Eye Candy (Allods, Trove)

Dire and I working on a quest... before he zipped up ten levels ahead of me. 

Adventures in Allods and Trove

My partner in crime all dressed to impress.

Lots I've wanted to post about lately but I just keep putting things off with the blog. I suppose I'll do a round up next week. For now I just wanted to share some thoughts on what we've been playing and throw out some impressions. This month has been mostly full of Allods Online and Trove.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!

Bye Massively, And SOE... General MMO Stuff

I'll miss you massively....

Farewell Joystick

Sad news for Massively and WoW Insider fans as the joystick network is being closed this week. I've been a follower since it was massively.com without the joystick part in there, and it always bothered me that AOL had somehow gotten their hooks in there. What good are they for if they don't mail you coasters anymore? My 18 year old son asked me who AOL was... LOL! Priceless. I have always been a fan of WoW Insider and Massively so it is very sad to hear that they will cease to exist.

Allods Online, A pleasant return.

In my quest to find something casual and laid back to dabble with I decided to play Allods Online again. It has been quite a while and there have been server merges, as well as publisher changes. No longer is it a GPotato game (which is now Webzen). Instead it is part of  My.com and Mail.Ru, which is the Russian Allods developer, an extension of sorts. If you have an account that dates back before the transition, you must fill out a ticket, which appears to take quite awhile. I still have not heard back on my ticket from at least a week ago. However, I wanted to start fresh on the Empire side. No big deal.

Hello, Northrend.

Hope everyone had a great weekend, ours carried into Monday, we had a great time over Dire's Birthday. He actually played something that wasn't Diablo III. It has been several months since we actually gamed together in the same game, so that was pretty nice. Since I've been working on my baby DK, in WoW, he's started playing again. I do wish he'd give Vanguard or EQ2 more of a chance but WoW is something he already knows so well and it works for us. He has so little time to game and WoW seems to fit in easier than the other two, for him.

I managed to hit 76 before logging yesterday, obtained my epic flying too, yay! I think that was a nice bunch of levels over the weekend. Dire offered to run me through a ton of dungeons and the xp flew by with those, I still did a lot of questing as well but those were a great boost. It looks like I may just hit 80 by the end of the week, as I had hoped.

I'm enjoying myself as I progress more. It wasn't until I hit Gizzly Hills that I really started getting into Northrend again. I suppose I've just spent a little too much time in some of those zones. I'm more so looking forward to Cataclysm zones but even more so- 85 so I can work on trades and other things. I would like to level a little panda monk next but I think I will wait awhile before doing this again. Maybe more on the lines of something fun on the side instead of being a main objective, lol.

The weekend wasn't flawless though. I have been having FPS issues in many games and here recently a lot of crashing. I had an inkling that my video card was on it's last leg though. After trying a few things and researching the issue, I decided to just slap another in there. I upgraded my card and power supply and it's been running great. Glad that issue was sorted out it really was driving me up the wall. It seemed to get worse over the weekend so I knew I needed to do something.

It appears we have two weeks until the pre-MoP patch hits, with PvP season 11 ending on Aug 28. I'm getting excited about the expansion. I've been following Cymre on her info about pet battles and I really can't wait to get out there to collect critters and win some battles! Also new content to quest through, new lands to explore, new factions, our own farms, so much to look forward to. It looks so refreshing.

On another note, Vanguard SoH officially goes F2P today. If you haven't checked it out, it's a wonderful game just waiting to be explored. One of my favorite MMO games and I hope to pop back in soon, I've been missing Telon. If you have older characters sitting there- it's just been changed to make it easier for you to jump back in for free. The grandfathering system now allows you to use all of your armor and items as well; Those you collected before the F2P conversion, so you can log in and not feel so lost with no armor and gear to use. I'm glad to see this feature implemented I think it is more than fair and really starts people (back) out on the right foot.

Allods Online also had a big patch recently. I have not had a chance to try it out but it looks great. Beau, over at Massively, has a great write up on his experience since being back to try out the new content. NPC mercenaries are now there to do your bidding, need a tank, a healer, a whole group? Seems they have you covered. You can't use them outside an instanced content but it seems that you don't need to as soloing has been beefed up a bit. I really need to log in and dust off my character soon!

I'm missing EQ2 also, I haven't played in about a week I guess? I've just been wanting to stick to one objective I've tried to make, getting the DK to 85 before MoP hits. I've done really well with it too ;) Plus, Dire is playing something again with me (WoW) so it means more time will be spent in Azeroth, as I've really wanted us to play something together again. That's it for me today, safe adventures!

Dire and I, running through some BC dungeons. 

Another BC dungeon, someone had to run off before I could get a screenshot...

Big, mad robot-gnome.

One place I don't care to revisit. Gorgeous though.

Murloc babysitting services: Call-  555-1234

I'm a murloc!

Double trouble. 

One of my favorite places in Northrend, a lovely area in Dragonblight.

It's roach powered!

Om nom nom... Rats don't really eat flesh, these must be evil, mutated forsaken rats. The things I do for the Horde.

Scarlet sky.

Forsaken outpost, Dragonblight.

Ah, Grizzly Hills.

Bud, he's just too funny. Easily one of my favorite NPC's in WoW.

Visions... Hey, didn't I kill you already?

Allods Gets Mercs & WoW New RAF Lewt

Do you ever find yourself on Youtube wondering 'How the hell did I end up here'? I had one of those moments last night, starting with Allods Online videos and ending with how to trace where a picture was taken on a digital device. What? Did I really click on all those links on the side bar? It was really time for bed. Anyhow, I found some really cool Allods videos.

The new expansion (or is it a patch?) has a teaser video and it looks really awesome. Plus, it's pretty funny to watch. The coolest thing is probably the mercenaries. Yep, Allods is getting mercs, if you haven't heard. There is a lot of speculation on the forums and the devs have stated that they will be releasing more info on them soon. But these mercs are live on the Russian servers, the Russian version of the game already has them up and running. So, off to Youtube it was.

I found a pretty cool video [here] showing just how many they currently have, how you summon them and if you watch the video you'll see they are accessed by the spell book and the person recording has a full party with a few clicks of a button. Pretty awesome. 

Some people really detest mercs in any game, but I really love having them. I end up soloing a lot and sometimes it's just easier while questing or going back to do content. They are nice fillers when your short on a person and those times where you really, really need help on a quest... They will never say no. I remember in EQ2, years ago when I first started, I could'of  used just one other person to help. Please! Help me! Please! Even at 90 there were times my guild members were not on or just busy. I appreciate mercs, they are very useful and can really 'round out' soloing for classes that don't solo as well as others. 

My saying is, if you don't like them, don't use them. If you're complaining mercs took all the groups, just stop. Stop being lazy and find a guild that groups. Don't expect groups to fall into your lap (unless your a tank joining LFD in WoW, lol). Especially in an older game, or a lower populated server, you'll have to work at getting groups. Often times it will be mercs that bring me back to a game, they never chase me off. Who doesn't like to have 24/7 help on things? Who doesn't like to have a buddy to follow you to the ends of the world, even if it is for a little bit of coin?! Well, not all of us have friends!- On all the time, that is ;)

Next up, I hear a ding on the phone alerting me Blizzard has sent an email. Oh great, another phishing mail. I seem to get a lot of those these days. But no, it actually had my name on it and seemed legit and checking the official site today, I saw it indeed was. It's a new RAF deal, basically you're rewarded with a transformation into an Obsidian Nightwing, which is a flying mount. You can transform into it and fly others on your back. Looks cool. Too bad I don't have anyone to recruit right now. Myself maybe? Meh. It always boils down to me, myself and I... for some reason, heh. 

Just some thoughts for today. Safe adventures!

Allods Anniversary Gifts

Today Allods Online is handing out some cool rewards for the One Year Anniversary! I logged in to get this lovely mount and some other goodies. Happy anniversary to Allods and thanks for the prezzies!

Allods Delivers

Last night I logged into Allods to check and see if the rewards, for the Play for Rewards event, had been sent out. It seemed that I had only gained one item, but the mail system was a bit overloaded I read on the forums. Upon logging in at a later time I received all of my rewards and I was pretty excited. In my mailbox waiting were the following items, pictured below:

Some of the items I sold and made a pretty penny, most I kept though. I absolutely love the mount, cosmetic armor and the Talisman of The Chosen one, which adds the glow (pictured) around my character's head.

I have to say for logging in just one hour a day it was well worth it. Even if I couldn't play I made a point to at least leave my character sitting there. There was a bit of a conflict on patch day, which was about halfway through the event, so all in all the event actually took 16 days, with 2 not counting. But if the forums were checked up on, all information was there as well as on Facebook, it just took a bit of keeping tabs on.

Playing for the last few weeks has been enjoyable, I really like the game as it is now, more so than how it was at release. I'm not too crazy about the aspect of playing a PvP oriented game but there are things that differ from the average PvP based game. I like the classes and races, the look and feel of the game. I'm quite glad I gave it another chance and it was well worth it with the event plus the new spring festival event going on, which has been fun. I love games that have fun fluff filled events and Allods really delivered on the fluff!

I will continue to play Allods after this, I wasn't sure just how far I'd get but it was a great incentive to come back and try it out! I leave you with some pictures of my time thus far in Allods.

Yasker Hawk Set.

My 'druid' look.

Tropical Allod.

Ewwww.....

The stash!

Sunset.

Bunny ears and a skeleton costume while dancing= win :)

Now Playing 2/26

This week I decided to do another video showing off what I'm playing. Some brief footage in-game for each one, showing the combat, UI and the world. I enjoy doing these videos just to show off some of these great games. Anything longer would start to get dull so I try to keep them short and sweet. I suppose I'll call these 'Now Playing' :)

Everquest
Vitt was messing around in Halls of Honor and saw Mithaniel Marr was up, he asked if I wanted to kill him, as if he needed me but it was fun to head in there and down him. The last time I did was during the PoP era doing progression (Vit and I got one kill away from our PoT flag before we had to take a break due to a move IRL).

I'm still playing Everquest but mostly on the weekends when he plays. I enjoy the game more so as a duo and have been mostly working on my Beastlord who is parked at 75, along with Vit's Rogue, working hard on AA points. I thought it would be neat to fraps an old boss kill for a video. I had to shorten the footage a lot, as it took several minutes to kill, these bosses still have a lot of hitpoints.

Allods Online
Really enjoying Allods. I managed to log in every day for the 14 day (Play For Rewards) event. I also got very attached to the game in the process. I thought I'd show off the next area I'm working through, quests and some combat with my summoner. As you can see in the video- Ding 15! I could be higher but just taking things slow enjoying my time and doing a lot of event type stuff for fun and rewards (notice my shiny appearance stuff).

Loong Online
I found this game recently, it is smooth as butter and polished. I don't know if I will actually play it but it is a really good free to play title. It has some gorgeous visuals, a robust and interesting pet system, as well as appearance slots and PvP sieges if that is your thing. The combat right now, at my level, is a bit bland but maybe it will spruce up a bit once I get more abilities. I thought it was worth showing in the video too.

The mount in the video is a free 29 day, or so, one that I got for free. I love the pet system the little guys even loot for you! The class system is kind of different as you pick your playstyle as you go. You choose in game to wear cloth/armor and what weapons to use then which skills you want. That sets you on a path of what you will be classified as. It does appear that this game had some decent financial backing, you can't help to notice fluid and gorgeous it is.

In my next video I'd like to show a bit of Zentia. That is another fun free to play title I'd like to share more about but enough for today. Hope you enjoy the video! The awesome song can be found- here.

Allods Online- Scratching The Surface

Earlier this month Allods Online announced the Play for Rewards event and I had decided to give the game another chance, to actually log in for an hour each day for fourteen days, scratch the surface and see what is really there. A chance to see more of the game and really give it a chance, I've always liked the game but there were things in the past, mechanics and cash shop power, that turned me off. This month marks the official release of the game with a great celebration and it is a perfect time to start. With that the game has toned down and become something really enjoyable. Two years ago I was so excited about the beta and it's nice to be excited about it again.

I'm not going to be able to cover all my thoughts on the game, of course, but I'd like to share some of my pondering and experiences since being back. I went in wanting to grab some freebie items and something to piddle around with when I get bored, but ended up getting quite hooked. I might not last all the way to end game but for me it is all about the journey and I'm having a great time.

Spring Festival Allod

I'd have to say over the last two years the game has gotten less harsh with certain things. The cash shop is still a part of the game but you can grind money and buy these items from other players, which is a nice alternative. That is also something you have to worry about 40+. From what I read, thirty bucks (USD) will get you a set of level 4 runes that will pretty much do you well. These runes help with killing mobs and taking damage. I'm not sure exactly the specifics but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. If you enjoy a game I don't see a problem with dropping a few bucks into the shop sometimes to support it. I'd much rather get cosmetic stuff but.... I've already gotten so much free cosmetic stuff from the game.

My bank is full of glorious, shiny, fluffy appearance gear. Much of it is cash shop items but I obtained them all through the Spring Festival, plus a few unique festival items. I was in fluff ecstasy when I found out there were repeatable quests for a mount, coins (festival currency- which is a world drop too), and other neat stuff. I've really enjoyed the event- Which has slowed down my leveling, spending time betting on crab races, running races and giving people cards and flowers, lol. But I have to say I've had a blast doing it. My friend, Rak, logged in last night and we gave each other gifts for about half an hour through quests and it was a lot of fun (great part of having a gamer friend who is willing to play as many games as I).

Love the mounts in this game.

So lets get to the nitty gritty. Hows combat? It is a bit slower paced, there is no auto attack but that isn't such a bad word anymore (WoW Monk, TOR anyone?) and when you compare it to playing a caster in many games it isn't a huge deal. Which I am playing a caster, the Demonologist. I'd say it reminds me of WoW years ago, a bit more challenge in some aspects where fights didn't end in mere fractions of a second. It depends on your play style, I enjoy both fast killing and a leisurely pace, both have their places respectively.

You have talents, so you have a choice of which direction you wish to go, a bit of flexibility and you gain your abilities through these, not spells from a vendor. You also can enhance these with rubies but I'm still much of a newb that I cannot get into this with detail.

Adventuring.

The classes are different and interesting, the new addition of the bard adds a lot of flavor. I loved the bard, it will probably be my next character I work on. For now I am working on the summoner type class as I love having minions. There is the holy trinity so you have the choice to dps, tank, heal, as well as some support classes too, which is a nice change. Soloing is very enjoyable with all of the classes I've tried, some are more fun than others but it narrows down to your personal preference.

The world is vibrant and lovely, I love the art style, it does make you think of WoW, but it has it's own charm and style. I'm a huge fan of the high fantasy art style that is Allods. The characters move fluidly and animations (as well as combat) are really smooth. The game feels very polished.

Bye, bye newbie isle!

What I really like about Allods is that there is a lot to do. This is a quest driven game and there is a ton of questing to do. It is nice to see a F2P game that doesn't run out of quests after the first few levels, leaving you to grind and feel lost as of where to go. If you're looking for something similar to WoW in the questing (theme park) aspect but want a fresh new scene, Allods delivers here. Plus it has a different twist for end game, Astral ships seem like a great deterrence from the normal end game.

Other things to mention? Bag space is starting to become a problem but if you're in it for the long haul it is a good investment. I've already gotten a (free) quest for a larger bag and mostly I need more room for my plethora of fluff stuff. It isn't as bad as some games and more often than not you can find a vendor close while questing. There is a hearth/gate like ability if you hit the i key then you can access your recall ability, in this window. There are portals to other areas, some require a quest to unlock them. Portal travel is quick and handy, you'll find many along your travels. The cash shop works well but if you pay after business hours (server clock on website page) you'll have to wait until the next morning to have your gotatoes filled. A bit annoying if you play late but they generally are quick to get it to you in the mornings. During business hours it seems to be instant.

Rak and I being silly with holiday junk.

The game has PvP, Astral Ships (combat and flying to allods through the astral), instances, raids, crafting and a whole lotta fluff. It is one that can keep you busy for awhile. The game isn't perfect but I'm having a great time and I didn't expect to have as much fun as I am. Sometimes it is good to give a game another chance, down the road. Two years later Allods Online really shines.

More as I progress through the game. Hope you enjoyed the screenshots and reading my recount of the last few weeks. I've made a video showing off a couple of my pets, some cosmetic armor and the holiday special dance (watch in HD), enjoy!

Eye Candy

Cupid?

Maraudon

Don't look up.

Halls of Lightning.

Purgatory.

Holy light.

Summoner.

...Because you can never have enough Fenris in a post ;)