One Shots: Off into the wild blue yonder

As you're reading this, the servers for Allods Online are coming online for the 'soft' launch of the game. In terms of free-to-play MMOs, this Russian game developed by Astrum Nival and being released by gPotato has been gathering a lot of interest from players looking for something casual and fun that still has some depth and a more traditional Western feel.

For today, we have this great screenshot and a huge note from Leonard E. who played Allods Online during closed beta and wanted to share his thoughts. As such, we'll turn it over to him after reminding you to send in your MMO screenshots to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a brief description. For now, on with Leonard's note; be sure to read the rest of it behind the break!

I've been playing since CB3. and my character's name is Aselin. This is myself waiting for the ship to come by, and what caught my eye is how vast Allods space is. It gives that same feeling I had when I first played EVE Online. You can get an immediate sense on how much more you can do in this game.
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%Gallery-9798%So far, my experience has been extremely positive. I've beta tested a lot of MMOs before and this is the most polished F2P MMO there is. My jaw dropped when I heard the music when you're traveling on the ship and then stepping into Novograd for the first time. At that moment, you realize that this isn't a WoW clone by any means. The level of quality is impressive from the graphics to the gameplay to the music. I find the battles here much more engaging and a nice change of pace from WoW and it's also a nice reprieve from Final Fantasy XI, which I've been playing for six years now.

Though I'll miss my closed-beta character when Closed Beta 4 ends, I look forward to open beta soon after and will create the same character again. I may be anxiously waiting for Final Fantasy XIV, and even just to get chosen for closed beta, but I'll probably be in Allods Online more often once open beta and final comes around until then.