Bigeyez' Gaming Blog

First Impressions: Allods Online

2009-11-21T09:07:00.002-05:00

I've managed to crank a nice chunk of time into Allods over the past couple of days, and while I haven't seen all aspects of the game yet I might as well talk about what I've gotten to experience so far.

The game has two factions, each with three races. The League is comprised of the Kanians, which are one of the two human races in the game, Elves, and Gibberlings, which are gnome-like creatures that come in a pack of three. On the Imperial side we have Xadaganians, which are the Empires humans, Orcs, and Arisen, which are Allods form of Undead. The game has eight archetypes which are Warrior, Paladin, Healer, Scout, Warden, Mage, Summoner, and Pscionicist. While every archetype exists on each faction they do all have unique names and little quirks depending on which faction you choose. For example a Kanian Paladin is called a Crusader, while a Xadaganian Paladin is called an Avenger. Allods actually defines these into their own separate classes.

The character customization is pretty much your standard fair. It's pretty easy to use and offers you general options like hair style, skin color, size, features, etc. The one complaint I do have with the customization screen is that when viewing it your character is dressed in what I assume is some high level gear. The problem with this is that on many of the models the gear covers what you’re trying to customize on your character. While there is a button to unequipped the gear and see your toon in the buff it makes me wonder why they would include such bulky gear knowing that you can't see your character all that well because of it.

Once you create your toon and get into the game you'll find yourself inside of an introduction instance. Here you'll carry out a little scenario that'll teach you the basics of the game. I have to say that the scenarios are very impressive, especially when you compare them to WoW's starting zones. Both factions introduction scenarios generally make you feel like a badass once you complete them. The Empire's intro in particular is very well done in my opinion and even gives you a glimpse at the Astral Monsters and Astral Ships, which supposedly make up a huge part of the end game.

What will first hit you no matter which side you start out on is just how beautiful the effects and animations in this game are. While the rest of the game is as visually amazing, I can say that the effects in this game top just about anything else I can think of. They are very well put together, and so far I haven't seen any two moves that look the same.

One complaint I do have against the game is that it really gives no back-story at all when you start to play. Unless you've delved into the Lore of the game online somewhere, just playing it doesn't tell you anything about what’s going on in the world around you. This is a missed opportunity in my book, because while not incredibly original, the Allods world does have its own mix of interesting possibilities. Take the undead race for example, the Arisen. They are not just your typical undead, in fact they are more of a machine race than anything else. They seem to be corpse being held together by machines; there’s even Arisen making comments of losing oil when taking damage in the introduction. But the game never (or at least it hasn't so far) offers an explanation or history as to how they got that way. As a Lore buff myself, it's a glaring missing point that should be discussed somewhere in game.

Moving on from that once you exit the tutorial the game turns into your standard fair. Kill 10 rats quest, FedEx quest, etc are all there. The EXP system seems to be very wonky in the game. Levels 1-5 go very quickly inside of the instanced tutorial but 5-6 hits you like a brick wall and the time needed to level nearly triples. Whether that’s intended because of the low level cap in the beta or if that’s really how the game is I have no idea.

All in all while Allods definitely qualifies as a WoW clone, I'm pretty impressed with it thus far. I'll make another post in the future discussing my experiences with specific classes in the games. As for right now, I'm off to play more Allods. =)

Mass Effect Playthrough

2009-11-19T23:25:00.002-05:00

Allods has taken up most of my playtime today so I couldn't really get into Mass Effect, but I did decide to go ahead and play my level 59 Soldier again. All I really managed to do in the game today was playthrough New Eden.

I initially was playing the game on Insane, but since I don't want to get frustrated with the game and end up quitting I bumped it down to Hardcore and blew past New Eden with no problems. This Shepard and company are already decked out in the best gear/mods so I expect to have a pretty easy go at the game this time around.

My next update on Mass Effect might not be for a little while, because I want to get as mucht ime with Allods while I can, but I'll update this as soon as I get some free time.

Allods Online

2009-11-19T12:07:00.002-05:00

While in class this morning I checked my email and was surprised to find a beta key to Allods Online. I saw the excellent write up the game got from Massively.com and I'm pretty excited to get a chance to play it.

I'm downloading it as I write this and will post my thoughts on the game after I spend some time with it.

Entitlement

2009-11-19T07:46:00.004-05:00

Tobold touched on the subject a little last Saturday, and while I left my comments there I really wanted to delve deeper on the matter.

Some gamers have this weird sense of entitlement when it comes to videogames. They feel as if developers must cater specifically to their wants over anyone else’s. I've always found this behavior strange, because it's something you don't really see in other entertainment industries. (Maybe the music industry to some extent)

Just look at the hoopla surrounding Modern Warfare 2. For those of you not following the game, the PC version of the game was stripped of several features which are usually standard in a PC FPS. The game also doesn't support dedicated servers; instead Infinity Ward is running what they call IWNet, which functions like Xbox Live's matchmaking service for games. (You could compare it to a more restricted version of the old Battle.net for the Warcraft games.)

PC gamers upon hearing this went into an uproar. A boycott was launched. Forum blood was spilled. Blogs went into a riot. Cries that the game was ruined rang out. IW was accused of "selling out" to their evil overlords. People ranted about how IW was built upon the backs of PC gamers, therefore IW owed them. It was just a huge debacle.

Does any of this really have any merit though? IW is a business. As a business IW deemed it a good course of action to change the way their game worked. They did in fact take away features that you'd expect to be in a PC FPS, and if I were a PC gamer that would make me think twice about buying the game. With that said however, Infinity Ward does not owe PC gamers a damn thing.

Now I suspect the reasons for many of the feature cuts were because IW essentially ported the console version of the game over to the PC. Whether PC gamers like it or not they are a small subset of IW's consumer base, and IW focusing on the console version first and then porting directly over makes sense business wise. Consoles are their bread and butter right now, and the console version is the version that IW cannot screw up if they hope to make money.

After porting the game over why didn't IW simply add on the features they were missing? Your guess is as good as mine here. Money? Time? Maybe they just didn't see it as a big issue? Maybe they didn't feel it was worth the work?

What the reason is doesn't really matter though. IW made the decision to cut these features and that’s that.

Now I understand the complaint PC gamers have, but the sense of entitlement coming from them does not get my support. IW owes them nothing. They made a product and it's up to the PC gamer to buy it or not.

Pretend I go into a Toyota dealership. I walk up to the salesmen and get him to show me a car. The car itself is fully functional, but doesn't come with AC, and can't be upgraded to have an AC unit. Would it make sense for me to go into a fit and rant about how every other car has an AC and Toyota owes me and should put AC in the car, because I have been buying Toyotas for years? Of course not. Everyone there would think I'm insane. All I can do as a car buyer is choose not to buy the car and move on to another one.

Mass Effect Playthrough

2009-11-18T23:38:00.004-05:00

Today I decided to play through Mass Effect one last time before the sequel launches early next year. Having completed the game multiple times already there really isn't anything new for me to experience, but I figured documenting my playthrough on this blog would be enough motivation to see me through the entire game.

I'm still debating whether I want to start a brand new Shepard, finish a playthrough that hasn't been completed yet, or start a New Game + of a finished career. Right now I have a Soldier Shepard sitting at level 59 so I went ahead and started a New Game + with him until I fully commit to what I plan on doing. By tomorrow I'll decide whether I'll actually play that Shepard and hit 60 with him or if I'll take another course of action.

What I do know for certain is that no matter which Shepard I pick I will be doing a Paragon playthrough and plan on knocking out most (lets just say 80%) of the side quests. I can't stomach doing all the of ores/medallions/insignias/matriarch quests so those are pretty much the only ones I will skip over.

Decisions, decisions.

The Collapse of Innovation

2009-11-18T22:17:00.003-05:00

I was browsing my daily blogs when I came across this article on Joystiq.com. This is the latest round in what has become a huge set of lay-offs at EA.

First and foremost, let me express how sad I am to see so many people laid off like this, especially so close to the holidays and in the rough economy the US is in right now. Whether you like EA or not it is really sad to see the industry lose so many people at once.

On a slightly different note these turn of events at EA is very deflating for me. Over the past couple of years EA has really been striving to introduce new IPs and bring innovation to an industry that desperately needs it right now. Instead of embracing the new IPs and asking for more change it seems that the video game market truly does want "more of the same". Focusing on new IPs is always a big risk and with less than stellar sales on many of their games it looks like it didn't work out for EA and its partners.

At the end of the day EA has to look out for its bottom line (and investors) and sadly I wouldn't be surprised if 2010 brings us "safer" titles and much less risk in EA's game lineup. With Activision taking a similar approach we are left with an industry where the two top dogs are playing it safe, rather than sorry.

Where does this leave us as gamers? Chances are we're going to be buying lots of games next year with numbers hanging off the end instead of fresh IPs. While that's not automatically a bad thing, as someone who is dying for a fresh gaming experience it's pretty depressing that I'll more than likely not be getting that anytime soon.

First Step in A Wierd Direction

2009-11-18T21:28:00.003-05:00

Well I've played off and on with the idea of creating a blog for a while now, and I've finally decided to go through with it. This blog will mostly be a way for me to get my personal opinions, experiences, and whatnot off of my chest and onto virtual paper.

As this is my first post in what will hopefully be many I'll give a brief little bio on myself. I'm currently a college student in sunny Orlando, Florida. I'm working on an IT degree, while striving to pass the many certification tests that are required for just about any IT job these days. As a college student most of my money tends to go to tuition/books/living expenses/etc so I am very picky when it comes to buying games.

MMOs or standard RPGs make up most of my playtime, but I do enjoy other genres. Currently I'm playing a mix of different games, and trying to find something fresh to keep my interest.

Outside of games I enjoy your typical "college" things...parties, socializing, MySpace/Facebook, sports, music, etc.

With this blog I hope that I can express myself and if I actually gain any readers, engage in meaningful discussion with anyone and everyone. Well that’s all for now folks (heh who am I kidding I have no readers yet =p). Here's a toast to the start of something new!