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Allods Online grants players two weeks of a free sub
Allods Online is one of the few MMORPGs in existence that began free-to-play and added a subscription server well after its original launch. And as part of its winter holiday celebration, Allods is granting everyone the chance to play on that subscription server for two weeks -- entirely for free. From the 18th of December until the 1st of January, all Allods players - veterans and newcomers alike - will be granted two weeks of free subscription time for the premium server "Smugglers Paradise". If you have never played on the server before, now is a good time to check it out - while those who already play there will gain two weeks of extra playtime. We hope you enjoy this New Year gift - and don't forget, we've got many other events and celebrations on the horizon as well, so stay tuned and enjoy the festivities! The Allods team is currently toiling away on its Brothers in Arms patch, which is set to include "multi-personnel combat mounts, additional PvP skirmishes with new objectives, new PvE adventure mechanics, and many other improvements," according to a dev blog posted to the official site yesterday. Unfortunately, the dev diary vid is in Russian, so you'll just have to take the official site's word for it.
Allods Online patch will offer enchanted weapons and new astral adventure
Allods Online is gearing up for a pretty substantial update and has a pair of new dev diaries to talk about what the players can anticipate for Patch 5.0.02. The Forgotten Legends update will kick off with a brand-new astral adventure called Reflection of Irdrich. In it, players will venture into a haunted obselisk and face off against five bosses. The big dev focus for this adventure is to make enemy damage avoidable if a player is skilled and aware of his or her surroundings. Also coming with 5.0.02 is an enchanted weapon system that allows players to upgrade specific pieces of gear. These upgrades require reagents and result in more powerful weapons that boast not only better stats but improved visuals.
Allods Online offers ship test arenas
Players looking to learn the ropes of their flying ships in Allods Online will soon have a friendlier and cheaper option: the Astral Arena. Coming with the 5.0.02 update, the Astral Arena is essentially a series of test rooms for players to pit their ship against others with a variety of rulesets. The arena won't be as hardcore as normal PvP encounters, as ships can be repaired after fighting in them for no cost. The Astral Arena is divided into the maintenance system (for ship repair), the firing zone (with dummy ships), the stable zone (PvP with three astral anomalies), and the scintilliation zone (another PvP mode with two anomalies).
Allods Online redesigns its June Catacombs trials
After identifying "a few flaws" in its June Catacombs trials, the Allods Online team is preparing to overhaul the experience with the upcoming 5.0.02 patch to make it more fun and less predictable. In the first round of the revised trials, players will be chasing after golems in order to destroy them for their Amalgam packages. During the second round, players will each have a fair shot at winning a race -- but this time as a golem with four abilities. And the third round will forbid mounts from being used and decrease the effectiveness for invisibility spells.
Allods Online provides a new Priden trailer
The next major update for Allods Online is on its way, and version 6.0 is bringing with it a brand-new race. The Priden were first seen a while back on the game's Russian servers, and they're going to be going worldwide in the near future, starting off as a neutral race before choosing a faction after reaching level 20. Want to see the race in action? You can get a sense for what they're about in the trailer hidden just past the break. In short, they're a race of warriors, first and foremost; the members live by a rather simple credo of "dare or die" and seek to have their deeds recorded in memory. If you want to play something a little bit different, check out the trailer and see if the Priden are your cup of tea.
Take a look at the next Allods Online update, Colors of War
When will players in North America get to see the new race being added to Allods Online? It's hard to say. It's easier to say when they'll see the next major update to the game, however, as the Colors of War update is already live for the Russian server and is being localized for North America and European players now. So you can expect it within a month or so. And what does it contain? Like the name says, war. Players will be able to explore a revamped Kingdom of Elements with several redesigned battle points as well as a new variant style of capture-the-flag in the Training Grounds. The Raid Dominion system has also undergone extensive remaking, adding in new elements like gun mounts to change the face of these battles. That's in addition to major class changes for Wardens and a revamp of the old Tika-Rek's cave. Check out the patch trailer just past the break. [Thanks to K for the tip!]
A new beastmen race is headed to Allods Online
Earlier this month, Russian developer Mail.ru announced the new Praydenov (Praiden) race for steampunk MMO Allods Online. Though we don't know for sure when or whether English-speaking players will get to play as these beastmen, Russians will be rolling up the furry creatures this fall. There's scant English news on the race so far, but at least according to the Mail.ru site, the race is a mixture of a wolf, lynx, bear, marten, and fox. Tipster tandarighttanon (many thanks for the translation!) tells us the Praiden are a "neutral race that you can play till level 20, then you must choose your faction." The official site includes a gallery of additional mounts and critters destined for the game in the same patch.
Allods Online transfers operations back to Mail.Ru, merges population
Allods Online is on the cusp of reverting operations from Webzen back to the original owners, Mail.ru. The firm has a couple of posts up to answer questions about the transfer. The transfer will happen sometime this month and it will involve both European and North American accounts. The creators will be merging these populations due to popular demand: "One of these [suggestions] was the desire to join the European servers: New Frontier and Goblin Republic. So we thought, why not use this great opportunity to finally unite all of our European and North American players on the same server? There are no more technical issues or other obstacles in our way, so right after we merge Webzen EU and US communities on March 18th, we will organize a migration of our players from Italy and Turkey to the same servers (it will happen two weeks later)." Allods Online will be synchronizing client versions across the board (except in Russia, which will remain ahead of the pack) due to this change and will not be supporting Polish localization going forward. The game will transfer regional accounts separately to avoid any conflicts.
Allods Online outlines changes to the Astral
The Astral is a big part of Allods Online, the big twisting magical space upon which the fragments of land float steadily. Adventuring in this space is a big part of high-level play, and with the game's next major update it's seeing a large-scale overhaul. A new official posting reveals how the environment will be changing and how players will navigate the new regions, hunting down valuable equipment in unexplored regions. With the new update, the map will be divided into four layers of seven sectors each, with better gear available as players unlock maps leading into deeper and more dangerous regions. Players piece together maps by retrieving fragments of said maps in the Wild Shore and will be exploring eight new Astral islands in total. For more information on these changes, including the sector breakdown and the improvements to ship equipment, take a look at the full development blog and get ready for exploration.
Jukebox Heroes: Allods Online's soundtrack
I'm particularly excited about this week's journey through MMO music because we're going to touch on one of those scores that doesn't get nearly enough of the respect it should. Like Runes of Magic's excellent OST, Allods Online's music is largely overlooked because the game itself isn't treated as a "serious" or "original" title. But one shouldn't be so quick to throw out the soundtrack with the bathwater (that is both messy and noisy!); Allods Online has several top-notch tracks that should be recognized no matter what you may think of the game. Composers Mark Morgan (Fallout, Planescape: Torment) and Vladislav Isaev (Prime World) collaborated on the large project. "The music in Allods Online combines lots of different elements and styles," they said in a 2009 interview. "These range from dark ambient and ethnic music, symphonies and rock music, as well as various industrial noises. Some tracks in the game retain a Russian melody spirit combined with high a quality production and its own unique sound." I think it's the Russian flair that sets this apart from being yet another fantasy soundtrack. Anything different and yet still catchy is welcome at my dinner table. Let's partake, shall we?
Allods Online Heart of the World update patch notes translated
As a Russian-developed game, Allods Online usually gets each game update in Russia before it hits the rest of the world. Luckily for those of us who don't speak the language, fansite Allods Oracle has been translating these Russian patch notes into English so we know what to expect. The latest update to hit Russia is entitled Heart of the World and it brings a new allod, a new adventure, and the highly anticipated Engineer class to the game. The game's stat system has also been completely revamped with this patch, and a wardrobe system has been added to allow characters to change costumes at any time. Check out the complete translated notes, including side articles detailing the major changes, over at Allods Oracle.
Choose My Adventure: So long, Allods Online
Choose My Adventure, in my mind, is as much an investigation as it is a voter-led romp through a particular title. There's a reason each writer who takes on a CMA limits the voting pool to games he or she hasn't previously experienced in-depth; it's always more interesting to discover and explore than it is to travel across well-beaten paths. Writing and playing for Choose My Adventure almost always involves being surprised, either for the better or for the worse. When the community chose Allods Online as the subject of this edition of Choose My Adventure, I was skeptical. The game looks, on the surface, like another cheap World of Warcraft knock-off designed to siphon a few players away from Blizzard's enormous subscription MMO with promises of free gameplay and some sci-fi/steampunk tweaks. What I discovered over the last five weeks, however, is a solid, charming traditional MMO that is hindered at almost every turn by the incompetence or greed (I can't be sure which) of its publisher.
Choose My Adventure: Deep in the dungeons of Allods Online
Last week, I presented Choose My Adventure voters with one simple choice: Where, exactly, should we go next in Allods Online? The community responded by sending my low-level Psionicist directly into what many consider to be a core component of the modern fantasy MMO, the instanced dungeon. Understanding how a game approaches bosses, loot, grouping, and raiding is key in understanding that game's design philosophy, so it makes sense to dip a toe or two into the instanced content Allods has to offer. Assuming, of course, that I can find a group.
One Shots: All outta soul
Man, there are few things worse in the gaming world than to see players of other regions get a hold of titles that have yet to make it to your neck of the woods. First comes the flush of jealousy, then the slow burn of envy, then the mountaintop proclamation of vengeance upon the studio in the middle of a rainstorm. Reader Dynatos is one of the fortunate to be able to try out this particular game: "I've recently stepped back into Blade and Soul with the Chinese release, and while I'm not very far along into the game (it's a little tough when I don't understand the language!), I'm completely in love with the art style and combat mechanics. Here's my Kung Fu master looking at the foreboding building up the walkway -- not very inviting!" I WILL RAIN HOT DOOM UPON YOU NCSOFT! DOOM! Er, sorry, I just advanced to stage three.
Choose My Adventure: Allods Online's compelling crafting
While it may seem longer due to holidays with family and other time-crunching stresses, it has been just one short week since our last jaunt into the community-chosen Allods Online. In that first glance, we created a brand-new Arisen character, gave him a few magical abilities, and set off on a course for action and adventure. Quests were completed, loot was packed up, and enemies were destroyed. This week, based on the results of last week's Choose My Adventure polls, we slowed things down. The community elected to stop and smell the roses and to pick up a crafting profession along the way. Taking a moment to observe details in Allods Online's character and environment design helps emphasize the title's unique and attractive aesthetic, which isn't much of a surprise. But our baby steps into the title's leatherworking profession unveiled an engaging and nuanced crafting system that's sure to deliver big payoffs down the line.
Choose My Adventure: Life as an Arisen in Allods Online
The Massively community answered loud and clear when I asked who, what, and how I should play in Allods Online. Voters in last week's Choose My Adventure poll sent me along the path of the Empire in the shoes of an Arisen and equipped me with a Psionicist's dagger along the way. The community also favored the subscription server over the free-to-play server, with some voters claiming Allods is too "pay-to-win" on the free-to-play server and others simply expressing curiosity about whether they'd see a difference between the paid and free versions of the game. With those voted handled and counted, my adventure had officially begun.
Massively's winter holidays MMO roundup
The holidays are here! That means the hustle and bustle of the season is in full swing, with gifts to get, treats to taste, deals to nab, and plenty of festivities to partake in -- and that's just in the MMOverse! Yes folks, there's a plethora of holiday celebrations out there -- so many, in fact, that it can be hard to keep track of them all, let alone participate to them! If you're trying to catch everything in your favorite games, we're here to help. We've got a round up of the various winter celebrations across the gaming sphere all bundled together right here for you. If something catches your eye, hop in and join in the festivities!
Choose My Adventure: Against Allods
Last week's Choose My Adventure poll turned out to be something of a landslide. A couple of tweets and forum posts were all it took for gPotato's Allods Online to emerge the very clear winner of a race that included titles like Guild Wars, Champions Online, DC Universe Online, and Defiance. And now, with the winner chosen, it's time to leap into the fray and start smashing things in the face with fireballs or mallets or whatever it is one smashes with in Allods Online. But of course, this is a community activity. I can't simply create a character and start questing. No, dear readers, I need your help in deciding where and how this adventure begins. So let's get it started.
Choose My Adventure: The weather outside is frightful
December is here, which means it's about time to throw some logs on the fire, grab every blanket in the house, and collapse under the mantle in a freezing, sobbing heap. This week's arctic blast has left the United States feeling a lot like Northrend, but for those of us in certain parts of the country it's just the beginning of what's sure to be a long, hellish winter. However cold it may be outside, there's always a warm, toasty inn waiting in our favorite games. MMOs also provide sunny vistas, hot deserts, and steamy swamps, all of which make great places to escape nasty real-life weather. Even when it's cold in an MMO, it's still warm at our desks. In this edition of Choose My Adventure, I'm depending on you to help me hide from the snow that's piling up outside of my window. You don't have to send me somewhere warm, but I'd appreciate it if you send me somewhere fun.
Allods Online unleashes the Wind of Changes today
Come gather, you players of Allods Online; at 4:00 p.m. EST it's patching time. Accept it that soon there'll be new battle lines. If the game for you is worth playing, then you'd better get ready to adapt to the climes, for the winds they are a-changin'. Seriously, you can't title a major update Wind of Changes and have the wind remain the same; it's right there in the title. Bob Dylan-inspired introductions aside, what's actually changing with this update? Plenty. The game is adding a new mail system and a variety of new mounts, along with major revamps of the Dominion system and the new Scarlet Bastion PvP map. There's also the new Class Change system and Astral Modifiers to ensure that you really feel how much the environment really is, well, changing. But you don't have to take our word for it; you can watch the trailer just past the break.
