Allods has blown it. Its dead before it even got out of open beta. At this point, no matter how much Allods gets its game together and fixes all the problems which are turning off players by the masses, there has still been a huge amount of PR damage. Its a pretty incredible case of how many things can be done so wrong in such a short time. People will look back at Allods as that one game who destroyed its potential by its monumental failure at implementing the cash shop.
I'm not jumping on the bandwagon of hate towards this game, just as I didn't jump on the bandwagon of love towards Allods before OB. I made this video a few days after I got into CB1, a fair bit before the blogging community went insane over the game. What can I say about the turn of events? I guess I can only say why I myself left.
I haven't played Allods in over a week. I stopped when I hit level 25, stuck right bang in the middle of the Holy Lands, the infamous PvP spamfest. If I continued to play I would have at least 3 more levels before getting out of the zone. Fairly obviously the problem I had with the zone was indeed the PvP itself. I got into the game early and spent a fair amount of time playing it, but I was far from keeping up with the more dedicated players. As a result at level 25 I was constantly a lower level then the people I met in world PvP.
It got to the point that Holy Lands became a hunting ground for bored 40s. One repeatable rep quest required each side to go right up to the opposing side's PvP base and kill their guards. This obviously was designed to instigate big old PvP battles between the two sides. When I this whole area was a battleground for 40s to run around and faceroll lower levels. No fun at all. What made this so utterly worse was the fact that after getting pwned by the bored powerlevelers you received the gift of FoD.
I'll never understand why the developers thought FoD was a good idea, after they initially claimed that unpaying players would be able to enjoy the game just as much as paying players. That statement is a complete joke now. Allods is not free-to-play it is pay-to-play.
Its the worse thing to have your players being deterred from leveling because they know its only going to get worse at the higher levels. (Fear of Death, which reduces your offensive stats by 25% lasts for 1 hour at 40) Compounding this fear is the fact that 40s are spending all their time participating in PvP where it is much less likely that they will be killed. Instead of being involved in intense end-game PvP everyone is getting put off by FoD.
In summary the cash shop system in Allods Online in my experience is the greatest failure in free-to-play MMO history. Its frustrating because the game had a lot of potential, but even if these problems were cleaned up the playerbase would very likely have diminished enormously, with a vaste number of potential paying players put off forever.
Only thing left is now that I have stopped playing Allods, and given up in dispair and mild disgust of WoW, I don't really have any MMO to play. Any suggestions?
I'm not jumping on the bandwagon of hate towards this game, just as I didn't jump on the bandwagon of love towards Allods before OB. I made this video a few days after I got into CB1, a fair bit before the blogging community went insane over the game. What can I say about the turn of events? I guess I can only say why I myself left.
I haven't played Allods in over a week. I stopped when I hit level 25, stuck right bang in the middle of the Holy Lands, the infamous PvP spamfest. If I continued to play I would have at least 3 more levels before getting out of the zone. Fairly obviously the problem I had with the zone was indeed the PvP itself. I got into the game early and spent a fair amount of time playing it, but I was far from keeping up with the more dedicated players. As a result at level 25 I was constantly a lower level then the people I met in world PvP.
It got to the point that Holy Lands became a hunting ground for bored 40s. One repeatable rep quest required each side to go right up to the opposing side's PvP base and kill their guards. This obviously was designed to instigate big old PvP battles between the two sides. When I this whole area was a battleground for 40s to run around and faceroll lower levels. No fun at all. What made this so utterly worse was the fact that after getting pwned by the bored powerlevelers you received the gift of FoD.
I'll never understand why the developers thought FoD was a good idea, after they initially claimed that unpaying players would be able to enjoy the game just as much as paying players. That statement is a complete joke now. Allods is not free-to-play it is pay-to-play.
Its the worse thing to have your players being deterred from leveling because they know its only going to get worse at the higher levels. (Fear of Death, which reduces your offensive stats by 25% lasts for 1 hour at 40) Compounding this fear is the fact that 40s are spending all their time participating in PvP where it is much less likely that they will be killed. Instead of being involved in intense end-game PvP everyone is getting put off by FoD.
In summary the cash shop system in Allods Online in my experience is the greatest failure in free-to-play MMO history. Its frustrating because the game had a lot of potential, but even if these problems were cleaned up the playerbase would very likely have diminished enormously, with a vaste number of potential paying players put off forever.
Only thing left is now that I have stopped playing Allods, and given up in dispair and mild disgust of WoW, I don't really have any MMO to play. Any suggestions?
11 Comments:
Allods seemed like so much fun but as a paladin I was really ticked that they could not pvp and it's sad, so I have seen the FoD often and I'm telling you it was horrible... can't do quest, can't lvl end of story. As for aika online I hope to see you in my nation =)
I haven't played in a week and a half...but it has nothing to do with the game! I'm just too busy right now. I'd love to get back in...if anybody's still playing.
dungeons and dragons online, not full free to play, i'd say about 60 - 70 % free, but different and looks nice. Orien if you do.
Too bad, allods really looked like a cool game... Anyways, dungeons and dragons is a pretty cool game.
So please update me on whatever game you start to play ! I just hit 10 in allods when I saw your video about the boutique.
Guess I might try Aika or dungeons and dragons..
I did not mind the Holy Lands, even with the 40s ganking. I think the number of 40s out ganking is mostly because there are so few 40s out there right now. They are bored and have nothing to do but gank. As more people get to 40, you will see less people ganking because those 40s will have enough people to run instances, astral ship and such. Right now there are not enough 40s to do anything, so they gank.
Even so, the cash shop killed it for me. Totally and 100% killed. Very sad. I would have played Allods for a looong time if not for that atrocity.
As for a suggestion: come play Age of Conan with me! Having not played it before, I decided to give it a try and it is a really solid MMO now. I'm still low level and I really need some folks to level with! Come and join me!!
I'm sorry Chappo, perhaps the next up and comer will get things right? Well, there's always hope. I too think DDO has improved quite a bit with the last patch but its still rather rugged to get into at first. and pvp is nonexistent.
if your really into PvP, then you should try League of Legends
http://www.leagueoflegends.com/
If you're looking for a new mmo, I found The Chronicles of Spellborn to be an incredible game. Very unique gameplay for an mmo and gorgeous visuals. Only problem is, though, there is only one server based in Europe, I think.. Which doesn't really work for the twitch-based gameplay used.
Us Aussies always get the shitty end of the stick, eh?
Like your vids, btw :]
^Just read back through your old posts and notices you've already heard of TCoS. Nevermind ^_^
I can understand your "hate" towards the FoD. But have you ever heard of "Mirra"? With Mirra you can actually get rid of the FoD. Just talk to the guy or girl next to the respawnarea. And the best part of it... you can buy Mirra for Gold. i dont know where the problem with FoD is. o.O
I hope you understand what i mean. xD
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