The press about Allods Online

Interview with gPotato Europe’s Vince (Allods Producer)

GS: Allods Online is a Russian popular rpg by Nival Online and published by gPotato.eu in Europe. What are the winning features of this game?

Vince: Allods Online has a rich heritage with a history since the late 90’s, and builds on the universe created during the three chapters of the Rage of Mages series. Nival Online combines 12 years experience in game development (with major titles like Heroes of Might and Magic V –the core team of Allods Online) and free to play MMORPG publishing in Russia where it is the number one publisher. Their latest game is a free MMORPG, which should quickly become a standard for quality in the free MMO market. The game has a USD$12 million budget , the biggest in Russian game development history, so there is a massive world that is very polished and just waiting to be played.

On the ground, the game has a wide variety of traditional MMORPG game play features.

We have 2 opposing factions, the League and the Empire. Players will have to choose their faction, class, and race, for a total of 6 races and 8 archetypes classes for a total of 28 classes. With this, Allods Online is very similar to leading subscription-based MMORPG we can think of and players will not be disorientated with the play and depth of the classes. You’ll be able to play as a tank, healer, crowd-control, debuffer and much more due to the different traits and perks of each particular race.

See, we are like most subscription-based MMORPG, sometimes even more, the difference is we are free. But this is not all, let’s continue.

- Two opposing factions mean Player vs. Player and Guild vs. Guild battles. Sounds familiar to any pay to play MMORPG? Now add the Astral ships battle where players will craft their own battleship then fly over to the Astral with their crew for some Astral Ship PvP battle. The Astral is a hostile environment and a very vast area, located in space. It hides unknown lands and treasures which are waiting to be discovered.

- The crew will involve pilots, navigator, gunners, and many more. Controlling a ship takes a lot of co-ordination; nothing is as good as a well-shaped co-operative game. This will be available at high-end level of the game. This is where another game play differentiator enters the game mechanism: Piracy.

- Piracy is an integral part of the high-end game play in the Astral. Pirates may occupy crossroads to rob ships returning to Allods of their loot. If they can immobilize a ship, board it and defeat its crew, they can get a hold on the loot and take the chest containing the treasure. They must then make sure to not be robbed by somebody else. This will definitely leads to alliances and politics.

The Astral is a free PvP zone, which provides high-level players endless enjoyment with bloody battles, chases and piracy.

- If you are afraid of heights, you can still do basic PvP on the ground.

- If you do not enjoy PvP, you can always go for some PvE, either as a group, alone or in raid. The raid boss can only be defeated with one raid team, you could try to kill it with more than that, but the Raid Boss may then use specific skills which would end-up in many losses. Moreover, if a raid boss is located in a contested area, try to secure the area before other faction guild stumble on you. This makes up epic battle and lots of fun.

- The game has over 1,000 quests to play through. Quests will lay out part of the background of the history of the Allods Universe, the big unanswered blanks of it. It is a unique chance for players to fill in the gaps. Yup, a free MMORPG with over 1,000 quests and deep background, and gPotato.eu exclusivity providing it free to the gaming public.

- We have pets in the game. Not every class has it, only the Pagans do. But still

- We have a crafting system which is based on mini-games. For example, you will have to play slot-machine game to boil alchemy potions. This is based on skill level and luck.

I am sure that people will also enjoy the mini-game ‘globinoball’, think of it as soccer with the ball being the head of enemies.

- Last but not least, its free. So play it!

Between these and the rest of the features that Nival Online has put into Allods Online, it should help in getting rid of the boring grinding principle that has somewhat stigmatised free MMORPG’s in recent years. Allods Online is not a cute Korean MMO, it is a gritty Russian fantasy space opera in an expansive universe that players will love. And for anyone who is getting a little bored of their subscription MMO, definitely check this out.

GS: “Fantasy meets Space Opera”. Could you talk about this aspect and how much Allods Online can be similar to a mix between WoW and an easier version of EVE Online.

Vince: The universe of Allods has a fantasy setting, with the planet Sarnaut destroyed long ago. This destruction shattered the world into floating islands in the Astral. Those islands are called Allods. You can discover about that in our starting series about the Allods Online history (.here's the link) So there are big islands, many small islands, giant Astral demons and fantasy style ships.

A lot of people would tend to compare Allods Online to WoW, but for my part I only see a different game, just look at the previous answer to your first question.

Allods Online has a history on which Nival Online has been working on for over 10 years now and they have already released 3 games that take place in that universe. The game play will be familiar to other regular MMORPG on the market as stated previously but with key differentiations. Picture this: 50 players hunting down other ships like a band of pirates, assaulting them, boarding them, fighting then trying to escape, cool, isn’t it ?

EVE online on the other hand is a sci-fi game, with a massive galaxy to explore so there isn’t really a direct comparison between Allods Online and EVE Online. In EVE you’re a sci-fi space ship. In Allods you are in a fantasy flying boat with lots of big cannons. However, both games share the possibility to own a space ship, travel and explore space, do commerce, attack other and many more.

Transitions between the Astral and the ground are seamless in Allods Online. There is no break between the Astral and the floating Allods, so you’ll be walking along and seeing massive battles in the sky, or being hit by a stray shot if you’re not careful. By the way, avoid trying to jump off an Allod, you’d fall and die.

GS: How the factions system works in Allods?

Vince: The faction system is based on the deep background history of the Allods Universe where the League and the Empire fight for millennium. The two main forces arose out of a conflict between two different human philosophies; the Kanians and the Xadaganians. This conflict was seen first in the original trilogy, but back then it was shown only from the point of view of the Kanians.

Players will be able to fight with players from opposite faction. There are specific zones for that, which are called contested areas. In those areas, you are always under the threat of being attacked. Of course you cannot cooperate with other faction players. It is war out there.

Roots of the faction vs. faction lie quite a while before players will join in game. Are you for the League or the Empire? Players are immerged in the factions from the character creation on, where they have to choose their faction, class then race.

You will find more information about how this scission appeared in the Chapter 3 from the Allods Online history: “The schism: Conclave of the Great Mages”.

Our deep history background will attract role players.

GS: Could we customize our ship and character more than in other f2p MMO?

Vince: At the character creation phase, users will have to customize their characters through various parameters such as face, hairstyle, skin colours and many more, thus satisfying expectations from most gamers.

I am not sure if you are familiar with the Gibberlings? The Gibberlings are one of the six races that you can incarnate. They are those small fluffy creatures. What characterize them the most as a player at first is that this playable race is composed of 3 small Gibberlings. They always live by 3 and are born as triplets most of the time. So when you’ll move around, you’ll be directing 3 of them as just one. If you decide to play the Gibberlings, when creating yours, you’ll be customizing them separately by gender, hairstyle and such. Neat, isn’t it?

If you play the archetype class of the Pagans, you will be able to customize your pets from the character creation interface. So, if you play a Pagan Gibberlings, this specific class is called ‘Healer’, you will end up controlling a small “herd”, the three plus your pet. As you can see, we are very similar to traditional MMORPG, customize your hair style, skin colours and such. Some specific races even have tattoos to choose from at character creation.

At the launch of the game, you will have two types of ships. Their appearance will vary based on your faction. You can upgrade and customize them as you wish with a lot of decorative, beautiful details available in the hangar. Also, powerful and new types of cannons can take their place on the ship.

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