Jasdemi's Corner

Allods Online is a free to play MMORPG being developed by Nival Interactive, one of the largest game developers in Russia, my birth country. They were also developing the well known Heroes of Might and Magic series and few other games that managed to get into the western market.

This MMORPG is based on its offline predecessor Allods or also known as Rage of Mages that has been released back in year 1998. Seems like it was pretty popular in Russia, so they decided to develop a MMORPG about this one.

Russian MMORPG, WTH?

No. Both, the European and North American GPotato will offer an English translated version of Allods Online, + French and German in the EU one. The closed beta will start in November 10th and last 14 days until 24th. The release however should be this year, so I guess it will be mid December, unless they delay it.

Worth a try?

I must say, this game feels like a WoW clone. Check out the screenshot on the right side. If there was no Allods icon at the bottom, would youstill say it’s Allods? I don’t think so. It looks like they accidentally placed a WoW screenshot on their page, but that’s not it. Other ones remind me pretty much on the WoW world.

But no, no. It’s not bad. I actually really liked its world. It looks nice. The part we should worry about is: “Is the gameplay cloned as well?”. Looks like yes. I watched some videos and it really feels like World of Warcraft. Well, I think it’s not a bad think as well. Me and you must agree that the gameplay in WoW is good.

Uniqueness?

Comparing this game further to WoW won’t bring us any further, I guess. So here are some key features that make Allods different.

Astral Battleships – You can build and control so called Astral Battleships. Since it’s a MMORPG, more people are needed to ride such a thing.

Goblinball – Self explainable, isn’t it? Goblin is the ball, we are the players. This game is played 6vs6. Even though I hate football (soccer) like the pest, this one sounds like fun. :D

Common features

Faction vs. Faction – There are two factions in AO, the League and the Empire. Both fight each other.

Crafting, Enchanting - We have crafting and stuff like this here as well, of course.

Instances, Raids - Instances allow up to 6 players to enter and raids up to 24 (4 parties).

Auction house – Oh, what could we do without an auction house nowadays? :p

PvP – There are rankings and you can reputation points for killing your foes. Those can most likely be used to buy stuff like armor, weapons, etc.

I’ll keep my eyes on this one

Since I’m not bound to any MMORPG right now, I will look forward to waste some of my time with Allods Online. Even though it’s a f2p game, I think it has some great potential. Now I need a closed beta key …