Allods Online

Levels 1 through 8 of the edgy Russian WOW-alike.

We know mother said never to talk to strangers. But what if those strangers are offering fabulous bargains?

All it takes is a visit to the Allods Online website to notice the eerie similarities between it and World of Warcraft, and this likeness gets even more suspect when you start playing. It's a bit like looking into a mirror and seeing somebody else wearing a cardboard cutout of your face. Everything in Allods, from the combat, stylised art and quest structure, down to the hotkeys and talent trees, will be as familiar to anyone who's played WOW as the back of... well, if not their own hand then one that looks a lot like it.

And yet Allods is far more than a cynical clone. Honestly! The team behind it clearly has too many ideas and too much funding for that, because there's evidence everywhere of them trying to improve WOW's framework. The crafting professions might be similar, but creating an item now involves a mini-game unique to each profession. There's a small, cute race, but rather than being represented by a single character they travel in adorable packs of three.

That talent tree becomes secondary to a more complex talent 'grid' at level 10. Players can still look forward to their own mode of transport at higher levels, but instead of an animal they'll own an enormous floating ship capable of carrying themselves and their friends off into astral space. Even the dance animations are longer. Sold? You don't have to be. Allods Online will be completely free, with no initial purchase and no subscription fee.

'Allods Online' Screenshot 1

Where Allods will be getting its hands on your money is through an unobtrusive item shop you open via a little treasure chest in the bottom left of the screen. It's disabled in the beta, but headers show you'll be able to buy potions, 'style' items, 'rare' items and 'services'.

It's the kind of business model that hints at Allods being a grind, but there's very little of that to be seen. It's the WOW model - a content-heavy mix of quests, crafting, exploration and the unfurling of a plot to do with a war between two alliances of races, in this case the League (vaguely good guys with a fairytale feel) and the Empire (vaguely evil guys with an interesting Soviet-steampunk look).

Allods' initial generosity might even be unparalleled among the wretched ranks of free-to-play MMOs. Following an explosive, set-piece-heavy tutorial which drops you right into the war and practically flings loot and new stat points at you, the game takes a good four hours to slow down to a more traditional pace.

This is to do with the way Allods treats quests. Despite the fact that each task is accompanied by a mass of introductory text from the quest-giver that at least 90 per cent of players will learn to skip straight past, these quests are initially insubstantial things containing less of a challenge and less of a reward for less work. It's an odd system, fixable by taking every quest you find and meandering methodically through the wilderness, but that won't be to everyone's taste. This lack of anything to sink your teeth into also makes group questing a little harder.

A more serious criticism of Allods' early game is that at the moment it seems bizarrely easy, which is never something you'd expect from a game which plans to make part of its money from selling combat aids. Yet as an Animist (one of Allods' interpretations of the damage-focused Hunter class) it isn't just that I have no trouble defeating bosses by myself, it's that there is no threat of death, no need to carefully manage my abilities and no danger, and therefore no excitement. The only time things ever get difficult is when a mass of players swamp a rare monster spawn. I try to speed things up by heading into higher-level areas, but even as a DPS character I find that once monsters start getting dangerous the time it takes to kill them makes progress tedious.

That said, by level 8 harder mobs, serious group quests and instanced dungeons are starting to make a very welcome appearance. And in any case, Allods' gorgeous art means questing is never quite a chore, and the engine allows the kind of detail WOW can only dream about.

The visual design here is fantastic and enjoyably Russian - elves float on glittering wings in the shadow of a castle boasting the onion domes of an Orthodox church, and orcs wear odd medieval interpretations of WW2 secret service uniforms. The Arisen, Allods' re-imagining of the Undead, deserve a special mention. Imagine the dead brought back to life not by magic but by fantastical steampunk Egyptian technology and you're there.

It's this same almost out-of-place tech that powers the Astral Ships which are Allods Online's most interesting feature. Allods, specifically, are islands which float in a huge, purple nothingness known as astral space (falling off an Allod and into astral space being the number one cause of death among new players who get careless with the autorun toggle). There's an assortment of public ships and teleporters you can use to jump between these islands, but travelling to distant, high-level Allods mean you're going to need either your own ship or a friend with one.

'Allods Online' Screenshot 2

How this is going to work isn't totally clear at the minute, but the tutorials for both factions consider giving you the chance to run around one of these huge vessels very important, and it's confirmed that dozens of players will be able to travel on the same ship.

But this isn't EVE. The specific phrase from the developer is that Allods Online "won't be about the ships, but the people on them". The idea is that you log on, get some friends together or put the word out to your guild, form a crew for the evening, pick a captain, then go soaring off into the deep, dark astral unknown in search of loot and adventure.

That adventure might take the form of reaching a distant Allod and completing a quest on it, battling with some giant monster right there in Astral space or engaging in PvP with an enemy ship and even boarding it. If the Astral Ships in this game are done well, and players are given a real sense of this ship being theirs, this could be absolutely spectacular.

To think Allods Online might make a dent in WOW's 11 million subscribers after years of watching other MMOs fail would be a feat of truly heroic optimism, but this game could be something special nonetheless. There's an awful lot of people on this planet who'll play bad MMOs if they're free, and it makes you wonder: what on Earth happens when they're offered something that's not just good, but this good?

Allods Online is currently in closed beta. Check out the official website for more.

Comments (15) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Cappy #1 2 years ago

    Allods? Sod All Online?

    Intentional?
  • davisorle #2 2 years ago

    Just hearing its that easy I already dont like it at all. Thnx for the heads up.
  • Grump #3 2 years ago

    For anyone looking for a decent free MMO I would recommend Hello Kitty Online. Seriously.
  • IneptPercy #4 2 years ago

    I have always been put off by subsciption costs as I don't think I would play any MMO enough to justify it (life gets in the way).

    Free ones always seem abit rubbish.

    Maybe this might work well for me.
  • berelain #5 2 years ago

    Hmm, must have changed since I played the early beta, because although it looked glorious the game was a horrendous grind- not because of lack of quests, but because killing a single enemy took about five minutes. Maybe they've improved that a bit; if so, colour me interested.
  • Waffleaber #6 2 years ago

    Seems a bit harsh calling it easy when you're only playing to level 8 of 40 (when it's released) The first 20 levels of WOW aren't the most challenging gaming experience.

    Anyway i'm with IneptPercy on this one, don't have time right now to justify an MMO subscription but a decent free one? Could be good.
  • sesskie #7 2 years ago

    out of curiosity I signed up for the Closed European beta, got my key the other day. I didnt expect much of it, being F2P and all, but damn.. was I impressed. Quintin smith is right, WoW can only dream of looking this good, and it even gives Aion a run for its money. It has the wow-style cellshaded cartoon look, but with textures that are crisp, animation that is butter smooth and generous heapings of particle effects that embellish every aspect of the game. Pollen grains swirl through the air, butterflies dance under sunbeams, glowing specs of magic whirl alluringly around your spellcaster when you charge up an attack. And when you get outdoors.. my god, I dont think ive seen a better looking sky in any other mmo, clouds swirl, impressive vistas unfold before your eyes. Its a treat to jsut explore the world.

    As for the game, its your standard wow type, do lots of quests, kill shit, go to the next quest hub. I dont think combat is as hard as people make it out to be, sure you dont 2-shot mobs like wow, but you arent spending over a minute to kill each beastie like, say, Aion. Theres a decent balance. And early dungeon bosses arent a standard tank and spank either, and actually have loot tables. So far the polish is impressive.
    Edited by 1 at 18/12/09 @ 11:14
  • butler` #8 2 years ago

    f2p with even SOME polish?

    will probably be quite popular
  • Blacknimbus #9 2 years ago

    Ah, yes...because WoW as 6 and 36 man Astral ships that do battle in the nether....wait, wut?

  • rodpad #10 2 years ago

    Playing this right now. I like the idea of one of the races being "3 characters" that you control. It's quaint and prettier and at the same time uglier than WoW. It's a nice little distraction for now, although it needs a big UI polish.
  • Guildenstern #11 2 years ago

    I dunno. I've played a bit of a Russian open beta, and it seemed kinda ok I guess. Stuff from the item shop is pretty costly though, and from what I hear it gets more and more tedious to play without boosts it provides.
  • Sharzam #12 2 years ago

    WoWs looks are considered good not because of polygon counts or post processing but because of something bliizard do very well and thats art direction just go to newer areas and you can tell that the art just keeps getting better.

    As for Allods iam definatly intreasted, signed up to the beta and awaiting a key.
  • Ergates_Antius #13 2 years ago

  • zugurudumba #14 2 years ago

    "orcs wear odd medieval interpretations of WW2 secret service uniforms"

    This.

    And also the Communist architecture. And the predominantly Slavic names the NPCs have. And the totally out of place music in cities with Communist architecture.

    Suspension of disbelief: utterly ruined. I urge you to download this game, find some beta key, and uninstall it after one hour of gameplay.
  • iokthemonkey #15 2 years ago

    "orcs wear odd medieval interpretations of WW2 secret service uniforms"

    This.

    And also the Communist architecture. And the predominantly Slavic names the NPCs have. And the totally out of place music in cities with Communist architecture.

    -----

    Yeah, because WoW's pop-culture references and in-'jokes' totally helps immerse you in the game...