I have played.  The paladin has a mechanic called Barriers which absorb damage and stores it for ten seconds.  At the end of the ten seconds all damage is then done to the paladin at one time.  This sounds bad but the paladin has abilities that can absorb the damage, reflect it back at the target or spread the damage out over a longer period.

In short, the paladin has some control over when he takes damage and how he takes it.  This allows him to communicate with his healers and prepare them for damage, making healing spike damage easier.  One result of this is that I believe that there will really be a big gap between truly good paladins and mediocre or bad ones.   A good paladin will make boss tanking easier on the healer but a bad one could truly be a nightmare.

I am still not fully knowledgeable on how this mechanic works but I look forward to mastering it.  As of now, it looks like my main will be a paladin, so I will get much more time with him to master the mechanic.  I really do not want to be one of those bad paladins!

Stay tuned for the video coming later tonight!  Right now I am going to bed!

Continuing adventures in Allods Online.

I sit down in front of my PC tonight with the intention of playing Allods Online for a couple of hours.

I played for almost eight.

I have not done that for a long, long time.  I completely lost track of time and continually told myself “one more quest, one more”.  Not since my vanilla WoW days have I done that or at least done it without even noticing.

My Arisen Summoner

I restarted my Arisen Summoner this evening because I had a couple of real life friends that were going to get started in the game tonight as well.  We ended up with myself, an Arisen mage and an Orc warrior.  We flew through the quests at a rapid pace and I ended up the night at level nine.

My Summoner is a really interesting class.  In most ways he is like a WoW warlock.  I have a DoT, a pet and later I even get a fear.  However, I also have a heal and I have heard that later Summoners are among the best raid healers in the game.  It is an interesting combination and one I look forward to attempting to master.

Lenin?

Allods Online Impressions

So, today I played Allods Online for a bit.  I made three characters, two on the Legion side (Warden/Ranger) and one on the Imperial side (Summoner).  I leveled each up to about level 6 or so, so I am not yet well versed on gameplay, but I did get some good impressions and a few good screen shots.  I also took about 40GBs worth of video that I will need to edit when I have time.

My Arisen Summoner

I am going to break down my impressions into a few categories and then give a wrap-up at the end.  So, let’s start, shall we?

Free to play MMOs are all bad…..aren’t they?

I have never played a good free to play MMO.  Everyone I have tried has left me pointing at something and thinking “aaah, so that’s why it is free to play!”.  Something always rears it’s ugly head and I log off, never to play again.

But recently a couple of FTP MMOs have arisen that has made me rethink that stance.  The first one is Dungeons and Dragons Online.  Which, though developed as a pay MMO, has recently switched to the free to play model.  Kaldeen has a very good impressions post about it over on his blog and I agree with much of what he has to say.  Great PvE, that flows very well and plays great and it is a very solid game and one that I could find myself playing more often if I had not found Darkfall.

The second one has just started to grab my attention, Allods Online.  This one I had completely written off as a typical free to play MMO, a basic clone that tries to milk money from the player by offering a cash shop, one that you really have to use to be competitive.

However, a few blog entries by Keen (of Keen and Graev) have let it be known that this may not be the case.  After reading those impressions, it really sounds like Allods Online may have something to offer.  Keen describes a combination of WoW, with a bit of DAoC style PvP mixed in. A few interesting twists also exist to give a bit of innovation to the game:

First of all, there is a form of space-combat in huge ships called Astral Ships.  These can be manned by a single group or can be manned by up to 36 people, with each manning a different station.  Stations include engineer, gunner, pilot and navigator.

Raid bosses exist in the Astral space and can attack the Astral Ships.  In addition, players will often involve themselves in PvP fights over the raid bosses.  There are also 24 man raids that are in the more traditional WoW style.

All in all, it sound like Allods Online may be an interesting game.  I do have a few worries, chiefly being that it may be just a wee bit too cutesy for me.  The hamster/gerbil/teddy bear guys might just push it over the top.  I just don’t know if I could handle seeing a couple of hundred of those things running around.  It would be worse than gnomes and that’s saying something.

Secondly, I still worry about the cash shop.  I dislike a lot of free to play MMOs simply because they require extensive use of the cash shop to be competitive in the game.  In a MMO that has such extensive PvP this could be even a bigger requirement.

If they can balance the cash shop and make it a luxury instead of a requirement, I may be giving the game a try on release.  That is, if I can stomach the teddy bear things.

A big SALUTE to Fallen Earth!

This is a very cool thing that Icarus Studios (maker’s of Fallen Earth) is doing for the members of the United States military.  Twenty percent off for any player in the Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines.  Plus, a free T-Shirt.  Not a bad deal.

I am not currently playing Fallen Earth, nor do I plan to in the forseeable future, but I have to give a big kudos to Icarus for this.  It’s a small token of thanks to our members in the military and that can not be anything but applauded.

Good job, Icarus!

Men in tights!!

I love archery in games and Darkfall is no exception!

The Catacalysm will truly be the end for this old Hunter.

I played WoW since release and other than a month layoff before the release of TBC and WotLK, I have played it constantly up until about 7 months ago.  But, my time with WoW is at an end.  It is still an excellent game and I do not begrudge those who still enjoy it.  It still has some amazing art direction, some of the coolest boss fights in the business  and, except major patch days, a solid game engine.  But, alas, it is over for me.

I spent my last couple of weeks in WoW roaming all of my old haunts; Blackrock Mountain, Silithus, Hillsbrad Foothills and Stranglethorn Vale.  There was no one there, I saw no players except for the occasional lone leveler or gatherer but it brought back a lot of good memories.  Memories of intense PvP fights, 40 man raids, trying to get into Blackrock Mountain on a Horde dominated server.  All these memories dredged up.

Nostalgia.

The announcement of the Cataclysm expansion really drove it home for me; those days are gone and they are never coming back.  The game has changed and moved on and I am left wandering where it went.  I don’t blame Blizzard, they followed the money and there is certainly more players who enjoy WoW as it is now to WoW as it was then.  But, no matter the reason, WoW is gone for me.

Cataclysm even makes it worse somehow.  At least now I can still go back and visit those old areas, though there is no one there and little to do, they are still there.  After Cataclysm most of that area will be gone or irrevocably changed.

It is almost like an old child hood home.  If it isn’t torn down you can go back and visit, maybe even walk the halls.  The halls may be empty, the posters may be gone but it is still your home.  Then they tear it down and there is nothing to even visit anymore.  It’s gone.

Yeah, this may sound like a weeping sentimentalist post but I do it to illustrate why I will not be playing WoW after Cataclysm.  Why I did not cheer the expansion news like most of the other WoW fans did.  WoW was the most fun, for me, pre-TBC and Cataclysm will only take what I liked most about WoW and turn it into what I like least.

I will miss it but I hope the current fans enjoy themselves.  WoW will continue to be a juggernaut for the forseeable future and for very good reason.