Comments on: Astral Projection: Allods Online

By: Griffinheart

Griffinheart — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:48:03 +0000

This has to be the least exciting MMO I’ve ever seen…and, my goodness, that narrator nearly put me to sleep. What I want out of a trailer is something flashy and/or cool. Hearing about how the crew comes together to maintain the ship is neither.

By: Dominic White

Dominic White — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:14:58 +0000

The level of grind is dictated almost entirely by the developers. The publishers are just the one hosting and marketing the game, so you can’t really judge gameplay based on publisher.

What you can judge is hosting quality, speed and quality of support and other such things that they are in charge of.

By: Thingus

Thingus — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:27:34 +0000

I do like the idea of players having to use teamwork to fly their ships; it’s a very Air Buccaneer-ish thing. Having had some experience with GPotato games before, thought, I’ve got my doubts about the PvE. FlyFF was incredibly grindy.

By: Redford

Redford — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:17:37 +0000

They are going to have to do very well indeed to beat out Atlantica. I wish them the best of luck.

By: Psychopomp

Psychopomp — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:30:45 +0000

Wow, some people think this, graphically, looks like a WoW clone?

When was the last time you lot picked up a Final Fantasy game?

By: Hümmelgümpf

Hümmelgümpf — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:04:07 +0000

Judging by what I’ve heard from beta testers on Russian forums, it’s a cheap Spelljammer/WoW knock-off with a very questionable sense of humor.

By: Megazver

Megazver — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:25:29 +0000

The best part of Allods Online is this picture:

http://www.allods.ru/media/images/pages/elf.jpg

Russians are kicking it old-school.

By: Dominic White

Dominic White — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:55:00 +0000

Yeah, I wouldn’t ever call HOMM5 a classic, but it was good, solid fun. The many expansions improved it somewhat as well. My positive opinion may be slightly skewed by the fact that I got the entire HOMM series in a huge fancy boxed set at PC World for only £30 though.

Maybe I’m being too optimistic here, but as far as I can see, this is a free-to-play MMO from a veteran studio, with an interesting setting (based on an existing RPG line, too), and published by a fairly decent company. Helps that GPotatos EU servers are located in Ireland, so UK folks will get teensy tiny pings.

So long as the core gameplay isn’t dull, it should be worth at least a download and a play.

By: undead dolphin hacker

undead dolphin hacker — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:27:51 +0000

Dominic: Heroes of Might and Magic V was terrible :p
No it wasn’t.

By: Diogo Ribeiro

Diogo Ribeiro — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:24:03 +0000

You know what I’d like? A MMO where dimension-hopping means travelling through already existing MMO’s. Like a planewalker, gliding past Azeroth on an EVE Online Manticore then warping straight into Conan’s Aquilonia.

Yeah.

By: Serondal

Serondal — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:10:45 +0000

I see people running around on the astral plane but I don’t see their astral anchor that is holding them to their body on the prime material plane. That makes me think they’re there mind and body! VERY DANGEROUS! Watch out for mind flayers and all that jazz!

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:03:43 +0000

You can’t out-cocacola the CocaCola company, and you can’t win Blizzard out-wow-WoW.

People keep saying stuff like this…

Just as there’s plenty of room in the soda market for profitable companies that are smaller than Coke, and plenty of room in the ocean for carnivorous fish smaller than great white sharks, there’s plenty of room for successful MMOs that do not have 30 godzillion players.