Analyzing the Present and Future

One can only ignore game imbalances and flaws for so long, and people can only be so patient. It would suffice if the GMs promised balancing patches in the future, but seeing how we get a glimpse of RU patches anyways - the future looks bleak. What's especially questionable is how RU servers are going to add "new content" aka upping the level cap to 42, without fixing all the bugs and glitches of the first 40 levels. Yes bored 40s are complaining, but I think it's in the best interest of the game to, well you know, make the trip smoother before you add more problems to the pile.

I have observed the forums for quite awhile now, and I see the same responses and the same inquiries by many players... I'll be looking into both sides' defenses and their imposed changes.

Lots of text ahead!

This has probably caused more grief than anything ingame, as a lot of people are unhappy with their shop/marketing model.

Support:

Another often seen suggestion regarding the CS is getting rid of it and adding subscription fees. The problem with this is that it goes completely against what Gpotato stands for (play free for life) and will probably never happen, no matter how many people want it.

The cash shop model CAN bring in more money than a subscription model, but it depends on how it is handled. The most recent example is WoW's vanity mount - the celestial steed. It has definitely made Blizzard more than 1 million dollars in just the span of 24 hours. Does it affect gameplay in any way? No, it is purely cosmetic. In an mmorpg world where the "cooler" items you have the cooler you are, many people fall for these schemes. If Allods had something like this would everyone fall to their knees and empty their wallets? The truth is, NO! And why is that? Allods does not have a large enough of a loyal player base to pull this off - they need to build this up first... which they seem to have a few difficulties with. There is no reason to get an awesome mount endgame when there are few people to show it off to.

There is an article on Massively that discusses why cash shops can be good, and why many games keep screwing them up. It's all about vanity items, microtransactions, and happy players really.

A lot of Allods fans will use this as a defense whenever others complain about bugs or glitches. The problem with this defense is that.... well, you really can't play this card all the time. Allods is more like a soft launch than an open beta. First of all, there will be no wipe - so any previous damage caused by unfixed errors will go free (read: heroic reset exploiting). Second of all, they are generating revenue. When a game starts letting their players pay, it means its ready for launch. People seem to be disillusioned that the game will have a set "launch" date - the truth is this game can remain in perpetual "open beta" for as long as they feel like.

This has popped up quite a few times too. Now, it can go either way, because Gpotato technically CAN change the patches (only through omitting and I'll explain why in a bit) but at the same time they might not have the RIGHT to do it.

As mentioned in an earlier entry, Gpotato is the middleman.. They are merely the publisher and definitely not a development team. This means they work on localizing the game, not changing it and/or adding new things depending on player needs. All they have to work with is what AstrumNival gives to them - meaning they can probably alter the patches by omitting some changes, or adding some changes already made for future patches... but in the end they don't have the legal rights to fix the game to their liking. They can probably lobby ideas to AstrumNival, especially ones suggested by players, but it's not Gpotato's decision whether or not to follow these suggestions. I personally don't think it's Gpotato's fault, I think they WANT to keep this game afloat... but they aren't given many choices on what to do.

For example, perhaps Gpotato believes player suggestions are great! They agree that only vanity items should be sold. They don't have the resources to do this - AstrumNival disagrees with how they want to handle things. So what can they do? That's right... follow in RU's footsteps...

Class imbalances:

I think everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, knows that this game has a lot of potential. It has the potential to rival WoW! But in its current state it has too many issues and it is underfunded. We don't even know what buying CS items means to AstrumNival. Do they think we are supporting their game? Do they think their marketing strategy is working? Or is our money simply part of fulfilling their monthly quota?

Some people are crying because they are genuinely sad that the game could be ruined. Other people just don't want to pay $ - after all this was advertise as a free to play game. Some of them are probably people who haven't gotten past level 20 and are just jumping on the bandwagon because they believe every negative thing someone else says.

A lot of players feel like their suggestions are being ignored, so they blame Gpotato... because they can. And yet others dig up RU patches and forums and exaggerate negative effects. Because honestly, who goes to a forum to post about their average day of gaming? People go to post because they have an unresolved issue. They want to hear what other players think of it, and most importantly, they want assurance from the people who run the place - which is Gpotato. Unfortunately, Gpotato can't answer many of these things, or promise anything to their players... which obviously makes people more suspicious + start demanding answers. It's a vicious cycle.

This is the so called patch that killed the RU version, and is hypothesized to kill EU and NA servers as well.

Notable changes include: removal of mana regen talents, increased exp required to level from 20 to 40, harder mobs.

Many RU players flock to EU and NA forums to warn people about this, which raises unnecessary panic... which means locked threads. No one knows if Gpotato will modify this patch and no one knows when it will be released. Seeing how it took them 2 months for the first patch, we can guess around another 2 months unless Gpotato feels like the only thing they can do is keep putting it off. In the end, there is probably no win-win situation.

I'm not writing this to tell people to stop playing this game. But I feel like people need to get some things straight, and understand where this game might be heading towards. A big problem with Allods right now is the lack of information. No one is really sure about anything, and many players are either misinformed or completely out of the loop.

Now for super personal opinion stuff:

I'm not even 40 yet and I'm starting to grow tired of this game. It's becoming quite unfun having to die due to really simple mistakes and/or game mechanics - why is this mob critting me for 5k when I only have 20k hp to begin with? It's a normal equal level mob for heck's sake! It feels like the more I play the more flaws I see - ones that I used to defend and kept hoping for the better. A lot of the hardcore players say the game is fine and that the whiners and carebears and casuals should gtfo - they need to remember that the most revenue comes from these casual players. You can't pretend they are lesser than you just because they play differently - it's quite selfish to hold that sort of view.

I would actually probably be categorized under "hardcore" but even I can sympathize with the other side. I don't like games that cater too much to casual players (like the current and future state of WoW) but there is a noticeable difference between "This game feels challenging" and "Why am I dying unnecessary deaths?"