Allods Online -

[AutomaticZen]

I have an ability on my Avenger (Paladin) called Righteous Prayer (Judgement) that and stamps the target with Mark of the Pariah (Judgement of X).   

[Count Nerfedalot]

Ha!  Der Furorc is pretty funny, especially if you think about just how utterly the Russians despise the man. 

Checking out their (russian) web site tickled my funnybone as I slowly picked out a few words I could understand by translating each letter from cyrrilic to latin and finding stuff I recognized like "skreenshotee", "Status Serverov", "video", "consept art", "forum", "media", and "orkee". 

I just got tickled by it, but not in a critical or snobbish way.  I'm well aware that my native language is a mishmash of borrowed (or stolen!) words and phrases often misused and usually mispronounced tacked on to the skeletal remains of an archaic language used by an very minor ancient tribe that no longer even exists as a recognizable lineage.

[WindupAtheist]

It's Russian. It'll work well enough, but 47 men died in it's making and it might give you radiation poisoning.

[Ard]

But is it gamma radiation?  Because the world clearly needs more Hulk and less Hitlorc.

[Draegan]

The beta forums say I can "spread the word!" about this game.  Anyway, I got access tonight.  Downloading right now.  Pretty nifty, downloading at 1.5 MB/s

[schild]

Have fun?

[Draegan]

I'm a glass half full kinda guy.

The game is well made from a graphics,  animations and voice overs.  Classes are kinda cool along with the races.  You get a warhammery feeling from them.

The bad: the ui is fine but unscalable.  I wish I could do more with it.  The floating combat text is crap.  The grind is there early.  Combat is easily twice as long as any other mmo at that early level.

Took me 1 hour to hit level 5 or so.

[raydeen]

1 hour to 5 isn't bad. WoW for me is generally 1 hour to 6, 3 hours to 10, 15-20 hours to 20 (depending on race/class). And that's solo and knowing exactly what I need to and where to go to do it.

I'm looking forward to Allods. It might replace WoW for me if it's well done.

[Mrbloodworth]

The SI-FI undead slant really interests me. So do the spell jammer aspects.

[Draegan]

Yeah the Arisen (I think that's them) look awesome in the character creation screen dressed up in what I assume is "high level" gear.

I'm going to play around with the game some more last night since the Dwarf Army part of Dragon Age is irritating me right now.

[AutomaticZen]

I'm a glass half full kinda guy.

The game is well made from a graphics,  animations and voice overs.  Classes are kinda cool along with the races.  You get a warhammery feeling from them.

The bad: the ui is fine but unscalable.  I wish I could do more with it.  The floating combat text is crap.  The grind is there early.  Combat is easily twice as long as any other mmo at that early level.

Took me 1 hour to hit level 5 or so.

This is pretty much how I feel.  Mobs take seemingly forever to kill, but yield a decent amount of XP.  The UI could use another pass. 

Also, you can see the items that will be on the store, even though you cannot buy anything yet.  The usual.  Various potions and bag space.

[Signe]

Well, based on the one day I played:  Most things look like WoW, although the character models aren't all that similar and it feels like WoW, except for the fact that they threw in Asian grind.  I didn't think the game was good at all.  Mind you, I only played for a few hours.  I had to turn off chat because it was horrific.  The community is very much like WoW except maybe ten years younger.  Every single person I heard speak was an idiot.  I found it to be uninspired and mundane.  Like Pennsylvania.

[Draegan]

Yeah the grind is bad, but I was glancing through the forums and I found that quest xp is what drives the game, not mob xp.  Couple that with the fact it takes an hour of pressing one button to kill a mob makes it feel like a grind.

If you fix a player's damage, or mob's hps, and you can kill at 2x or 3x faster, it would be fine.  I should not have to cast 10-12 spells to kill a level 5 mob.

I played a few classes until 5, the Healer had the highest dps.  :/

[raydeen]

Well, based on the one day I played:  Most things look like WoW, although the character models aren't all that similar and it feels like WoW, except for the fact that they threw in Asian grind.  I didn't think the game was good at all.  Mind you, I only played for a few hours.  I had to turn off chat because it was horrific.  The community is very much like WoW except maybe ten years younger.  Every single person I heard speak was an idiot.  I found it to be uninspired and mundane.  Like Pennsylvania.

Hmm...I'm from Pennsylvania. I'll probably love it.

[Signe]

I'm surrounded by the A-mish!  Where ever I go!   

[Draegan]

If you want a key:
http://www.globalmmo.com/promotions/contest/37-allods-online-closed-beta-key-giveaway-north-america

[raydeen]

I'm surrounded by the A-mish!  Where ever I go!   

That's not a bad thing. You're just not hanging around with the right ones. All the amish kids I know are party animals and they all have iPods. I don't even have an iPod. Sometimes they let me listen to their iPods.

Seriously though, if you are in SE Pa. and in the vicinity of Lancaster or Berks County, I can feel your pain. I'm not too much of a fan of that area either.  Middle to Southern Chester County is a lot better. Of course at that point you're trading Amish for Catholics and Rednecks and Catholic Rednecks.

[Draegan]

If you're anywhere within 20 miles of Philadelphia, I feel your pain.  It's a cesspit especially with Camden across the river.

[raydeen]

Well, got my Allods key but damned if I can play. I've installed and patched twice and both times it says /bin/launcher.exe is corrupted. Reinstall the game Comrade. I've tried a couple of solutions from the net but no dice (it was like 1:30am at that point so I didn't do any real hard investigation). Anyone else hit that brick wall?

[Draegan]

You're not missing much though.  I played for a few hours the last two nights.  I can't be assed to get passed the first 5 levels.  The grind is terrible.

You need around 8000 xp to go from 5 to 6.  Mobs are giving 20-30xp and take 30-60 seconds to kill spamming 1 or 2 buttons (and spamming them fast with like a .5 second global cooldown if they're instant).  Then you finish the tediously long kill 5 mobs quest and you only get 150 xp for the turnin.

:/

[AutomaticZen]

Only way to get you to pay for the XP potion.

[raydeen]

Got it working this morning. Not too bad of a game. It does feel a bit grindy compared to WoW but I think my only real gripes are the lack of mouse Y-inversion and the feeble combat sounds.

[Azaroth]

I've created three accounts with three different keys now.

Each time the account is created normally and it accepts the key. Then the game bounces my account details when I try to log in

Do I have to type in Russian, or what?

[Mrbloodworth]

Keep in mind, this game will be selling XP potions I do believe.

[Draegan]

All the FTP games do though, that's not different.  Take a look at Runes of Magic; the leveling curve in that game was pretty close to WOW.  This game is pretty close to everquest.

[raydeen]

All the FTP games do though, that's not different.  Take a look at Runes of Magic; the leveling curve in that game was pretty close to WOW.  This game is pretty close to everquest.

To  be fair, it does announce to you after every kill how much more exp you need to get to the next level. Yeah, it seems slow but it's also rewarding me faster in at least one respect. In WoW, you have to get to level 10 to get a pet. In Allods, it's level 5. And there's no quest to run, just bam, 5, here's your pet spell (we'll even put it in the spell bar for you) and away you go. Also, there doesn't seem to be any down time. I have yet to rest to replenish my mana. I hardly even dent it. I may need to rest now and then to get health back if the pet can't keep the aggro but even then, I can use the Vampire spell on the next mob to get my health back up. So far, I'm liking this game. Maybe it is because I'm from Pennsylvania....

[Draegan]

I like the game its fun, it's just the time to level is awful.

[Mrbloodworth]

Oh, I only brought up the potions as they may want you to invest earlier in this title. Also, this is beta turning isn't it? and the beta is capped at level 10. What is the max level? Does anyone even know? Must all games have the same tempo and level range as Wow?

[Draegan]

Level 40 is the cap.  Beta cap is 10.  I've also heard the game is out in full or it's in full beta in Russia.

You say tempo and level range being close to WOW is a bad thing?  You want long level curves in a DIKU game?

[Mrbloodworth]

Level 40 is the cap.  Beta cap is 10.  I've also heard the game is out in full or it's in full beta in Russia.

You say tempo and level range being close to WOW is a bad thing?  You want long level curves in a DIKU game?

I just don't feel they have to all be the same, I also didn't say it was a bad or good thing.

[Draegan]

Why should they not be the same?  What's the benefit for having longer than needed leveling curves?

[Ingmar]

Why should they not be the same?  What's the benefit for having longer than needed leveling curves?

Some people like leveling content? There's also the question of how fast you need to get people into whatever endgame you have planned. In a game with no real endgame the leveling process might as well take longer, since that's the whole reason you'd be playing the game at all.

[Draegan]

Well if you have the content, that's fine.  But content is not "Kill 10 Rats".  There is a time limit between dinggrats or power boosts a player is willing to wait.  It's a lot shorter in the beginning.

[AutomaticZen]

Either enemies need not take forever to kill, or the XP needs to get bumped up.

Grindtastic!  You can almost taste the XP potions.

[Azaroth]

I know leveling on a Paladin was painful, but I hear other classes are much quicker. Namely Scouts and Mages.