I don't understand how a f2p game with a cash shop equates greedy bastards on the part of developers. It's not like the independently rich jump into game development out of the kindness of their hearts and hire a personal hand-holding attendant for each person that wants to play the game. Buying perfumes in the CS isn't game breaking unless you spend mass amounts of money to zerg in pvp. Game breaking is when there are items that through the balance off. Uber weapons and whatnot. Something I hear so much in WoW because I'm more pve oriented there: Learn to play.
Well, speaking of items that throw the balance off, the perfume provides a very powerful boost to HP, reduction on CC from mage and summoner, and reduction of DOT duration on some of the summoner's DOTs.
Not only that, but you can level up runes that provide huge stat bonuses. It costs over $200 to level up a single rune to max and you could do this for 6 different pieces of gear. The end result gives you huge % boosts for example a common one people can do using 6 runes would be 65% max HP and 15% more damage.
Add rank 3 patronage to that and perfume and have you someone walking around who has ~110% more max HP, 15% more damage, lower duration of CC effects, and lower duration of DOTs. That seems pretty game breaking to me. That person can easily down 2 equally geared players who didn't use the cash shop, possibly even 3 at once.
Among other things you can buy: Gold (literally), Chests with gear in them, up to 5 extra rubies (random chance from chests) which are Allods version of talent points, and skill resets (only through cash shop).
People aren't really upset about this because it is a F2P and they have to make money. They are upset because it was promised to us that cash shop items will not have an effect on gameplay and that a person who doesn't use the cash shop will be able to stand on equal ground with someone who doesn't, albeit maybe with more time investment. I'm paraphrasing here, but I'm sure the actual quote is posted above somewhere. There is also at least one example of a F2P game that makes their money through pure cosmetic improvements or items/unlockables that are obtainable in game: League of Legends.
Gold and chests ARE obtainable in-game, so that's ikind of a moot point. And you can do those runes without cash shop, it would be a lot deal more time-investing and a huge gamble every time you make one.
And perfume can still be obained in-game. So...
By the way, recently I've learned, that the first lead dev (the one, who said CS won't have effect on gameplay) left the project some time ago, even before the Russian OB, if I'm not misaken. Make of that, what you will.
It's not a moot point because it's still an advantage. I don't have to actively go out and farm chest or gold, I can just spend via the cash shop and be on par with a player who spends an equal amount of time farming. Good luck getting past a level 3 rune without the cash shop too.
Perfume is obtainable from a daily quest at 1 per day. The daily quest is pretty long from what I hear too. It's basically spending 30 minutes for 30 minutes worth of perfume... Good luck accomplishing anything that requires perfume in 30 minutes time.
Perfume is pretty cheap and could be maintained for less than a subscription price on a non-obsessive gamer, but it's just the fact that the dev flat out lied that has me upset. There are many items from the cash shop that have an effect on gameplay. I'm still going to play the game as you know, obviously Goronian.
At people thinking that they only need perfume while PvPing or doing instances and can avoid it while playing casually, you do know that there are war banners that let any party gank you whenever they please, right? And you still receive the penalty...
I`ll jump in here regarding the item Chests. The gear they give is sooooo random that one could be spending 100s of $ and not get 1 good piece. And after Testing I have also seen that they only give Greens and Blues , which means that Purples and Oranges still only come from Raiding the Astral.
Games like Atlantica Online treat their item malls like mini-casinos, even though it gives good money to the game most players arent so lucky and are spending 50-100 dollars before they receive what they want sometimes even more. They also make older mall items obsolete by making the new content +5-10 points stronger in attack/defense/mountspeed.
@alextodo ; Except for 5 items the big chest can contain that's a gamble to get and only available through this chest. It's the pages you turn in for a quest that grants you an extra ruby. You can only obtain it via the cash shop chests. There are 5 pages total each granting a total of one extra ruby. It's probably a gamble costing well over $100 on average to get all five.
The game is still very decent. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from playing it. It's just people need to be aware that this can be a potiental money sink if you aren't careful and manage what you are buying. Like most F2P it's not quite obvious how much you'll need to spend to be on the top end competitive level until you are already addicted, which is how most F2P thrive. You can spend far less on it by playing casually and not trying to be ultra-competitive.
I believe according to Nexon (Maplestory, Mabinogi) only 1 out of 10 people use their cash shop. Some of the ones that did spent upwards of $100+ a MONTH on the game. This is based off an article I read on F2P games in a gaming mag a few years ago, sorry I can't site the exact source.
I'm just trying to make people aware of this. The FoD thing is causing the biggest uproar right now (because it's nearly unavoidable), but there are a lot of other potientally huge money sinks down the line that people aren't quite aware of yet and I hope nobody falls into a trap of buying into them.
My recommendation if you want to play the game is to not spend more than $15 a month. Carefully manage your money. If you play 4 hours-6 hours a day which is a lot, but not too excessive if it's your only hobby, you could easily manage $15 a month. Casuals will have a much easier time. Just don't get worked up trying to compete by getting those extra rubies or higher level runes, they just aren't worth it!
The only problem with your argument is the assumption you make about the mentality of the gamers you're describing. Think about the people who you read spent $100 or more per month in a cash shop, on a f2p game, and then think what it is they're buying or why? Spending that kind of money alone could be fairly hardcore in itself, but it also depends on what they're buying. Someone could spend a ton of money buying decorative items for ingame housing or to make their character look a certain way.
The other mentality that people assume is that casual players are only pve oriented and don't spend as much time playing the game as opposed to the hardcore players who invest hours of play time a day and make use of all aspects of a game with a preference towards serious pvp. This is stupid cliche lumping of players. I know people that play a couple hours every night and then spend 12+ hours a day on the weekends building up their characters, sometimes on multiple accounts, just for the purposes of roleplaying. One friend in particular does that with EQ2 and has all her characters on or near lvl cap at all times and she spends money for the cosmetic stuff (her guild's hall is amazing and the hours spent on its decoration boggle the mind.) I'd call that hardcore and the only pvp some of these people do is rp dueling. And that's just a small portion. There are all types of players.
All the complaints about the DP in Allods are coming from people who only focus on pvp and come from risk free styles of gaming. IMO. Anyone who, as you're describing it, feels the need to basically grind the CS to get gameplay enhancers is missing the point and 'story' is most likely a dirty word. Cash shops in general can be abused, particularly when paired with games that already require a monthly sub, but in the case of free games most are fairly benign. I've played GW since Factions and the only things I've bought were character slots and a few other non essential items and I have NO problems competing at end game.
As far as Allods goes, while I didn't get to lvl cap while playing CBT, I did get mid level and pvp'd and never had any complaints. I will have even less since joining a decent guild knowing I have good players at my back (and vice versa.) While it's good advice to try to manage money and spend wisely in the CS don't assume 'casual players' will have it easier. I'm sure there will be pvp oriented players who can only put in a few hours a week who will pour money into the game's CS just so they don't have to spend their limited time acquiring anything ingame. That's not hardcore. Hardcore is the player who spends the time ingame doing the bag quests or the extra ruby quest (both ridiculously hard and time consuming quests as far as CBT was concerned.) Not the person who took the easy way out through the CS so they can 'pwn nubs' faster.
___________~____________ Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. - Oscar Wilde
So they added or going to be adding this new effect when you die from pvp or mobs. Its called Fear of Death and its a debuff you get from death. The worst part is this effect stays for 45min and also costs so much stats lost you can't even play the game its that bad.
I know you aren't accurate but even I say finally, was about time. Death that has consequences so you actually are afraid of dieing thus making combat challenging and stressful.
You gank someone, pretty sure he's going to be pissed of and will certainly log his alt and call his friends to chase you, for a long time.
Event it's not like you can play alts while waiting for the timer to reset.
So they added or going to be adding this new effect when you die from pvp or mobs. Its called Fear of Death and its a debuff you get from death. The worst part is this effect stays for 45min and also costs so much stats lost you can't even play the game its that bad.
I know you aren't accurate but even I say finally, was about time. Death that has consequences so you actually are afraid of dieing thus making combat challenging and stressful.
You gank someone, pretty sure he's going to be pissed of and will certainly log his alt and call his friends to chase you, for a long time.
Event it's not like you can play alts while waiting for the timer to reset.
I was reading on the official forums that the timer is not supposed to count down while you are logged off that toon. Apparently it was during closed beta via a bug and they fixed that. Not 100 percent sure though. So your supposed to be online while it counts down.
Now that is something I would not encourage, that sounds plain and simple retarded, and more or less forces you to buy the perfume thingy. Please let it no be true, I'm so excited to play, but that really tuned things down for me. But lets see how it works out in reality first, not optimistic though.
Look, there is no such thing as a free to play MMO. You are correct, they need to make money and if that means changing the rules to force you to buy a bunch of ingame crap they will do it. My suggestion is to quit and move on.
Well, I'm playing a 40lvl imperium mage on a Russian server, hotfix 1.06.22 is being installed there at the moment).
Concerning FoD:
1. It is REMOVED by parfume; i.e. if you die, get FoD and make praying - you get the buff AND FoD is removed
2.The quest for getting the parfume for free is not TOO long - it takes me about 15 minutes to complete. You need to visit five places (here and further my variants of Russian names for the locations - I don't really know the English ones) - the boiler square (near the astral station), in fact much closer to the place where naked elf-girl sits), the astral port, the place near the spiders in Nezeb (where you collect their web and farm the bones), and two places in the Military Zone - one near the insect Jail, where the quest for reputation is given and one in the opposite side - where the quest for three trials is given. Once you get to the location, you only need to talk to a correct NPC. After vising all five places you get your parfume in the Lagging ) Tower.
3. In fact, at lvl 40 you really don't need to perform this quest - you may consider buying the parfume for in-game gold much easier)) Today, the standard prices were 10g for one parfume (lots of suggestions, even with instant buying) but you really can instantly buy a stack of 20 parfume for about 7.5 gold each. After getting a little dressed in reputation clothes it's not really a problem.
To my taste, there're much more "interesting" issues in the game - buggy astral, the absence of NPC mirth vendors at some resurrect places, disbalanced violet and orange equipment... AND be aware, try not to play druids))) they're fixed again, it comes out that all their potions will not work on bosses and their healing buff was cut down twice in the previous patch. Some players don't event take them in the party for travelling astral and completing heriocs.
Concerning the timer - when you're not logged in, the FoD timer IS FROZEN - you need to be logged in to make it count down)) People say (I didn't checked it) that blessing count (after taking the parfume) COUNTS DOWN when you're not logged in.
There was a bug with FoD before the 1.06.22 hotfix - if you die get FoD, die again, relog and get resurrected by a player, the FoD is gone) , try it while it's not fixed yet in your version
This is really selling this game to me....i am going to create an account tonight and try it.
It will make such a refreshing change to actually have to think about my actions and face the consequences of bad choices/decisions. see you tonight on EU server
Here are the bugs concerning FoD that has already been fixed in Ru version - maybe some of them are still active here....
1. FoD is removed by travelling in June's Spheres (sorry, don't know how it's in English)
Fixed the next day after it had been posted in the forum.
2. FoD is removed if you die, wait the timer in hell, DON"T resurrect but relog.
Fixed about in a week after it had been posted in the forum.
3. FoD is removed when you get it, then die, relog and get resurrected by a player.
Fixed recently, really haven't seen it published.
And, there're still many bugs that don't get fixed for a long time.
Different misspellings (really takes very little time to correct,don't they?), the possibility to craft 20lvl things from about 10lvl materials (I use it sometimes, it has not been fixed
for about a month at least) and so on..
Here is the answer to this thread))). Everything except FoD is not of priority, as ot comes out.
Comments
Well, speaking of items that throw the balance off, the perfume provides a very powerful boost to HP, reduction on CC from mage and summoner, and reduction of DOT duration on some of the summoner's DOTs.
Not only that, but you can level up runes that provide huge stat bonuses. It costs over $200 to level up a single rune to max and you could do this for 6 different pieces of gear. The end result gives you huge % boosts for example a common one people can do using 6 runes would be 65% max HP and 15% more damage.
Add rank 3 patronage to that and perfume and have you someone walking around who has ~110% more max HP, 15% more damage, lower duration of CC effects, and lower duration of DOTs. That seems pretty game breaking to me. That person can easily down 2 equally geared players who didn't use the cash shop, possibly even 3 at once.
Among other things you can buy: Gold (literally), Chests with gear in them, up to 5 extra rubies (random chance from chests) which are Allods version of talent points, and skill resets (only through cash shop).
People aren't really upset about this because it is a F2P and they have to make money. They are upset because it was promised to us that cash shop items will not have an effect on gameplay and that a person who doesn't use the cash shop will be able to stand on equal ground with someone who doesn't, albeit maybe with more time investment. I'm paraphrasing here, but I'm sure the actual quote is posted above somewhere. There is also at least one example of a F2P game that makes their money through pure cosmetic improvements or items/unlockables that are obtainable in game: League of Legends.
Gold and chests ARE obtainable in-game, so that's ikind of a moot point. And you can do those runes without cash shop, it would be a lot deal more time-investing and a huge gamble every time you make one.
And perfume can still be obained in-game. So...
By the way, recently I've learned, that the first lead dev (the one, who said CS won't have effect on gameplay) left the project some time ago, even before the Russian OB, if I'm not misaken. Make of that, what you will.
It's not a moot point because it's still an advantage. I don't have to actively go out and farm chest or gold, I can just spend via the cash shop and be on par with a player who spends an equal amount of time farming. Good luck getting past a level 3 rune without the cash shop too.
Perfume is obtainable from a daily quest at 1 per day. The daily quest is pretty long from what I hear too. It's basically spending 30 minutes for 30 minutes worth of perfume... Good luck accomplishing anything that requires perfume in 30 minutes time.
Perfume is pretty cheap and could be maintained for less than a subscription price on a non-obsessive gamer, but it's just the fact that the dev flat out lied that has me upset. There are many items from the cash shop that have an effect on gameplay. I'm still going to play the game as you know, obviously Goronian.
At people thinking that they only need perfume while PvPing or doing instances and can avoid it while playing casually, you do know that there are war banners that let any party gank you whenever they please, right? And you still receive the penalty...
I`ll jump in here regarding the item Chests. The gear they give is sooooo random that one could be spending 100s of $ and not get 1 good piece. And after Testing I have also seen that they only give Greens and Blues , which means that Purples and Oranges still only come from Raiding the Astral.
Games like Atlantica Online treat their item malls like mini-casinos, even though it gives good money to the game most players arent so lucky and are spending 50-100 dollars before they receive what they want sometimes even more. They also make older mall items obsolete by making the new content +5-10 points stronger in attack/defense/mountspeed.
@alextodo ; Except for 5 items the big chest can contain that's a gamble to get and only available through this chest. It's the pages you turn in for a quest that grants you an extra ruby. You can only obtain it via the cash shop chests. There are 5 pages total each granting a total of one extra ruby. It's probably a gamble costing well over $100 on average to get all five.
The game is still very decent. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from playing it. It's just people need to be aware that this can be a potiental money sink if you aren't careful and manage what you are buying. Like most F2P it's not quite obvious how much you'll need to spend to be on the top end competitive level until you are already addicted, which is how most F2P thrive. You can spend far less on it by playing casually and not trying to be ultra-competitive.
I believe according to Nexon (Maplestory, Mabinogi) only 1 out of 10 people use their cash shop. Some of the ones that did spent upwards of $100+ a MONTH on the game. This is based off an article I read on F2P games in a gaming mag a few years ago, sorry I can't site the exact source.
I'm just trying to make people aware of this. The FoD thing is causing the biggest uproar right now (because it's nearly unavoidable), but there are a lot of other potientally huge money sinks down the line that people aren't quite aware of yet and I hope nobody falls into a trap of buying into them.
My recommendation if you want to play the game is to not spend more than $15 a month. Carefully manage your money. If you play 4 hours-6 hours a day which is a lot, but not too excessive if it's your only hobby, you could easily manage $15 a month. Casuals will have a much easier time. Just don't get worked up trying to compete by getting those extra rubies or higher level runes, they just aren't worth it!
The only problem with your argument is the assumption you make about the mentality of the gamers you're describing. Think about the people who you read spent $100 or more per month in a cash shop, on a f2p game, and then think what it is they're buying or why? Spending that kind of money alone could be fairly hardcore in itself, but it also depends on what they're buying. Someone could spend a ton of money buying decorative items for ingame housing or to make their character look a certain way.
The other mentality that people assume is that casual players are only pve oriented and don't spend as much time playing the game as opposed to the hardcore players who invest hours of play time a day and make use of all aspects of a game with a preference towards serious pvp. This is stupid cliche lumping of players. I know people that play a couple hours every night and then spend 12+ hours a day on the weekends building up their characters, sometimes on multiple accounts, just for the purposes of roleplaying. One friend in particular does that with EQ2 and has all her characters on or near lvl cap at all times and she spends money for the cosmetic stuff (her guild's hall is amazing and the hours spent on its decoration boggle the mind.) I'd call that hardcore and the only pvp some of these people do is rp dueling. And that's just a small portion. There are all types of players.
All the complaints about the DP in Allods are coming from people who only focus on pvp and come from risk free styles of gaming. IMO. Anyone who, as you're describing it, feels the need to basically grind the CS to get gameplay enhancers is missing the point and 'story' is most likely a dirty word. Cash shops in general can be abused, particularly when paired with games that already require a monthly sub, but in the case of free games most are fairly benign. I've played GW since Factions and the only things I've bought were character slots and a few other non essential items and I have NO problems competing at end game.
As far as Allods goes, while I didn't get to lvl cap while playing CBT, I did get mid level and pvp'd and never had any complaints. I will have even less since joining a decent guild knowing I have good players at my back (and vice versa.) While it's good advice to try to manage money and spend wisely in the CS don't assume 'casual players' will have it easier. I'm sure there will be pvp oriented players who can only put in a few hours a week who will pour money into the game's CS just so they don't have to spend their limited time acquiring anything ingame. That's not hardcore. Hardcore is the player who spends the time ingame doing the bag quests or the extra ruby quest (both ridiculously hard and time consuming quests as far as CBT was concerned.) Not the person who took the easy way out through the CS so they can 'pwn nubs' faster.
___________~____________
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. - Oscar Wilde
I know you aren't accurate but even I say finally, was about time. Death that has consequences so you actually are afraid of dieing thus making combat challenging and stressful.
You gank someone, pretty sure he's going to be pissed of and will certainly log his alt and call his friends to chase you, for a long time.
Event it's not like you can play alts while waiting for the timer to reset.
I know you aren't accurate but even I say finally, was about time. Death that has consequences so you actually are afraid of dieing thus making combat challenging and stressful.
You gank someone, pretty sure he's going to be pissed of and will certainly log his alt and call his friends to chase you, for a long time.
Event it's not like you can play alts while waiting for the timer to reset.
I was reading on the official forums that the timer is not supposed to count down while you are logged off that toon. Apparently it was during closed beta via a bug and they fixed that. Not 100 percent sure though. So your supposed to be online while it counts down.
Now that is something I would not encourage, that sounds plain and simple retarded, and more or less forces you to buy the perfume thingy. Please let it no be true, I'm so excited to play, but that really tuned things down for me. But lets see how it works out in reality first, not optimistic though.
Look, there is no such thing as a free to play MMO. You are correct, they need to make money and if that means changing the rules to force you to buy a bunch of ingame crap they will do it. My suggestion is to quit and move on.
Well, I'm playing a 40lvl imperium mage on a Russian server, hotfix 1.06.22 is being installed there at the moment).
Concerning FoD:
1. It is REMOVED by parfume; i.e. if you die, get FoD and make praying - you get the buff AND FoD is removed
2.The quest for getting the parfume for free is not TOO long - it takes me about 15 minutes to complete. You need to visit five places (here and further my variants of Russian names for the locations - I don't really know the English ones) - the boiler square (near the astral station), in fact much closer to the place where naked elf-girl sits), the astral port, the place near the spiders in Nezeb (where you collect their web and farm the bones), and two places in the Military Zone - one near the insect Jail, where the quest for reputation is given and one in the opposite side - where the quest for three trials is given. Once you get to the location, you only need to talk to a correct NPC. After vising all five places you get your parfume in the Lagging
) Tower.
3. In fact, at lvl 40 you really don't need to perform this quest - you may consider buying the parfume for in-game gold much easier)) Today, the standard prices were 10g for one parfume (lots of suggestions, even with instant buying) but you really can instantly buy a stack of 20 parfume for about 7.5 gold each. After getting a little dressed in reputation clothes it's not really a problem.
To my taste, there're much more "interesting" issues in the game - buggy astral, the absence of NPC mirth vendors at some resurrect places, disbalanced violet and orange equipment... AND be aware, try not to play druids))) they're fixed again, it comes out that all their potions will not work on bosses and their healing buff was cut down twice in the previous patch. Some players don't event take them in the party for travelling astral and completing heriocs.
Concerning the timer - when you're not logged in, the FoD timer IS FROZEN - you need to be logged in to make it count down)) People say (I didn't checked it) that blessing count (after taking the parfume) COUNTS DOWN when you're not logged in.
There was a bug with FoD before the 1.06.22 hotfix - if you die get FoD, die again, relog and get resurrected by a player, the FoD is gone) , try it while it's not fixed yet in your version
This is really selling this game to me....i am going to create an account tonight and try it.
It will make such a refreshing change to actually have to think about my actions and face the consequences of bad choices/decisions. see you tonight on EU server
Here are the bugs concerning FoD that has already been fixed in Ru version - maybe some of them are still active here....
1. FoD is removed by travelling in June's Spheres (sorry, don't know how it's in English)
Fixed the next day after it had been posted in the forum.
2. FoD is removed if you die, wait the timer in hell, DON"T resurrect but relog.
Fixed about in a week after it had been posted in the forum.
3. FoD is removed when you get it, then die, relog and get resurrected by a player.
Fixed recently, really haven't seen it published.
And, there're still many bugs that don't get fixed for a long time.
Different misspellings (really takes very little time to correct,don't they?), the possibility to craft 20lvl things from about 10lvl materials (I use it sometimes, it has not been fixed
for about a month at least) and so on..
Here is the answer to this thread))). Everything except FoD is not of priority, as ot comes out.
Game not ruined by FoD, ruined by cash shop prices... confirmed!
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"The question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I, or the others crazy?" - Albert Einstein