Stepping Into Allods Online!

Hi guys,

Lately I have been hearing some good things about Free to Play MMO Allods Online. While I have heard that the game is a WoW clone, the story and classes seemed pretty interesting so I decided to hop in the game and give it a try!

The first thing I noticed when I started the patcher was that even it was very close to what the WoW patcher looks like. After dealing with an issue where the patcher was showing dialogue in what I think was Greek I was finally able to get my game updated and ready to play.

Allods Online Launcher.

After launching the game the first screen I saw after logging in confused me a bit. At first I thought that the screen was an image page to display while the game loads. After waiting there a couple minutes I realized that the game wasn't doing anything. Upon further inspection I discovered that you need to click on one of the avatars in the picture in order to advance to the character creation screen. There wasn't any text or buttons that told you you needed to click them in order to advance. When you hover the mouse over the avatars a tooltip will pop up telling you what faction and archetype that avatar is; you don't have to worry if you aren't sure what to pick at this stage, as soon as you click one you will be able to change the race and class to whatever you would like.

First character selection screen.

The graphics in Allods Online is the same style that World of Warcraft uses, but it looks to be a little more detailed. Although there aren't any sliders to customize your character in great detail, I found that there is a decent amount of preset options for you to customize your character with.

The real character creation screen.

At the start of the game, you appear in the cabin of a ship. You hear knocking on the door to your room, and when you open it an orc confronts you and tells you it is your job to defend the ship against a bandit attack. The orc says you have to clear your way to a scientist that needs to be saved. 

You are able to defeat the bandits before they kill the scientist, but he claims his legs are broken. The scientist tells you that the bandits were after a security key and that it is not safe where it is. Your task is to take the key to the Captain, who knows what to do with it. 

You track the Captain down and he thinks it would be best for you to hold on to the key until the fighting is over. Who would expect an important item to be on a lowly soldier, anyway? The Captain tells you that you should go to the power room and see why their backup system is failing, which you discover is being attacked by several enemy fire elementals. You must kill all of them in order to save the ship from losing all of its power.

 As a reward for saving the generators the scientist in charge of this area makes you tell the Captain that the bandits stole a very important secret device from them, just so he doesn't get in trouble! The Captain informs you that the device that was stolen was actually a teleporter designed to help get his troops to safety. Your newest task is to board the bandits ship, destroy them all, and bring the teleporter back to safety. You clear your way to the teleporter and activate it, sending you to a town and ending the tutorial.

So far the game seems to be pretty fun, the little bit of story that the tutorial covers is pretty interesting. I went with the healer archetype so when I level up a little bit more I can pick the heretic subclass, which sounds like an offensive healer class. He does really well in fights, but at level 4 I still don't have any type of heal. Hopefully I get one in the next level or two!

One thing that I'm not sure if I like yet is the emote system for the game. Instead of having character animations for emotes, when you use an emote it displays an smiley emoticon above your characters head. This is the first game I have seen to use an emote system like that.

Emotes in Allods Online.

Also, there is one other thing I don't really care for in Allods Online. There isn't a minimap in this game. All you get is a tiny compass that doesn't really seem to be of any help.

The compass in Allods Online.

Though there are some aspects of this game that I don't really care for, it still seems like a fun and playable game - especially if you like that style of graphics! I enjoyed stepping into Allods Online, and I hope you will tune in next time when I dig a little deeper into the game!

MIA

Sorry I haven't been putting up new posts lately,  I recently gave in and decided to pick up MAG for the PS3(Not sure why I waited so long!). I am liking the game a lot and it has been taking up most of my free time lately, but I promise I will start back with new posts in the next day or two. Also, is it hard for anyone else to earn money in MAG, or is it just the fact that I suck at FPS games that makes the income so low?

An Intro to Tera Online!

Hi guys! Lately I have been hearing more about an upcoming MMO called Tera Online and it started to grab my interest, so I decided I would see what info I could dig up and share the results with you.

Tera Online is being made by a studio in Korea, and its NA release date will be some time in 2011. Tera will feature both PVE and PVP ruleset servers. The PVE server will have battleground PVP areas(similar to what WoW and EQ2 have), but no open-world PVP. The PVP servers will have open-world PVP as well as battlegrounds that give special PVP rewards. The PVP in Tera will be group oriented instead of 1v1. At launch there will be no rogue type classes, their melee dps classes are high dps warrior types. Tera will also support gamepads at launch(hopefully this doesn't lead to a clunky un-user friendly UI like FFXIV has!)

There are six races in the game, with each having its own story and background. The races are:

The Amani. The Amani are descendants of dragons who were used as slaves for centuries by the giants. They have finally freed themselves of the giants and will do whatever it takes to make sure they remain free.

The Barakas. The Baraka are distant relatives of the giants, who parted ways with the giants to keep their pacifist views. Despite their gentle nature, it would be very unwise to assume they can't defend themselves.



The High Elves. The High Elves once spent their days honoring their gods, until the gods started fighting amongst themselves and tore the High Elf civilization into two factions. Only one of the factions remain.

The Castanics. Opportunistic and hot-headed, Castanics are well known for their military tactics.

The Humans. The Humans are a race that rebelled against their god and creator, who cursed the humans to be nomads for two thousand years.

The Poporis. Quirky and mischievous, the Poporis are not afraid to stick their noses into other peoples business. Their ferocity in battle makes them a strong ally.

There are eight classes in Tera, each with their own unique fighting style. The classes are:

Archer: Jack of all trades, the Archer is a class that will appeal to those that like blowing things up, piercing armor and trapping enemies.

Berserker: Wielding the largest weapons in the game, the Berserker uses his discipline to send enemies flying.

Lancer: Carrying a shield and a lance, the Lancer excels at both offense and defense. He can deal damage, or help to create a safe area for his allies.

Mystic: The Mystic walks a fine line between good and evil, on one hand smiting the enemy, and healing his allies on the other.

Priest: Often seen lending a hand, the Priests seek to lead by example, doing good deeds to help out his allies.

Slayer: Dealing in death, the Slayer uses his greatsword to send waves of destruction through his foes.

Sorcerer: The Sorcerer channels raw magic through her disks, dealing unparalleled damage over the crowding enemy.

Warrior:  The Warrior is a powerful class that can hold the enemies attention, all the while dealing damage as well.

Even thought Tera is being developed as an Asian MMO, the developers aren't leaving the people who love questing in the dark. The game will launch with over one thousand quests. The battlegrounds in the game will be cross server, meaning everyone will be able to join together, reducing wait times between matches. On PVP servers you will be able to participate in Guild versus Guild PVP. You can use PVP to gain ranks in the game's political system. The dueling system in Tera will allow you to duel 1 versus 1, 1 group versus 1 group, or even 1 person versus up to 10 people at a time! The game will include crafting, player housing, and mounts. The combat system in Tera will be largely skill based, rather than gear based. The level cap for the game is 60, and the maximum group size is five players.







*All pictures are from Tera-Online*

Head over to http://www.tera-online.com/ to see more about Tera Online!


Have any questions/comments? Feel free to leave them below!

To a new adventure!

Hello! My name is Cameron Bracewell and I'm a 23 year old video game enthusiast. My goal for this blog is to be a good source for gaming news and reviews, as well as to chronicle a few of my adventures through various MMOs. For my first blog I am going start a new character and begin an adventure in Lord of the Rings Online, which recently became free to play.

For my new character I decided to create a hobbit minstrel named Balco on the Crickhollow server. Most times I tend to stay away from the shorter races, but I decided to make one this time because it is the one starting area that I don't really have any experience with. The Minstrel is the first of two healing classes in the game, however to play the second one, called Rune-keeper, you have to buy it from the in-game store.

 My first thought when I get into character creation mode is that I wish it had a few more customization options for my character. There are six customization areas (Head, Hair Style, Eyes, Eyebrows, Mouth, and Details) that have only a few preset options to choose from. There is a little color chart for Eye Color that lets you pick different shades of blue or brown, a color chart for Skin Color that lets you choose different shades between light tan and medium tan, and a color chart for Hair Color that lets you choose between different shades of gray, blond, brown, or black. The only slider in character creation is to alter whether your character is fat or skinny. The customization isn't nearly as nice as some of the other MMOs I've played and gotten used to, but I can understand why they would want to keep people looking pretty normal so they fit into the Lord of the Rings world better. The character creation music is simple, but nice. It makes you feel like going on an adventure.

You start your adventure on the run from a Black Rider, a menacing looking creature that rides a black horse. As you are escaping back into the Shire you encounter two hobbits trying to escape a group of brigands. Before long the brigands have caught up to you and throw you in a prison for withholding the location of Frodo. Luckily, you and your fellow hobbits are rescued by a human. As you escape the prison with the help of the human you find one of the human's traveling companions being confronted by the Black Rider you encountered earlier. The Black Rider stabs the man and gallops off into the night. You quickly take the man to the nearest town to get medical aid, and so ends the tutorial. The tutorial is very well done, there is a lot of drama and suspense happening, and the music that goes along with it is great.

After the tutorial is over you get sent to the small human town of Archet. Your new task is to do various quests throughout the neighboring forest in order to gain the trust of the Captain of the town, who needs to be convinced that the brigands are a threat to his town. While earning the trust of the Captain, you learn that there are traitors within his army! Finally the Captain sees the truth, but it is too late for him to message for help, the brigands have the town surrounded. You recruit the Captain's son from a nearby hunting lodge, but by the time you get back to Archet the attack is already underway. You rush into battle to try and end the fight before it is too late to save the town. After a hard battle the enemies were driven away. Although the enemies were gone and most of the townspeople were safe, the toll was great. The town was burned, and the Captain was slain. After the battle at Archet, the Introduction is over and you are teleported to the Shire.

At level 6, the level I was after finishing the Introduction storyline, I have one melee attack, one heal, one rez, and a chain skill that has one ability for tier one, two abilities for tier two, and one ability for tier three. The class seems pretty balanced so far, and it is definitely a fun class to play if you like healing classes. Hopefully soon I will get a chance to join a group and see how well they do in a group scenario.

While I do wish there was a bit more character customization, that is the only negative aspect that I have found so far. The game is fun, the storyline is great, and the music really helps to draw you into the game. If you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings series, or are just looking for a different game to try, then you should definitely download LotRO and give it a go. It is free after all!

Have any questions/comments? Feel free to leave them below!