Allods Online -

[Mrbloodworth]

Nival® Online is the leading developer and operator of free-to-play client-based online games in Russia and other Russian-speaking territories. Nival Online’s mission is to bring the best massively multiplayer online games to the Russian market through internal development and licensed titles.

The company’s first internally-developed title is the eagerly awaited Allods Online™. Allods Online is the MMORPG sequel to the one of the most successful Russian games of the past decade - Allods (known internationally as Rage of Mages). Due to be released in March 2009, Allods Online is the most anticipated free-to-play MMORPG on the market. It has the largest development budget of any Russian game title to date and is being crafted by the highly skilled team that created Heroes of Might and Magic® V. Allods Online received the “Best Online Game 2008” award at the Russian Game Developers Conference KRI 2008 in Moscow, while Nival Online itself won the “Best Developer 2008” award.

Nival Online is also the exclusive Russian publisher of top game titles from the Asian market, including hits like Perfect World™, Granado Espada™, and Pirate King Online™ (branded in Russia as Piratia™). Perfect World is currently the number one online game in Russia.

Headquartered in Moscow, Nival Online owns two development studios in Moscow and Voronezh, Russia. Nival Online was founded in 2006 by Sergey Orlovskiy; the major shareholders are Astrum Online Entertainment and Nival Group.

Website

Allods Online Trailer

What looks like PvP action.

Playable race from Allods Online.

Zones and architecture

[Falconeer]

If nothing else I love the Nival guys for Silent Storm, although I can't see any trace of it in those PoS videos. They are premium persons (although they are not Ukrainian, and this is an obscure reference anyway).

[tmp]

Cue the "In Russian MMO noun verbs you" jokes..?

There's also a gameplay video out there, part of a longer interview.

edit: Russian home page and fan page it seems with more details about the game. And holy shit, looks there's Politruk class  

[Malakili]

Doesn't look terribly impressive.

[Mrbloodworth]

Apparently, you can build, and fight on ships. The world is also open PvP, and i like the little guys:



Apparently, that is one player.

[tmp]

Doesn't look terribly impressive.

It seems to follow WoW really close with aesthetics and such, but the world is more like 18th century Russia with orcs. And zombie androids. And NSFW bloodelves. But combination of free to play and the steampunk version of Russian empire has decent appeal to it.

[Mrbloodworth]

NSFW bloodelves.

Try not to catch herpes too! (<-- NSFW, game related, MOB)

[Pennilenko]

NSFW bloodelves.

Try not to catch herpes too! (<-- NSFW, game related, MOB)

Hehe this game might crush wow.........



Of course Im joking.

[HaemishM]

Russian hackers stole the WoW engine?

[Mrbloodworth]

Russian hackers stole the WoW engine?

No. This is the largest budget title for a Russian game. At 12 million.

[rattran]

Russian hackers stole the WoW engine?

Watching gameplay video, it's got some of the same animations as WoW. In fact, BE caster running even has the same weird sideways arm flail spasm. It is either a dedicated 'homage' or they lifted a bunch of stuff.
12million what? Dollars to the hackers? Rubles? Moon money units?

[Mrbloodworth]

12 million dollars for development.

[Tarami]

So they've, again, split the races into Good and Bad and thus Pretty and Ugly, respectively. Empire has the Necrons, industrial-looking humans and orcs. League (of what I can't parse) has the fluffy gremlins, classic, noble humans and evil elves.

I thought they would have tried to mix them up after seeing how this method has affected previous titles. Oh well.

[tmp]

So they've, again, split the races into Good and Bad and thus Pretty and Ugly, respectively. Empire has the Necrons, industrial-looking humans and orcs. League (of what I can't parse) has the fluffy gremlins, classic, noble humans and evil elves.

I thought they would have tried to mix them up after seeing how this method has affected previous titles. Oh well.

Keep on mind this setup is basically like launching game in the US with factions that go...

side A: the North, robot zombies, orcs
side B: the South, blood elves, mini furries

i.e. both sides have actually some significant appeal there, imo.

[Tarami]

Side A lacks both pretty and cute as far as I can see. Cybergawkers and furries far outnumber the people who think robot zombies are cool or orcs (one of the least played races in WoW?) to be something new and interesting. You can always have more T&A, though. Just look at what the introduction of Blood Elves did to the Horde population.

[Mrbloodworth]

Did you click the little guy in my post up there? It leads to a video showing some of the armors he can get.

[tmp]

Side A lacks both pretty and cute as far as I can see.

I think you can look at it this way, but on the other hand their main faction is equivalent of EVE Caldari combined with Imperial Russia (and Rogues) -- it can be argued you need to put the elves in the other camp just to balance it out, because otherwise it's like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vs Treehuggers of Bumfuck, Backwater.

Plus, not sure how many elf lovers will stomach playing as Liberace.

[HaemishM]

Is Legolas gonna have to choke a bitch? 

[K9]

 

[tmp]

Is Legolas gonna have to choke a bitch? 

Shit, point taken; i did overlook that particular angle. 

[Malakili]

Doesn't look terribly impressive.

It seems to follow WoW really close with aesthetics and such, but the world is more like 18th century Russia with orcs. And zombie androids. And NSFW bloodelves. But combination of free to play and the steampunk version of Russian empire has decent appeal to it.

I don't my the aesthetic, I find that style somewhat charming and not too harsh on the eyes.  What I meant was that from looking at the website, the game doesn't SEEM to offer much in the way of mechanics that I'm really interested in.   I might give it a go just for the novelty value, but I don't it has any staying power.

Edit: To be clear, I speak Russian.

[NiX]

After this, I'm sold on the little furry race.

[Malakili]

A 20 second clip of a few of their idle animations?

[Malakili]

For people that are interested:  If you go to their forums and sign up for an account (the fields are relatively self explanatory if you don't understand, I will help you out, or just use some sort of online translator, it'll give you a good enough idea), then you'll get an e-mail to confirm you account.  After that there is a link from the main page in the upper right to sign up for the beta test (with slightly more complicated fields, but you'll understand most of it).  It won't get you right in, but it will put you on the list.

[NiX]

A 20 second clip of a few of their idle animations?

The first was the attack animation, which was awesome. I like the idea they're going with. Sorry, next time I'll be sure to find a 30 minute clip.

[NiX]

I'm so bored I signed up. The russians ask for weird info.

[Count Nerfedalot]

They even copied WoW's shoulderpad fetish? Very odd.

[UnSub]

If you squint, that looks so much like WoW it isn't funny.

Props on the dual spear fighting though.

[Nonentity]

So, uh, some of the default orc options in the character creator are interesting.

[Draegan]

Massively just put out a preview video.  Doesn't really look that bad honestly.

http://www.massively.com/2009/11/13/first-impressions-allods-online

[Simond]

I was wondering how long it'd be before Hitlorc showed up here.

[Signe]

I played this yesterday!

That is all.

[Draegan]

Did you play as Hitler Orc?

[Azaroth]

How many gpotatoes does one of those NSFW elves cost?

[Stormwaltz]

So my question is, just how Spelljammery is it?