gPotato and Astrum Nivel respond to Allods Online debate

gPotato and Astrum Nival have responded to the community outrage over the recent Allods Online changes.

Over the last several days, the Allods team has been spending a lot of time listening to player feedback. We’ve noticed that two of the biggest topics this weekend have been regarding rumors of Astrum Nival remaining as the developers for Allods and what our future plans are for the item shop. We wanted to take a moment to address these topics and clear up some of the general questions many of you may have.

The original Astrum Nival developers are no longer involved in Allods!

False!

The original development team for Allods Online is still 100% involved in developing Allods.

To provide everyone insight on the situation let’s take a trip down memory lane. The developers for Allods Online were originally known as Nival Online. On July 6th, 2009 Nival Online merged with Astrum Online Entertainment and became what most people know them as, Astrum Nival. Then on December 1st, 2009, Mail.ru merged with Astrum Online Entertainment. Astrum Online Entertainment operates Astrum Nival, the development studio which developed our beloved game, Allods Online.

In any case, the original developers are intact – they just have a new company name. The original vision of Allods Online is still being followed by the developers. Allods Online is in great hands and is being actively developed!

Item shop prices are overpriced, what is gPotato doing about this?

As we mentioned in our official statement last week, the Allods team is well aware of the situation. We can’t apologize enough for the stir and shock it’s caused within the community and the lack of communication we had beforehand with not evolving you, the players, in our decision making process.

We want to make clear that this is something we are not taking lightly. We are not sitting and waiting just to see how many dollars we’re going to make over the next four weeks. It is very clear to us that players are already disgruntled with the situation and we are actively working on new pricing options to accommodate the masses. However, we ask the Allods community to please be patient with the situation! Adjustments like this cannot happen overnight. That’s why we continually encourage everyone to submit constructive feedback to us regarding your opinion about both the game and the item shop. In fact, we started a forum thread that we will be checking on an hourly basis here.

The Allods team works hard on this game and loves it just as much as many of you do. When we see a problem we want to address it and take the most appropriate actions that make sense for both the players and the game. With that said, we encourage everyone to voice your opinion, even if it’s about something you absolutely hate, just please do so in a constructive manner.

Thank you everyone for your continued support! As we’ve said many times, the Allods fans are some of the best gamers in the world – we really appreciate that!

First, they dispelled the conspiracy theory that the original developers were gone. Still, that is a lot of merging and there are reports out of Russia that mail.ru is a less than reputable online-games operator.

The price hike in the cash shop does not appear to have been a mistake as first assumed (they literally multiplied the prices by 10 for everything which made it seem like an obvious mistake).

The changes to Fear of Death, mana/health regen, and leveling speed are not addressed in the post directly, but are the catalyst of the problem. I sincerely hope that Astrum Nival and gPotato realize the prices aren't the problem, its them crippling the game to force players into the cash shop. The cash shop should be about convenience, not necessity.

They have brought up a forum thread to collect feedback.

Forget about the Allods Online cash shop, this is dumb for any business model

It never fails that a game implodes while I am away for the weekend.  This time around it was Allods Online.

In the beginning of the early closed betas, I was not worried about the Allods Online cash shop.  The game in closed beta proved to me and many other players to be playable without any cash shop items.  The cash shop was going to about convenience.  The only thing that was going to change that was a game breaking patch.  Barring that single situation, Allods Online was shaping up to be a delightful game.

Unfortunately, game breaking changes just so happen to have been slated for patch 1.0.07.07, which contains changes best summed up by Keen:

Guess what was in these notes? Game breaking changes to the cash shop. Being resurrected by other players now gives you Fear of Death (the death debuff). In Heroic instances, which you can not leave, this essentially means you must have perfume to remove the debuff. Clearly promises are broken here. Given that the NA version must pay $13.50 for a stack of 20 perfume, the math was done and we’re looking at over $50 / month in order to participate in end-game PvE. Top it all off? Fear of Death now lasts 2 hours at level 40.

Lets forget about the cash shop for a minute; these changes don't make sense for any business model.  Unavoidable, hours long death penalties?  In a game designed to have players die repeatedly?  This is a classic case of the punishment (fear of death) not fitting the crime (death).  I would have as much of a problem with these changes in a subscription game where I would have to grind away my time for perfume, something more valuable to me than my cash. 

Bringing the cash shop back into the conversation highlights how dumb these changes are.  Either change was bad by itself, but combined they are a nightmare.  Its not a question of players wanting to be free riders.  Many players were more than willing to pay for Allods Online (me included).

The power of the micro-transaction model is it's ability to attract players in at all buy-in levels.  Those willing to spend $5 are given options while those willing to spend $50 can do so as well.  Pricing every single thing in the cash shop out of that lower bracket, while simultaneously forcing players into the cash shop goes against the grain of the business model.  At that point, the game is better off in a subscription model.

Stay tuned for more commentary on this subject.  I think people, again, are losing focus because this involves micro transactions.  Hopefully, we can steer this conversation back to just how stupid the planned game changes are.

It’s not Battle.net, it’s me

I was less than thrilled to hear about the new Battle.net. I commented on other blogs that this new Battle.net was five years too late. I don’t want every new game to launch with its own developer tie-in service. I want simplicity; consolidation. For me that was Steam. Sadly, Blizzard has shown no move towards Valve’s digital distribution platform and as Blizzard has always been a heavy box sales driven company, it’s a pipe dream. I don’t like the idea of Blizzard’s new toy, but it’s me that’s at fault, not the new Battle.net.

I can’t accept that I have to maintain an EA, Steam, Games for Windows Live, NCSoft, SOE Station, Galanet, Gamespy, Rockstar, Battle.net, and God knows what else account. Whatever happened to launching a game.exe, typing in a display name, and hitting play? Where the hell is the OpenID or Facebook Connect of PC games? Even my cherished Steam platform is becoming a hindrance as the majority of games I play do not integrate with my Steam login for multiplayer or friends tracking, meaning for the majority of games I own via Steam I am logging in twice to play (thank God for the invention of the auto login features).

Battle.net will be successful and heralded as an industry standard. It is a Blizzard product after all. However, I don’t like the trend of every publisher/developer having their own separate platform trying to lock me into or out of their games. Hopefully my complaint has been noted and quickly dismissed somewhere within this crazy landscape of what we call PC gaming.

The New Battle.net

With the "eye in the sky" opinion out the way, lets get to the new Battle.net.  Ars Technica has a preview. It appears to have the usual Blizzard polish and is probably ready to go live now, but I suspect we won't see it until Starcraft 2 hits the shelves.

Nothing from the article is groundbreaking. The new Battle.net features streamlined matchmaking for Blizzard games with integrated social networking. It is what most expected and the Blizzard polish will seal the deal.

Conclude

I almost kind of wish it was opened to more than just Blizzard games, but as a long time Steam (and Steamworks) observer, I understand that even giving access away to a digital platform for free doesn't mean any of the larger developers will pay it any attention.  After all, that would be crazy. They can just make their own flavor!

Initial Impressions: Allods Online Open Beta

Allods Online launched into open beta this week and I've had a few hours to spend with it. I'm playing with the League faction as Heartless the Priest or Favre the Ranger on the Tensess server.  The open beta has been great so far and in classic Heartless_ style, here is a pro/cons list:



Pros

- Runs like a dream with little to no video or net lag.
- The visual style and game play is directly comparable to World of Warcraft. This works to the benefit of Allods Online.
- Leveling is well-paced. Not too fast, not too slow. There are enough quests to go around at each level.
- Combat is smooth and enjoyable.
- Class mechanics are unique to each class.

Cons

- Runs like a dream, but at the price of a view distance that can be measured in inches.
- Quest objectives and areas are camped into extinction.
- The general chat is a never ending debate about World of Warcraft.
- Questions about the Cash Shop are unanswered currently. The details seem to change every week.
- No auto attack.
- Chat interface needs improvement.

Overall I am really enjoying my time in Allods Online's open beta. As characters won't be wiped for launch, Feb 16th is the true Allods launch date. The greatest thing it has going is the free 2 play business model. This allows me to enjoy the game casually without the worry of maintaining a subscription. I can come back and play whenever I want and when I have more time to dedicate to the game, I can spend a few dollars in the Cash Shop to improve that dedicated time. Allods Online is going to be a popular game and I will be very interested to see how financially successful it can be.

Tips & Tricks: How Not to be a Noob at Battlefield Bad Company 2 (Video)

Best. Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Video. So. Far.

Allods Online Characters and Upcoming Guide

I wanted to post about my two characters from Allods Online, which just launched open beta (patch 1.0.05.41) today.

Server: Tensess
Faction: League

Heartless the Priest

Favre the Ranger

Also, I am begining work on an Allods Online Guide blog.

Love Release Set for March 25th

Via a tweet, we have been given a release date for Love:

Love has a release date: 25th of march.

Since Love is impossible to explain in words, here are some videos:

Video 1:



Video 2:

Preparing for the Allods Online Launch Tommorow

gPotato has released some information to help everyone prepare for Allods Online open beta launch tomorrow (2/16):

If you downloaded the Allods client before midnight (12am Pacific Standard Time) on Monday, February 15th, you will need to go through the following steps to make your client open beta ready. Also, if you participated in any of the closed betas, this most likely affects your client. You will not be able to update your client through the normal launcher patching process.

1. Download the Allods open beta update here: http://allods-ftp.gpotato.com/OBupdate.exe
2. Run the open beta update from any directory (be sure to close the launcher before running the update!)
3. Re-open the Allods Online launcher
4. Download the latest updates and enjoy the game!

Players can verify their version against this:

Also, the version number to participate in the Allods Online open beta will be 1.0.05.41.

I'm updated and ready to go and just so happen to have the day off from work (not that my kid will let me play that much). Hopefully, I'll be able to grab my favorite names for once!

A Challenge, a Free idea, and Warhammer Online

Bootae has issued a challenge:

A challenge for my fellow bloggers!

First take the assumption that the game isn’t in the alleged maintenance mode and there’s not only money for new content, but you have access to new content that’s been in development over the last year. So we’re writing this in a happy place. Now then, if you had control of Mythic what would be your plan for WAR in 2010?

Broken down into Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, what would be your strategy for changes, improvements and expansions to the game?

Follow on past the jump for what I would do if I were Mythic in 2010.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 vs. Battlefield 2

In my initial impressions post for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (BFBC2), Esoteric Articles left a comment asking me what I thought of BC2 vs BF2:

Do you think it [BFBC2] is better or worse than Battlefield 2?

I left my initial thoughts in a reply, but I wanted to note and add to those thoughts here.

As compared to BF2, BFBC2 Pros:

• BC2 is better about vehicles. Aircraft aren't overpowered (so far) and ground vehicles aren't invincible.
• Destructible environments.
• The leveling and upgrade system is superior in BC2.
• In-game friends system.
• Squads are limited to four players in BC2 and any member can be used as a spawn point.
• Vehicle-based upgrades.
• Rush game-type (a game mode that doesn't stray too far from the traditional BF "capture the flag", but provides a focused objective-based progression map).
• Collecting dog tags for melee kills
• A move away from kills counting for the most points, allowing support players to be in the hunt for top honors each round.

As compared to BF2, BFBC2 Cons:

• The gun play feels sloppy in the BC2 beta. 
• Players can not go prone in BC2.
• Ground vehicles feel overpowered until players unlock laser tags.  This is mainly because C4 in BC2 is  a pain in the rear to use.
• Some graphic effects in BC2 are annoying (scope blur, bloom, fog/smoke, explosion bounce).  BF2 always felt very clean visually, allowing players to make sense of the madness.

Good in BOTH

• Squads
• Large, open maps
• More to do than just kill enemies, but its still really all about killing enemies.

Sucks in BOTH

• The server browser.
• Close quarters sound effects are non-existent.  I've never heard another player approaching or running around near me in BF2 or BC2.