Life in Allods

So been quite a while since I last updated but I have a matter of great head desking.

So today after an emergency maintenance there was an update in the item mall. They GM team prompty put up a thread to get feedback about it here.

Firstly I would like to say if I was a GM for Allods :

I would be dead from head desking so much the stupidity they have to put up on the forums is just................

So here is the TL;DR of the thread (though I don't know why you wouldn't read it even if only for the humor)

1. The prices of cashop is to high, I should be able to buy everything in Item mall for a P2P subscription cost, $15.

2. Why was my thread censored by Gpotato and all you do is closed and told to post in official thread.

3. The prices are SOOO outrageously high, do you expect everyone to swim in money? (btw 100 GP = 1 dollar, can look at price list of first post of thread)

4. "In American business you round your Dollar to the nearest ten, hundred, etc." (Comes from page 8 in response to me)

So hmmmmmzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz *falls over dead from brain overload*

So lets begin:

1. The prices of cashop is to high, I should be able to buy everything in Item mall for a P2P subscription cost, $15.

The basic F2p model revolves around a larger player base and a smaller core of players that actually pay. To believe that you can buy everything for $15 is contrary to the whole idea of a F2P business model. If everyone that spent money only needed to spend $15, who is supporting those people that aren't paying?

2. Why was my thread censored by Gpotato and all you do is closed and told to post in official thread.

This was absolutely hilarious to me. To believe their being censored by being told to post in official thread is so...................... One glance at the forums and I see 8 different people that feel need to start their own threads cause their opinion matters more. Having a bit more organized forums = ceonsorship ~sigh sigh~

3. The prices are SOOO outrageously high, do you expect everyone to swim in money? (btw 100 GP = 1 dollar, can look at price list of first post of thread)

So apparently spending 22 dollars reskilling and restating = your SUPER RICH. Seriously, how old are these kids to believe 22 dollars is the end of the world? You can't even ride like 2 blocks in a taxi for that money............. let alone all the drinking you may have done to warrant that need for a taxi. lulz.

4. "In American business you round your Dollar to the nearest ten, hundred, etc." (Comes from page 8 in response to me)

This guy cracks me up. Brings up math then talks about rounding? Math has always been about precision and at MOST rounding the final answer. Rounding when convenient for him, what amazing math.

So all in all, kudos to GMs, if I had to deal with these people as a job, I would be pulling all their personal information from their accounts going to each of their houses and raise the average IQ of the world 1 person at a time.

~Pearz

Dear Mr/Mrs Guest,

Requote of a message left in our shoutbox (shoutbox = top, chat box = bottom of page)

Guest "its funny. i never even cared about pvp in rpg games...u see. mmorpg is good in adventure n stuff (eventhough its fake)"

Guest Yep real pvp come in FPS. so if u pwn in mmorpg and u proud of it. juz so u know. the character doing the job for ya. so your focus is still ****.

Guest U SUCKS! and im bored so i ran in here and speak my mind to sluts like ya. later.

2/12/2010 - 1:15PM

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Normally I wouldn't bother but there is 1 line here of particular interest. "real PVP come in FPS". To out right call out what constitutes real PVP is absurd. Is there only 1 real sport and t he rest are fakes? Heck real PVP wouldn't be in a game, if anything. PVP = Player VS Player, you should have just claimed paint balling is ultimate form of PVP if your along that line of thinking.

PVP in MMO takes a different kind of skill. FPS are more based off reaction and precision, where as MMOs are based on pre-planning and execution. The character in a way does the work for you cause you put in the effort in the beginning. If that effort wasn't put in, your character would be useless, probably much like your one.

In any game you are rewarded with time spent. In an MMO it is reflected by your gear and levels. In an FPS your knowledge of maps, guns, and mechanics not to mention training your reactions. In an MMO time spent is just more crucial then your reaction speed and you can put actual numbers to how well your doing where as FPS is very subjective.

Hence why I PVP in MMOs cause I'm a thinker and good at planning builds and such. Reaction speeds........ not so much D:

So to end it off:
TL:DR; Claiming FPS is real PVP and MMOs not being PVP is much like saying pong takes more skill then chess. It is purely retarded claim to compare 2 separate skill sets needed.


~Pearz

White Rider !1!!11!

1 of my 2 items I have always wanted. Now to get that Shadowslash and I'll have officially beat MT.

~Pearz

Blasphemy

So 2 days ago I realized I have disappointed my god. My god, Google, apparently came out with its own web browser, Chrome. I quickly downloaded it to try it out. Initially I was not impressed it was missing a lot of key features I was used to in Firefox.

Main perk, a task manger purely for your tabs. Biggest downside, tabs keep getting smaller as you open more (till you can't even tell which tab is for what). So far it has yet to crash, when my firefox seems to crash once a day or so.

So TL:DR; Neither are really better or worse, I'll just use chrome for now (until something fatal occurs that makes me change back) cause its made by my god.

Allods comes out in a little less then 2 days now. I actually didn't finish watching all the animes on my list cause I'm slow.

For anyone that cares I won my first tournament in Soul Arena (playing against scrubs XD). Nonetheless a win is a win muahahahahz I can proudly wear this ugly userbar now.

Edit: O ya happy Chinese new year and valentines day that happen be on same day this year.

~Pearz

Impressions of Allods CB~

So!
As Pearz mentioned, Allods CB4 is coming to a close and OB will start officially on the 16th!

During my time in CB, I managed to get my pally to lv32, fully testing all my skills and rubies. I dare claim that I am at least half an expert paladin. I've also determined what is sure to be the best DPS and tank build for the class.

In case you can't tell already, I picked an Elf Paladin.
Who are the elves in Allods?

These are the elves. Yum, right?

Anyway!

The highest damaging skill in my arsenal is my racial skill, Pious Brand, and it is what I used to benchmark my highest damage over my career in CB.

Here is my current tooltip for the skill:

Yes 58 (out of 100) energy cost means I'm using a 2h sword. It's expensive; let's move on.

So, let's look at some damage potential:


Poor thing didn't know what hit it.


Random player my level; he died shortly after. Psys are squishy~

Overall, I am very impressed with the class. I don't feel gimped like the the forums say that we are. I don't mind that I won't be first choice for DPS, tanking or healing - because I know I'm the second choice for all of them.

Oh, here are examples of my heals:

Light Nova is still only Tier One due to level restrictions.
I must note that Light Nova also has the healing range of like 100 yards; very nice.

So, anyway, these is the fruits of my limited time pvping in CB (of which I spent most of running away from lv40s that ganked nubs and camped teleports).

Greenhorn indeed.

Well, that's all for now; maybe eventually I'll write a build...or ten.

PS: I won't review Allods because Pearz needs to vindicate herself with one after mine with Aika. p=

bai bai nao <3


~*+ Rho

ETA: Six Days...

So, it has finally been announced that OB is coming to Allods.It starts on Tuesday, February 16; no exact time yet. (Aaro Note~ : Potentially 11am PST; this seems to be when they like ending and beginning things.)

It is going to be brutal at those lowbie areas with everyone crowding the mobs. Owelz. Unless the start time is later in the day, I will be missing the initial surge of players and instead be on the tail end of catching up to the rest of the players. God, I'm not looking forward to overcrowded levelling areas.

Though it's old news by a couple of days: my GS application was deleted. T_T If it wasn't blatantly obvious...it was a joke application masked with serious wording to make it appear semi-serious. The clincher, I thought, was giving an RT number of 9001. D:

Either way, it's nice to see that some people give serious support, though I'd would like to point out that I could never get GS (neither can Royce, regardless of support). Players like us are too "questionable". Why take a chance on a player that could be beneficial or could cause a lot of problems? Instead, you could take the surefire happy-go-lucky player that does nothing but suck-up. Pretty obvious what to do~ Why fix something that is not broken (in the eyes of the GMs)? Obviously, they can understand the needs of the players and don't need veteran players to tell them. So, end of story: until something big happens to cause them to have an epiphany, neither of us will get GS.

Side note: I've been spam-playing Soul Arena and I'm almost done unlocking most of the characters. (Yay!) All that's left are the brutally annoying ones to do. D:



We're down to 90,100 results now, and we don't even come up as first result anymore. T_T A gold-selling site beats us, along with a blog that hasn't been updated since 2008. >.> /anklez


~Pearz

zomgz

So, on Wednesday, they announced that Allods CB4 will be extended for another week. Now, unlike Rho/other people (Aaro Note~: I think I'm being mentioned here), I still have no intention of levelling up more. Knowing that my current "stash" of anime would not last me two weeks (one week of CB, plus the minimum of one week between CB and OB), I decided to pick up an old game. For two days now, I've been playing Soul Arena. It was the sister project of Naruto-Arena that I played long, long ago. (I've actually never played Soul Arena before.)

So, burning my time by playing this Flash game for now, it's been pretty fun. I'm still just having a hell of a hard time remembering all the characters. It just stretches out the anime, since I can do both at once; just slows me down a bit while watching anime. (I pause a lot to think about the next move.)

So, of the anime I've watched so far, Katanagatari and Bakemonogatari are my favorites (though I feel like I lose out a bit on Bakemonogatari, since some of the humour requires you to be more literate in Japanese culture). Plus, they flash text at you too fast; that requires me to pause often. D: Still, I like both of these series a lot.

Since Rho is so Pro at reviews, I'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever do a review again. Rho can do all the reviews for you. >.>

*runs off to /anklez*

~Pearz

Rho's Reviews: Aika~

I WANT THE LAST HOUR OF MY LIFE BACK.
(It's a working title; may or may not change.)

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I was considering writing some kind of proper review with an "overall" and "breakdowns"...and then I realized that it does not deserve one.

First impression:
I tried to make a character, but it rejected my name (Rho).
Why? Apparently HO is a bad word, and therefore is not allowed in your name. However, afterward, I'm allowed to say "ho" as many times as I want, in chat.

The characters in this game are gender-locked, which means that each class can only be one gender. What can you customize on them? 5 hair styles, 5 hair colors, 5 faces - none of which look satisfactory to me.

Screenshot for no reason:


Side Note #1 In the above screen, you see my starting "nuke", which is a DoT that does like 30-something and then DoTs for 5dmg/3sec. But, note that although cast time is instant, the non-interrupt casting animation takes longer than just normally shooting the mob 4~5 times for 10+ each hit. Of course, you can pour points into it to make it better, but thought I would share anyway.

Side Note #2 That distance I'm shooting that boar at? That's pretty much the maximum distance of my GUNS. I'll let that sink in.
one mississippi~
two mississippi~

Anyway!

I can't quite put my finger on it, but, for some reason, this game reminds me of those crappy 10-year-old RPGs. Everything just feels stale; they wanted to be smooth like Guild Wars but ended up feeling like a bag of bricks fished out of the dirty DnD pond.

Side Note #3 You can't see buffs and debuffs on the enemies; actually, you can't see buffs or debuffs on you either. wtf? lol Unless my Fast Step or whatever (it dodges the next incoming attack) is not a buff.

The game is not very friendly overall. You can't rebind keys, apparently; if you can, it's not in the keyboard settings menu. lolz

Talking to the NPCs is a pain in the ass. Instead of just giving you the generic garbage single-screen quests (like, "Bring me 5 rabbit spleens so I can shove it up my ass,") it has an interactive way where we exchange sentences and have a conversation for a more RPG feel. Honestly, I'm not playing MMOs for the story; if I want to participate in this story, I'll go download ME2. I thank the devs for giving me a "skip" option.

The graphics is decent; the interface annoys me - again, because it reminds me of old school RPGs (not the good kind). But, I mean, if you're playing games for the graphics...wtf are you doing here?

It feels like I'm walking around with Easy Mode on all the time. You double-click a mob and auto-attack it to death, occasionally skilling because you remember that you can and also occasionally potting because the mobs finally whittled you down enough for one (there's a 4~5 second cooldown on pots).

Customization!

There is SO little customization in this game that it hurts. I already mentioned the gender-locking. Well, you also only have one set of weapons and armours as well.

Skills come at specific levels and at specific intervals; considering that you have some 50 levels to gain and only 4 tiers of 3~4 skills, I doubt there's going to be much diversity in build later on.

Where the hell are my stats? Is this another game where I don't have stats?

One of the major selling pitches of this game (and I'm purposely not giving it much space on the page) is the PRAN system, which I believe stands for Pedophiles R All Nasty, but I could be wrong; we shall see. I digress. The Pedo (re: PRAN) System basically gives you a little girl that follows you around. (There are 3 types, shortened to offense-, defense-, and evasion-oriented). They give you certain bonuses and eat your food. Their Number One attraction is the random comments that they make to everything, such as, "Oh, Master, your sword is HUGE," and, "I can't fit all that in my mouth, Master [><]." They went as far as to have dubbed it in English. I would say from here on out to use your imagination - but, sadly, not much is left to it.

Side Note #4 Apparently, there won't be any cash shop outfits, either. The reason for this is because, in M4SSIV3 N4TI0N W4Rz, there will be too many people and if everyone looked different, it will lag too much...so...everyone will wear the same gear and spam the same skills... I dunno about everyone else, but I've seen Lord of the Rings; the generic-looking guys always die. Meh~ Maybe it's a Korean thing. (Aaro Note~ : Offense taken, Rho, offense taken.)

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Closing comments:
Overall, this game is just a stripped down version of all the bad formulas of the past, with less mechanics and customization, and not-so-secret selling of sex. (You know, kind of like Disney.)

Please, if you respect yourself as a person, DON'T PLAY THIS GAME!
I didn't pay for it, and I STILL feel like I deserve a refund.


~*+ Rho

Pearz for GS~!

I have decided to run for GS. You can do your part and support me in this thread. :O

Also, here is a repost of my GS application:
(Aaro Note~ : With lots of Aaro!Edits that I couldn't make to the actual post. Sadface.)

What community contributions have you made that shows you would make a good game sage?
I have a huge number of community contributions. If I had to pick one, my large ego is my biggest contribution. I mean, just the size of it surely takes up the whole server.

What experience do you have running/hosting organizational events?
Although I can run a variety of events, I have one specialty. I host various Flame Wars in threads that I enter. I keep large amounts of players amused for hours; isn't that the point of having events?

What experience do you have helping people find solutions to their problems?
I have a unique way of helping players find a solution to their most common problem: their build. By utterly destroying my opposition in PVP, players find a clear solution on what build to use... mine.

What experience do you have with our forum community?
I am a frequent poster within the forums. Through very aggressive tactics, I teach players how not to make a fool of themselves on the forums. Usually the players I am teaching don't learn very quickly, but onlookers seem to like my unique approach to teaching players what not to do on the forums.

Please give a short description of what you think a good GameSage does.
To be readily available at all times for the players to ask questions. I have found the easiest way to do this is to mimic the current GS team's actions. By standing in Babel at all times, players know where to find me to inquire about Megaten.

Why do you want to be a GameSage for THIS game (and not another)?
Being a GameSage here is important due to the encouragement I get from the forums. I am often invited into threads to make comments on players' posts. Very often, this leads to unscheduled forum events - but the more events, the better, right? No other game gives me such satisfaction in posting on the forums.

What makes you think you would be a good GameSage?
It's due to my large amount of fame. I believe I can rally a lot of votes from the community. Isn't a GameSage elected by the community on their behalf to communicate with the GMs? If so, I am shoo in 'cause I win in popularity.

ticket number: 9001

Voting for Pearz shows you're kool. You wanna be kool, right?


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On a side note: even though I downloaded Aika Online, chances are that I won't even try it.

More for my own reference, here's a list of what I'll be watching for the week (it's just some anime I watch; I keep up with way too many manga to list D:), since Allods CB will be ending tomorrow.

(Here is a nice source for all the new anime that just started this winter season.)

List of anime to be watched:
Katanagatari (interesting animation style; I really like this different style)
Bakemonogatari (actually, I don't know much about this, other than that it's the same author as the previous one...and it really caught my eye)
Kara no Kyoukai (so that I'm well-versed in mainstream stuff XD)
Okami Kakushi (new show; I'll give it the first couple epis before judging)
Vampire Bund (loli vampires, lulz)
Durarara!! (claims of makers of Baccano!, and that was good)
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (this one is more to catch up to current epis, though the manga seems to be better)
Bounen no Xamdou (Aaro recommended it D:) (Aaro Note~ : I don't know where she got that. This was NOT one of the ones I recommended, even though I recommended millions.)
Sora no Woto (lulz characters look exactly the same as K-ON, except they go to war...)

I'll probably update later with what I think of these, and then maybe watch more stuff after seeing how this week progresses. If you have some totally awesome anime that no one has really heard of, I'm all ears. I don't want anything predating 2004, though; older animation styles seem to annoy me of late. D:


~Pearz

Nothing New For This Week~

I've spent a week not playing Allods since the chances are that this is the last CB and it will be wiped. Then there's probably another week or two before OB starts. In the meantime, I was playing Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes (for DS), while watching some anime. It's a pretty fun game; kind of Bejeweled + RPG-ish elements.

The only other thing to do is maybe try Aika Online, which is launching its first CB the same day that this CB for Allods ends. Though I'm pretty pessimistic about it, it's something to do. (Of course, I might just watch some more anime.) Here some info about it.

The game just screams pedophile. At Level 10, you get a little girl as a pet. The girl is your "daughter" and you have to be "intimate" with her in order [for her] to be obedient.

The pet pretty much screams jailbait, with equally misleading phrases in the voice acting.

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Well, I've decided to add more to this post instead of writing a new one dedicated purely to the new Ipad. If you don't know about it: it is the new "revolutionary" piece of hardware. (btw, it's not.)

This was first brought to my attention by Mahouto spewing how amazing it is, so I did some research and found that it was such a piece of junk that I now have to blog about it.

tl; dr : It is literally a bigger Itouch, which makes it less portable and pretty much useless. Compared to the Netbook fad, this Ipad is utterly useless.

So, Problem One:
Starting with the biggest one - multitasking. With any Netbook, you can multitask. The OS lets you browse the Web, watch a movie, listen to music, and all at the same time. It's kind of like a normal computer. Ipad, on the other hand, does not. Without this key feature of a normal computer, it already severely lacks in functionality.

Problem Two:
The cost vs hard drive space. Ipad uses solid state drive (as with USB keys, mini/microSD cards), which limits the hard drive capacity...whereas Netbooks use normal hard drives (the kind with the spinning disk) (Aaro Note~ : This is also know as HDD.), which can store much, much more information at a lower cost. Not only that, but the IPad does not come with any SD card expansion. This means that you would not be able to increase the hard drive space other than buying the "better" models - btw, between the 16GB and 32GB drives, the difference is a cool $100. The cost of 16GB of solid state does not cost that much; at most, it's $50 for high class (quality/speed) type.

Problem Three:
The 3G. It is stated that you can buy a better model with 3G capabilities so that you can always be connected to the Internet, wherever you go. The problem is that you're paying an extra $130 for the 3G capabilities. The $ amounts keep racking up; at what point is it not worth it? Nowadays (at least, in Toronto) you can easily make Netbooks able to use the 3G networks for Internet. It would cost nowhere close to the $130 price tag Apple is toting. Actually, it's pretty much free; with a 2-year contract, it's free and even at a 1-year contract, you're paying $50 for Rogers (Canadian 3G carrier).

Problem Four:
Apple Apps. Well, this is more a personal problem for me (and other freeware users). You're stuck using Apple applications (i.e. pay for them). Not only that but they also force you to use their file formats and you wouldn't be able to use your own programs on it that they might not have. Not to mention that if you watch anime (or download any videos from the Internet), the file formats are all different. To find converters for all of them, and then convert them, and then upload... Well, you might as well just have watched it all by then. This would completely waste that nice screen, since getting stuff to watch on it would be a huge hassle.

Problem Five:
Adobe Flash. Due to problems between Apple and Adobe, there is no Flash on Ipad. (Since Safari does not have it initially.) This means that there will be no Youtube or any other xyz Flash program/web page you may use.


I mean, pretty much the only thing going for it is the large touch screen and the 10-hour battery. With the weight and size of the Ipad, you might as well carry around a Netbook. They are superior in pretty much every way (like price and functionality). Let us see now what Apple REALLY does best: marketing. How will they now turn something utterly useless into the next Must Have? Bleh. Am I the only one that hates Apple products more than Microsoft ones?

O ya. Rho told me to add this. Cheers! (Something much older that happened to have the same name. XD)

~Pearz