"What an interesting past two days this has been. I’m going to get right to it guys. I’m not interested in being a jerk or completely destroying people. I am, however, interested in presenting the facts and the truth of a situation. The bottom line right now is that Allods Online is facing some series issues and it’s all kind of coming out at once. I’m going to try and give you guys the facts about what we know has happened to bring you up to speed and inject a bit of my opinion along the way.
The Cash Shop came up yesterday with prices 20x those the Russians pay (add a 0 to everything). gPotato’s official statement was that these prices are intended and will be evaluated over the next few weeks. This caused a massive uproar on the forums showing everyone’s disdain for what was dropped on the players.
Most of us came to the conclusion that even if these prices are here to stay that we would continue playing. Why? The game is fantastic. I played to the end-game during closed beta and saw the raids, the astral ships, the questing, the dungeons, and I really do think it’s one of the better games out there. This is why I’ve spoken so highly about the game and suggested it to friends. The key point I’m making here is that I did all of this without ever once using the cash shop. So fine, in its current state we can survive and play for free. Joke’s on gPotato, right?
Enter Astrum Nival, developers of Allods Online. Today the patch notes for 1.0.07.07 were released for the Russian Version. 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.
In addition to the game breaking cash shop change, classes were nerfed. The Warden class (which I play) has had its renew changed completely to a more active ability on a one minute cooldown. Scout speed cooldown is nerfed. Psionicist speed buffs were dropped from 30% speed to 10% speed. Several other changes to classes result in almost everyone being pissed off. Mounts were also added but require you to purchase food for them from the cash shop in order for them to work their best.
Nobody is happy about any of this. Not even the GM’s who are having breakdowns over the whole thing. The forums are a complete hell hole right now with topics being deleted like crazy. Players have pointed out that Gala-net has an F rating with the BBB citing, “…their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements…”. Clearly it is not a good day to be working for gPotato and it’s certainly not a good day for fans of this game.
Bottom line here is that the game is being mismanaged from both sides. gPotato crucifying the cash shop + Astrum Nival suddenly losing their sanity = Game Over. Patch 1.0.07.07 will be the end of the game for pretty much everyone and not by choice. We’re all very confused as to what is going on right now. None of us can afford to pay $50-$75 per month to PvE at level 40. None of us understand why the game that was literally pure gold is now struggling to hold on for dear life and how it all happened at once…
Conspiracy theories abound with crazy ideas about contracts being breached and AN driving the design of the game into the ground in order to ruin gPotato who then in turn jacks the cash shop to ruin the game. Another great theory is that the Russian version has lost so many players that the NA version is being tanked on purpose to drive those players back. It’s all speculation but it makes a lot more sense than watching two companies suddenly lose their minds.
Get your crap together gPotato/Astrum Nival. We don’t have any interest in waiting for you to learn how to run a company or design a game properly. You’re wrecking a good thing and no one is going to let you get away with it. From where I stand you’re embarrassing yourselves and those of us who spoke so highly of your game. The next email I get better be explaining how the situation is being rectified. If not, please do not bother contacting me again.
To end this post I want to say that all of us (the 40 of us currently talking on Ventrilo) have spent the entire day talking about this. The conclusion we’ve reached is that we want to continue playing the game. We’re going to give gPotato a chance to fix the problem and for Astrum Nival to stop the patch from hitting the NA servers. We enjoy the game enough to keep playing and we’re not going to stop until the patch literally forces us out."
Yeah hopefully, I think they will in the end when they see that all the population leaves. When they made the /zone chat cost RL cash and added the FoD buff 75% of the Russian people left, after this expansion more than the half of the 25% left.
If it continue like this the 12 millions bucks AN spent on making this game will go down the toilet.
Ok, sorry for double post but I think this is must be said:
lmkao wrote:
Guys if u r really do not understand what is going on, i will explain to you from Russian point of view.Firstly - original developer team stopped developing Allods Online at CBT1-2 at Russia,because Nival - company developer, merged with astrum and mail.ru,main game designer left this project because he had another point of view on this game before he could finish it,new director came,after that Allods progress stopped almost completely,mail.ru bought AstrumNival so at this point game was destroyed,because mail.ru is the most greedy russian game service platform.That explains why they cannot fix music and sounds easily,why it tooks so long of them to fix bugs,why animations are partly ruined and Kanian fem for example run through ground,and explains why there are bugs in game that were already fixed before,they just do not know the code well,and they are not capable of further Allods creation. Allods original developers and designer are working now on project that has Dota like gameplay,and that explains why you have a feeling of unfinished good game,because allods creation was stopped at Closed Russian Beta.But however they see the situation so they r trying to make the maximum profit out of game until it will be too late,because they r not capable of programming anything really new,because they have not developed this game,period.
First I didn't believe it but I started to research a bit, and it seems to be true, mail.ru bought AN and the first developers of the game closed this project but mail.ru brought it up again. There will probably not be any expansions(like new cap, zones etc) if not atleast one of the old developers come back. This game will probably survive another 6-12 months, but not any longer. So mail.ru trying to get every cent out of this game, thats why the fucking weird shit inside of the CS and the insane prices. I will wait until the patch 1.7 and see if gpotato really implent all that shit that it contains or not. If they do, I see no reason to play this game anymore. It will just be a waste of time.
Such a shame really, finally found a MMORPG that I actually enjoy playing and it will end up like this. =\
was a nice game actually, did only try mage class xD, maybe i will give it a chance later, but really, i cant play, i bought a new computer with a low graphic card >_>, and i didnt change it because i need the warranty if anything happens, i can play at "Very low" graphic and it still have some "Screen-lags" near high population places, so i will keep playing dota, and at weekends i will play some of this ;P.
EDIT: my friend gave me a wow cds and his old account to try it (not much time left in it), the game didnt have ANY screen lags or such things, it was very normal, but allods, dunno why :S also vista SUCKS!
Ok, sorry for double post but I think this is must be said:
lmkao wrote:
Guys if u r really do not understand what is going on, i will explain to you from Russian point of view.Firstly - original developer team stopped developing Allods Online at CBT1-2 at Russia,because Nival - company developer, merged with astrum and mail.ru,main game designer left this project because he had another point of view on this game before he could finish it,new director came,after that Allods progress stopped almost completely,mail.ru bought AstrumNival so at this point game was destroyed,because mail.ru is the most greedy russian game service platform.That explains why they cannot fix music and sounds easily,why it tooks so long of them to fix bugs,why animations are partly ruined and Kanian fem for example run through ground,and explains why there are bugs in game that were already fixed before,they just do not know the code well,and they are not capable of further Allods creation. Allods original developers and designer are working now on project that has Dota like gameplay,and that explains why you have a feeling of unfinished good game,because allods creation was stopped at Closed Russian Beta.But however they see the situation so they r trying to make the maximum profit out of game until it will be too late,because they r not capable of programming anything really new,because they have not developed this game,period.
First I didn't believe it but I started to research a bit, and it seems to be true, mail.ru bought AN and the first developers of the game closed this project but mail.ru brought it up again. There will probably not be any expansions(like new cap, zones etc) if not atleast one of the old developers come back. This game will probably survive another 6-12 months, but not any longer. So mail.ru trying to get every cent out of this game, thats why the fucking weird shit inside of the CS and the insane prices. I will wait until the patch 1.7 and see if gpotato really implent all that shit that it contains or not. If they do, I see no reason to play this game anymore. It will just be a waste of time.
Such a shame really, finally found a MMORPG that I actually enjoy playing and it will end up like this. =\
Daaaaaaaaayum...I'm glad I quit after the 1st closed beta, cuz man this game got farked up bad....
Someone should make a private server of Allods that would be shweet..
The most sad parts about this is that Fear of Death at lvl 40 will last 2 hours now instead of 51 minutes. Cash Shop perfumes will be stronger. When you die and a Priest or a Summoner resurrect you, you will still get the FoD buff. The exp between 20-40 is now like 2x more. (I can kinda understand this because some people are already level 40 and the OB have only been like? 6 days?)
Good parts: Addons will be supported. Mounts will be added.(Bad part about this: They require food that will only be available thru Cash Shop to work properly and they only increase the speed with 15%)
Lots of crying over things that can be easily remedied.
Yeah, but by the looks like it they wont improve a thing. After countless of feedback and suggestions all they say is "Thank you all for your support and feedback, our love for allods is just as big as yours so that's why we have decided to keep Fear of Death even after all your negative feedbacks in the Open Beta. Please remember that every suggestion and feedback is being carefully readed and analyzed by the GM's! Your support is that what makes Allods so great!"
My point is, why do they even consider keeping things that the players dont want? It make us feel that our opinions doesnt matter and they just open all those discussions to give us false hope. There must be a really good reason why they are doing this. Hopefully they just do this things in the Open Beta to see how well things work out and remove it when it is fully released.
If they wanted to get as much money as possible out of it, they would do what is necessary to keep it alive.
I'd bet that they end up modifying the prices in the shop and changing the fear of death effect eventually. I figure all the waiting is due to having to convert the patches to be compatible with the non-Russian version.
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!
Keen's Statement:
Spoiler!
Tue23Feb '10A Ray of Hope for Allods Fans Part of Keen's adventure in Allods Online, Gaming News, MMORPG The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I was not banned nor have I quit. In fact, I’m writing this while alt tabbed waiting on a quest respawn. Silly rumors floating around on twitter and other websites are untrue.
Today’s communication from gPotato shed some light on a few things we’ve been having to deal with over the past week. First off they debunked the rumor that the original dev team was no longer working on the game. Second, they addressed the cash shop prices stating, “we are actively working on new pricing options to accommodate the masses.” Coming from someone that actually plays the game, and not just a news site commenting on this release, I’m slightly optimistic. Up until now we have had nothing but bad news or ridiculous statements like “The prices were intentional” or “we’ll evaluate it” yada yada. It seems like, from reading into it only slightly, that accomodating the masses means lowers the prices significantly since the masses have wanted nothing but 1000% cheaper prices.
And I also have another reason to be optimistic…
Rumor: The vast network of K&G Community resources has produced some rather good news. I won’t go into details as to reveal too much of about the source or get anyone’s hopes up in case it turns out to be false, but if the rumor is true then we can expect some very good news to be delivered about the cash shop prices soon. I guess some of the conspiracy theories were not so far off. Let your imaginations run wild.
What gPotato needs to realize coming out of all of this is that the people who enjoy the game are willing to spend money. Yeah, it’s a cash shop microtransaction model game. We know that we’re going to be forced into the cash shop because that is an intrinsic property. That doesn’t bother us anymore. We just need to be capable of affording it. I’ve taken a tally just from my guild alone and we have 30 people willing to drop $50 on the cash shop the moment it is priced like the Russian model whereas they’re willing to spend -nothing- right now. Volume of sales here guys. It doesn’t even take a background in economics to realize this either. It’s just common sense.
Here’s hoping we have some good news in the next few days.
cash shop users will ALWAYS have advantages, in all f2p games is like this. Go back 1-2 page and u will see the bad parts like FoD debuff when u die and parfumes and other things.
cash shop users will ALWAYS have advantages, in all f2p games is like this. Go back 1-2 page and u will see the bad parts like FoD debuff when u die and parfumes and other things.
True, but you can also find almost every item in the cash shop by doing instances etc.
Reise wrote:
What server is everyone on by the way?
I think the one I'm on is called Nezeb. I have a noob warrior for the "good" side and a noob psionist for the "bad" side.
I think the most play on the EU server here on SRF.
Rerolled yesterday. Got bored of the Mage so made a Orc Brute. Never had so much fun, randomly got invited to a part I thought was just to kill Tep's, but it was a XAES party with a lvl 21 inside. So my 3 instance quests got completed in less than 15 minutes.
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