Allods Online

I know I haven't updated much recently, but that's because I doubt you want to hear the exploits from the only game I'm really playing at the moment, Team Fortress 2. The Demoman vs. Soldier update comes out tomorrow and of course, those are my two least played classes. I'll play them to get most of the achievements, but will probably be right back to my usual rotation of pyro, scout, medic, and heavy.

Now back to the titular topic, Allods Online. I had been hearing some good things about it in the blogosphere recently and thought I would finally give it a shot. I finally got a beta key two days ago and went merrily about downloading the game. Since it is in beta, I didn't have to worry about the micro-transaction business model that I despise the implementation of in most current F2P MMOs. After a quick download, maybe 40mins tops, I installed and went to the character creation screen. There was little to no background information on the two sides from what I could see, so I ended up just picking the evil looking side.

From there, there were a bunch of classes that fit into the typical fantasy archetypes, paladins, mages, rogues and the like. Loving to go into battle in full on plate mail, I chose a paladin-esque character and went on to the game, where the disappointment began quickly. The graphics, even though I am not typically a graphics whore, were downright atrocious even maxed out on my system. The visuals were fuzzy and downright low quality. In 2009, even decent looking graphics are commonplace, not the shoddy ones presented in this game.

Quests were almost exactly like World of Warcraft, go to the person with an exclamation point, ignore the wall of quest text presented, and commence killing. Perhaps I'm just spoiled with single-player rpgs and the promise of full voice overs in TOR but it did nothing to draw me into the storyline, whatever it may have been. One particularly bad intro quest saw me firing a cannon til I hit the enemy ship. The only problem was that I had no control over the aim so I had to just keep clicking before it decided to hit it.

That takes us to the combat side of things, a pretty standard affair. I didn't like the lack of an auto-attack, or at least one I couldn't find. You right click on an enemy to lock on and then have to run up to him and spam one to do your basic attack. Combined with some mediocre class abilities, the battles were forgettable at best. The ability cooldown was so fast that I rarely even had to use the basic attack in any of the early battles.

So, from the general tone of this review, you can probably tell that the game was off my hard drive about 3/4 of an hour after installing it. I get a feeling early on about how I'm going like games and I could tell there was no point in going on.

Companions: Why They Should Stay

Keen is frothing at the mouth. The latest TOR interview on GiantBomb is about companion characters and has elicited the responses from the community at large that one comes to expect in these days of gaming. Raging from fans on both sides of the issues about how it ruins the game. Personally, I lean towards of being in support of companion characters.

While there is always the chance that Bioware can horribly mess up the implementation, I feel overall that the idea would add a lot to the game.

1) How many times as a group have you been sitting there waiting for just one class? I know it has happened to me too many times. Being able to pop out a companion character to fill that role and get into the content faster would be an amazing addition.

2) How many times have you grouped with someone who didn't want to group, but was forced to to complete the quest? By allowing them to do it on their own, they aren't forced to do what they don't want to. This improves the quality of the members that actually want to group up.

3) It's been done before. Guild Wars, pet classes in any mmo, and on and on.

4) Companions and storytelling are Bioware's strengths. Why would they forsake that to go with what the other games are doing. They need to do what they do best for the best chance for the game to succeed. Doing what they aren't good at is a clear recipe for failure. Companions provide an anchor to the lore of the story, a chance for the game to recognize your accomplishments. It won't be like many MMOs where your achievements go completely unnoticed.

Star Wars: The Old Repulbic: Class Disappointment

So the last two classes for TOR have been leaked and much to my dismay, they are two more force-sensitive classes. I thought for sure that having eight classes would lead to a nice variety of playability with differing roles. But instead, Bioware decides to make half the characters wield lightsabers. What about droids or other more interesting class combinations.

It seems to me that the whole Jedi Guardian, Consular, Sentinal issue could have been covered through the use of skill trees. Have one Jedi class and let the people decide how to specialize it, much like WoW's paladin, not add 25% more force users. And really, how are they going to differentiate the story all that much between the classes. I was hoping to level 8 characters through the story line because I am always a fan of Bioware story, but will it be worth playing 2 separate Jedi/Sith classes.

Since they can't go through and change the classes, I hope the writing team put in some extra time to differentiate the stories.

Found on Darth Hater via BioBreak.

TOR Gameplay Demo

Basically showed exactly what we have received in written form up to this point. While exciting to get an extended glimpse, I didn't learn anything new and just reinforced my desire to be a Bounty Hunter. The BH looked like a cooler playstyle and more powerful than the Sith in the video but who actually knows.

You can check it out on IGN if you haven't seen it already.

Sith Warrior

Via Gamespot, Bioware unveiled the fourth of eight classes in their upcoming MMO, the Sith Warrior. Whether this will be the only force using class for the Sith or if there will be a more force power focused one remains to be seen. My first thought based on their description was that there would be another one but I certainly hope not. My votes for the two remaining classes for that faction are a droid based one, and a pet-class (the most interesting suggestion I've seen is a slaver).

Even though I've sworn off playing a Jedi/Sith as my main class, their description was good enough to make me consider it as a first alternate.

EL: Well, I might have to disappoint you here, but the way the Sith Warrior leads is by physically hurling himself ahead of his group and into the fray, not by sprinkling around touchy-feely buffs for his buddies. That's just not his style. Although, if his refrains from Force choking his groupmates, does that count as a buff?

and...

EL: This was the first character we built, and in many ways, he is still our yardstick for all the other classes. I would not say playing this character is good clean fun because neither "good" nor "clean" is an appropriate term, but he delivers a visceral and satisfying experience. To quote a line from another venerable story: If you think that what's best in life is to crush your enemies and see them driven before you, you should definitely consider playing a Sith Warrior.

They certainly know how to sell their classes.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Localized in French and German???

I didn't think that Bioware's upcoming MMO could get any more massive until I was reading a liveblog of EA's press conference today. All voice over will be in English, French, and German! Three languages and three times as much work for an already large undertaking.