Global Agenda First Impression
February 2 saw the release of two MMORPG. Both have subscription fees, both offer PvP and PvE content, they include guns and are set in science fiction universes. The similarities pretty much stop there. Cryptic Studios’ Star Trek Online is geared to satiate the hungered trekkies out there, while Hi-Rez Studios hopes to appease the Team Fortress 2 crowd. The main content, philosophies and core mechanics couldn’t be more different.
Global Agenda starts players off in an optional tutorial that explains the basic features of the game, squad-based third person shooting. The developer used this normally boring ordeal to explain the world, how the player came into existence and their reason for being. It’s a creative way to introduce players to a game, one that tackles two problems. First off, it details the absolute basics of the game – movement, jumping, crouching, etc. Things that MMOG players know. Thanks to the interactive story running alongside the tutorial players are not bored to tears. I rather enjoyed learning about the world as I was making my escape. Too bad I haven’t seen any interesting blend of gameplay and story since.
Pros:
- Gameplay polish – Too many MMOGs are being released with all sorts of bells, whistles, trinkets and garnish, but no meat and potatoes. Global Agenda has offered polished gameplay since the closed beta period. PvP combat is fast, accurate, relatively lag free and well diversified.
- Mission briefings – Mission briefings are exactly what they sound like. Short, non-interactive descriptions of the various PvP locations that a player may find themselves a part of. The briefings not only describe the objective(s), including a fly-by, but why the scenario is an important asset to claim.
- Timed missions – It doesn’t matter which you enjoy more, PvP or PvE, both types of combat are timed. This may annoy some players, but it definitely gives everyone a sense of urgency to finish the goal. Players seem to be a lot less likely to stand around in PvE, and far more aggressive in PvP when there’s a clock winding down.
- Bit-sized gameplay – The combination of instanced and timed mission along with Global Agenda’s own matchmaking system means that gamers can get in and out of a play sessions very quckly. Global Agenda is a title that is easily digestible in small bits, and easy to level without a guild. That makes it a good game for casual players until level cap.
- Payload – As characters level up they unlock additional items to equip on their character. Gear only offers small upgrades, so a player’s defensive and offensive skills are paramount to the success of a mission. The diversification is as extreme as a few teched out items, or a jack of all trades character.
- Semi-dynamic encounters – In damn near every MMOG, running the same dungeon gets boring as soon as the players learn the ins and outs of pulls, encounters and line of sight abuses. The developers at Hi-Rez Studios mix it up a bit by changing the positions, mobs, pathing, level layout and even bosses for each instance. Traps and environmental damage make dungeons even more replayable.
- Stable server & quick support – No MMOG launches without its issues, some game breaking, others just tedious. Global Agenda’s launch was relatively smooth. Little to no lag, no queues and with enough population and level distribution to carry out any mission in the game. That being said, there were small issues present. Most of them were quickly hotfixed and patched the week of release.
- Diverse PvP arenas – Global Agenda launched choke full o’ PvP arenas. Players can join a good range of scenarios including payload, attack and defense, king of the hill, objectives and escort. And soon we’ll be able to decide what we want, instead of it being random.
Cons:
- Stupid AI – The artificial intelligence for the PvE NPCs is atrocious. Robots can easily die before reacting. They may hide or cower in plain view and they’ll die to the traps in their own facilities. Sorry, but these robots and elite assassins should know they’ll get squished or melted in their own facility.
- No world or universe – The Mission Briefing feature I touted above would make you think there might be a universe, but there isn’t. There’s no where to walk around and take in the sights. Even Dome City, the game’s home base, is incredibly boring. There’s lore sprinkled in from the website and a dash in the PvE system, but the briefings will deliver the majority of context the game has to offer
- Ranges on guns – Global Agenda’s successful ad campaign lambasted the cliches of most MMOGs, but the game has some itself, including range. Various, but not all weapons, have undisclosed range limitations. It’s incredibly annoying when a weapon is fired and it doesn’t reach the intended target.
- Uninspired specialization trees – One way to specialize your character is through skill trees. By selecting one tree over another a class can change quite dramatically. For example, a medic, your typical healer, can morph into a healer that can deal a dangerous amount of poison damage to the other team. The specializations are nice in theory, but the talents within them are uninspired. Want to heal more, then select Beam Heal Boost (+4% healing), or Jetpack Power for addition flight (-50% power cost). Then move on to Beam Healing Boost II (+6% healing) or Power Pool Increase (+50% power pool)! It’s not only a lack of interesting spells, but a lack of spells in general. In fact, if you ignore the tiers of spells, then the healing tree only offers seven unique options.
- Lose of XP – Losing XP as part of a death penalty is one thing, but losing it to a disconnect or crash is another. If a player is dropped from a PvP or PvE match for any reason they are sent back to Dome City. Their place in the battle isn’t reserved for when they return, and it isn’t filled either. Because Global Agenda awards XP upon the completion of a mission, getting dropped means you’ve been robbed of whatever XP was coming to you. It doesn’t matter if you left in the first ten seconds, or the last, nothing is awarded. I’ve been stripped of XP around a dozen times now.
- Crafting – It’s clunky, time consuming, expensive and unfriendly. Thankfully, Hi-Rez is already working on an overhaul.
- Non-unique characters – Compound the boring skill selection with few cosmetic options and you have many characters that look exactly the same. There are costumes available, but few players bother to pick them up due to costs and because the outfit isn’t that different.
- Poor windowed mode optimization – One of the loading tips is that the game runs in Windowed Mode. It does, it just doesn’t run all that well. The game will sit on top of the taskbar, you’re forced to alt-tab out of the game to capture your mouse, it has uninspired taskbar art and defaultly spouts its sound whether the window is active or not. I can’t find a way to stop the sound either. All of the issues are minor, but they need to be addressed.
- Bad auto-grouping – The various auto-grouping techniques employeed by the multitude of MMOG developers have often been hailed as one of the best features of their respective games. Hi-Rez Studios’ effort is not in that category. I understand that getting people in a mission quickly is the utmost priority, but I am willing to wait a few minutes to avoid three medics or three recons in the same foursome.
- Tutorial – The introduction was great, but that’s all it was. There’s far more complex features, tactics, abilities and choices that are left unexplained in Global Agenda. The title needs additional tutorials to help new to intermediate players morph in to powerhouses..
I’ve yet to get in to a solid guild/alliance to really dive into the Alliance vs Alliance part of the game. I was lucky enough to partake in some AvA matches with developers and players during beta, and it was fun. Essentially, AvA battles are large scale PvP missions against pre-made groups. I’ll have more on AvA for you as I gain more experience. To me, half the fun in AvA is making the tactical decisions on the hex grid. It forces the leaders to be true officers.
The core of Global Agenda offers a well polished, fast paced battle against player combatants or not-so-smart NPCs. The game shines when you’re in the heat of battle against other opponents. The rest of the title is lacking in comparison. That being said, Hi-Rez Studios gave players two months of free play while the company works out the kinks. I’ll be around for at least that long.
Check out the rest of our Global Agenda coverage here.
Global Agenda First Impression
February 2 saw the release of two MMORPG. Both have subscription fees, both offer PvP and PvE content, they include guns and are set in science fiction universes. The similarities pretty much stop there. Cryptic Studios’ Star Trek Online is geared to satiate the hungered trekkies out there, while Hi-Rez Studios hopes to appease the Team Fortress 2 crowd. The main content, philosophies and core mechanics couldn’t be more different.
Global Agenda starts players off in an optional tutorial that explains the basic features of the game, squad-based third person shooting. The developer used this normally boring ordeal to explain the world, how the player came into existence and their reason for being. It’s a creative way to introduce players to a game, one that tackles two problems. First off, it details the absolute basics of the game – movement, jumping, crouching, etc. Things that MMOG players know. Thanks to the interactive story running alongside the tutorial players are not bored to tears. I rather enjoyed learning about the world as I was making my escape. Too bad I haven’t seen any interesting blend of gameplay and story since.
Pros:
- Gameplay polish – Too many MMOGs are being released with all sorts of bells, whistles, trinkets and garnish, but no meat and potatoes. Global Agenda has offered polished gameplay since the closed beta period. PvP combat is fast, accurate, relatively lag free and well diversified.
- Mission briefings – Mission briefings are exactly what they sound like. Short, non-interactive descriptions of the various PvP locations that a player may find themselves a part of. The briefings not only describe the objective(s), including a fly-by, but why the scenario is an important asset to claim.
- Timed missions – It doesn’t matter which you enjoy more, PvP or PvE, both types of combat are timed. This may annoy some players, but it definitely gives everyone a sense of urgency to finish the goal. Players seem to be a lot less likely to stand around in PvE, and far more aggressive in PvP when there’s a clock winding down.
- Bit-sized gameplay – The combination of instanced and timed mission along with Global Agenda’s own matchmaking system means that gamers can get in and out of a play sessions very quckly. Global Agenda is a title that is easily digestible in small bits, and easy to level without a guild. That makes it a good game for casual players until level cap.
- Payload – As characters level up they unlock additional items to equip on their character. Gear only offers small upgrades, so a player’s defensive and offensive skills are paramount to the success of a mission. The diversification is as extreme as a few teched out items, or a jack of all trades character.
- Semi-dynamic encounters – In damn near every MMOG, running the same dungeon gets boring as soon as the players learn the ins and outs of pulls, encounters and line of sight abuses. The developers at Hi-Rez Studios mix it up a bit by changing the positions, mobs, pathing, level layout and even bosses for each instance. Traps and environmental damage make dungeons even more replayable.
- Stable server & quick support – No MMOG launches without its issues, some game breaking, others just tedious. Global Agenda’s launch was relatively smooth. Little to no lag, no queues and with enough population and level distribution to carry out any mission in the game. That being said, there were small issues present. Most of them were quickly hotfixed and patched the week of release.
- Diverse PvP arenas – Global Agenda launched choke full o’ PvP arenas. Players can join a good range of scenarios including payload, attack and defense, king of the hill, objectives and escort. And soon we’ll be able to decide what we want, instead of it being random.
Cons:
- Stupid AI – The artificial intelligence for the PvE NPCs is atrocious. Robots can easily die before reacting. They may hide or cower in plain view and they’ll die to the traps in their own facilities. Sorry, but these robots and elite assassins should know they’ll get squished or melted in their own facility.
- No world or universe – The Mission Briefing feature I touted above would make you think there might be a universe, but there isn’t. There’s no where to walk around and take in the sights. Even Dome City, the game’s home base, is incredibly boring. There’s lore sprinkled in from the website and a dash in the PvE system, but the briefings will deliver the majority of context the game has to offer
- Ranges on guns – Global Agenda’s successful ad campaign lambasted the cliches of most MMOGs, but the game has some itself, including range. Various, but not all weapons, have undisclosed range limitations. It’s incredibly annoying when a weapon is fired and it doesn’t reach the intended target.
- Uninspired specialization trees – One way to specialize your character is through skill trees. By selecting one tree over another a class can change quite dramatically. For example, a medic, your typical healer, can morph into a healer that can deal a dangerous amount of poison damage to the other team. The specializations are nice in theory, but the talents within them are uninspired. Want to heal more, then select Beam Heal Boost (+4% healing), or Jetpack Power for addition flight (-50% power cost). Then move on to Beam Healing Boost II (+6% healing) or Power Pool Increase (+50% power pool)! It’s not only a lack of interesting spells, but a lack of spells in general. In fact, if you ignore the tiers of spells, then the healing tree only offers seven unique options.
- Lose of XP – Losing XP as part of a death penalty is one thing, but losing it to a disconnect or crash is another. If a player is dropped from a PvP or PvE match for any reason they are sent back to Dome City. Their place in the battle isn’t reserved for when they return, and it isn’t filled either. Because Global Agenda awards XP upon the completion of a mission, getting dropped means you’ve been robbed of whatever XP was coming to you. It doesn’t matter if you left in the first ten seconds, or the last, nothing is awarded. I’ve been stripped of XP around a dozen times now.
- Crafting – It’s clunky, time consuming, expensive and unfriendly. Thankfully, Hi-Rez is already working on an overhaul.
- Non-unique characters – Compound the boring skill selection with few cosmetic options and you have many characters that look exactly the same. There are costumes available, but few players bother to pick them up due to costs and because the outfit isn’t that different.
- Poor windowed mode optimization – One of the loading tips is that the game runs in Windowed Mode. It does, it just doesn’t run all that well. The game will sit on top of the taskbar, you’re forced to alt-tab out of the game to capture your mouse, it has uninspired taskbar art and defaultly spouts its sound whether the window is active or not. I can’t find a way to stop the sound either. All of the issues are minor, but they need to be addressed.
- Bad auto-grouping – The various auto-grouping techniques employeed by the multitude of MMOG developers have often been hailed as one of the best features of their respective games. Hi-Rez Studios’ effort is not in that category. I understand that getting people in a mission quickly is the utmost priority, but I am willing to wait a few minutes to avoid three medics or three recons in the same foursome.
- Tutorial – The introduction was great, but that’s all it was. There’s far more complex features, tactics, abilities and choices that are left unexplained in Global Agenda. The title needs additional tutorials to help new to intermediate players morph in to powerhouses..
I’ve yet to get in to a solid guild/alliance to really dive into the Alliance vs Alliance part of the game. I was lucky enough to partake in some AvA matches with developers and players during beta, and it was fun. Essentially, AvA battles are large scale PvP missions against pre-made groups. I’ll have more on AvA for you as I gain more experience. To me, half the fun in AvA is making the tactical decisions on the hex grid. It forces the leaders to be true officers.
The core of Global Agenda offers a well polished, fast paced battle against player combatants or not-so-smart NPCs. The game shines when you’re in the heat of battle against other opponents. The rest of the title is lacking in comparison. That being said, Hi-Rez Studios gave players two months of free play while the company works out the kinks. I’ll be around for at least that long.
Check out the rest of our Global Agenda coverage here.
Cracking the Tribble Code
My Precious
Tribble breeding is somewhat of a mini-game in Star Trek Online. The quickly multiplying furry little creatures first appeared in The Original Series episode The Trouble with Tribbles. Tribble act as a buff which can be activated while on the ground, and the buff does apply to space combat as well. A tribble will eat food in your main inventory or bank, and replace that food with a new tribble. When a particular tribble eats a particular food, a particular tribble will be created. So in other words; X tribble + Y food = Z Tribble. Right clicking on the tribble and clicking info will tell you the tribble type and the buffs. Here are some general tribble tips:
1) It takes one hour for a tribble to eat a food item.
2) Tribble can multiply in your main inventory and in your bank.
3) Adding a food item to your inventory will not reset the one hour timer.
4) The one hour timer only accumulates while you are online. The timer resumes where it left off when you re-enter the game.
5) The more powerful foods appear to make better tribble (i.e. – the 64% and 72% regen foods).
Tribble Type (Yellow) and Tribble Buff (Red)
Example Steps to Make a Ricossa Tribble
1) Loot, buy or breed a McCarry tribble.
2) McCarry tribble + Klingon grapok sauce = Howe tribble
3) Howe tribble + Klingon octopus = Ricossa tribble
4) Now you have a Ricossa tribble that has a DPS and a damage resistance buff which lasts one hour.
For more tribble recipes and information check out STO Intel.
Cracking the Tribble Code
My Precious
Tribble breeding is somewhat of a mini-game in Star Trek Online. The quickly multiplying furry little creatures first appeared in The Original Series episode The Trouble with Tribbles. Tribble act as a buff which can be activated while on the ground, and the buff does apply to space combat as well. A tribble will eat food in your main inventory or bank, and replace that food with a new tribble. When a particular tribble eats a particular food, a particular tribble will be created. So in other words; X tribble + Y food = Z Tribble. Right clicking on the tribble and clicking info will tell you the tribble type and the buffs. Here are some general tribble tips:
1) It takes one hour for a tribble to eat a food item.
2) Tribble can multiply in your main inventory and in your bank.
3) Adding a food item to your inventory will not reset the one hour timer.
4) The one hour timer only accumulates while you are online. The timer resumes where it left off when you re-enter the game.
5) The more powerful foods appear to make better tribble (i.e. – the 64% and 72% regen foods).
Tribble Type (Yellow) and Tribble Buff (Red)
Example Steps to Make a Ricossa Tribble
1) Loot, buy or breed a McCarry tribble.
2) McCarry tribble + Klingon grapok sauce = Howe tribble
3) Howe tribble + Klingon octopus = Ricossa tribble
4) Now you have a Ricossa tribble that has a DPS and a damage resistance buff which lasts one hour.
For more tribble recipes and information check out STO Intel.
League of Legends an MMORPG?
League of Legends (LoL), is a Defense of the Ancients (DotA) game made by Riot Games. I have logged in countless numbers of hours into LoL during the past few weeks but not once did I think of it as an MMORPG until I saw this news feature on the League of Legends website. LoL was nominated for: Best MMORTS 2009 and Best New MMO 2009. After seeing this I wondered why people would consider LoL an MMO. Riot Games says that League of Legends is not technically an MMORPG but it does have a lot of similarities that these type of games offer.
So how exactly is a DotA game like League of Legends an MMORPG?
Your character in LoL is a summoner that can summon a champion of your choice onto the battlefields of Valoran. At the start of every match you can choose two utility spells out of a list of thirteen to use during the game. The spells vary from heals, extra movement speed, teleport, etc. At the end of every match you gain experience based on whether your team won/lost and your personal performance during the match. 
The max summoner level is 30 and for each level you gain you get a mastery point. Mastery points are spent on the three mastery trees which are: Offense, Defense and Utility. This allows you to customize your summoner to your play style. Adding in talent trees makes LoL very unique for a DotA game since everyone will have different mastery builds.
You also get influence points at the end of every match (which can be viewed as currency). Influence points can be used to buy champions you don’t currently own and also to buy runes.
Runes are items that enhance your champions traits and abilities. Summoners have a rune book where you can place certain runes in their respective slots. As you level up you get access to more rune slots in the book and higher tiers of runes. There are three tiers of runes that can be purchased with influence points and four different types of runes. The different types of runes are: Marks, Seals, Glyphs and Quintessences. The runes do various things like increasing attack speed, additional mana, bonus health regeneration, etc.
So is League of Legends an MMORPG? I don’t really think there’s a right or wrong answer. People will have their own ideas and views of what an MMORPG. If you search for “League of Legends MMO” you will find a lot of sites that view LoL as an MMO. Even sites like SK-Gaming (a well known team of professional E-Sports players that compete in games like: World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, etc) refer to League of Legends as an MMO and points out that the game has many similarities which are found in MMOs. LoL is just one of those games that could be an MMO while at the same time it isn’t. What I can say is that it does have a lot of things that you would find and expect in an MMORPG like choosing spells, leveling up character, customizing mastery trees and buying items (runes) that increase a character’s stats/abilities.
For the record I personally don’t consider League of Legends to be an MMO/MMORPG. It does have some of the main traits that an MMORPG has but I just don’t consider interacting with nine other people (five vs five games) as a “massive” multiplayer game.
League of Legends an MMORPG?
League of Legends (LoL), is a Defense of the Ancients (DotA) game made by Riot Games. I have logged in countless numbers of hours into LoL during the past few weeks but not once did I think of it as an MMORPG until I saw this news feature on the League of Legends website. LoL was nominated for: Best MMORTS 2009 and Best New MMO 2009. After seeing this I wondered why people would consider LoL an MMO. Riot Games says that League of Legends is not technically an MMORPG but it does have a lot of similarities that these type of games offer.
So how exactly is a DotA game like League of Legends an MMORPG?
Your character in LoL is a summoner that can summon a champion of your choice onto the battlefields of Valoran. At the start of every match you can choose two utility spells out of a list of thirteen to use during the game. The spells vary from heals, extra movement speed, teleport, etc. At the end of every match you gain experience based on whether your team won/lost and your personal performance during the match. The max summoner level is 30 and for each level you gain you get a mastery point. Mastery points are spent on the three mastery trees which are: Offense, Defense and Utility. This allows you to customize your summoner to your play style. Adding in talent trees makes LoL very unique for a DotA game since everyone will have different mastery builds.
You also get influence points at the end of every match (which can be viewed as currency). Influence points can be used to buy champions you don’t currently own and also to buy runes.
Runes are items that enhance your champions traits and abilities. Summoners have a rune book where you can place certain runes in their respective slots. As you level up you get access to more rune slots in the book and higher tiers of runes. There are three tiers of runes that can be purchased with influence points and four different types of runes. The different types of runes are: Marks, Seals, Glyphs and Quintessences. The runes do various things like increasing attack speed, additional mana, bonus health regeneration, etc.
So is League of Legends an MMORPG? I don’t really think there’s a right or wrong answer. People will have their own ideas and views of what an MMORPG. If you search for “League of Legends MMO” you will find a lot of sites that view LoL as an MMO. Even sites like SK-Gaming (a well known team of professional E-Sports players that compete in games like: World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, etc) refer to League of Legends as an MMO and points out that the game has many similarities which are found in MMOs. LoL is just one of those games that could be an MMO while at the same time it isn’t. What I can say is that it does have a lot of things that you would find and expect in an MMORPG like choosing spells, leveling up character, customizing mastery trees and buying items (runes) that increase a character’s stats/abilities.
For the record I personally don’t consider League of Legends to be an MMO/MMORPG. It does have some of the main traits that an MMORPG has but I just don’t consider interacting with nine other people (five vs five games) as a “massive” multiplayer game.
Why I Quit Champions Online
Even though I purchased the six month package for Champions Online I haven’t actively played the game in weeks. I’ve kept the client up-to-date just in case, but since publishing the game’s review in mid-November I haven’t put in anywhere near the time that I had previously. My absence from VioletPreston has nothing to do with being busy. The holidays didn’t stop me from logging in, neither did other video games, or even other MMOG that I play. I didn’t play Champions Online because of the game itself, no other excuses.
Plan and simple, Champions Online lost its hold on me. I continued to dive in to the game, move around the world, soak up the atmosphere, read about its future and most importantly, evaluate the content beyond my reach. What I definitively learned, and I hope my review hinted at, is that the game lacks legs. The atmosphere has always been incredibly disjointed thanks to the instancing of most zones. Even though all of the settings make sense in the universe, they lack a cohesive flow. And the multitude of characters aren’t employed effectively either. Because of these continued slip-ups through the middle to later levels, Champions Online gets boiled down to its diverse arcade-y combat;. In essence, it becomes a soulless experience.
Signing up for an MMOG to me is more than just playing a game, I am signing up as a partner to the company. I expect certain things from the service provider, and when I don’t see those things I can get upset, annoyed and even downright angry. Cryptic Studios has managed to make me feel almost all of these emotions. I was expecting the cast of Champions characters to be used in an intriguing way. I was hoping that the game would offer better grouping and dungeon experiences later on. I maintained a desire to play alternate characters (perhaps CO’s greatest strength), but was hamstrung by being forced to do the same content over and over. Instead of fixing these issues with content updates, Cryptic turned around and announced a premium content patch. Adding content to the end game and charging for it – that was the last straw for me.
The tragedy of all of this is that my experience has made me incredibly stand-offish to Cryptic’s just released MMORPG Star Trek Online, a title I was originally excited for. I’ll likely play it, but my experience and the handling of Champions Online to date, assured that I wouldn’t purchase an advance subscription, or even the game at launch.
My Champions Online account is subscribed for another month plus, so Cryptic can do right by me. But the outlook is grime for my Champions Online characters. It just couldn’t satisfy me in the long run.
Why I Quit Champions Online
Even though I purchased the six month package for Champions Online I haven’t actively played the game in weeks. I’ve kept the client up-to-date just in case, but since publishing the game’s review in mid-November I haven’t put in anywhere near the time that I had previously. My absence from VioletPreston has nothing to do with being busy. The holidays didn’t stop me from logging in, neither did other video games, or even other MMOG that I play. I didn’t play Champions Online because of the game itself, no other excuses.
Plan and simple, Champions Online lost its hold on me. I continued to dive in to the game, move around the world, soak up the atmosphere, read about its future and most importantly, evaluate the content beyond my reach. What I definitively learned, and I hope my review hinted at, is that the game lacks legs. The atmosphere has always been incredibly disjointed thanks to the instancing of most zones. Even though all of the settings make sense in the universe, they lack a cohesive flow. And the multitude of characters aren’t employed effectively either. Because of these continued slip-ups through the middle to later levels, Champions Online gets boiled down to its diverse arcade-y combat;. In essence, it becomes a soulless experience.
Signing up for an MMOG to me is more than just playing a game, I am signing up as a partner to the company. I expect certain things from the service provider, and when I don’t see those things I can get upset, annoyed and even downright angry. Cryptic Studios has managed to make me feel almost all of these emotions. I was expecting the cast of Champions characters to be used in an intriguing way. I was hoping that the game would offer better grouping and dungeon experiences later on. I maintained a desire to play alternate characters (perhaps CO’s greatest strength), but was hamstrung by being forced to do the same content over and over. Instead of fixing these issues with content updates, Cryptic turned around and announced a premium content patch. Adding content to the end game and charging for it – that was the last straw for me.
The tragedy of all of this is that my experience has made me incredibly stand-offish to Cryptic’s just released MMORPG Star Trek Online, a title I was originally excited for. I’ll likely play it, but my experience and the handling of Champions Online to date, assured that I wouldn’t purchase an advance subscription, or even the game at launch.
My Champions Online account is subscribed for another month plus, so Cryptic can do right by me. But the outlook is grime for my Champions Online characters. It just couldn’t satisfy me in the long run.
Allods Online First Impressions
If you never played Allods Online and were to see an in-game video or screenshot, you would most likely call the game, yet another WoW-clone. And you would be right, partially. Truth be told, Allods does “borrow” several gaming mechanics and concepts from Blizzard’s hit MMORPG, but the game is more of a mix-and-match than a complete rip-off. And, last but not least, Allods introduces several brand new features. The game is a free-to-play MMO by Russian developer Astrum Nival, the guys behind Heroes of Might and Magic V, Rage of Mages and Etherlords. Gpotato are responsible for porting it to North America and Europe. The developers have taken their job more than seriously, pouring the outstanding 12 million dollars into the production of Allods. So it’s no wonder the game became one of the best known free MMO’s to date, long before its release. Let’s get on with my first impressions of Allods Online.
Gameplay
The controls and interface of Allods are pretty standard. Keyboard movement, but there is also a click-to-move option included. The interface won’t give you much trouble, except the lack of a decent minimap and the quest tracker. The game does have a compass, but that doesn’t help much. Once you’re used to constantly opening and closing the map panel, you will forget about that too. As for the quest tracker, the problem is there is no way for you to disable tracking for just one quest, meaning you will either have to track all your quests at once, or hide the entire tracker. One thing that really helps are the small overhead icons for NPC’s, who, unlike other MMORPG’s, are visible at all times, even when you’re not looking at that particular NPC. Those icons will be displayed on the edge of your screen, and will constantly cycle around you. Point one with the mouse and a small text message will show up, giving a bit of information, including available quests and NPC function.
Speaking of quests, they are also pretty standard. Most of them revolve around killing a number of mobs or talking to a certain NPC, but most tasks are very quick and simple, you won’t have to spend more then 15 minutes on most quests.
The leveling itself is fast at first and after level 5 leveling becomes much more of a challenge. This is where the fatigue system comes in handy. In addition to normal experience, you also gain bonus experience referred to as fatigue. Fatigue can be used by talking to one of the many innkeepers across the world. Fatigue has a limit, though, so don’t rely on it too much.
Combat
Combat is fairly slow in Allods, being a pain at the start, but once you get the hang of your class you won’t have much problems with it. In my 15 hours of closed beta gameplay I had the chance to test out two classes, a Kanian Champion(human warrior), which I got to level 6, for the League and Arisen Summoner for the Empire, whom I leveled up to 9. I enjoyed my experience as a summoner much more than as a champion, partly because I prefer the mage as my class of choice. As a champion the gameplay was standard enough: charge at a distance(aimed shot if it’s cooling down) and then I just spammed skills in a row(whichever was available). The champion has a combat advantage bar that most skills use. You gain combat advantage by fighting, so yeah, it’s like the warrior rage in WoW. The Summoner, on the other hand, uses his summoned pet as a tank and casts from a safe distance in the meantime. Until the enemy decides to attack him, or his pet dies, that is. Than he has to make a run for it. I haven’t had enough party gameplay or PvP to comment on either of those yet, but I plan to fix that once the open beta rolls in.
Visuals and sound
Allods’ soundtrack was composed by the professional musicians Mark Morgan(who has also composed for television series such as One Tree Hill, Kojak and Killer Instincts, and video games such as Fallout and Planescape: Torment) and Vladislav Isaev. And it’s pretty easy to guess that. From the amazing main theme to simple background noises, everything finds its place perfectly and doesn’t get in the way much.
As for the game’s graphics, Allods will impress you, that’s for sure. The graphics are not only polished and have amazing design, but they also have a particular style, a mix of comic and fantasy. Yes, I mean it, Allods is practically flawless in the technical department. It’s had a stable closed beta so far, with just bit of lag, nothing serious.
Conclusion
My first impressions of Allods online are more than positive: a polished free MMORPG with great graphics, solid gameplay and amazing soundtrack. Put in the giant fanbase and great support and you’ve got yourself a winning MMO formula.
Allods Online First Impressions
If you never played Allods Online and were to see an in-game video or screenshot, you would most likely call the game, yet another WoW-clone. And you would be right, partially. Truth be told, Allods does “borrow” several gaming mechanics and concepts from Blizzard’s hit MMORPG, but the game is more of a mix-and-match than a complete rip-off. And, last but not least, Allods introduces several brand new features. The game is a free-to-play MMO by Russian developer Astrum Nival, the guys behind Heroes of Might and Magic V, Rage of Mages and Etherlords. Gpotato are responsible for porting it to North America and Europe. The developers have taken their job more than seriously, pouring the outstanding 12 million dollars into the production of Allods. So it’s no wonder the game became one of the best known free MMO’s to date, long before its release. Let’s get on with my first impressions of Allods Online.
Gameplay
The controls and interface of Allods are pretty standard. Keyboard movement, but there is also a click-to-move option included. The interface won’t give you much trouble, except the lack of a decent minimap and the quest tracker. The game does have a compass, but that doesn’t help much. Once you’re used to constantly opening and closing the map panel, you will forget about that too. As for the quest tracker, the problem is there is no way for you to disable tracking for just one quest, meaning you will either have to track all your quests at once, or hide the entire tracker. One thing that really helps are the small overhead icons for NPC’s, who, unlike other MMORPG’s, are visible at all times, even when you’re not looking at that particular NPC. Those icons will be displayed on the edge of your screen, and will constantly cycle around you. Point one with the mouse and a small text message will show up, giving a bit of information, including available quests and NPC function.
Speaking of quests, they are also pretty standard. Most of them revolve around killing a number of mobs or talking to a certain NPC, but most tasks are very quick and simple, you won’t have to spend more then 15 minutes on most quests.
The leveling itself is fast at first and after level 5 leveling becomes much more of a challenge. This is where the fatigue system comes in handy. In addition to normal experience, you also gain bonus experience referred to as fatigue. Fatigue can be used by talking to one of the many innkeepers across the world. Fatigue has a limit, though, so don’t rely on it too much.
Combat
Combat is fairly slow in Allods, being a pain at the start, but once you get the hang of your class you won’t have much problems with it. In my 15 hours of closed beta gameplay I had the chance to test out two classes, a Kanian Champion(human warrior), which I got to level 6, for the League and Arisen Summoner for the Empire, whom I leveled up to 9. I enjoyed my experience as a summoner much more than as a champion, partly because I prefer the mage as my class of choice. As a champion the gameplay was standard enough: charge at a distance(aimed shot if it’s cooling down) and then I just spammed skills in a row(whichever was available). The champion has a combat advantage bar that most skills use. You gain combat advantage by fighting, so yeah, it’s like the warrior rage in WoW. The Summoner, on the other hand, uses his summoned pet as a tank and casts from a safe distance in the meantime. Until the enemy decides to attack him, or his pet dies, that is. Than he has to make a run for it. I haven’t had enough party gameplay or PvP to comment on either of those yet, but I plan to fix that once the open beta rolls in.
Visuals and sound
Allods’ soundtrack was composed by the professional musicians Mark Morgan(who has also composed for television series such as One Tree Hill, Kojak and Killer Instincts, and video games such as Fallout and Planescape: Torment) and Vladislav Isaev. And it’s pretty easy to guess that. From the amazing main theme to simple background noises, everything finds its place perfectly and doesn’t get in the way much.
As for the game’s graphics, Allods will impress you, that’s for sure. The graphics are not only polished and have amazing design, but they also have a particular style, a mix of comic and fantasy. Yes, I mean it, Allods is practically flawless in the technical department. It’s had a stable closed beta so far, with just bit of lag, nothing serious.
Conclusion
My first impressions of Allods online are more than positive: a polished free MMORPG with great graphics, solid gameplay and amazing soundtrack. Put in the giant fanbase and great support and you’ve got yourself a winning MMO formula.
