Allods Online

Allods Online is a new f2p MMO by the company gPotato. It's set in the traditional fantasy world rife with humans, pointy-eared humans, and deformed humans; with tons of critters and undead just asking to be killed as well. There's copper and silver and gold currencies. There's swords and magic. Many are calling it a WoW clone, but I would have to disagree. Sure it's an MMO set in a fantasy world with 2 rival factions that have open PvP against each other, but compared to real WoW clones out there, Allods is definitely going in its own direction in terms of class design and end game PvE - you get to fly around in giant guild owned/built ships battling monsters in space.

Currently Allods Online is in an open beta, but one that will not wipe characters after the game hits retail. Basically the game is fully playable while the cash shop, where f2p games make back their monies, isn't activated yet. And of course gPotato is still squashing bugs and developing more content. Word from other players is that upcoming content for the actual release will include player mounts.

The graphics are really good for a f2p MMO. The particle effects are nice, and while the game may take more resources than some of the other f2p MMO's, and even WoW maybe, the art style just doesn't seem to mesh that well. The graphics don't stand out compared to subscription MMO's, but they definitely aren't sub par either.


Elves have wings in this game, and they don't walk anywhere, they float everywhere.

The game play is growing smoother the further into the open beta it gets. There's already been a patch which has further increased the quality of client to server communication. It also helps that players are more spread out than the were in the first two days of open beta, so the game isn't lagging because of that anymore. It's surprising that almost all of the classes have a different play style "gimmick" to them, one that actually fits. For example I've spent most of my time playing a mage, and each time she casts a spell she gains a corresponding counter. So if it's a fire spell, then she gains a fire counter. This counter can stack up to 5, and then on the 6th fire spell cast, my mage has a 70% chance of getting a good buff, like +health or +mana or reduced CD times, or has a 30% chance of getting a negative buff. Now this sounds rather silly in the long run, but that's only the surface. After level 10, the mage can spend "ruby points" in order to gain more concrete bonuses from these counters. A mage can spec to remove all negatives, giving them a 100% positive chance each time the counter fills up, or gain some other abilities that use up counters in exchange for damage. Of the four classes I've tried, only the mage class has this counter system, while other classes have their own special interactive systems. Warriors have a Rage system and maybe something else, rangers have some sort of special ammo system, and then some classes just have pets. If you like leveling unique characters, then you should definitely check this game out.

One has to wonder where the servers are located due to how bad the latency can be at times. But like I mentioned above, that's slowly being worked on. Another problem is the memory leaks. Logging out and back in takes all of 25 seconds, so it isn't a major deal. It was a bigger deal in Age of Conan because it was such a huge stoppage on play ability. In Allods, the mem leaks aren't a huge drain on the system, so you just have to get around to it eventually instead of dropping everything you're doing at that very moment.

The interface is nice, but it's missing some key components that just pop out at you. You can't tell if anyone is in a guild or not because there are no guild tags on names. The icons on the map tend to fade in and out at random, though the quest system using the map is perfect. Navigating through the maps also feels very dated since you have to use pull down menu's to zoom in and out. I expect the majority of updates in the next few weeks to fleshing out the rest of these glaring interface problems. Included with the recent patch was some welcome updates to the chat window for example.

The storyline is decent. I can't imagine ever reading the quest lines a second time, but the first time through hasn't been bad. The quests are the typical kill this, gather this, so nothing new here. You're just doing it in a new way with new classes. This is probably the place where Bioware's Star Wars Online is trying to further flesh their world, and good luck to them, but honestly I barely cared the first time I read the quest plots.

After all that good stuff, Allods is still a free to play game, which means that Allods Online eventually turns into a pay them cash or don't participate system. I don't have any first hand experience, and things may change in the future, but through word of mouth from closed beta testers, the end game basically requires cash infusions to gPotato. Supposedly, each time your character dies at level 40, your player will take a -25% major stat penalty (each classes major stats are highlighted in green so players know what they should focus on, because there are over 10 stats going on) which will stack up to 4 times. Without your major stats, you can't do anything. Once a day, players can do a quest to remove all their stacks, but that's only once a day. If they wish to remove them otherwise, or prevent themselves from even getting any of them, then you have to buy items from the cash shop, such as "no death penalty potion, lasts 8 hours".


You can get a pet squirrel, and yes, you have to have four names!

A second death penalty, surprising you'd think they'd spread out the money sinks, is the "Purgatory" system. It really does feel like purgatory. You are stuck in a square room full of mostly non interactive NPC's, and you can't leave until the time runs out, or you go talk to one of the interactive NPC's and pay gold. Or you can spend these weird little holy droplets things that, each one, removes 1 second off your purgatory. Well, at level 7 you're in there for 17 seconds for each death, not that bad right? Apparently at level 40, the max level, you're in there for 53 minutes per death. That's just beyond... again, you can buy something from the store to prevent this.

Allods Online isn't sounding like all that much of a f2p game. Considering the investors spent $12 million making it, they need to recoup their expenses somehow. But those are some ridiculously harsh penalties. Most f2p games just have a lot of grinding and so most players buy double xp potions. Allods doesn't have that, it has quests and practically free double xp the entire time, so everyone is leveling up fast. It is still open beta though, and those items are translated from the released Russian version's store, so if they actually stay in the game we'll just have to wait and see.

Allods Online is going to be a good game for people who just want to enjoy some new MMO classes in a new fantasy world and take in the leisurely questing and leveling. It is currently not looking like a good long term game for those hoping to not pay any money.