Global Agenda Review

Before I get into this review, let me say that I stumbled into Global Agenda.  I had heard of it in a vague sort of way but it was never on my radar in any shape or form.  Last week I was looking through You Tube for some WAR PvP videos and I noticed that one of guys who made some excellent Warrior Priest videos had moved over to Global Agenda.  The videos he was making for GA were equally impressive and I decided, on a whim, to give it a try.  The rest of this post details my thoughts on Global Agenda.  Enjoy.

Initial Thoughts

I have a confession to make.  It is something that I am somewhat ashamed of but something I am a bit proud of as well.

I liked Tabula Rasa.

Yeah, thats right, I liked Tabula Rasa.  Strange, I know, but it was a fun game with tons of potential.  Unfortunately, that potential was never even close to being realized.  It was shut down quickly but, despite that, there was the foundation of an excellent game there.  The combat was an intriguing combination of action shooter and MMO.  The graphics were good and the story was interesting.  I was sad to see it go.

Why am I bringing up Tabula Rasa in a Global Agenda review?  Because Global Agenda has a lot of Tabula Rasa in it.  The combat is similar, the weapons are similar and I can feel Tabula Rasa’s influence when I play Global Agenda.

Like Tabula Rasa, Global Agenda has a lot of potential.  A metric ton of potential, in fact.  Will it ever realize that potential?  I don’t know but it is on the right track.  Let’s take a look at the game and see if Hi-Rez studios has improved upon the ideas present in Tabula Rasa or if it is destined for the same failure that TR was.

Classes

Character creation starts with the class decision.  There are currently four classes to choose from; Assault, Medic, Recon and Robotics.  Each brings a different skill set into the game and will appeal to widely varying play-styles.  Here are some thoughts on each class.

Assault

The Assault class is meant to be the ‘tank’ class of the game.  They are equipped with bulky power armor and spend much of their time toting around a mini-gun like the one used in Predator to mow down trees.  Because of this firepower, they are a hugely popular class and they are very, very good at what they are designed for.  They can soak up the damage like no other and, if specced into defense, are nigh impossible to bring down.

Their offensive capabilities are nothing to sneeze at either.  The mini-gun puts out a high volume of fire and includes a slight knockback when hitting enemy characters.  Additionally, they can carry various types of rocket launchers and defensive shields.  They are a complete class.

Spec-wise, they have many options to go with, from defensive heavy, to offensive juggernauts.  All three spec trees are viable, from what I have gathered, and all three are fun.  One of my friends chose the Assault class and, despite hating to play tanks in other MMOs, has specced defensively and he loves it.

Medic

The Medic, as the name suggests, is the primary healer in Global Agenda and, as with most MMO healers, is probably the least played class in the game.  This can not be attributed to the Medic’s effectiveness, they are a very good class, but to the lack of people who like to play healers.

Unlike healing in most MMOs, the Medic must aim his heals at the intended target, which adds some difficulty to the process.  They are equipped with AoE healing “grenades” but their main healing is aimed.  In addition, they have decent DPS in the form of poison attacks.  These attacks consist of grenades, DoTs and melee ‘injections’.  All of this makes for a pretty potent class and I found them a fun and challenging class in my limited time playing one.

Recon

Aaaah, the class I love to hate.  I detest Recons, not because they are not a good class, to the contrary they are a very, very good class.  I hate them because they are the antithesis of my chosen class, the Robotic.  Recon can be very effective, depending on spec, in melee or extreme long range.

They have a myriad of tools to bring the pain; samurai-looking power swords for up close, sniper rifles from ranged and an assortment of bombs, mines and stealth orbs to get in close and do damage.  They excel at destroying Robotic’s turrets and medical stations and are deadly with a sniper rifle.

The class takes a lot of skill to play properly.  Good aiming skills are a must when using the sniper rifle and circle-strafing is a necessity when meleeing.  Don’t choose this class expecting to be pro at it immediately.  Really good Recon players really separate themselves from the pack.

Robotics

Robotics is the hybrid class of Global Agenda.  Able to DPS, off-heal and even do limited tanking, they are very versatile and allow players a wide range of playstyles.  The class bears a superficial resemblance to the Engineer in Warhammer Online but is a lot more effective than the Engineer.

Robotics are masters at digging in on the defensive.  With the ability to drop turrets that do massive damage, they can really make it difficult to take an objective in PvP.  In addition, they can use drones when going on the offensive that do very good damage and can be used to take out opposing Robotic’s turrets.  Finally, they have medical stations they can drop for off-healing and force fields that can be used to block incoming damage.

Robotics are Engineers done correctly.  Mythic/Bioware would do good to give Global Agenda a spin and see how to bring some of the Robotic’s effectiveness over to the Engineer.

Character Creation

Character creation is pretty standard.  Pick a class and then customize their facial features.  Global Agenda has a pretty robust facial editor but it really does not matter.  You will quickly obtain power armor that will cover up that pretty mug of yours and no one will ever see the beautiful face you have created.

One interesting thing about character creation is the naming system.  You only have on name for all of your characters, so choose wisely.  If you name your first character foolishly every other character will have that same exact name.

Tutorial

After creation you are loaded into a cutscene that tells a little of the back story of the world and introduces your character.  The cutscene is well done and is as exciting as initial cutscenes can be.  Fortunately, you have the ability to skip the entire tutorial after the first go-around.

The tutorial itself is fairly standard.  It introduces you to your first weapons, your jetpack and the interface.  It is a quick and dirty introduction and soon dumps you into the game world proper with the begininning of a quest chain and some starter weapons.

The Dome and The Desert

From the tutorial you are placed in a hub of sorts called The Dome.  This is the main (and only) city in the game.  From here you can queue for PvE or PvP missions, visit the Auction House, test equipment in a virtual reality arena, working on crafting and get your hair cut.  For the most part, this is a large virtual lobby from which you queue for missions.  I believe that the original idea for Global Agenda was for everything to be spawned from here and not have any ‘persistent/open’ world at all.  From player feedback, Hi-Rez has decided to move away from that idea and start including more open world features.  From that, Sonoran Desert is spawned.

The Sonoran Desert is a large open-world PvE zone, not unlike a typical WoW PvE zone.  Clusters of quests and adventure areas are dispersed across the zone and slowly ramp up in difficulty.  The Desert is fairly large and looks nice.  The layout is typical of standard PvE questing zones and most will feel right at home out here.  The quests range from typical kill quests to more involved quests and also range from extremely easy to nigh on impossible without a group.

For a first foray into an open zone, Hi-Rez has done pretty good here.  I enjoyed the quests and the zone, while large, was not too large to traverse with my jetpack.  The graphics are nice and you often see sandstorms kicking up around you and the wind howling through.  From what I have seen with Sonoran Desert I am very interested to see where Hi-Rez can take us in the future.

Graphics

Before I go any further with review, I want to talk graphics.  In many ways, Global Agenda reminds me of Aion with what they have been able to accomplish with the Global Agenda engine.  The art style of the two could not be further apart but both accomplish a lot with very little.  Aion has always looked beautiful, despite not having the most advanced graphic engine from a technology stand point.  Global Agenda is the same way.  It looks great and runs flawlessly.

The armor is detailed and imposing when it wants to be.  The laser effects are awesome and the rocket launcher just exudes cool with its effects.  A heavy fire fight is just a joy to behold and looks right out of a movie at times.  All of this comes at a very low price, the engine runs flawlessly for me, even under a heavy load.  I have been in the middle of large fire fights, with turrets blasting away, force fields sprouting up and the Assault class mowing things down with their mini0gun and kept a constant 60+ FPS.  That is pretty impressive in my mind.

PvE Missions

PvE missions can be queued up from level five and are broken up into brackets depending on your level.  The first missions are quite simple and involve only one boss.  As you get higher you will see increasingly more complex missions and they get quite hard.  They do remind me of standard MMO instances in many ways but the addition of FPS-style combat and ranged tanking make the familiarity passing at most.

The combat certainly changes everything in PvE.  It is very reminiscent of Tabula Rasa and enemies can and will use supressing fire, flank you and retreat if needed.  I think the A.I. is a small cut above the standard A.I. found in MMOs.  The boss fights can be as complex as many WoW PvE boss fights, as each boss has its own special abilities.  Charges, knockbacks, AoE fire attacks, adds and the like all make their appearance.

I want to stress, however, that even though the bosses have similar abilities to your typical WoW boss, the mob A.I. and the 3rd person shooter style combat brings the encounters to an entirely different realm.  I have really enjoyed all the missions have partaken in thus far.

PvP

There are a few different types of PvP in Global Agenda but, thus far, I have only partaken in Mercenary PvP.  Mercenary PvP is a lot like WoW battlegrounds or a typical Counter-Strike map.  Two teams, different objectives depending on map and away we go.

That said, the PvP is fast, frantic and, most importantly, fun. Even better, I have rarely been in fights that did not go the distance.  Almost every fight I have been in has been a fight to the finish, no team has run away with it.  These are very competitive PvP matches.  I think that is helped by the fact that, at least in Mercenary mode, you can only queue yourself and one other up.  No premades running rampant and destroying everything.

The PvP also seems very, very well balanced.  Every class has their place and every class is needed.  Assault to capture objectives, medics to heal, robotics to defend and recons to supply high DPS and destroy turrets and implacements.  Every class is capable of winning the match and being the hero, if played properly.

Closing Thoughts

I stumbled onto Global Agenda and I am very glad I did.  It is tremendously fun and there is a whole lot of potential here.  I do hope to see more persistent zones (both PvE and PvP), endgame raids and a DAoC-style PvP endgame at some point but even without those it is tremendously fun.  The combat is a refreshing change of pace as is the sci-fi setting.  Even better, the game has no monthly sub and can be picked up for only 29 bucks on Steam.  That is a great deal.

I hope that Hi-Rez can make Global Agenda a success.  I really do not want to see it go the way of Tabula Rasa, there is simply too much potential here and a lot of fun to be had.

By the way, I am finishing up my first poor attempt at a PvP video tonight and should have it posted tomorrow, along with a more detailed description of PvP in general and Robotics PvP in particular!

WAR is a Strange Beast

The review and video for Global Agenda is still in the pipeline but, while I am waiting to build up enough raw video for the PvP video, I wanted to talk a little about Warhammer Online.  I had recently given it another try and it just really confounds me.

WAR, as I have said before, was easily my most anticipated MMO ever.  I loved DAOC and I awaited WAR with the anticipation of a little girl at a Justin Whatshisname concert.  Of course, like many, I was immensely disappointed.  I have tried again and again to return to WAR, hoping beyond hope that things had finally improved enough to return to full time.  Time and time again, it has disappointed me.  Not only that but I can get no feel for what Mythic is trying to do with the game.  None at all.

For one, WAR is the only MMO I can think of that, two years out from release, has seemingly removed almost as much content as they have added.  They have removed Fortresses, reduced Auction House functionality and, although not removed completely, have reduced each side to one viable Tier One zone.  On the flip side, they have added Land of the Dead.  As far as I can tell that is really all they have added.  To me, that is a net loss.

Additionally, there are many parts of WAR that come across as amateurish at best.  Take NPC pathing for instance.  In AoC, WoW or just about any other MMO I can think of, when you pull a mob it paths right to you, every so often you will see weird bugs or pathing issues but that is the exception.  In WAR it seems to rubber band back and forth, run backwards to you or teleport past you.  No rhyme or reason, the pathing is just bad.  Really?  Two years out in a AAA MMO and they can’t even get pathing right?  I just don’t understand that.

The PvE is extremely poorly implemented.  The instances and their boss encounters are a joke.  The pathing issues extend to the instances and the boss abilities are just strange.  It is hard to describe but they are just not as tight as they are in WoW, LotRO or AoC.  It is so bad that no one does PvE instances anymore from what I can tell.  Bastion Stair is dead, no one does the low level city instances and the PQs are empty more often than not.

Now, I know that WAR is a PvP game but, damn, if you are going to have PvE in your game then do it right.  Seems Mythic is lost when it comes to coding PvE and Mob AI.  I just don’t understand it.  The PvE is not up to a AAA MMO standard.  It is amateurish at best.

I understand Mythic is supposed to have a big announcement this week and, for their sake, I hope it is big.  They need it, badly.  No new content in almost two years will kill a MMO.  There is only so much of the scenario/Keep Siege/City Siege treadmill that people can take.  Even for the biggest WAR supporters it will get stale eventually.  New content is a must and it better not be something minor like a new race or two.  It better be something major.  New instances, new zones and new things to do at endgame.

If the announcement this week is anything less, I think you might as well start writing WAR’s obituary.  It will be a sad day but it will be time.

Of PvP: WoW and AoC.

In one of my earlier posts about WoW the comments veered off into a discussion about which game, WoW or AoC,  had the more skill-based combat system especially in PvP.  Pitrelli contends that AoC is “who spams most buttons wins”.  After playing a melee character extensively in AoC and playing WoW for 5 years, I have to totally disagree.

Before I go any further, let me get this out of the way; I do not dislike WoW’s combat system. Matter of fact, I love WoW’s combat system.  I have always said that WoW is a MMO that plays like a FPS.  Fast, responsive and tight.  It has a great feel.

Now, back to the discussion.  Pitrelli had two major gripes in the discussion we had:

1.  Combat in AoC comes down to “spamming buttons” due to his perceived lack of counters or reactives.

2.  Combat in AoC is slower.

Let’s take this one at a time.  First, let’s take a look at the “spamming” argument. For sake of argument, I am going to use only melee characters for this discussion.  The casters in both games play very similarly.  Melee is where the difference lies.

In melee the most important factor is the range.  After all, if you can not get close to your target, you can not do damage to them as melee.  In WoW if you are not in range and you use an ability you get a simple message that you are not in range and nothing happens.  The ability does not fire.  Nothing gained, nothing lost.  I have not lost rage/mana/energy.

In AoC the experience is totally different.  If I am not in range and I use an ability, the ability does fire.  It goes off but I gain nothing because my target is not in range.  This is bad.  Why?  Because when the ability fires it goes on cooldown, it uses my stamina and it locks me in place for a second or more while the animation plays.  Obviously, you do not want this to happen.  You want to make sure you are in range when you use that ability.  Missed combos can be death in AoC.

What is the result of these two systems?  In WoW, when I played my feral druid and was attempting to attack a mage, I simply spammed Claw (or whatever) until I was in range.  No harm done.  Once I was in range the ability went off and I went to the next one.  In AoC I can not do that.  I must be much more deliberate with my ability usage.  I do not finish a combo unless I know I am going to hit the target.  I am very deliberate when I go through my attack sequences and I spam a lot less.

But what about the contention that it is a spam-fest because of lack of counters or reactive abilities?

Completely incorrect.

Counters and reactive abilities are very important in both WoW and AoC.  In WoW, silences, stuns, knockbacks and other counters abound.  Don’t want that Priest to get off a heal?  The rogue kicks him.  Don’t want the shaman to get out of rang?  Death-grip him back.  WoW is full of counters like these and it is one reason WoW has engaging PvP.

Guess what?  AoC has just as many counters.  Already on my Conqueror, not even level 40, I have a silence, two knock-downs, a “bubble” and a charge.  As I level I get another bubble and a few other reactive tools to add to my arsenal.

Pitrelli’s second argument, about combat being slow, is harder to argue.  I believe the perceived slowness is more an unfamiliarity with the combat system because it plays so much differently than any other MMO out there.  Because you have to be much more deliberate with your key presses than you do in WoW, it can feel slower especially in the early levels before you get a lot of abilities.  However, once you get higher, combat becomes frenetic.  There is much more to keep track of in AoC than in WoW.  Range is much more important, as is position.  Combine that with moving through your combos, active blocking, counters and your double-tap buffs and combat can get really crazy.

I will not argue that combat in AoC is better than WoW.  That is a completely subjective opinion.  Pitrelli, and anyone else who has played AoC, has every right to say that they prefer WoW combat to combat found in AoC.  However, AoC’s combat is more complex and it is a more “skill-based” system than WoW.  Some people will like this, some won’t.  Some people will like the complexity but dislike the feel of AoC combat and that is fine too.  I will only say that it is nice to see a MMO break away from the standard MMO combat that we have seen since EQ.

For that, I thank Funcom.

A Most Productive Day

I had the day off from work today and it turned into one of the most fun and productive days I have had in AoC.  I started off around level 22 on my conqueror and was finishing up some quests in Old Tarantia before heading off to the next zone.  I ended up at level 30, having completed scores of quests in the Gateway to Khitai zone.  Not only did I gain eight levels but I had tremendous fun doing it.

Getting from Old Tarantia to the Gateway of Khitai requires a bit of travel and sight-seeing.  From the docks of Old Tarantia, one mus take a ship to Khemi, the capital city of Stygia and from there a ship to Khitai.  The ship to Khitai requires either expenditure of coin or a promise to help protect the ship and caravan on the journey.  Being short on coin, I signed up to protect the caravan.  Hey, free passage is free passage, right?

My Conqueror at the start of his Khitain adventures

Of course, along the way we find ourselves in a canyon area, which is the perfect place for an ambush.  I was enlisted by the Caravan leader to earn my keep and scout the canyon before the caravan proceeded.  Inevitably, I found myself pinned down by archers in the canyon and had to scale the canyon walls to kill each one in turn.  After succeeding in defeating the would-be brigands, I returned to the caravan and we completed the journey.

The first steps in Khitai are the perfect example of just how brutal the Conan world can be.  The first quest area is an ambushed trading caravan pinned down by enemy forces.  Your initial quests are from this caravan, as you fight off waves of attackers, find supplies for the sieged caravan or trek to the Great Wall to ask for assistance.  The quests are nothing extraordinary and are along the same lines of any other quest-based MMO but the story, the atmosphere and, of course, the graphics set AoC apart from other MMOs.  This is a barbaric world, filled with dead bodies, half-eaten corpses and vile death all around.  It is 100% Conan.

The adult-rating holds true in Godslayer

After helping out the caravan, I made my way to a small village surrounded by enemies.  This is the next quest hub and sends you on various quests to help the village residents.  It was here that I was treated to my first gank in Khitai.  Matter of fact, the entire evening was a solid mix of PvE and PvP.  I intend to post more in-depth about my PvP adventures later this evening or tomorrow, so let me get back to the remainder of the evening.

I quested for a couple of hours solo which got me to level 24 or so.  About this time I was invited to a group by a Priest of Mitra.  Figuring a Conqueror and PoM (healing class) was a good combination, I took him up on his offer.  I am glad I did.  For the next six hours we made our way across the zone, finishing quest after quest.  From killing undead Samurai to killing Yak and feeding their meat to a dog, we did everything.  And we had tons of fun doing it.

At the end of the night I joined his guild.  The guild is very small and brand new, they do not even have a city yet, but I figure it will be fun to help grow a small guild and see one built up from scratch.  I look forward to seeing a guild city built and the guild grow into a raiding guild.  It has been awhile since I have been a part of that growth process and I miss it.

We picked up another healer along the way, a Tempest of Set, that I uncouthly killed after mistaking him for a player who had attacked us earlier.  I rezzed him (yes, a tank class with a rez AND a battle rez!) and he joined us for the rest of the evening.

By the time I logged off I had reached level 30 and completed the first set of Khitain gear.  This gear has a totally different look than the other gear in the game and keeps with the Asian feel of the expansion.  I look positively samurai-like at the moment, which is a nice change of pace from other MMOs.

We also set up a time tomorrow night to venture into the first six-man instance in AoC, the Black Castle.  With two healers and a tank, we should not have a problem finding three more folks to head into the castle with us.  I am extremely excited to experience my first “dungeon” in AoC and I will be writing about it more tomorrow night.

I am going to leave you with a few more pictures from my initial taste of Khitai.  I hope you enjoy them!

Khitain vista

The zone is huge and, yes, you can get to the towers back there!

First glimpse of the Great Wall

The Samurai look I ended the night with.

A merry band of travelers: Tempest of Set, Conqueror and Priest of Mitra

Further AoC Impressions: The UI, Quests and PvP!

Following up my earlier post on AoC, here are my further impressions on other aspects of the game.  I am going to talk a bit about the UI, Quests and PvP.

The UI in AoC is….adequate.  At best.  For a game with such a complex combat system, the UI is certainly lacking.  I believe this might be a sacrifice to the possible X-Box AoC port and they developed it with the port in mind.  There is a serious lack of customization options available.  You can not resize any of the UI and you are unable to move the targeting windows around.  In addition, the UI takes up a large chunk of screen real-estate.  I enjoy a minimalist UI design in my MMOs.  Keep the size and function of the UI as invisible as possible.

In WoW most of my bars were completely invisible and my screen only displayed the mini-map, the targeting windows and the group windows.  This is not possible in AoC.  Luckily, there are a number of UI mods out there and I am experimenting with them at the moment.  I hope to find one I like soon but I really hope Funcom improves the UI in the upcoming expansion.

Questing in AoC is just like every other MMO out there, though the stories might be a bit more interesting.  Much of that is because of the world.  Hyboria has always been an interesting intellectual property and it certainly strengthens the quest lines in AoC.  The cut scenes are fairly cool but, again, they are something I do not need. There is a bit of traveling involved which, coupled with the amount of instancing, can get a bit annoying.  Still, I am having a lot of fun overall and I enjoy the quests.

Now for the all-important PvP.  I rolled on the Cimmerian server, which is a PvP server.  In AoC that means that, other than the cities, you can be attacked almost anywhere, by anyone. There are no factions, so you really have to be on your toes.  You can consider no one friendly and you have to watch your back constantly.

My first experience in PvP was not out in the world but in the mini-games, AoC’s version of Battlegrounds.  They are very enjoyable and not unlike WoW at all.  The only problem I had with them is how infrequently they popped at my level.  I think a lot of this, at low level at least, is because the queuing interface is so difficult to find.  It is tucked away in a screen that you would never know was there, unless you went looking for it.  I would imagine a few new players miss it entirely, which really could cut down on the number of pops at low level.

The first mini-game I entered was a standard “capture-the-flag” affair.  I, of course, entered the game and found myself in a PuG against a pre-made.  Aaaah, memories of WoW!  We were summarily annihilated and I had very little chance to do anything at all.

The other three games I played were in a mini-game called Totem Torrent.  This is a bit different than any BG in WoW.  Basically, the two teams have to just kill each other.  At each end of the playfield there are totems, which can be destroyed.  If your teams Totem is destroyed, your team can no longer respawn after death.  Which means it is only a matter of time before you lose.  Alternately, you can simply concentrate on killing the other team until the timer runs out and the team with the most kills wins.

Again, upon entering, I found myself in a PuG against a pre-made.  This time was different, however.  We beat them.  Three straight times in fact!  We decided to simply defend our totem and not attack theirs at all.  They tried multiple times to attack the totem and we pushed them back every time.  They changed tactics and tried to lure us away from the totem but we stayed disciplined and did not allow it.  In the end, every game was a massacre.

We were also lucky in that we had three healers.  Myself, another Bear Shaman and a Priest of Mitra were able to keep our team healed pretty well.  It took some getting used to as far as healing is concerned.  I am so used to targeted healing but all the Bear Shaman’s heals are AoE or cone effect.  Indeed, I believe all heals in the game are like that, so you never have to target the player you want to heal.  Because of this, positioning is very important and took some getting used to.

So far my strategy with the Bear Shaman is to stay at the periphery of the fight and rush in after battle is engaged.  Keep my HoTs up and help finish people off.  What I heard about the Bear Shaman is true; they are slow builders.  You really feel inadequate at low levels, before your heals get stronger but, at level 20, he is starting to come into his own.

Of course my first PvP experience was marred by what I call “new-player” lock up.  You know, when something new happens and you suddenly forget what every key does and what order to push them in?  Yeah, that was me.  It happens most often in PvP, until you finally figure it out.  I stood there and watched myself die, all the while muttering:

Oh shit, what do I do?  What do I press first?  Damn….I’m dead.

After that first experience, I slowly started to figure it out.  And I had fun.  A lot of fun.  The games went quickly and my machine handled them like a champ, with nary a hiccup.  I am so proud of my little PC!

Other than the mini-games, my only other PvP experience was a coupla higher level ganking me, though there was one really interesting and fun encounter.

I was about to zone into the sewers for a quest and I saw a Bear Shaman that was two levels higher than me standing at the door.  I parked myself at the door (outside the instance is non-PvP) and went to get a drink.  When I came back he was gone.  I figured he had went inside so I zoned in and prepared myself to get jumped.

Upon zoning in, I heard the sounds of battle and found myself watching the level 21 BS laying the smack down on a couple of level 12 players.  Being the awesome person that I am, I could not allow that!  So, with a mighty battle roar, I launched myself into the fray.

With only a few hits, and the help of the two level twelves, I had the Bear Shaman down to a sliver of life.  Of course, he decided at that moment that discretion is the better part of valor and made for the zone exit.  Ah-ha! I was ready for this and this time did not lock up.  I used my Ferocious Smack.  This ability does a bit of damage but, more importantly, knocks the target down.  The Bear Shaman promptly landed on his ass and I finished him with my Shrewd Blow.  Even better, it ended up a fatality and I knocked his head off his shoulders!

Triumph!!

The two level twelves thanked me and I zoned out to the save zone to take a quick break.  When I returned I saw that the level twelves had just zoned out and were both at less than half health.  Of course, the Bear Shaman had jumped them again after I left.  They invited me to group and we went Bear Shaman hunting.

We zoned back in, only to find the Bear Shaman gone.  Heading down a ramp and into a bigger room we ran into the Bear Shaman.  He initially only saw my group mates and he charged in, only to find himself on the receiving end of my massive Warhammer.  He tried to get up the ramp and escape but I blocked him off (collision detection ftw!) and we ended him again.

This time he griped in the general channel about how I was ruining his fun and that I should leave him to gank the level twelves in peace.  Oh, the irony….

That’s it for now.  I will probably post more later but now I am heading back to Hyboria!

Allods Online’s Closed Beta closes today; Final thoughts and Impressions.

Today the Closed Beta ends for Allods Online.  At least, we are pretty sure this is the last one before Open Beta and release.  They have not communicated to us their plans for after today but from prior communication we have every reason to believe this is the last.

I approach today’s ending with torn feelings.  On one hand, I am excited for release.  On the other hand, I really do not want to see my characters get wiped.  I have become pretty attached to a couple of them.

I am going to give my final impressions here shortly but to sum up, for those who do not want to read it all, I am mightily impressed.  The greatest thing about my feelings on the game is that I got more impressed as my gameplay increased instead of less.  The game is very well put together and has been fun the entire way through.  Read on to find out my more detailed final impressions!

Graphics and Animations

Allods impresses early with this one.  Though the graphics are not near as detailed as Age of Conan, they have a nice feel to them.  The art direction is amazing in Allods.  It begins in the tutorial and stays sharp and creative the entire way through.  Both sides (League and Empire) have their own style, one that is immediately distinguishable from the other.

Animations are superb and creative as well.  For the most part, every race moves and fights fluidly.  The sole exception is the Empire humans, which seem to move a bit stiffly.  The magic animations are a nice balance between flashy and too flashy to run on most systems and they are creative as all hell.

For instance, the level seven Human racial for the Psionicist is an ability that makes you immune to damage for ten seconds, while also making you unable to move or cast spells.  The first time I triggered the spell I figured I would see the standard “bubble shield” animation that you normally see for this type of spell.  But no…

Instead, my Psion took off straight into the air like a rocket, reached a high altitude, exploded in an impressive display of light and fell back to the ground right where he took off.  By the way, he also left his boots on the ground.

It is little things like that and the artistic “feel” of the game that really set Allods Online apart from the myriad of WoW-clones out there.  It has its own feel that is completely its own, despite having the “cartoony” style graphics of WoW.  Allods Online has a world all its own and it looks fantastic.

Allods Psionicist: The strangest, craziest, most insanely weirdest class I have ever played….but possibly also the coolest.

A couple of nights ago I made a Psionicist in Allods.  I have heard that they are, without a doubt, the least played class in the game.  I am a curious guy, so I decided to find out why.  Thus was born Vyshinsky.

Vyshinsky, named after Andrey Vyshinsky, a diplomat and propagandist of the Soviet Union. Appropriate, no?

Now, I am not one for cloth-type casters.  Matter of fact, I have never played one as a main.  I prefer a more “in-your-face” style and/or physical DPS.  I have played a couple of healers but that is as close as I get to the standard “mage” archetype.

The Psionicist is no standard “mage”.

They are unlike anything I have ever played in a MMO before.  They can put out a decent amount of DPS, though no match for a mage or scout in Allods.  But, DPS is not what they are there for, they are there to, simply put, give a mass headache to the opposing force.

Psionicists provide a metric ton of CC.  Stuns, paralyze, Pulls, roots….it’s all there.  At level cap and if specced for it, a Psionicists CC abilities outnumber their DPS abilities by nearly two to one!

Let’s go over an early fight with a Psionicist in PvE.

The first cast a Psion will use is “Mental-Link”.  This is a six second cast and establishes a mental-link with the target, opening up more abilities to be used and causing spells that are cast against this target to regenerate mana.  Once the target is mental-linked, there are three abilities that open up for use.  One is a paralyze effect, which is a ten second stun, the next is a DoT and the last is a large direct damage spell.  These abilities can be used once on the target, they go away after the first use of any of them.

After the mental-link is in place, you can start to DPS the target using Mental Shock, which is a channeled ability that does a small amount of damage with each pulse.  Now, of course, by this time the mob is very angry and heading straight for you.  Considering the fact you are wearing cloth, this is not a good thing, so what to do?

How about a bit of Mental-Twin?

This is an instant cast that allows you to place a “twin” of yourself down anywhere close by.  This does two things.  First, it makes you invisible to your target, though other targets can see you just fine.  Second, it causes the mob to aggro your twin and beat on him.  All the while you are DPS’ing to your heart’s content.

At low-level, it does not take long to get the target near death, at which point you can break your mental-link, which causes massive amounts of damage and finishes your opponent off.

Normally, during the fight or on the killing blow, you will get a buff that makes your next mental-link an instant cast.  This makes grinding mobs and killing stuff quickly an easier task to carry out.

I made a quick video showing the Psion at low levels.  Take a look:

All of this is low-level, so what do you get at higher levels?  Take a look at these abilities:

• Hypnotize: hypnotize the target and makes them incapable of action for up to one minute.
• Mental Pulse: AoE that throws back all enemies in range and stuns them for two seconds.
• Cloud Vision: Blinds target for one minute if out of combat and ten seconds if in combat.
• Telekinetic Pull: Draws all enemies in a twenty yard radius, knocks them down and has a 10% chance to stun them for three seconds.
• Wall of Blades: Creates a magnetic field which disarms all opponents, places a DoT on them and makes you immune to physical damage for the duration of the ability.
• Spectral Assassin: Creates a mirror image of the target, which then attacks the target.  Can only be damaged by the target and the assassin gets stronger every second it remains alive.
• Loop of Time: Sends you back in time ten seconds and puts you in the state you were in at that time.

Those abilities make for a pretty unique class.  It also make the Psion, potentially, one of the most irritating classes to fight in a PvP situation.  They really remind me of the early DAoC days, when a well-timed CC could decide the victor of many PvP group fights.

I really look forward to going further with this class and seeing how they mature.  Just another on my list of “possible mains” in Allods Online.

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.

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.