I haven't played WoW at all during this week: not even checked my AH toons to renew the expired and cashing out the sold stuff.
I'm so deep into Allods Online. It's just that fun change from WoW, not least because I'm levelling again and in a new lore and surroundings.
I can easily drop in and play for 1-2 hours, get group content done on the fly and be amazed by the crooked humour the designers have put in the questlines. And drop off, only to continue later on. It's not light or easy compared to WoW or EQ2 or any other game I've tried: the quest stories have enough detail in them to make an equal comparison with the two forementioned games.
The plea I mention in the title comes out of this urge to compare everything to WoW. The general chat of Allods Online is filled with comparisons on this and that aspect of WoW, with the nazi-card equivalent of shouting out that "This is just another WoW clone, this and that is copied from WoW". Meaning that a war ensues.
My plea: Could you people take a step back from the game, cool down and stop making the utterly unnecessary comparison. Stop crying that the game -be it Allods, Aion, Fallen Earth or any other game out there- is a copy of WoW. WoW wasn't the first one, and many aspects of WoW are copied from other games. The whole Warcraft-series is a rip off from this and that source. Ever come to think about the green colour of the Orcs? THAT'S FROM WARHAMMER MINIATURE GAME!!! Tolkien's orcs are from brown to black, not green. And there is a story why Games Workshop's orcs became green after a short while in production/marketing. Go find that out and then talk about green orcs being original in Warcraft!
Every game is a compilation of things from earlier ones, the utilities which have been noticed to WORK properly and/or being better than earlier versions. The same goes to movies', tv-series' and all entertainment as well as in technology. There are only so few completely new concepts created and only so often. And most of them are based on something that has been around already for a while.
So instead of whining and crying out that this game is a WoW clone, stop whining and start playing. Allods -just to mention one- sure has the same kind of UI as WoW, but the mechanics contain some pretty clever innovations. Instead of whining and calling names on people trying to enjoy the game AS IT IS, start playing the game and enjoy.
It helps a lot if you shrug off that mantle of WoW when you login to another game, really.
It may even make the change... enjoyable?!
Showing posts with label Allods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Allods. Show all posts
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
A lot of Allods
I managed to download and install Allods before the weekend, and much to my surprise I spent most of the weekend playing the game. It is a WoW clone, but how can you do a successful MMO now without doing that, as every game is being evaluated against the biggest success in the MMO history?
On the other hand, WoW is 'just' a refined and fine tuned copy of EQ and so on, so enough of that. Every success is based on two things in entertainment: forerunner or pioneer and the one refining the concept to a success. Just think about it (Cyndi Lauper -> Madonna for example...).
Needless to say, I enjoyed immensely of the game. The main concept is similar to WoW in that there are two opposing factions, with similar classes though different races. The race and class combinations are very much restricted, something WoW is shrugging off currently. But it works exceptionally well in the game: the combinations bring depth to the races and give a 'face' to both the class and the race.
But Allods doesn't copy only from WoW. In the races there are no copies from WoW as such, but the Elven race is direct rip off from EQ2's Feyfolk with their clumsy wings and floating 'walking'. The game has copied at least the Auction system from EQ2, and I sure hope that they have done the same with the crafting and the crafted gear's functionality. Haven't hit that far yet, but the work of Disassembler (crafting profession which disassembles gear to components for other trades... clever!) seems to follow the similar train of thought as the one in EQ2.
The devil is in the detail
The overall playing experience is a lot like the one in WoW. Or in any other current MMO. The combat system is very responsive and effective, the special effects of the spells and the animations work like a charm. Did I say already that the game runs flawlessly for me, even though I'm playing over at the US servers? Much better than WoW did back in the day I was playing beyond the pond, I might add!
But the fun part is that even though the combat system is the same (push 1-2-1-3 ad nauseatum) there are teeny weenie details which make this a bit more. For example, the mages have a special Magic Amplification skill, which grants them a special buff or debuff everytime the amplification of a school (fire, frost, lightning) is used or stacks 5 times. This can be a life saver in a tight situation, or may as well be your downfall. The other classes seem to have their own special systems to cover, so it's worth to try the classes through to find more about them.
The other thing is that all the gear and your character stats tell you what stats are important to you, and the stats screen gives you visual clues on the status of your stats. No more thinking over what would be best, just deciding over whether to take this over that!
The devil is truly in the detail, and this trend goes deep down into the game.
Irony or dark humour?
What I fell in love with the most in the game is the dark ironic approach the designers have taken on both sides. Mind you, I have played only to level 6 on the Legion and to level 8 on the Empire, so I haven't seen much of it yet. But the promise of something special is there.
On Legion you are ushered to an abandoned Allod (isle floating in ether) and as the races in Legion are all the 'good' races like Elves, Gibberlings and other 'shiny people', the ironic twist of the thing is that most of the starting quests are very much underlined 'Kill 10 rats' type quests. The result of which is that the starting Allod for the League is a slaughterhouse in which the lovely creatures of Light are killing every other living -and unliving- creature they encounter. The drastic contrast of a lush birch and elm forrest and the people running around killing everything is mind numbing. Sadly this is passed by by most of the players trying to level up as fast as possible (thus killing more and faster...).
On Empire, the start of a new character is total rip off from The Chronicles of the Spellbound, even to the point that the character is the sole survivor from the Astral Ship attacked by a Astral Monster... After which you will find the character torturing war prisoners for the good of the people, killing rats and slugs and finally emerge to a romantically pictured Soviet city with all the pompous statues and monuments of the Heroes of the People. The pictorial references are those of 1930-1950's Soviet propaganda posters and reality, with the quests living up to this premise: the character will place bugs into peoples' houses, interrogate and catch surrogates, find smugglers with questionable printed materials and so on. The whole thing lacks only the Father Sunshine (Comerade Stalin) from the scene to make it perfect. All this is emphasized with the cyrillic Russian posters and signs on the walls and by the fact that the characters and NPC's outside the actual storylines speak Russian!
The whole concept has been thought very well and it is concise and complete. Like Petter said in one Buzz about this game, you really want to go deeper into the plot to see if the corruption and fake facades really give in later on and if there is a more sinister truth to both sides out there. The atmosphere is excellent, save for one thing.
Player Community
Now the game is new, not even officially launched yet. That should be kept in mind. Yet there are already people who have the right to call other people asking for information "noobs" or "retards". There are already elitists who really make it sure you get how much better they are.
The worst part of the current zone (local) chat is the constantly revolving circle of WoW discussion. How the game is a WoW clone, how WoW is better in this or that, how WoW is so bad about almost everything and so on. It's like the Nazi-card in any other conversation: it just keeps coming up and doesn't go away.
However, the community is very much bustling and helpfull, and you can get people to group with you just by suggesting it to them: the quest objectives are sometimes hard to take on by yourself and the kill ten rats areas are very crowded. Grouping helps to overcome this as you get your kills from all the kills your group does (as in WoW and any other game) and in certain open world bosses it's a must to have a HUGE amount of people doing the kill, anyhow (like the League's Dark Soul quest... we had 24 people to make it... at lv6!!).
What really amazed me was the amount of questions people had about the quest objectives clearly stated in the quest description. Not only does the game's map show you the location of the quest objective, it also tells you what kind of objective it is (combat, pick up, discussion). Still people were asking for help on how to complete/find a quest objective! Have we been taught to get everything on a platter already? No need to do anything in an adventure game or RPG?
A lot of the questions were such that people could have come up with the answer just by fiddling around with the map, quest texts or the interface. Too much of things to overcome in this age of instant gratification for some, really, even though the game is as simple as it gets.
Overall impression
If you're bored or looking for a change after playing WoW, EQ2 or any other MMO, Allods has a lot to offer. It's simple, familiar and very smoothly running game with a lot of tongue on the cheek humour and references. It's deeper than the surface might suggest, I just hope this promise holds till the level cap later on.
Being F2P, a lot depends on the Cash Store: what and how highly priced items will be. For now, as a free game, I could see this tapping on the 70% of the WoW trial drop outs, and a lot of people fed up with other MMOs over there.
I think Allods has a lot to it. I suggest you try it out yourself.
PS. I'm playing on Nezeb server with toons like Copranull, Copratwo (on Empire) and Ding (Ding/Dang/Dong, a gibberling trio), Copraner and Gruthmog (on League). I suppose all my toons from now on will have that Copra tied in somehow, but ask to be sure.
On the other hand, WoW is 'just' a refined and fine tuned copy of EQ and so on, so enough of that. Every success is based on two things in entertainment: forerunner or pioneer and the one refining the concept to a success. Just think about it (Cyndi Lauper -> Madonna for example...).
Needless to say, I enjoyed immensely of the game. The main concept is similar to WoW in that there are two opposing factions, with similar classes though different races. The race and class combinations are very much restricted, something WoW is shrugging off currently. But it works exceptionally well in the game: the combinations bring depth to the races and give a 'face' to both the class and the race.
But Allods doesn't copy only from WoW. In the races there are no copies from WoW as such, but the Elven race is direct rip off from EQ2's Feyfolk with their clumsy wings and floating 'walking'. The game has copied at least the Auction system from EQ2, and I sure hope that they have done the same with the crafting and the crafted gear's functionality. Haven't hit that far yet, but the work of Disassembler (crafting profession which disassembles gear to components for other trades... clever!) seems to follow the similar train of thought as the one in EQ2.
The devil is in the detail
The overall playing experience is a lot like the one in WoW. Or in any other current MMO. The combat system is very responsive and effective, the special effects of the spells and the animations work like a charm. Did I say already that the game runs flawlessly for me, even though I'm playing over at the US servers? Much better than WoW did back in the day I was playing beyond the pond, I might add!
But the fun part is that even though the combat system is the same (push 1-2-1-3 ad nauseatum) there are teeny weenie details which make this a bit more. For example, the mages have a special Magic Amplification skill, which grants them a special buff or debuff everytime the amplification of a school (fire, frost, lightning) is used or stacks 5 times. This can be a life saver in a tight situation, or may as well be your downfall. The other classes seem to have their own special systems to cover, so it's worth to try the classes through to find more about them.
The other thing is that all the gear and your character stats tell you what stats are important to you, and the stats screen gives you visual clues on the status of your stats. No more thinking over what would be best, just deciding over whether to take this over that!
The devil is truly in the detail, and this trend goes deep down into the game.
Irony or dark humour?
What I fell in love with the most in the game is the dark ironic approach the designers have taken on both sides. Mind you, I have played only to level 6 on the Legion and to level 8 on the Empire, so I haven't seen much of it yet. But the promise of something special is there.
On Legion you are ushered to an abandoned Allod (isle floating in ether) and as the races in Legion are all the 'good' races like Elves, Gibberlings and other 'shiny people', the ironic twist of the thing is that most of the starting quests are very much underlined 'Kill 10 rats' type quests. The result of which is that the starting Allod for the League is a slaughterhouse in which the lovely creatures of Light are killing every other living -and unliving- creature they encounter. The drastic contrast of a lush birch and elm forrest and the people running around killing everything is mind numbing. Sadly this is passed by by most of the players trying to level up as fast as possible (thus killing more and faster...).
On Empire, the start of a new character is total rip off from The Chronicles of the Spellbound, even to the point that the character is the sole survivor from the Astral Ship attacked by a Astral Monster... After which you will find the character torturing war prisoners for the good of the people, killing rats and slugs and finally emerge to a romantically pictured Soviet city with all the pompous statues and monuments of the Heroes of the People. The pictorial references are those of 1930-1950's Soviet propaganda posters and reality, with the quests living up to this premise: the character will place bugs into peoples' houses, interrogate and catch surrogates, find smugglers with questionable printed materials and so on. The whole thing lacks only the Father Sunshine (Comerade Stalin) from the scene to make it perfect. All this is emphasized with the cyrillic Russian posters and signs on the walls and by the fact that the characters and NPC's outside the actual storylines speak Russian!
The whole concept has been thought very well and it is concise and complete. Like Petter said in one Buzz about this game, you really want to go deeper into the plot to see if the corruption and fake facades really give in later on and if there is a more sinister truth to both sides out there. The atmosphere is excellent, save for one thing.
Player Community
Now the game is new, not even officially launched yet. That should be kept in mind. Yet there are already people who have the right to call other people asking for information "noobs" or "retards". There are already elitists who really make it sure you get how much better they are.
The worst part of the current zone (local) chat is the constantly revolving circle of WoW discussion. How the game is a WoW clone, how WoW is better in this or that, how WoW is so bad about almost everything and so on. It's like the Nazi-card in any other conversation: it just keeps coming up and doesn't go away.
However, the community is very much bustling and helpfull, and you can get people to group with you just by suggesting it to them: the quest objectives are sometimes hard to take on by yourself and the kill ten rats areas are very crowded. Grouping helps to overcome this as you get your kills from all the kills your group does (as in WoW and any other game) and in certain open world bosses it's a must to have a HUGE amount of people doing the kill, anyhow (like the League's Dark Soul quest... we had 24 people to make it... at lv6!!).
What really amazed me was the amount of questions people had about the quest objectives clearly stated in the quest description. Not only does the game's map show you the location of the quest objective, it also tells you what kind of objective it is (combat, pick up, discussion). Still people were asking for help on how to complete/find a quest objective! Have we been taught to get everything on a platter already? No need to do anything in an adventure game or RPG?
A lot of the questions were such that people could have come up with the answer just by fiddling around with the map, quest texts or the interface. Too much of things to overcome in this age of instant gratification for some, really, even though the game is as simple as it gets.
Overall impression
If you're bored or looking for a change after playing WoW, EQ2 or any other MMO, Allods has a lot to offer. It's simple, familiar and very smoothly running game with a lot of tongue on the cheek humour and references. It's deeper than the surface might suggest, I just hope this promise holds till the level cap later on.
Being F2P, a lot depends on the Cash Store: what and how highly priced items will be. For now, as a free game, I could see this tapping on the 70% of the WoW trial drop outs, and a lot of people fed up with other MMOs over there.
I think Allods has a lot to it. I suggest you try it out yourself.
PS. I'm playing on Nezeb server with toons like Copranull, Copratwo (on Empire) and Ding (Ding/Dang/Dong, a gibberling trio), Copraner and Gruthmog (on League). I suppose all my toons from now on will have that Copra tied in somehow, but ask to be sure.
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