Allods Online has started it’s closed beta phase and i was able to participate. Allods is a MMORPG from developers Astrum Nival, whose past games you might know: Heroes of Might & Magic V and Rage of Mages. Allods Online is considered as largest game development project in Russian history ($12 million), Allods boasts wonderful art and ingame models and a cinematic soundtrack by Mark Morgan (Dexter, Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment). Another feather on its cap is the superb graphics engine, the client is optimized that even players with low hardware specs should be able to play Allods at high resolution and graphics settings without much a performance hit. In my opinion, Allods is more of a western style MMORPG in the vein of WoW than the typical Korean MMO. Allods Online does borrow quite a bit of elements from WoW, but Nival tweaked just enough to make it different and fresh.
Allods Online currently features 2 warring factions, 6 races, 8 archetypes, 28 classes, hundreds of skills, and over 1,500 quests. Other features include raiding and dungeon instances, pets, balanced PvP, a crafting system designed as mini-games, dozens of astral islands (Allods), and numerous other features. Yes, Allods showcases astral space exploration, and allows multiple player parties to control flying ships new realms and pillage other astral travelers. AWESOME! Not bad for a Free to Play title. Reminds me of World of Warcraft or a better Runes of Magic (I recommend Allods Online over Runes of Magic).
Allods Online Charcter Creation Video
Allods Online CBT Preview
Just started playing Allods last night and it was a blast! Voice overs, and the epic-ness of the Astral battles and castles really had me! For an international game, it sure had better FPS/ping than RoM.
My only concern was the lack of the mini-map (compass was totally useless) and the battle was terribly slow (probably because of the low-damage output) but I’m expecting that they’ll remedy this come OBT or commercial phase.