Allods is a mmorpg on pc, and it feels a whole lot like World of Warcraft (which is a good thing). After playing for about an hour, these are my impressions.

You start out with a basic tutorial type quest line in the start of the game, which basically includes walking to different location. Then the game spits you out into the actual starting zone with other players, where the quests mainly involve “kill X enemies”. I only got to level 5 but the combat is a bit of a joke, and could use a lot more sounds (currently it’s a bit dull). It was rare for me to get below 90% health fighting the creatures of the same level, and without an ‘auto’ attack you constantly had to be hitting a button which was a bit of a nuisance. Overall it just seems like a dulled down version of WoW, but if you’re looking for an MMO to get into that isn’t WoW this is a somewhat decent alternative.

Also if you were curious what the UI looked like here ya go.

P.S. Don’t ask why I pick a female character

I know it may seem a bit strange to see Warhammer instead of Warcraft in the title of my post, but Dave and I got a chance to have a chat with and ask questions of Mythic Community Manager James Nichols at this past weekend’s GameX.  So, I figured given those circumstance coupled with the lack of exciting things happening in WoW this week are a good enough reason for me to allow it to enter my life again.  Temporarily.

A bit of history with myself and Warhammer.   I’m not the Warhammer guy, Dave is, in our little group of friends.  So when I heard about WH Online, to me it was an mad grab for the greedy Games Workshop to get into the MMORPG market while the path Blizzard cut was still clear.  It took nearly all of their promises, gameplay trailers, cinematics and more than a few well written Warhammer fantasy books to even agree to get me to try the game.  So I buckle, agree and sign up for the beta by pre-ordering the game.

About 1 week prior to the open beta, I *finally* got my damned beta key to work.  I jumped into the game to find an average run of the mill riddled with bugs and badness MMORPG.  However, I also saw in WH Online massive potential.  The lore and classes grabbed me and held on tight.  But at the same time, the broken mechanics and bastardization of the game itself pushed me hard back into the loving arms of Azeroth.  I lasted from the time I started in beta until the release of Wrath of the Lich King, fairly hardcore.  After that, I kept WH Online as a side game for about 7 more months before calling it quitsies.  Lack of fixes for release bugs, insane class balance decisions, lack of real competition and the WORST battlegrounds I’ve played in any game yet (Too objective.  Warhammer is about KILLING, not capturing flags.  See below) ultimately led to my downfall.

Read. Follow. Repeat for hundreds of hours.

Now, what follows is the interview with James Nichols of Mythic.

Bill: For all the diehard Warhammer fans out there, this question must be asked.  Are there any plans to include any of the other Chaos Gods in a greater capactiy?

James:  No plans for that right now, other than the small things already in game.  Simply wouldn’t fit with the game mechanics.

Bill: With such an established set of lore, so built upon by the company and fans, why was it decided to take Warhammer Online in a direction that felt more like DAoC 2?

James: Lots of things just naturally carried over from DAoC, ideas the developers just loved.  Then again, a lot of prevalent things like relics did not carry over, making the game different from DAoC.

Bill: Any chance of 3 factions or a free for all PvP server, since WH:O is already so similar?  Those being 2 of most people’s favorite mechanics from DAoC.

James: 3 factions would destroy the mechanics of the game, as they’re built now.  No plans for free for all PvP either, as it would not draw a suficient amount of people to it.

Bill: At release, many broken mechanics and missing features caused an early mass exodus of players from the game.  As of the time I quit, most of those things still existed.  Are they fixed?

James: Patch 1.3.2 addressed almost all of the problems plagueing game play, technical and lag issues.  AOE and CC power issues have also been addressed, to make the mechanics feel less dominating and much more situational.

Bill: Also, the 6 capital cities promised at launch are still 4 shy of that total.  Any chance of seeing the other 4 cities soon?

James: No plans as of right now.  Time constraints at release killed the hopes for all 6, as each city took 9 months for a team to build.

Bill: Warhammer had a huge surge of players at release, but lost most of them.  So to all the people out there that have an account rotting, give them one reason to come back and try the game again.

James: With almost all bugs having been fixed and many other class issues ironed out, Warhammer Online offers the best PvP experience in MMORPGs right now.  Play Warhammer if PvP is your main goal.

That’s that, folks.  James and the other Warhammer devs present at GameX were great guys, very fun to talk to.  I spent a few hours at their booth and even some time at the after parties gabbing it up with them.  Very good people who I think truly want to put out a good game.  Still, I felt a bit of a corporate line being towed during the answering of the questions.  All said, I will be signing up for another month of Warhammer, if nothing more than to see if they delivered on any promises yet.  Keep your eyes open in the next week or two for  a follow-up!

Star Wars The Old Republic, the better Star Wars MMO, is shaping up to be one of the better looking MMOs with a few things we’ve never seen on any existing MMOs out in the market today.

One of the special features in SW:TOR is the ability to change gameplay based on the dialogue you use.  Just like the Mass Effect franchise. Depending on what you say or how you act could effect the number of enemies you fight or the types of enemies you fight.

Another special feature is that it is the first MMO to use actual voice actors for all of the dialogue in the game.  That’s gotta be hundreds of hours of sound data.

And finally, a cover system during blaster battles.  You can hide behind a tree, wall or rock. Just like numerous games out there.  But this is definitely a first for an MMO.

Bioware took this game to a whole new level that made me VERY interested and opened my eyes. Enjoy the video above to see what I mean.

For those who don’t know what EverQuest is, think of it like the 1998 – 2002ish equivalent of World of Warcraft. It was the first 3D Massively Multiplayer game out there, taking the elements that made MUDs and Ultima Online and making them into polygons, thus sucking you in in a way you’ve never been sucked in before.

Now, for those of you who might get that these are “games”, but don’t understand what “playing EverQuest” actually entails, and you don’t play WoW or know anyone who does, let me enlighten you:

To play EverQuest was to spend 8-10 hours a day sitting on your ass, pressing arrow keys and clicking a mouse as you steer a virtual you around a world filled with bad guys who cough up gold and items. As you acquire new items (say, a pretty stick), you show other people who run around this virtual world your new pretty stick, and they get jealous and go out in search of a new pretty stick like yours (or better). Meanwhile, someone else will show you their pretty stick, and you get jealous and go out trying to find one like theirs (or better). You get one, and show your friends, and their cycle starts all over again; meanwhile someone else gets a better stick and shows you and your cycle starts all over again.

Of course, there’s more to it than that. Sometimes, it’s a pretty earring; sometimes a shiny robe or new shield. But essentially, that’s all the fuck it is. For 8-10 hours. A day.

Nothing’s changed with World of Warcraft. At least, that’s what I understand, as I have never played it. I quit EverQuest for good in 2002, shortly after I spent a full two-week vacation from work in front of my computer hunting for the biggest, shiniest stick in the game with a few other people who were equally pathetic as committed as I was to the game. My wife basically gave me a choice – continue to be her husband and ditch the game, or continue my marriage to the game and lose her.

I chose her. (Being honest, it wasn’t as point blank as that, but she did sit me down and explain to me that what I was doing was not only unhealthy for me, but for our marriage, and I agreed).

Now, those of you who have been following my silly career will note that I began writing on the web in 2002. This is because I diverted my attention from spending hours upon hours in EverQuest (and other games), and turned a long-time goal of mine into my new game. I decided to write a book, and put as many hours as I did the game into that goal.

The book got written. People actually read it. It was a fantastic moment in Joe’s life.

It was also the moment I’d realized just how much time I’d spent “doing shit” in my life instead of “getting shit done.”

I still play video games. I enjoy the hell out of them… in small chunks. There are times, such as when Fallout 3 or Oblivion came out, that I may have actually spent an entire 8 -10 hours in a single day playing one game. But usually, at the end of that session, I begin feeling so guilty for putting off all the other crap on my list of things to do that I spend another three days after getting as much as I can done. Then I’ll go back to my 2 – 3 hours of playing at a time.

Which brings me to my point, and it’s one that could be controversial if anyone else cared:

I don’t see anything inherently wrong with spending 8 hours a day playing a video game, so long as nothing else important in your life suffers as a result. If you’re single and childless and that’s how you choose to spend your time, so be it. If you are in a relationship, and you are able to manage that while playing the game, so be it. If you have children and are able to raise them — CORRECTLY (i.e., so they don’t talk in the fucking theater while I’m trying to watch Star Trek) — so be it.

Just, please… don’t talk to me about how you wish you could be in shape, write a book, film a video series, build a boat, or anything else you could be doing with that time. Please don’t. Because I’ll hit you in the face with my fist and/or elbow. And I hit kinda hard, and I don’t want to do that, because I really do want to like you. So don’t fucking tell me about all your hopes and dreams you’ll never fulfill because you choose not to.

That’s precisely what’s happening: by choosing to spend x number of hours doing y, you actively choose NOT to spend x number of hours doing anything else. Period. There is no getting around it.

“The city of San Diego is a nerd. This Southern California town is commemorating the tenth anniversary of EverQuest by dedicating a whole day to Sony Online Entertainment. And you’re invited to come on down and check it out.”

That’s right, kids. On March 10th at 10AM the festivities will take place, so make sure to write that down in your calendars, and also, make sure to get there early!

The dedication will take place at 202 C St., 12th Floor Council Chambers “where Sony’s John Smedley will accept the honor from San Diego City councilmember Carl DeMaio.”

iSevenx will go and do some coverage on it, hopefully people will dress up and go. =D  It will be like a precursor to the Con coming up later on in the year.

<G4>

Specs
There are 3 talent trees: Blood, Frost, Unholy. I will discuss the pros and cons of each spec with regards to PvP and PvE. In beta I played as Frost and on live I leveled as Frost all the way till 80 trying to be anti-conformist to the sea of Unholy Death Knights. Finally I gave in and had to see what Unholy offered that the other 2 trees didn’t and I was quite shocked at the results. So I will share my experience to the best of my knowledge about Frost and Unholy…I only dabbled a little in Blood because this tree still needs and will get worked on in the future patches.

Read the full article for specs and more tips

BLOOD
PVE SPEC: Click Here to view talent tree
PVP SPEC: Click Here to view talent tree
PVP SPEC (alternative): Click Here to view talent tree

HINT: I usually add in the 1 pointers because sometimes utility>dps. Being able to break a fear or help heal yourself up helps the group as a whole.

In this spec we can see the synergy between the blood tree and frost. Blood is very much like an arms warrior in that in relies mostly on physical DPS. The reason why I got bladed armor instead of Scent of Blood was to synergize with Toughness in the frost tree. Toughness also reduces movement impairing duration. Hate getting knocked back with thunderclap? Wasting 5 seconds trying to walk back in the range of the bosses hit box? So high end DPS classes, every second counts, that is why range has such a huge advantages thus far. While melee spends 50% of the time moving around and moving back repositioning itself to DPS, for the most part the range DPS can just stand there firing away.

For the second tree I went down frost instead of unholy because Necrosis is horrible. Plus hitting faster gives you more white hits and overall damage. In blood spec, your main source of DPS is melee, Heartstrike, and Death Coil. Yes you can argue “why not get Morbidity? That’s 15% more DC damage” but that amount is insignificant. So far Heartstrike can crit for around 4-5k? Depending on DR but the effect is going to change into a cleave like effect in which it will hit 2 targets instead of the old haste removal effect…which is now out of the game. I got Annihilation so when you spam Obliterates you don’t eat up diseases…because diseases boost up you damage on Heartstrike. Sometimes I combo IT>PS>OB>HS>HS and repeat. Or if you are really aggressive for PvP you can do OB>OB>HS>HS>HS>HS>HS>HS…since all 4 runes will convert into death runes this will allow to you chain spam HS and try to burst someone down. I believe the 2nd combo and empower runic weapon>OB>OB>HS>HS>HS>HS while dancing runeblade is up…will result into some impressive sustained burst on any target.

Preferred stance: Blood presence. –this allows more heavy strikes

Advanced stance: Unholy presence. –this allows fast chained strikes, sometimes better because you can beat everyone GCD… 0.5 seconds off GCD is huge…basically blood lust status…well 50% of the blood lust haste effect.

I’m not a SUPER Blood expert, but this is what information I have gathered thus far from my experience and observation and a gaming scientist.