Allods Online -

[Nightblade]

Forum Monkey:

Im sure an attorney would have a field day filing a discrimination suit based on prejudice because we are Americans and deemed to be wealthier than other nations.

 

If only people got this worked up over things that actually mattered...

[Malakili]

There was some sort of official statement that said something vague like "We'll continue to evaluate our prices and consider player feedback" which leads me to believe they are actually batshit insane enough to be the real prices.  You have to assume if it was a mistake they'd be falling over themselves to fix it ASAP.  Do they really expect people to pay 100s and thousands of dollars for just a few items?

[Nightblade]

There was some sort of official statement that said something vague like "We'll continue to evaluate our prices and consider player feedback" which leads me to believe they are actually batshit insane enough to be the real prices.  You have to assume if it was a mistake they'd be falling over themselves to fix it ASAP.  Do they really expect people to pay 100s and thousands of dollars for just a few items?

After the latest batch of games from this genre, nothing surprises me anymore.

It will be changed, there's no way they are going to make money with the prices as they are now.

[UnSub]

Keen and Graev on the bug/mistake.

Note: Due to the importance of this issue I will not be allowing anyone to derail it with trolling posts or comments that have clearly been made without reading the post.   If your comment is deleted then you know why.

Rssn gme iz srs busnss.

It's a stupid move by gPotato, but maybe they think there still will be enough demand at the new prices. Or they need the money that bad.

[Sparky]

I'm loving some of the early quest text.  Just was sent to intercept dirty orcs smuggling elf porn.  Never saw that in WoW.

[Tannhauser]

Started this today.  Also love the lore text, it's a hoot I tells ya!  Great graphics, good performance, tons of lore.  Complete WoW ripoff.  But no way I'm paying RL cash for items.  Also disappointed at the time it takes to kill a single mob as a Mage.  Smells like grindy fun like others in this thread have mentioned.  I don't do grindy.

But, hell, it's free, I'll pop back in when the STO server goes down. 

[Nonentity]

This game is being mismanaged into the ground at this point, and developers are adding changes that basically require you to spend money at every turn to continue to play. Prices are 20x what they are in Russia.

Here's the scoop on basically why it is in such disarray - http://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=3575

[Mrbloodworth]

If all that is intentional, then that's a really bad move, its a good game, they should not have done that.

[Tannhauser]

They've spent a lot of time and money making this game. Stellar job from what little I've seen of it.   I don't fault them for a free-to-play but microtransaction business model.  It could work.  But charging so much?  No.  Fuck you.

Are they charging American players more because we are 'richer'?  Who do they think they are drug companies? 

[UnSub]

They should use that as a marketing strategy: Allods Online, the F2P that keeps out the poor newbs.

Exclusivity could be a hell of an attraction. 

[Sparky]

I wouldn't have minded stupid prices that were just about optional.  Didn't intend to spend any money on consumables so it'd just mean a more level playing field if they priced (almost)everyone else out of the idea too.  But silly prices combined with whacking great nerfs that make cash shop items all but compulsory does rather seem like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  Think I'll wait and see how this pans out before putting more time into my characters, not financially invested after all.

[Drubear]

Well it's not like the PayPal integration works so you really can't spend money on over-inflated items anyway.

Oh wait...

[ezrast]

So do people have server picked out? The death penalty issues make sinking a ton of time into this an... inadvisable prospect, but I'll screw around with it some just to see what improvements they do make. Serin (and Szophia) on Tensess/Empire for me, unless there's a consensus otherwise.

[tazelbain]

What is there to choose from?  All I see is ISA.

I would like to try the League, but its hard to imagine it tops the novelty of the Soviet themes of Empire. 

This is a nice little game, but the blatant attempt to rip off America and Europe users is disheartening.

[ezrast]

Servers are limited by client version; Tensess is an NA server. Makes me wonder if there are differences between the various non-Russian versions? I'll have to look into that.

[sam, an eggplant]

I've been keeping up on allods, as I half-assed planned to play it if the cash shop turned out reasonably priced. I was interested to see that they had dropped their silly inflated prices. This guy estimates it to cost $13/month, which is totally reasonable.

But wait, no, that assumes only 1.5 hours per day of play. Who the hell plays a MMO for only 10 hours per week? Realistically, for someone actually playing the game in normal MMO usage patterns, it's at least twice as expensive as WoW. Now I'd like to play a trio of cute little furries with a squirrel pet as much as the next guy, but seriously, fuck that.

[Kail]

I've been keeping up on allods, as I half-assed planned to play it if the cash shop turned out reasonably priced. I was interested to see that they had dropped their silly inflated prices. This guy estimates it to cost $13/month, which is totally reasonable.

But wait, no, that assumes only 1.5 hours per day of play.

Even better, it's 1.5 hours using only one item, and buying it in bulk discount. 

Kind of disappointing to me.  I was interested in playing this before they started dicking around with these pricing games.

[Senses]

I feel like I should clarify a little of the confusion of the last 2 posts.  As stated by Keen and Graeves, yes, it does cost roughly 15 bucks to play for 1.5 hrs a night, but he meant to say, was to raid 1.5 hours a night wearing the perfume buff the entire time.  The Death Buff that everyone is talking about is actually easily remedied in game via gold or the bought perfume, or the quested for perfume at anytime, but during raiding, while in an instance, the vendor to buy off the FoD is not present, so you would absolutely need perfume for that.

So raiding 1.5 hrs every night, for 7 days a week, and never ever questing for perfume, it would cost you that amount.  Whether or not that amount is high, is up to you, but I can tell you that of my concerns, that one ranks very low.  The PvP within the game I have seen thus far at lvl 27 is very sludgey and unbalanced and while I am enjoying it as a free to play MMO, I'm really not sure I'd want to spend any real money there.  Who knows though, it is still technically open beta, so perhaps it will get better.

[sam, an eggplant]

I heard the need for perfume (recently renamed to incense) was removed in the latest patch by removing the "fear of death" debuff, so I checked out the patch notes and player feedback to see if I wanted to give Allods a try.

It turns out that death penalty was replaced by a "cursed items" system, which is effectively permanent item loss for "blue" or better items upon death that can only be removed/avoided via items from the cash shop. All fair enough, depending on pricing, but what they somehow failed to put in the patch notes is that all player damage and health was flat-out nerfed by 250% in the patch. Newbie characters are taking over a minute to kill monsters. Completely coincidentally, incense gives a 250% damage and health buff. Oh, and the daily repeatable incense quest was removed so the cash shop is the only source. So actually, rather than just needing incense at higher levels, it must be in use at all times and Allods is considerably more expensive than it was before the patch!

[Draegan]

This game is a perfect example of how not to run a Cash Shop.

[Mrbloodworth]

Its sad, it was fun in beta, and I would have spent money on it in that state, then they went and got all greedy and worked the requirement of things into the design. Who knows though, perhaps this game is still popular in other territories even with this system.

[sam, an eggplant]

Supposedly the Russians are quitting in droves too. They got the past some time ago, as it had to be localized to english. That info comes from disgruntled players who followed up with "Yes I'm quitting and yes you can have all my stuff", so take with salt.

[kubodhi]

Anyone who had looked at this may want to consider revisiting it.  I'm not sure how things were a year ago, or even 6 months ago, as I've only been playing for about a month now -- but I've really enjoyed the game so far.  Playing very casually and only paid for a few convenience items (nothing that was necessary for play), and I'm about 3/4ths the way to max level.  The content is rich, the lore is detailed (and hilarious), the quests are plentiful, the zones are beautiful, the graphics and sound are both great (though the voice emotes for things like "It's out of range" or "I'm out of mana" are still only in Russian).

They just released a huge content patch, and the changes are being very well received from what I've seen.  Give it a chance if you want something new to check out over the holiday season.

[Ard]

I'm so confused.  That post had absolutely nothing to do with pictures.  Seeing you post outside the picture thread just ruined my worldview.  I think I need an adult....

[Stormwaltz]

NECRO'D

Apparently, the devs have been listening to the community's ongoing complaints about the death penalties and are taking a major step: They're making holy charms completely free in the cash shop, as of just a little while ago. Furthermore, the word is that the change is going to be permanent!

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03/02/gdc-2011-allods-online-backs-off-on-death-penalties/

[Nightblade]

NECRO'D

Apparently, the devs have been listening to the community's ongoing complaints about the death penalties and are taking a major step: They're making holy charms completely free in the cash shop, as of just a little while ago. Furthermore, the word is that the change is going to be permanent!

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03/02/gdc-2011-allods-online-backs-off-on-death-penalties/

Then ... what's the point of having them in the first place? 

[FatuousTwat]

Wow, I might have to re-dl this. I really enjoyed it until the bullshit started flying... The community is probably never coming back, though.


Edit: After reading a bit more, I remembered they increased the amount of damage mobs do by a ton, and increased the amount of xp it takes to level by something like 500%, and apparently neither of those things have been addressed.